MKIV corner balancing - coilovers done right

[enginerd]

Got a chance to corner balance the car this saturday. It was my first time corner balancing, so it took a while to figure out what I was doing. At first I tried moving weight around by raising/lowering a corner of the car. Then realized that you need to change an entired side, or end at the same time to "move" the weight around. Changing one corner did some wierd stuff, as it raised one cross weight, lowered the other, but did not shift like I thoguh it would. Picture a stool with 2 diagonal legs longer than the other, the other 2 teeter back and forth with no weight. Then I found out that even large changes to height didn't really "move" weight around very much. I could change the cross balance but, I was unable to have very significant changes left to right or front to rear. The only way to really move weight is to move a heavy object i.e. battery from one spot to another. Sliding my seat back made a huge difference as well.
Here is my setup that will affect weight. more details in sig.
Koni coilovers, 350Lb 8" front springs, Neuspeed Rear sway 28mm full stiff, Nuspeed front strut brace, Braille 11.5 Lb batter in stock location, Yarrowsport rear strut brace, rear seats removed, all seatbelts removed, corbeau 5 pt harnesses, recaro pole position seats, Carbon hood, no spare, all cleaned out, Raxels axels (heavy). and about 1/4 tank of gas. I weigh approx 170 Lbs. Car was wet from rain.

car was setup with 3 finger gap in the front 8" springs are only preloaded about 3/4 of an inch. It probably was "too low" as the front control arms were just just barely horizontal, perhaps a tad in the wrong direction. Rear "perches" are all the way up on the konis (to get the rear to rotate). left to right heights were matched by usign a tape measure on the shock perches.

Initial setup = total pain in azz. Needed to level the scales with shims, and all sorts of hokey pokey. If I had to do this again, I would have paid a professional shop to do it. But local i don't know of anyone.

That being said. Car weight = 2888 with me in it. = 2718. I was hoping for less, but I have my heavy street wheels/tires on. I have Oz superlegerras 17x8 with 235/45/17 yoko AVS Sports. I have a set of Kosei K1ts with 225/45/17 avon tech-r's that are flyweight by comparision. So i Figure im about 2700 flat with the good wheels. Ill weigh the suckers to know for sure.

Corner balance. To start the balance was off by 24 Lbs comparing front pass + rear drv to front crv to rear pass. That's 8.3% out of balance. Not sure if this counts as the serious out of balance that was mentioned in the coilover thread, but i though it was pretty close.

Then we went to work here are my final numbers.

front
984, 904
544, 456
rear

Front Drivers raised 1/2", rear drv lowered 1/4", front pass raised 1/8", rear pass lowered ~3/4". Car looks a bit funky, but here are the numbers based on a percentage.

front
34%, 31.3%
19%, 16%
rear

front = 65.4% - Seriously front heavy car -
Rear = 35%
Drivers = 52.9%
Passengers = 47.1%

Cross 1 = 50.14%
Cross 2 = 49.86%


Driving impression - wow the car turns the right better than ever before. great "mod" :driving:

[elitedübs]

wow, nice write up. thanks for sharing!

[Dizzy]

~170lbs heavy on the driver's side? And is that with or without your 170lbs in the car?   Do you still have your rear seat belts, are they retracted, and do you want to part with them?  

[enginerd]

thats with me in the drivers side, and yes I removed the rear belts/front belts. make me an offer