Just got a baseline for corner balancing. My LF and RR is 50.8 and my RF and LR is 49.2 and that's with me actually sitting in the car. Now, I haven't done anything besides bolt on my BR Racing coilovers and they seemed to have been preset from Figs. I might just leave things well alone as it is.

Without me in the car, the 50.5 and 49.5 so obviously sitting in my car makes it less balanced.

The front/rear balance is quite off - but I have no spare and low fuel (drag racing mode).

And JUST in case you wanted to know, my drag racing weight is exactly 3700 pounds (that's with ME in the car). Empty weight for my car with low fuel is 3523 pounds.

 

Preload is preset and ride height is set around 1"/0.6" drop. But you can certainly iterate to play with things further. The important thing when changing ride height on these cars is that the car needs to roll to release the suspension preload. The car will settle into stance after the tires move back and forth a full revolution. So no jacking up and just setting down to measure.

 

What method is used to measure the corner balance?

 

4 scales, one at each tire.

 

Yup..... It was expensive at 800 bucks... but I keep on hiding these thing from my wife. LOL

 

It appears that the fronts are already at max height so I suppose I should preload just a little the back left side that will put more weight on the back left front right and maybe be closer to 50/50. Having said that, am I really going to notice a 1% imbalance?

 

This thread is full of a lot of useful information for a new owner such as myself. Now I need to decide what spring rate is right for me and how much they cost.

 

The 1% imbalance is not going to throw you off at this point, I would focus on driving now and seeing which damping settings will optimize handling with your driving style and preferences..

That is what we are here for, to specifically advise on setup which includes spring rate spec. There is more to suspension then just a spring and coil setup...next is the alignment.

 

Here is where you talk about toe-in vs. toe-out and camber. We can't adjust caster. I used to race RC cars and all this stuff with springs, dampening, toe, camber, caster, tires, ride height, stabilizer bars, corner balancing, etc. come straight out of my RC Car racing days LOL.

With camber and toe, I'm more interested in seeing how the tires were on day to day driving rather than track driving since that is what I do 99% of the time and I'd rather have even tire wear.

I'll adjust the front/rear bias through ride height, dampening, tire size, and possibly the anti-roll bars.

I haven't pushed my car because I have snow tires up front and Mickey Thompsons in the rear. But since the front is 1 inch and rear is .6 inch lower, I'm assuming we inscreased slightly the oversteer. Once I get my summer tires on, I'll verify that. If it's still too much, I might go to 245s up front and keep the 255 in the rear. I honestly think that's all I'm going to need to do for now - I'd rather have a slightly understeering car on a day to day basis.

The dampening is a little tricky for me. I tried 20 and 25 clicks and it felt with the springs, it was a bit bouncy and needed a more dampening. I'm actually back down to 8 and 10 and it feels really nice. I just like the handling and I actually prefer the flatter turning, more damped feeling - but at the same time, it doesn't feel more harsh than 2008 stock IS-F. I don't know why.

 

Thanks, so corner balance is basically the height of my car at each corner?

What do you measure from, fender, headlights???

 

Corner balance is NOT the height at each corner. It's is the weight at each corner. Imagine a chair with four legs. Imagine it teeter tottering. Corner balancing is like putting shims on the shorter legs so they don't rock anymore. So, front right + rear left = front left + rear right. You can't do it by height. You can google it - there are some good articles on it. Essentially a balanced car will turn right and left equally well.

 

That 4 legged teeter tottering example is actually quite bad. But you get the idea. LOL

 

Another great thread found via search!

Thanks to all here for the copious and very helpful information. It convinced me to pick up a near-new set of these with 16/12 springs for track duty... Though I think the seller had them adjusted with quite a bit more drop than the 1.0F/0.6R I've read about so many times, which I think would be a good starting place for me with my aggressive 19x9.5 wheels and 275 square rubber.

Does anyone have a picture of how they're adjusted when new for said modest drop? I'd love to recreate this before slapping them on the car so I'm fairly dialed in from the get-go.

Thanks again!

 

Lots of well-respected posters with good on and off track experience here... Anybody?

Also, it looks like one set of Swift springs I ended up with are 7" length, and the other set 8"... apparently Swift has a some conflicting fitment databases. Will this be a problem, or is there enough adjustability in the height/preload adjustments to make up for it?

 

how so light? i thought these cars had curb weight of 3800 ;lbs