I'm getting a set of Tein Flexs installed today and I'm new to coilovers and suspension settings. I understand that corner balancing (Getting the weight centered over the middle of the car, correct?) is necessary for proper handling with coilovers.

Could someone explain the process? Is it necessary to get an alignment at the same time or shortly afterwards?

Anything else I could know? I know I'm stepping up to a coilover setup that is probably way more suspension than I'll ever need so I'd like to be as informed as possible.

Thanks.

 

It requires a scale that weighs each corner of the car independantly. It is done to distribute the dampening of the struts to the appropriate wheel depending on the application the car is intended for. It doesn't mean, nesscesarily, that the force is balanced even betwen all four wheels. I think!

 

Cool. Thank you.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what I'd want as far as settings for a daily driver who has no actual track experience other than the drag strip?

 

You want to get the corner weights as equal as possible from left to right. It depends on the vehicle what you want and what you can get from front to rear. By getting your corner weights even from left to right your are ensuring the car will perform pretty much the same when turning left as it will when turning right and vice versa. With all the nose weight of the Evo I really doubt you could get a 50/50 front rear balance. You may want to find a saturday night racer in your area and see if they will let you borrow or rent their scales and just play with the setup until you find something that feels good.

Also you want to get your cambers pretty close before scaling as camber changes will affect corner weights. You should also push down and wiggle the car from side to side to settle the suspension after every adjustment or after jacking. You also want to put the scales on as level ground as you can find because that will affect corner weights too.

 

The idea with corner balancing is basically this... There are four corner weights associated with a car -- let's call the weights LF, RF, LR, and RR.

In general, the front to rear weight ratio -- (LF+RF)/(LR+RR) -- can't be changed much with the suspension.

Similarly, the left to right weight ratio -- (LF+LR)/(RF+RR) -- can't be changed much.

The idea of corner balancing is to balance the diagonal weights, so that (LF+RR)/(RF+LR) is fixed; typically a ratio of 1:1 -- also referred to as a 50% cross weight -- is desired. (Oval racers don't want 1:1, but they're a different breed...)

Corner balancing can be done by adjusting the ride height (spring perch height) at a single corner. Although if the car is significantly unbalanced, you'll probably adjust more than one corner to avoid changing ride height too much.


As for alignment, it is not quite so important that the alignment be spot on when you corner balance, as long as it's not awful. You do want to align the car after corner balancing, especially if any significant changes to the ride height were made.


I wouldn't say that corner balancing is "necessary" -- but it's a good idea. Passengers in the car, changes in fuel load, etc., all can affect the cross weight percentage by a point or two. Achieving a perfect 50% cross weight may make you feel good, but you're not really going to notice the difference between a 48%/50%/52% cross weight under most circumstances. What you want to avoid is the possibility that your coilover ride heights are set so poorly that you have a 45% or a 55% cross weight. In such a case, you will begin to notice the car handles differently when turning left vs. turning right. The car may be loose when turning left and understeer when turning right.

I hope that helps.

 

Thanks alot for the information, guys. The car feels great with the new coilovers and, from my estimation, is far improved in the turn-in and body roll catagories. I'm probably going to hold off on corner balancing as I can't really tell if it's any more biased towards turning in either direction. Supposedly, they come pretty well adjusted from Tein as far as ride height and, as a novice to suspension, it doesn't make a difference to me.

It definitely does need an alignment though.

 

http://www.grassrootsmotorsports.com/cornerweight.html

 

Lots of good info here!

I usually tell people to think of corner weighting and alignment as "engine management tuning" for your new suspension mods. You can put the new parts in and they will usually work well with the manufacturers settings, but every car seems to be just a touch different. If you are looking to get maximum performance from your car then corner weighting is worth the investment.