Porsche vs. Japanase (excluding LandCruiser)

[cab83_750]

So, after many, many cars, I still wonder why Pcars require cornering balancing. I had Chryslers, Camaros, Nissan Z's, Supra Turbo and I do not recall manuals stating that I need corner balancing.

Why do we need c/balancing?

p.s.,

My Cruiser does require c/b!!!

[Sonic dB]

Good question...but is it actually "required" on 911s...or more likely "strongly suggested for best performance". Being what they are (little street-racer kraut wagons) most 911 owners want to get the best handling and ride performance that they can, so corner balance is a viable thing to do. Its surely effective on those other cars that you mentioned above too.

[Dantilla]

A corner balance is for race cars.
It would be hard to corner balance a Camaro with a solid rear axle.
It is not required on any car, but is simply optimizing the equipment for the best possible performance. Probably would make no difference whatsoever on a street only driven 911. Most 911 owners have most likely never heard of a corner balance, but the Pelicanheads have a weird attraction to race tracks.

[cab83_750]

Originally posted by Dantilla

Probably would make no difference whatsoever on a street only driven 911.

I probably would disagree with you (caveat: I am no expert), but when I replaced my torsion bars and attempted to 'manually' corner balance the car, my 911 pulled to left or right when braking.

The solid-axle sentence was funny, though!

[RallyJon]

If you can corner balance, you must do so.

All cars with coilovers or height adjustable suspensions like 911s can get badly out of whack, unlike normal cars with fixed perch suspensions. The serious Japanese car guys have the same obsession with tweaking their ride height, corner weights and alignment as serious 911 owners do.

[ChrisBennet]

Most cars don't have adjustable suspension (for height) so the issue of jacking weight in by raising and lowering the suspension is not an issue. On a torsion bar 911 everything is adjustable.
A friend and I cornerweighted our cars last weekend. His was over 50 pounds off in the front resuling in early lockup of the the light wheel at the track.
-Chris

[MotoSook]

I can add that my left front which seems to be the least loaded will lockup earlier, first. I'm higher by 1/4 or maybe 1/2 inch at that wheel with me in the car.

I'm waiting for new torsion bars to fix the ride height, but I may wait until next year to do a corner balance (track time is low now, so it is not cost effective for me).

[ChrisBennet]

Originally posted by Souk
I can add that my left front which seems to be the least loaded will lockup earlier, first. I'm higher by 1/4 or maybe 1/2 inch at that wheel with me in the car.

I'm waiting for new torsion bars to fix the ride height, but I may wait until next year to do a corner balance (tack time is low now, so it is not cost effective for me).

You can't really tell anything about the corner weight by looking at the ride height. If you took a 4 legged table and cut two of the legs in half (LF, RR) the table would balance on the remaining 2 legs and be perfectly level yet the cornerweights would be waaay off.
-Chris

[MotoSook]

I agree Chris, but my point is that for my street driving, I'll be content with a visually level car. Now, with my car having been stripped of most conveniences, the factory ride height setting may not be close to a good weight distribution...so more brain work for me when the time comes..or Ill just bite the bullet and spring for some scales.

[jhugh]

There is definitely an art to aligning and corner-balancing a car. When I had my 911 with stock suspension gone over by Brandon Kraus (Castro Valley), the car was utterly transformed. Street driving took on entirely new dimensions of pleasure. Shee-it.

Unless I were intent on learning the art of racecar suspension setup (which I'm not), I would defer to the talented folks like Brandon who make a career out of it.

Bottom line, IMO: totally worth it to pay the artist, and totally worth it for the street.

Cheers,

[nostatic]

Originally posted by ChrisBennet
You can't really tell anything about the corner weight by looking at the ride height. If you took a 4 legged table and cut two of the legs in half (LF, RR) the table would balance on the remaining 2 legs and be perfectly level yet the cornerweights would be waaay off.
-Chris

So you're saying I need to cut one of my tires in half? Or do I need to balance my car on a table? Neither of those sounds like a good idea...

[CamB]

Yeah, the main reason is that you CAN adjust the balance. I dream of adjusting the BMW suspension (I need about $2k worth of bits before I can).

At the moment, I can't even adjust camber

[GSpreeman]

Your cars came with tables?

[Colby]

I've heard of some guys who can't adjust ride height still corner balance their cars by adding weights to the appropriate corners..

Colby