corner weights for dirt oval racing corner weights for dirt oval racing

Also double check that the scales are connected properly--you can really screw up your suspension settings Tuning with anti-dive probably won't be . Calculator, I used these scales to weigh the car: More wedge means that the car will likely understeer more in a left turn. line above each scale and placed a ruler on the top Most people find this out pretty quickly. Caster and Caster split can be adjusted to find more speed and stability. front left and I use 2x6 wood planks as ramps to drive the car onto Changing the amount of weight on each corner will change how the kart handles in a turn. To favor right turns, put more weight on the Now that we understand why we need to maintain a set ride height, let's go through an example of how to set ride height. Brake pedal is soft, spongy and/or long before the car is run: Air in the system - bleed brakes. For that level of caring, I wouldn't think too much about it. Unless you have some kind of stupid hyper-critically damped NASCAR type dampers this isn't really necessary. If you don't have adjustable end links on your anti-roll bars I was surprised to find, contrary to my experience, that the Vette came is very close to itsexpected weight as soon as it was let down on the scales, without having to take bind out of the suspension. Wedge Delta and what values work best for certain tracks and conditions positive Bite and positive Wedge Delta. And since the necessary scales to complete this process cost in excess of $1,000, I suggest you have the corner weighting done by finding another club racer in your area who has (or knows someone with) access to scales and would be willing to help you. Make sure all of the weights are in the car including fuel, oil, battery, cooling water, hood, and so on, or weights that will simulate those. I see disconnecting the sway bar, and how to do it, but disconnect the shocks? When Wedge is balanced at Afterward you need to adjust the settings to the correct maneuvers. Dirt adds weight, binds suspension parts and hides potential problems > The bearings come well oiled and attract a lot of dirt. The situation isfrustrating. to balance your car in one big step. the front ramps then jack up the rear and lower it onto the rear scales. Take your shock, compute the spring preload, and compress the shock/spring combo to the installed spring height in your spring rate fixture. These are your target weights which will yield a 50% Cross Weight: Left Front = Here's the car with the same settings but empty: I took the newly corner balanced S2000 to a Summit Point Raceway Friday at as Left Rear Bite + Right Front Bite. Then there is what I do for FWD stuff That is forget the rear weights entirely, and just balance the fronts to be equal. Do youhave recommendations for such corner weight percentages? if you have any of the scales connected improperly (i.e. To find RR weight: Now, look into details about the matter. Smaller will scrub less speed of if your not sideway threw the corner. 2 When you make a spring change, bring that corner back to the measured distance from the wheel rim to the fender mark by adjusting the spring height. Cross-weight is also called wedge: If the percentage is over 50 percent, the car has wedge; if below 50 percent, the car has reverse wedge. . A good starting point would be tank of gas. Bite tells us how much we I recommend you start with your car at your desired ride Air up the tires as they will roll through tech. When Wedge is balanced at typically not concerned with bite and wedge delta because they usually So 2.5" springs and experimenting is the way to go- I think I know that much.. . 1 of the section on "Adjusting The Corner Weights," and that is 685. shifted by more than 1 pound after rolling the car on the scales. You can see in the "Target Corner Weights" section that the Left First some baselines. 12. Additionally, it is much more difficult to change rear percentage much, since rear weight is mostly a design function. Add about 20% and slowly increase until your car turns when you let off the throttle in the middle of the corner without rolling out of the throttle. Kart racing chassis are designed in a manner to allow it to turn the only way it can, without having a read differential - with the inside rear tire lifting off the track on corner entry. I racers only turn left we can balance the car for better grip in left I always thought it was the other way, shock travel was increased in order to have more movement for better control over the suspension? Are they adjustable? At the right rear, a quarter-inch change in the height of the end of the link will change the angle and can make an asphalt car undriveable. More stagger usually loosens the handling in left turns, so more cross-weight is used to tighten it up. The rear is 2.125" wider. 3.If you plan on having to set ride height without the driver, measure the difference with and without the driver in the car at all four corners and record those differences. Shock Position 2) Stagger: Stagger is how much bigger the right side tires are compared to the left side tires. pounds of preload to the scale weights. I added the Note your ride heights and If it slows to 100rpm, the outside wheel will spin at 300rpm. Front and Right Rear need 51 lbs of additional weight to balance the car. If the car feels loose on corner entry, lower the left track bar. Front + Left Rear) - (Left Front + Right Rear) and tells us how much Ideal weight percentages: Front - 43-45% Left - 53-56% Cross - 52-54% What do these numbers mean? Granted, moment centers will stay fairly consistent with small movements of the chassis in dive and roll from the ride heights being off a little. The intent of the track scales is to determine a car's total weight to meet minimum weight rules and left side percent (or right side weight) to meet a side weight rule. I'm not saying you get what you pay for with race scales but there is a reason I went with longacre. You can also put two linoleum tiles with salt between them on difference that made. If we are talking of weighing a stock type vehicle, not a lot can be done since there are no adjustable parts. The Circle Track Analyzer is a computer program that simulates most any car you can design, racing on most any size oval track. If you decide to have a tuning shop complete the corner weighting and assuming you are not driving the car to the shop, disconnect the rear sway bar yourself to save the shop time and you money. tank of gas, and no driver or passenger: Now here's the same stock S2000 with a 215lb driver in the seat: I was really surprised to see how far off the stock S2000 was This article explains everything pretty clearly and I feel like I could tackle the job myself now! The tiles & salt seemed to help because the weight never Brake pads badly taper worn - replace. That method keeps the ride heights close to the same. links then disconnect them for the corner balance. 2023 Motorsport Marketing. I dropped my integra off at edge to have this done today. I put the car on grease tiles so the tires move freely on the scales and then I bounce each end a couple times. I'm off by 0.1% (see numbers on left side of the spreadsheet). This is the arm length divided by the distance from the shock mount to the inner pivot line, squared. Both of these items will impact the cross weight of the car, and therefore they are important in the corner weighting process. I looked back and I don't think I've ever done an article on this subject and I can't understand why. My big stumbling block on this subject is how to get accurate readings by removing all the friction/bind from the tires, sway bars, bushings, etc. in the driver's seat to load the suspension. then leave them connected. Keeping track of Bite and In almost all cases, the loss of cornering performance in one direction is greater than the gain in the other direction. This will pitch the vehicle's. Full of fuel, everything done, full of oil, lead bolted down. It is a critical set-up tool. We also change the rear to correct the side-to-side rake by turning the RR adjuster up (to lower the corner) by 2.5 turns and the LR adjuster down (to raise that corner) by 2.5 turns. Right now I have (IIRC) 350 lb front and 200 lb rear springs (koni sport, eibach pro line, ST anti sway bars) . Corner weighting can be a complicated process for you to complete without someone who is experienced helping you. You can use rubber tires on very specific tracks and seasons. I borrowed some scales to weigh my Terceltomorrow. Same with go-karts with solid rear axles, they'll lift. It varies with weight removal, added. Road racers can take a page out of the oval racing book and For our example we use: LF 200, RF 250 - 250 200 = 1.25 multiplier for the front. The third, and probably the best, option seems to be to invest in a set of hub stands, as this not only takes care of the bind issues via their built-in rollers, but it just makes the task of doing the alignment a lot simpler as well. unbalanced--it will turn better in one direction than in the other (all other Struts and trailing arms generally arent great in this case as they have a lot of inherent bind. What you're saying makes sense, but I can't explain why it took so long for my car to settle into its final weight reading. If most of the important turns on your You can make this adjustment in several ways: If you don't want to change the ride height of the car then Some racers like to take matters into their own hands-and that's OK. A. box in the "Ride Height" section of each spreadsheet. measure (literally). pad capacity. Or it could also be possible that the signal is smoothed in the programming. 13. Well there is a bit more to it than that. They kept saying that it would go anywhere on the track and anywhere they pointed it. Move ballast first, since it's easier. left to right (measured with a digital caliper) and my ride height was pretty Left Front and Right Rear but you'll have to test to find out what works best. Bite should be positive for oval racing, Wedge = of the scale to take a reading. I commented on this to the youtubevideo on TIG welding, where they put their C5 Vette on scales and had a contest to guess the weight correctly, so I apologize for the duplicate posts. Now that the car has the correct ride heights and weight distribution for your setup, you need to make sure those don't change at the track. very close to ideal. It changed the wheel weights by 10 pounds at each wheel: I finally went too far when I took two turns off the Right Front (went For our example, we need to go from 49.8 to 54 percent. Oval The outer rear tire drives "around" the outer front tire, allowing the chassis to efficiently turn into the corner because the rear tire Ask your chassis builder or establish what you want and decide that these will be what you run from now on. Just to confirm the theory I checked the corner weights with track are left turns then having more weight on the Right Front and Left Rear per wheel. These weights are in ready to race form (including driver on board). Kind of like a person standing on a bathroom scale under a low ceiling, pressing on the ceiling with his hands with some constant force. turn to the RF simply to raise the ride height of the front of the car. lb driver, no passenger, spare tire removed, soft top up, Magnaflow mufflers (-20lbs), Braille Wedge To find LR weight: Our current setup is as follows - 270 lbs Car & Driver Cross Weight = 48% Rear Weight = 61% Left Side Weight = 51% LF = 56 lbs RF = 48 lbs LR = 82 lbs RR = 83 lbs Once you have installed your coil-over suspension, mount the rims with the tires you will be racing with, and complete all other items that could impact the vehicles weight and placement of that weight. Since oval typically not concerned with bite and wedge delta because they usually With the driver weight, the left side might move down 1/4-inch and the right side down 1/8-inch. It is defined as the total weight resting on the right-front (RF) and the left-rear (LR) tires added together, and then divided by the total vehicle weight. section). Corner_Balance.zip Excel spreadsheet. Bite = Left Rear - Right Rear and a positive value means the R. racing junky Member. Picture the following: Your car is really fast in right-hand turns, but understeers in left turns. On oval track cars, cross-weight is usually used in conjunction with stagger (where the right rear tire is larger in circumference than the left rear tire) to balance handling. I don't see how this is even possible with a strut type suspension like mine, or with any coilover setup, for that matter, since the weight of the car sits on the collars that go around the shocks/struts. We used to run about 1/8 of toe-in at the local tracks, and this helps the kart to cut through a corner easier in the center, where the steering is the greatest. split the adjustment between all four wheels--extend the LF and RR 1 1/4 turns Yeah generally its the same stagger 9/10 times. My left rear is something like 150lbs heavier than the right rear, with both fronts even at ~740lbs each on a 2425lb FWD car. can help us get our setup right with less testing. Unsure about autox. The car should be at minimum weight, using ballast as needed to make the proper weight. No, not as in the law, but in being legal in tech. When I first lowered it onto the scales, its total weight wasin the low 2600 lb range, which is way too light, considering the car's stock curb weight is 3086, and I took less than 250 lb out of it. upgrading our street stock suspension part 2 the rear end. Adjusting the corner weights is how we establish the crossweight percent, or what is often referred to as the amount of bite, left rear weight, or wedge. what he means is he's adding weight to the left rear and right front And I cannot really move any weight around. Bearings, like sealed roller bearings,solid bushings, or spherical joints. % It is best to make small changes at each corner, instead of a big change at one corner. I needed 3 linoleum tiles (0.045" thick car for a week to let the suspension settle: I decided to disconnect the front and rear sway bars to see what cars through the corners and thats where there eating me up. Now, I didn't have the sway bars disconnected, not did I put anything slippery between the tires and the scales - I just wanted to get a quick look at the total weight of my car, but the amount of error caused by all the friction was pretty startling. You can also use this online calculator to compute your corner This spreadsheet will also give you an estimated center of gravity height if So if you have 60% on the front , you should have 30% on each front wheel. If you lower the ride height at a given corner, that corner will lose weight as will the diagonally opposite corner. One of the keys to obtaining a good setup is using the correct procedure to weigh your race car. "two linoleum tiles & salt" technique to allow the tires to slide on the scales For road racing and autocrossing, the ideal left weight percentage is 50 percent. LR = left rear. used cheap linoleum tiles (49 cents each at Home Depot) to shim two of my scales LF and RR (extend coil over), remove preload to RF and LR (shorten the coil However, you can choose to use them. Search for: Basically - after you finish the set up routine, the car goes in the hauler. weights and percentages and generates target wheel weights to achieve a 50% Excessive front toe in will make a car turn into a corner quicker, & may create a loose condition. oval racing world and is simply another word for Cross Weight. Guess I have to try it. Jun 7, 2018 #8 . Record each spring rate. will help with those turns. That is because all of the points move together. Right Front = They are never level. Can do to just left sidesor right sides, or to all 4. These are only average measurements, and they will differ depending on the particular model of car that you have and the tires it is using. I have a 96 civic with a d16/manual. You cannot change the left or rear percentages by jacking weight around in the car, although this will change cross-weight. Wedge Delta can also be thought of LF coil over 5 turns. And don't ever believe the track scales. Use a load of fuel for where you you want the car balanced, either at the start of the race, the end of the race or an average between the two. Wheel offsets are very important. The fact about this concept is when you put a softer right rear bar in, the car rolls more to the right rear but it is actually transferring less weight. should have their spring perches in the same spot and your left rear and right In order for the table to stand steady, all four legs should be of equal length, and as a consequence each will apply equal pressure on the floor. All of these factors play a huge part in what each corner of the car will weigh. Prepare the car. If you are using scales as a base, level the scales with a long level, a long straight piece of tubing, square or round with a smaller level, or better yet, an instrument level such as a construction level. When a NASCAR crewchief says he's "adding wedge", right swapped). In the above example, to go from 52 percent to 50 percent cross-weight, try lowering the right front and the left rear one-half turn on the weight jack bolt or spring perch while raising the left front and right rear the same amount. If you want to lower the front of the car then retract only We now take five rounds out of the RR and add five rounds times the rear multiplier, or 2.0 5 = 10 rounds to the LR. Corner_Balance.zip, Excel Corner Balance Spreadsheet Screen Capture. And if you hold the inside wheel so it can't spin, the outside wheel will turn 400rpm. anti-roll bar with the end-link adjusted so it's easy to insert the A. Disconnect the shocks, when possible, and the anti-roll bars.