Do our cars need corner balancing

[Lynxis]

Originally Posted by ruturaj001

1. Looking at that we don't need to corner balance the car, right?

2. What if one installs coilovers and drop the car by say 20mm or someone else by 2"?

1. A brand new from factory, bone stock car, isn't height adjustable so you won't be able to corner balance even if you wanted to.

2. After installing coilovers and setting ride heights is precisely when corner balancing becomes a consideration, but it's not necessary for the vast majority of people. Just having a car with measurably equal ride heights at all 4 corners is sufficient and will get you ~90% of the way there.




Corner balancing makes sense in 2 cases:

1.As others have mentioned here, if you can feel funny behavior in your suspension, but you can't visually identify a problem. I'll note that cross weights like those posted by RedReplicant are extreme enough that I would expect them to be visible by just looking at the cars ride height but heavily modified vehicles can do strange things so that's not always a promise.

2. The other case is for top level autocrossers, time attackers and racers who need every tiny bit of advantage they can get. Most national level champions have done this so it's clearly helpful to reach that level, but unless you're within a second or two of the top runners without it, I'm not sure I'd recommend spending the money if there are still other places to spend it.

[ruturaj001]

Originally Posted by Lynxis

1. A brand new from factory, bone stock car, isn't height adjustable so you won't be able to corner balance even if you wanted to.

2. After installing coilovers and setting ride heights is precisely when corner balancing becomes a consideration, but it's not necessary for the vast majority of people. Just having a car with measurably equal ride heights at all 4 corners is sufficient and will get you ~90% of the way there.




Corner balancing makes sense in 2 cases:

1.As others have mentioned here, if you can feel funny behavior in your suspension, but you can't visually identify a problem. I'll note that cross weights like those posted by RedReplicant are extreme enough that I would expect them to be visible by just looking at the cars ride height but heavily modified vehicles can do strange things so that's not always a promise.

2. The other case is for top level autocrossers, time attackers and racers who need every tiny bit of advantage they can get. Most national level champions have done this so it's clearly helpful to reach that level, but unless you're within a second or two of the top runners without it, I'm not sure I'd recommend spending the money if there are still other places to spend it.

Thanks. About 1, I didn't form my question very well. Given stock balance with stock height which I assume is same side to side, the car looks better than previous gen. So if I do put coil overs and do even drop on all 4, I wouldn't need tinker as it would be close to balanced as well? Assuming person doesn't care much about driver weight not being factored in.

[Lynxis]

Originally Posted by ruturaj001

Thanks. About 1, I didn't form my question very well. Given stock balance with stock height which I assume is same side to side, the car looks better than previous gen. So if I do put coil overs and do even drop on all 4, I wouldn't need tinker as it would be close to balanced as well? Assuming person doesn't care much about driver weight not being factored in.

That's right, this is how I did my car and it's been good for regular driving and track days.

[Danny318]

FWIW I think it’s probably not necessary in most cases. I did it recently and before any adjustment it was at 50.2% cross. I moved one corner two turns and it was perfect.

Previously I had spent time getting the ride height even, with the rear a bit higher than front. Seems like if the heights are even left to right the corner balance is pretty good.

[cmiovino]

As someone who's just gotten in their first set of coilovers, corner balancing isn't needed for the street at all. You're not going 100% on the street and shouldn't be near the actual limit of the car. Even if you have your coilovers setup completely wrong with too low or two high of ride heights, you don't feel anything drastically wrong besides an impact in ride quality. It's noticeable, but small on either end of that spectrum.

For your beginning to even intermediate autocross and weekend track dayer, just getting ride height within the correct range for the coilover, but equally side to side is going to get you 90% of the way there. If you do this AND stick within the manufacturer's specified range, the car should handle well and not really discernible to the average driver.

Top level drivers at nationals or if you're battling for top PAX in your local region could use the extra predictability corner balancing would provide with the car being as fully balanced as possible.

Before that though, money would be better spend on other grip upgrades, power if the rules allow it, etc.

TDLR: It shouldn't be that off unless something is binding or broken somewhere. Could be a way later upgrade if you're highly competitive and all other upgrades you have planned are done.

[Tokay444]

Originally Posted by ruturaj001

I think the topic went in completely different direction. My question was, the car already looks (without drivers weight) corner balanced. While 1st gen looked different on scale.

Unless you're going to drive the car with a remote, you definitely want to corner balance with the driver in the car.

[ZDan]

To be clear, you can have the car perfectly even at all four corners, and still be off on crossweights. Also, you can have wack ride heights left/right and/or front/back, and get *even* crossweights.

I.e., you can't tell how equal your cross-weights are just by looking at ride heights...