Preloading the driver seat
 

Just curious as to what you guys use to get your body weight in the driver seat for proper preload when setting up new suspension parts. I've used kids plus exercise weights, wife plus kid, and trash can filled with water. Neither seemed ideal.

How does people weight not seem idea? Usually people work together with a friend or a tech who knows what they are doing. The driver of the car sits in the seat while they work on the suspension.

I don't. It's fine.

Now that's a lot of work.

Similar sized human is my go to.

I use a couple bags of concrete, each wrapped in a trash bag that's held on with racer tape.

the shop that does my alignments (The Winning Formula) asks my weight then stacks ballast plates, and other weights, in the drivers seat to match when doing alignment and corner balance.

I usually have to bribe or listen to complaining, so not ideal. And the timing rarely works out to have someone available when I'm working on it.

I actually thought about concrete bags, but then thought about the dust. Trash bags solve that, plus I can save the receipt and return then after I "use" them so they aren't taking up garage space.

ballast plates, bricks, sand bags, etc.. concrete bags work too, but leave behind lasting residue over sand bags.

the issue with ballast plates, bricks, etc are the sharp edges that poke into seat padding. maybe stack a couple sand bags in the bottom of the seat, then put weight plates or whatnot on top of them to reach your desired weight.


The problem with organic ballast as mentioned above is getting them to sit still for 3 hours while I fidget with everything--- and last time I did a FULL setup, it was from 11pm to about 4am. My wife and kids would absolutely not put up with that so I was scrounging the shop for lead, steel plates, wheels, etc to drop in the seat and floorboard.

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and ended up buying a few 45lb plates from the sporting goods store. They're even formed with handles on the edges for easier carrying and fit nearly perfect in the drivers seat. They were crazy expensive ($80 each). At first I planned on returning them, but they were so easy to work with I may just keep them.

I'm fortunate that one of my roommates is of a roughly similar body weight to me (within ~10lbs) so I just get them to sit in the drivers seat while I adjust preload. If there was a significant difference and no way to make it up, I'd show them how to set preload, sit in the seat and have them make the adjustment for me. It's not difficult anyways.