[dre99gsx]

I have a decent set of scales here and began looking at how bad my Supra looks in its weight distribution.

LF 880
RF 993
LR 815
RR 677
Total: 3365
Cross: 1808 53.7% :dunno:

Left 1695 50.3%
Right 1670 49.6%
Front 1873 55.6%
Rear 1492 44.3%

Here are the general specs of my car:

94 6 speed Targa
Single kit, custom 4" exhaust
Full interior
Sparco Sportster seats (38lbs/brackets each)
All convenience features in car (AC/power steering/electronics/radio/air bags, etc)
No spare (spare weighs 35lbs)
Empty gas tank
Rotora BBK up front
13lb battery up front
Tein Flex's
315s/265s with CCW wheels

What is nice about having my own scales is that I can go nuts and remove/add components to see how I can affect the weight balance.

Unfortunately, the corner balance is quite off. I'll be looking at getting it closer to 50% knowing that this value is probably useless for the street with varying conditions (amount of gas in the tank, passenger, etc).

Any feedback on these numbers? I am curious if removing the rear seat + belts and the entire TRAC pump system can drop my car to 3300.

Observations:
- Lot more weight up front
- Right Rear is the lightest corner. Could be the heavy exhaust sitting on the left rear.
- Right Front is the heaviest. Could be the huge single setup sitting on the right side. Removing the TRAC pump system will make this even worse, but I plan on doing so.

 

[Lagtime]

You should pile weight in the driver's seat equal to what you weigh, before trying to tweak things.

Edit: I'd also use 1/2 a tank of gas, that weight you are never more than 9 gallons off from your adjustment point.

 

[Nick 95 6sp]

according to my recent corner balance sheet:

total: 3694 (with handsome 185 lb driver)
LF: 1041
RF: 972
front: 2013 / 54.5%
LR: 880
RR: 801
rear: 1681 / 45.5%
cross: 1852 / 50.1%

 

[dre99gsx]

With my 143lb self:

LF: 936
RF: 1002
LR: 879
RR: 694

53.5% cross .

The cross percentage barely changed.

I will be doing my own Lance alignment including corner balance. If anything, I would like to see other folks numbers and what type of adjustments they needed to make. It seems in general our cars are much heavier up front? Compared to Nick, I'm about 100lbs lighter on my right rear. Forgetting corner balancing, could this be due to having almost no gas?

 

[dre99gsx]

Alright, here is a run down of my progress. I had already leveled out my garage with blocks down to 1/8" +/- on each corner.

Lets begin.

Original Setup
- Empty tank of gas
- Threw a 38lb spare in the trunk to simulate some gas (18 gals = 120lbs)
- Me in the driver seat
LF: 931 RF: 999
LR: 900 RR: 715
3544 total (I weigh 143)
1880 53.5% Cross

At this point, the car is pretty low in the rear and pretty high in the front. I was scraping in the front on hard turns. I love the dropped look but if was not working out for my aggressive driving style.

The plan is to raise LR/RF or lower RR/RF to get the balance. I don't want to drop the front anymore, so I'll plan on raising LR/RF until it balances out.

Raise Right Rear 2 Turns (Tein Flex)
LF: 943 (25 10/16 floor-to-fender height)
RF: 986 (25 9/16)
LR: 880 (25 7/16)
RR: 728 (25 7/16)
1874 52.8% Cross

Getting closer. Raising/lowering the suspension by a few turns is deceptive. You think your raising a corner but after settling the car, the other corners also change slightly.

Lower Left Rear 1 Turn
LF: 932 RF: 998
LR: 895 RR: 719
53.3% :dunno:

That didn't work as I expected. Oh! Sway bars. :kekegay: Lets remove the links and resettle the car.

LF: 957 (25 8/16) RF: 971 (25 10/16)
LR: 871 (25 7/16) RR: 744 (25 7/16)
52%

That is better. The rear was pretty well loaded, most likely due to the aggressive drop. The front came off easy.

Raise Left Front 1 turn
LF: 961 RF: 965
LR: 869 RR: 747
51.7%

I added another 40lbs in the trunk to get me closer to half a tank of gas.

LF: 955 RF: 963
LR: 890 RR: 772
51.6%

It was becoming obvious that as the more weight I added, the lower the percentage would go (to some degree). I had been measuring my ride height at every change but will report my final ride height later.

Lower Right Front 1 turn
LF: 973 RF: 947
LR: 876 RR: 785
Total 3580lbs
1822 50.8% cross

After some measurements, my right front was somehow rising and decided I could lower it a bit. This may bite me later when I scrape, but as of the now, the right front height has increased another 2/16".

Lower Right Front 1 turn
LF: 980 RF: 941
LR: 870 RR: 791
1810 50.5% cross

Left: 1848 / 51.6%
Right: 1732 / 48.3%
Front: 1920 / 53.6%
Rear: 1661 / 46.3%

Right Front still higher ride height than left front.

Lower Right Front 1 turn
LF: 989 RF: 931
LR: 862 RR: 794
Total 3580lbs
1794 50.1% cross

Done! As a bonus, I removed my 80lb dead weight (spare and anvil in the trunk), simulating no gas in the tank.

LF: 994 RF: 940
LR: 819 RR: 752
Total 3506lbs
50.0% cross

Left: 51.7 %
Right: 48.2%
Front: 55.1%
Rear: 44.7%

Removing the weight had no effect on cross weight, but this may change as the car gets mobile. But, it changed my Front/Rear ratio to 55/44.

And:

LF: 25 8/16 RF: 25 8/16
LR: 25 6/16 RR: 25 6/16

I have more meat on the tires in the rear, thus it looks like a smaller gap, but I'll live with it. I have yet to see what happens when I add the sway bars back in, but that is after the fact.

Next will be a Lance alignment. I had it pretty close two years ago but with all the changes will have to get it close again.

Remove rear seat / belts = 28lbs
Remove TRAC pump = 20lbs.

3365 - 48 = 3317. Thats about where I will stop with weight. The rear seat removal is already pushing it and I may end up creating something that keeps an OEM look in there.

 

[Nick 95 6sp]

At the time I had my corner balancing done, along with alignment, they recorded my ride heights at all four wheels. I'm looking at the graphic printout and I assume they mean ride height is from the wheel center to the fender lip: so mine are all 13.3 inches except for the front diver's side which is 13.2 inches. This is actually quite a bit lower than I had been for the last many years on my Tein HA's. But now on my new KW coilovers, this feels great and I like the look of the lower ride height.

 

[Lagtime]

I found my corner balance worksheet. Me (180) plus 1/2 tank of gas.

Total Weight: 3615 (3435 w/o driver)

Left front: 1000
Right front: 946

Left rear: 862
Right rear: 807

Front Weight: 1946 53.8%
Rear Weight: 1669 46.2%

LF to RR Crossweight: 1807
RF to LF Crossweight: 1808

 

[dre99gsx]

Added 9.5 gallons of gas, drove around, kept my sway bar links unhooked for now:

LF: 988 RF: 934
LR: 842 RR: 745
Total 3558 (Gas added 47 lbs)
Cros 1776 ---> 49.9%

Front/Rear = 53.9%/45.9%

So, I started with 53.5% cross-balance and ended with 50%. With me in or out of the car, with no gas or half a tank, the change is within .1% to .2%.

Folks say corner balancing is not needed for the street, but I am a firm believer that if your corner balance is really off, that this can only help. Its great having scales at home

 

[Lagtime]

Folks say corner balancing is not needed for the street, but I am a firm believer that if your corner balance is really off, that this can only help. Its great having scales at home

Great work. It's cool to see what other peoples numbers are.

(Why buy expensive, threaded body adjustables and not, like , actually *adjust* them?)

 

[RogueSupra]

Where did you get the scales?

I need to find a shop here in SD to do this... I want to learn to do it myself but I have a buddy that cant wait.. his Skyline has to get done soon...

 

[dre99gsx]

$895 Longacre Accuset 1500 lb each scale

 

[94jza80tt]

is it possible to adjust the corner weights with spring tension and not mess with the ride height? on my coilovers shock length and spring tension are two different adjustments.

 

[dre99gsx]

If your spring is very "weak" causing some sag, you could in theory influence some amount of weight transfer by increasing the spring preload. But, you now would be dealing with two variables since increasing the tension, for example, could also raise your ride height slightly (or vice-versa).