Corner Weighting?

[Thorney]

If it's a road car then save your money, waste of time.

[DuncanR]

I have been thinking abouit getting this done myself, along with a full Geo, and Dyno on what is a new engine, unless of course you guys reckon on waiting until its loosed up a bit more, 2100 miles done on it now .
Has anyone had experience of these people before, they are very local to me.

http://www.northamptonmotorsport.com/default.asp?id=20

[DazBlackCSL]

Originally Posted by DuncanR

I have been thinking abouit getting this done myself, along with a full Geo, and Dyno on what is a new engine, unless of course you guys reckon on waiting until its loosed up a bit more, 2100 miles done on it now .
Has anyone had experience of these people before, they are very local to me.

http://www.northamptonmotorsport.com/default.asp?id=20

I reckon you could sort something yourself dunc at your place... couple of stools some wires and scales and bags of sand and fork lift ... sorted ..

[DuncanR]

Originally Posted by DazBlackCSL

I reckon you could sort something yourself dunc at your place... couple of stools some wires and scales and bags of sand and fork lift ... sorted ..

Mmmmm .. working on it mate !! mY STOOLS WOULDNT BE SOLID ENOUGH AT THE MOMENT THOUGH !! ..AAAARGH BOLLOX CAPS

[shane@mbtech]

Originally Posted by DuncanR

Mmmmm .. working on it mate !! mY STOOLS WOULDNT BE SOLID ENOUGH AT THE MOMENT THOUGH !! ..AAAARGH BOLLOX CAPS

thats your age that dunc

[_Nathan_]

BMSport.com is Bexley's site, quite near you I think.

Agree it is worth doing as part of a geo on any car that is used on track.

[Thorney]

I'm not saying we're not interested, I'm trying to be helpful?

Corner weighting is a great deal different from setting up adjustable suspension, which of course is absolutely essential.

Corner weighting is the process where you try to get the car balanced in terms of equal weight distribution on the wheels. This is of course impossible as the engines in the front so you will always have more weight on the front axle, thats natural but what you're trying to achieve is a 50:50 displacement of weight from corner to corner (ie front left to rear right and rear left to front right).

You do this via small changes in the cars ride height on the suspension, sounds simple enough but once you change one corner you change all the other 3 as well, by different proportions so its a time consuming exercise of adjusting each corner then going back over again until its right. The E46 is very easy to get 50:50 (its normally shown in percentage terms, 50%) as the chassis is so balanced anyway but a proper corner weighted set up is worth decent time on track.

However (and this is where I'm trying to save people money) the process is very specific, the driver, wearing the exact clothes he wears on track, complete with helmet needs to be in the car for the entire process (when we dont have the driver we fill the seat with sacks of spuds, weight etc to match the drivers weight), so plan for a few hours sitting there reading a book. On a race car we know exactly what weight of fuel we run, each litre is 1kg approx so we corner weight the car for race fuel weight, we re-corner weight for success ballast (60kg win penalty in CSL Cup) as these make dramatic differences to corner weighting.

Apply this to a road car, add a tank of fuel and you've got 60kg added, if you've corner weighted it with half a tank you're now 30kg out and you've wasted your time. Run with a passenger? Again, waste of time, 80kg sat next to you will throw it out massively.

My point is that corner weighting is a racing thing or at absolute best a track day car where you are trying to get the last nth degree out of a laptime, for a road car its a nice way to spend a couple of hundred quid and make you feel better, if you have the money and want to be quicker buy a set of new tyres, or instruction make use of it rather than spending it on something that you dont need or can make any real use of.

I'll happily do it, charge you the labour anything you want, but I'd rather educate people on what to spend their money on rather than just take it, sorry.

[XKaLiBaR]

Originally Posted by _Nathan_

BMSport.com is Bexley's site, quite near you I think.

I wouldnt recommened Bexley mate. Proper cowboys. They will not look after you. When i asked for corner weight to be done on my car, they refused to do it. I then told them, the height needed to be adjusted, before the geometry setup.

He dropped the rear, no measuring, and then did the geo.

After he came back from the test drive, the short midget who drove it, I had noticed how he kicked open the doors on the other cars. So i made sure i stood by the car as he pulled in, and he almost kicked my door aswell, till he clocked me.

He then informed it was done. I looked around the car, and i clearly saw one side was higher than the other. I pointed this out.

So the car went back up the ramp. He started adjusting the height again. Taking each wheel off to do so, which is a complete waste of time, as Simpsons mechanics, just put their hands behind the wheel and adjust it.

Now the funniest part is, when it came to adjusting the front height, he refused to do. His excuse was that he didnt have the right tools for the PSS10, and blaimed me for not bringing mine. He had the PSS9 height adjust spanners, which he refused to use. Funny thing is, the next day, i used my mates pss9s spanner to adjust it.
A motorsport garage, with 1000s of tools, could not find a single tool to adjust the height. Bollox. The cunt just didnt want to do it.

So guess what, he has adjusted the rear again, which has probably f**ked up the geo now.

He then tried to charge me £350!!!! £150 for height adjustment, and £200 for geo. I told the twat, the height wasnt adjusted properly, and the geo is now messed up, because you didnt do height properly the first time round. I threw £200 on his table, and told him, he was lucky to even get that.

I said earlier, go to Simpsons, they charged me £190 for 5 hours work on my car. That included fitting the turner limiter kit and RTAB bushes. They refused to let me go, till they had my car perfect. And i can tell you, my car drives perfect now. Steering is dead straight too.

[cantfind1]

Originally Posted by Thorney

If it's a road car then save your money, waste of time.

It's a track car, and no offence if you fit coilovers and dont set them up correctly even if it's a road car you are not getting the full benefit! It will most likely drive horribly compared to when it's set up!

Simpson's to far just to do corner weighting, John is obviously not interested so will ring the guys at Northampton still pretty far but worth talking to.

Might also try a place called horsham developments.
BMworx.com is that bexley motorworks link does not work?

Cheers guys.

[Dan]

Originally Posted by cantfind1

It's a track car, and no offence if you fit coilovers and dont set them up correctly even if it's a road car you are not getting the full benefit! It will most likely drive horribly compared to when it's set up!

Simpson's to far just to do corner weighting, John is obviously not interested so will ring the guys at Northampton still pretty far but worth talking to.

Might also try a place called horsham developments.
BMworx.com is that bexley motorworks link does not work?

Cheers guys.

I travelled to Simpsons for some work recently from the South Coast and it was well worth it mate, you want something done right with the exceptional knowledge they have then it's well worth making the effort!