Rule 4 – Adjusting any one wheel weight will change all wheel weights Rule 3 – You can shift total weight between diagonal measures, LF + RR /= Constant Rule 2 – You can’t shift total weight between sides, LF + LR = Constant Rule 1 – You can’t shift total weight between axles, LF + RF = Constant The process is one of trial and error and with experience becomes intuitive.Īs you consider which wheel to adjust keep in mind the following set of rules: If ride height is correct and corner balance is off, lighten one wheel and load another to maintain correct height. Loading a wheel will raise ride height, lightening a wheel will lower ride height. In general, adjust the wheel whose ride height varies greatest from your target height. Which wheel you choose to adjust depends on how you wish to impact ride height. Alternatively balance can be achieved by decreasing weight of the rear wheel of the low numeric side or decreasing weight of the front wheel of the high numeric side. Balance can be achieved by increasing weight of the front wheel of the low numeric side or increasing weight of the rear wheel of the high numeric side. Look at the left and right sides of the imbalanced Corner Balance Equation. Fix any friction and binding before you corner balance.ĭeciding which wheel to adjust is the key. The friction will resist all suspension movement preventing the corner weights from measuring true (also creates erratic handling). Note that a car with a lot of friction or binding in the suspension components will not deliver repeatable corner weights. Repeat until the imbalance is brought to an acceptably low value. If the imbalance is outside acceptable range you will adjust one or more spring heights, re-measure the wheel weights and do another trial of the Corner Balance Equation. In the real world the equation will never be in perfect balance. The process is to measure wheel weights and plug them into the Corner Balance Equation. The goal of corner balancing is to have the same front-to-rear weight ratio for both left and right sides. Additionally, we are much more concerned with handling and performance with race cars so corner balance becomes very important. Corner balance becomes much more important due to the high spring rates – small changes in height greatly impact weight carried. Performance and race cars may have spring rates of 300, 400, 500 lbs/in and higher. With such low spring rates it would take a huge imbalance in spring height to have a significant affect on corner balance. That’s because their spring rate is relatively low, perhaps 100 lbs/in. Street cars are rarely corner balanced and typically have no provision for adjusting spring height. If the imbalance is extreme, one of the light wheels may be completely off the ground even at rest! In a symmetric car out-of-balance is easily understood as excessive weight carried by one pair of diagonal wheels resulting in a teeter-totter affect. Unbalanced handling occurs when front-to-rear weight distribution is not equal for left and right sides. Any relocation of parts should be performed before corner balancing begins.Ī properly corner balanced car will handle evenly in left and right turns. Although some weight can be shifted between wheels by physically relocating parts of the car, the corner balance process is focused on shifting weight by adjusting the suspension spring height. Corner balancing is the process of shifting the weight carried by each wheel to approach optimal values.
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