Corner weighing on a road car - Worth it?

[Xenoous]

Morning all,

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I'm about to have my car booked in to get my Bilstein B14 coilovers geometry correctly set up, and I've been asked if I want to have the car corner weighing done at the same time. I never even thought about this being a thing, but I do understand what it is. I primarily thought this sort of thing would only be done for motorsport, however the more I read about it, the more I see people saying it should be done. Is it really worth getting it done? If so, why?

For reference, the car is a Megane RS265. It's mostly standard, and will be used on track a maximum of once a year.

Cheers,
Ben

[raspy]

I had all sorts of Japanese racing bits installed on my old Lexus including coilovers and anti roll bars. I then took it to a specialist place for the alignment. We tested the car after the alignment but then he suggested doing corner weighting too, which I took him up on, and even he was surprised how well my barge went round corners after that! I ended up taking it down to Nurgburgring too!

[d_a_n1979]

Xenoous said:

Morning all,

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I'm about to have my car booked in to get my Bilstein B14 coilovers geometry correctly set up, and I've been asked if I want to have the car corner weighing done at the same time. I never even thought about this being a thing, but I do understand what it is. I primarily thought this sort of thing would only be done for motorsport, however the more I read about it, the more I see people saying it should be done. Is it really worth getting it done? If so, why?

For reference, the car is a Megane RS265. It's mostly standard, and will be used on track a maximum of once a year.

Cheers,
Ben

Every car I've had coilovers and uprated ARBs etc fitted to; I've had a full tracking & alignment, fast road set up & corner weighting done and that's covering cars such as a Honda CRX, DC5 and Prelude, to my BMW E38 and E39s...!

For me it's all part of the same process and any garage worth their weight that knows about all this will do it IMO

[u33db]

Xenoous said:

Morning all,

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I'm about to have my car booked in to get my Bilstein B14 coilovers geometry correctly set up, and I've been asked if I want to have the car corner weighing done at the same time. I never even thought about this being a thing, but I do understand what it is. I primarily thought this sort of thing would only be done for motorsport, however the more I read about it, the more I see people saying it should be done. Is it really worth getting it done? If so, why?

For reference, the car is a Megane RS265. It's mostly standard, and will be used on track a maximum of once a year.

Cheers,
Ben

I don't think anyone can answer that question for you tbh;

Given that the car is mostly standard and you do one track day a year it kinda suggests you're not "there yet" it terms of ability to see any real benefit from such fine tuning.

I'd save your money until if/when your skill level reaches a point you find the limits of the car as is, and you've exhausted cheaper ways of adding performance.

[Xenoous]

u33db said:

I don't think anyone can answer that question for you tbh;

Given that the car is mostly standard and you do one track day a year it kinda suggests you're not "there yet" it terms of ability to see any real benefit from such fine tuning.

I'd save your money until if/when your skill level reaches a point you find the limits of the car as is, and you've exhausted cheaper ways of adding performance.

Oh boy...

This is purely down to whether or not it's deemed a worthwhile investment in terms of getting the car set up correctly. I purchased the car as is only a couple of months ago, and don't plan on modifying it further at this point. Therefore, I just want to ensure I'm getting the most out of the car as it currently stands. Nothing to do with skill or being "there yet".

You mention skill a lot, which is interesting. I'd like to know your background a little further?

[rustednut]

Do you carry a passenger often ?

[plenty]

Xenoous said:

u33db said:

I don't think anyone can answer that question for you tbh;

Given that the car is mostly standard and you do one track day a year it kinda suggests you're not "there yet" it terms of ability to see any real benefit from such fine tuning.

I'd save your money until if/when your skill level reaches a point you find the limits of the car as is, and you've exhausted cheaper ways of adding performance.

Oh boy...

This is purely down to whether or not it's deemed a worthwhile investment in terms of getting the car set up correctly. I purchased the car as is only a couple of months ago, and don't plan on modifying it further at this point. Therefore, I just want to ensure I'm getting the most out of the car as it currently stands. Nothing to do with skill or being "there yet".

You mention skill a lot, which is interesting. I'd like to know your background a little further?

It's a fair comment tbh. Corner weighting is subtle and will only be noticeable if you are very experienced. For a road car that does one track day per year it's almost certainly not worth it.

[GreenV8S]

It's a total waste of time and money. The weight distribution will be almost exactly symmetrical, so the only way for the corner weights to be wrong is if something is bent or an adjustable component is adjusted wrongly. If you get it done, the most likely reason for them to see a discrepancy is that the floor isn't flat, or something is bent. Neither of those should be addressed by adjusting the suspension.

[Xenoous]

Thanks guys. I'll get the coil overs set to the correct height and get a standard geometry set up. It doesn't seem worth getting the corner weighing done, which I half expected anyway.

The idea behind the reply is indeed correct, however comments such as 'you're not there yet' is a curious response.

[Evoluzione]

I don't know why you can't understand it, i'll put it another way.

Do you have a racing licence and are often battling for 1st, second and third on the podium?

Answer: No.

Then you can't really make good use of it. Or to put it another way 'You aren't really there yet'.

[xstian]

Isn't the whole point of coilovers that you can adjust the corner weight? If not you would just save the money and fit lowering springs.

[rustednut]

xstian said:

Isn't the whole point of coilovers that you can adjust the corner weight? If not you would just save the money and fit lowering springs.

I think that is 2 different things.

But if you are adjusting the corner weights, how are you setting it up? For yourself, or with some weight in the car, or for 2 people in the car? For precise handling?

[Das speck]

Yes 100% worth doing.

So much face palm in this thread!

Doesn’t matter about skill level! Who wants to drive a car that is unpredictable?

Lots of people fit coilovers and then say it doesn’t drive as well as on just springs, that’s because they’ve set it up using a ruler.

It’s too complicated for me to explain in a post but, just because you measure to the wheels arch doesn’t mean the wheel is carrying weight equally and that it will handle well.

[HustleRussell]

Corner weighting a road car

Are you frequently locking up an inside front on your way to Tesco?

[Xenoous]

Christ, this forum. All I did was ask if it was worth it in terms of setting the car up correctly. For what its worth:

• Coilovers were on the car when I got it, hence wanting to set them up properly rather than it be on 'lows'. If it had standard suspension I obviously wouldn't be asking this question.
• No I'm not battling for podium places
• No I'm not racing it around car parks

So many conflicting opinions on it, in the end I'm no better off so I'll make my own mind up.

You set up Guru's need to calm down. If the answer to my question is no, then so be it. Spouting rubbish like some of the comments above is just plain pointless. In fact, if you read my post, I actually asked for reasons it is worth it, rather than the other way around.

I look forward to reading about your racing careers. Feel free to post links to your channels/racing videos, I'd love to watch them.

[GreenV8S]

Das speck said:

Yes 100% worth doing.

I'm curious to know what problem you think would be corrected by corner weighting the car.

It's pointless unless at least one of the following is true:
+ the center of mass is signiificantly offset from the vehicle centerline and the front and rear static deflection are significantly different
+ the chassis or suspension is bent
+ the suspension components on the two sides of the car are significantly different
+ you want assymetric handling

If you don't set the spring preloads the same from side to side, you're more likely to introduce a problem than to fix it.