Corner weighting - who's had it? & who would be interested?

[Azagedon]

I have to agree with TB Rich on that one.

For any one who is genuinely interested it would cost around £130.

 

[Yiannis197]

It would be really interesting to see whether you'd see any real difference guys, please keep this thread updated

Just for the record my setup is fine tuned. The ride height of the car is spot on to the mm, I've got forward rake as much as Mark fish believed it's ideal (15mm iirc), the camber is identical on both sides to the minute, same with toe (good old traditional method). The rear has been shimmed using camber plates and then toe ones for offsetting the high positive toe values that came from the former. Obviously different value plates were used because each side was different to start with.

The rebound has been adjusted after 1 hour driving on bumpy b roads and a ideal setting was decided with Mark on the wheel. All in, including driving in and out of the workshop took ages. And then it was Mark who told me not to bother with corner weighting on my car, mind you the guy and the teams he has supported through the years have won tenths of championships so he really knows his stuff when it comes to setting up the car.

I know that when the car is being corner weighted the ride across the axle is not identical (like mine for instance) but we are only talking about 1-2 mm difference if that (some cases it's just half a spin to get it as spot on as possible). Now if you say that you can realise the benefits of this (or even the lost of them when adding some weight in the boot) when driving on the roads or even at the track then well, you got a much better feel that I have for sure

 

[TB Rich]

Not everyone has had their car setup by Mark Fish, so the gains to your set up will likely be less. Regardless though, I would still do it because "why the he'll not". To me it goes hand in hand with buying a proper setup.

I'm not claiming it'll make anyone faster either, it's more a principle thing!

 

[jacool]

There is no way you can tell before and after on a road car, the difference is absolute minute. Think about it, everytime you put luggage in the car for a trip, or fill up the tank or you have a passenger or you have shopping or even when you put your 10kgs jack at the back when going for a roadtrip you upset your corner weighting. And no, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

If someone doesn't feel any difference whether he drives with passenger\luggage or not then corner weighting is not for him for sure, well I do feel a difference either on the road or the track so I will definitely corner weight my car after finishing with preparing it for the season
P.S. I have AST Sportline II with 90/110 N/mm springs and played a little with ride hight front and rear and can tell You there's a massive difference with how the car behaves, but will report back when I finally corner-weight it considering there should be very little differences between each wheel in terms of ride hight

 

[Azagedon]

@Yiannis197 how much camber are you running on the rear out of interest?

 

[jacool]

@Yiannis197 how much camber are you running on the rear out of interest?

if You're interested I'm running about 2*30' on the rear and about the same on the front. It's great on the road as long as it's dry, on the track I'll need some higher values - this season i'll try 3*-3*30' / 3* (front/rear) and rear toe at 0, will see however how complete front cup racer suspension setup (solid subframe with all reinforcements, stiffer ARB, complete steering rack with different tie rods, riser shims and power steering, EE' supports with longer drive shafts) and dumping remaining unnecessary stuff will affect handling and then fine-tune.
cheers

 

[Azagedon]

if You're interested I'm running about 2*30' on the rear and about the same on the front. It's great on the road as long as it's dry, on the track I'll need some higher values - this season i'll try 3*-3*30' / 3* (front/rear) and rear toe at 0, will see however how complete front cup racer suspension setup (solid subframe with all reinforcements, stiffer ARB, complete steering rack with different tie rods, riser shims and power steering, EE' supports with longer drive shafts) and dumping remaining unnecessary stuff will affect handling and then fine-tune.
cheers

Brill thanks for all the info! I'll PM you shortly about the cup racer bits .

 

[Yiannis197]

@Yiannis197 how much camber are you running on the rear out of interest?

-2.6 degrees mate on the top of my mind.

Not everyone has had their car setup by Mark Fish, so the gains to your set up will likely be less. Regardless though, I would still do it because "why the he'll not". To me it goes hand in hand with buying a proper setup.

I'm not claiming it'll make anyone faster either, it's more a principle thing!

I totally understand what you are saying Rich. In fact that was my mentality as well but people in the know persuaded me otherwise and tbh I'm too tight to spend money on something that I know from a fact that I won't be able to tell the difference. The point I was trying to make was not 'go to Mark fish and get your car sorted' but there are other things to consider first (like proper geo/setting up etc) prior to corner weighting a road car.

If someone doesn't feel any difference whether he drives with passenger\luggage or not then corner weighting is not for him for sure, well I do feel a difference either on the road or the track so I will definitely corner weight my car after finishing with preparing it for the season
P.S. I have AST Sportline II with 90/110 N/mm springs and played a little with ride hight front and rear and can tell You there's a massive difference with how the car behaves, but will report back when I finally corner-weight it considering there should be very little differences between each wheel in terms of ride hight

Maybe I didn't put it rightly but I didn't mean that you can't tell a difference when you have a passenger on board. That would be stupid lol.

What I meant is this; you know how your car behaves with and without a passenger which is obvious, then you corner weight your car and you 'straight away' feel the difference as you say, then you put the same passenger and now that extra weight has apparently worse effects than before (losing the benefits of the CW) and you can now tell? Well good for you...

You say that you are preparing the car for the season, is it a race car? Or a committed track day car? In that case it might be beneficial. When it is a road car how do you do it? Do you corner weight (CW) with the rear seats in the back? What happens when you remove them for a track day and the CW goes out of the window? Do you CW without the seats? What happens when you put them back on and you go for a blast on the close by b roads? Do you CW with empty boot? What happens when you have luggage and go for a spirited driving weekend? What happens when you load it up and you go for an Alpine trip with reserve, jack, tools etc? What happens when you go to Tesco and you add 2 bags of sugar and 1 lt of milt in the boot? In all the above mentioned examples you can tell the extra weight of course but can you tell the loss of the apparent CW benefits ?

Once again, a road car is a road car and a race/TD car is a race/TD car, let's just not confuse these things...I'm running the same setup as yours (track setup ASTs) with RARB and thicker ARB at the front, quicker steering rack and rising shims etc and the difference before and after was huge. Day and night really...But CWing...hm...I've got my reservations on that.

Each to their own, as I said, it'd be very interesting to hear some genuine feedback when you get it done

 

[antnee]

I think it can vary car to car, if you have something with a heavy V6 up front it might make more difference. I would imagine the Clio is fairly well balanced to start off with so if the suspension height has been set to give a consistent arch gap side to side then it is probably as good as it needs to be for a road car. As there are so many variables on a road car (I think Yannis might of mentioned some of them ) it should be about getting the car set up to a decent mid-way point which probably doesn't require corner weighting as it can be done via height. I have seen the mention of rake a few times when it comes to suspension set up, this rake will have come about from corner weighting to set it up to give a certain front to rear balance.

At the end of the day, suspension set up is all about finding the best compromise. The set up that works well around Brands Hatch won't be the best for Milton Keynes' roundabouts or Coventry's ring road

 

[jacool]

Maybe I didn't put it rightly but I didn't mean that you can't tell a difference when you have a passenger on board. That would be stupid lol.

What I meant is this; you know how your car behaves with and without a passenger which is obvious, then you corner weight your car and you 'straight away' feel the difference as you say, then you put the same passenger and now that extra weight has apparently worse effects than before (losing the benefits of the CW) and you can now tell? Well good for you...

You say that you are preparing the car for the season, is it a race car? Or a committed track day car? In that case it might be beneficial. When it is a road car how do you do it? Do you corner weight (CW) with the rear seats in the back? What happens when you remove them for a track day and the CW goes out of the window? Do you CW without the seats? What happens when you put them back on and you go for a blast on the close by b roads? Do you CW with empty boot? What happens when you have luggage and go for a spirited driving weekend? What happens when you load it up and you go for an Alpine trip with reserve, jack, tools etc? What happens when you go to Tesco and you add 2 bags of sugar and 1 lt of milt in the boot? In all the above mentioned examples you can tell the extra weight of course but can you tell the loss of the apparent CW benefits ?

Once again, a road car is a road car and a race/TD car is a race/TD car, let's just not confuse these things...I'm running the same setup as yours (track setup ASTs) with RARB and thicker ARB at the front, quicker steering rack and rising shims etc and the difference before and after was huge. Day and night really...But CWing...hm...I've got my reservations on that.

Each to their own, as I said, it'd be very interesting to hear some genuine feedback when you get it done

It is obvious that advantages of CW can be found when driving on the edge, and for this reason if someone drives like that with "2 bags of sugar and 1 lt of milk in the boot" at his way back from Tesco then I wish him good luck. Why would You take your back seat out of the car anyway if You can't feel the difference considering seat alone weights like what? 20kg or less? As for my car it doesn't even have a carpet and tar inside or heater block not to mention rear seat along with passanger seat lol, and It used to serve me for daily commute to work (100 km each way) and for track use, now it is mainly a track car but we will see what future brings (depending on the budget really).
I agree though that for most drivers and their daily cars CW may be pointless, if it is pointless for me, I will soon find out.
cheers

 

[Azagedon]

Where did you get the RARB and thicker front ARB?
You also said 'quicker steering rack', is this the cup one?

and what are rising shims ?
Thanks .

 

[TB Rich]

Steering rack shims fix the angle of the arms on decked cars. You can buy the RS items or you can get a kit from Madeno - the Madeno kit also includes adjustment to the arms:

"kit exhists of steering-rack raiser shims, specially developed
conical steering arm spacers with nuts.
this kit reduces bump steer at low ride height."

Front ARB can be direct from RS or again Madeno (22mm - probably an RS item).

Rear ARB - Ultra racing: http://www.k-tecracing.com/show_product.asp?id=4807

 

[TB Rich]

Yeah I think Madeno's is the Cup Racer one as the RS is also 22mm (7711160155)

 

[Yiannis197]

Just seen this sorry [MENTION=50771]Azagedon[/MENTION] and thanks Rich for the info provided.

Yes the RARB is the one from ultra racing, I got it when they first came out and the price at the time was 1/3 of the current one! The raiser shims I got from RenaultSport Wimbledon (9mm thick iirc) and the front ARB is the one from the 200 cup (1mm thicker).