alighnment & Ballanceing?

Speedy1 · Speedy1's Garage

What is ballencing the car mean when they do an allighnment? And are the factory settings good for the streat or what should I have the car set to? This is only a street car . Thanks for the input.

Tyson Schmidt · 01-31-2003, 10:17 PM

The Factory settings are fine for the street.

By balancing, I presume you mean "corner-balancing".

This is done so that all 4 wheels are supporting as even an amount of the vehicles weight as possible. You don't want the car teetering on two opposite wheels, as this will cause pulling and affect braking and handling detrimentally.

ttweed · ttweed's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by Tyson Schmidt
By balancing, I presume you mean "corner-balancing".
This is done so that all 4 wheels are supporting as even an amount of the vehicles weight as possible.

I wouldn't worry about corner balancing a street car, either, but this explanation is a bit of an over-simplification, Tyson. I prefer this as the short explanation: "The goal of corner balancing is to obtain the same front/rear weight distribution on one side of the car as the other, with the vehicle in racing trim."

Do a search in this forum on "corner balance" and you will find a lot of previous discussion, Speedy1.

Tyson Schmidt · 02-01-2003, 11:42 AM

Of course it was an over-simplification. Not everyone on this board is a mechanical engineer.

billwagnon · 02-01-2003, 04:59 PM

when I bought my car it was corner balanced, but one side was an inch higher than the other

it handled like a dream

I raised it back to original height, corner balanced, but was still too high on one side

took it to Reid Vann in St. Louis for alignment (I raised the height myself, and corner balanced (with one scale!) myself). They pooh poohed the corner balance "that's for race cars, like where to put the battery and stuff" so I said sure, and since I was still off on the left/right height I asked them to take care of that too

so they did, and it's now the same height on both sides - but it steers badly, and the left wheel locks up under braking and dammit corner balancing (at least to factory settings) makes a difference for a street car!

Speedy1 · Speedy1's Garage

Hey thanks for the info I think I'll have it corner balanced and alighned. I to noticed my 82SC sitting higher on one side It was lowered by the dealer when it had 1000 miles on it. Yes I have all records. when I installed the bilsteins sports It raised the car 1" in the rear and almost 2" in the front so I lowered the tortion bar adjusters to level it out but the drivers side was almost all the way down the pas side I made = to drivers and set the toe in an 1/8th. Until I can get to the alighnment shop. Do you guys think the tortion bars can be re indexed so the adjusting screws will be in the center of there travel. And will that lower the car more. Now it sits 25-1/2 front and 24-3/4 in the rear. I like the rear where it is fender 1-1/2" above the tire, but the front is about 2+" over the tire. Any clue if this is normal.

Wil Ferch · 02-04-2003, 08:28 AM

"Where to put the battery" etc etc....as a response form the shop shows a total loack of understanding what corner balance is all about. In true corner balancing, you "allocate" the appropriate amount on each wheel, according to exisiting weight distribution imperfections that ALREADY EXIST like offset battery locations. Changing where the battery sits will affect the overall and total balance of the car, but is fundamentally NOT what corner balancing is about.
---Wil Ferch