I am now off on hols at 5.30 Gatwick thurs morn. To the great unknown of Nashville Tennessee, not my ideal cup of tea but `er indoors chose it, but my compensation sits in the garage almost ready to go. Corner weights, having read the book is it worth trying to basic set up using bathroom scales and how near to equal is acceptible bearing in mind at end of race less fuel than start. should you alter by changing shock platform height? I did see at lydden equipment for setting up corners in the paddock next to the scrutts bay, was this for anybodys use. see you in 10 days Ernie

well worth it, trouble is you need a 100% flat floor to do it properly, dont forget to weigh yourself and put the same weight in the car,

yup adjusting spring platforms id the way to do it, you will only transfer weight diagonally front to back, get it as near as you poss can.

bath room scales, digital ones are easiest to read, will sufice they wont 100% but close enough, the flat floor is a must though.

all IMHO of course.

Hi Ernie,

I have the correct equipment, in my workshop based near Brands and i now offer this as a service.

It makes quite a difference to the balance of a car to get the corner weights equalised. Bathroom scales are OK, but the misses will kill you if you over load them and break them. Much easier to do on a proper setup of 4 scales.

Give me a call on your return, hope the seat worked out OK for you! 07770 405688

Kind regards,

Darren - GTS

or you could do what I did, go to asda and buy 8 scales, use them in pairs and you'll have to be a fat bar steward to break them.

Just make sure you calibrate them all using the same weight around the value they'll be reading......something nice, heavy and that will be constant for around 10 minutes (that's you by the way)

I've been tinkering with my corner weights this year after discovering how much difference it can make. If they're out of balance, particularly side to side, then the handling is seriously screwy.

I've taken advice from a more experienced (and much more successful) driver from another series and he set mine to be asymmetric for best performance round right-handed circuits. Unfortunately i'm just not good enough to get to grips with that properly and in the heat of things i keep forgetting that i've effectively got more grip in right-handers than lefts. I'd say to keep things simple at the start, and just get all 4 as even as you can.

Cheers

Rob (also in Nuneaton. Small world!)

Silly little story about assymetric race car setups.

Its well known that NASCAR oval racers run assymetric setups. In the Canadian version CASCAR they run basically the same rules but with budget restrictions on things like shocks etc.

The company i worked for invited to do a CASCAR race, they were loaned a car which was setup assymetrically, we had no idea about oval racing so we thought stick with what we know and put a symettric set up on it. Scott Maxwell drove the car, who had been Paul Traceys main competition in Indy Lights. He was a good driver but had never driven a stock car and had been away from ovals for years. He jumped in the car first time out and qualified mid field and finished 5th. The car handled like a dream!

Not exactly science but it did make us wonder whether the assymetric setups really did make a difference.

Darren

Hi yall I'm back from good ole tenesse. Why should you visit JD distillery if it`s in a dry state & you can't taste or buy it? But if you old un's like good music & food nashville & memphis is the the place to go.
corner weights please bear with me on this one, If all the platforms are set to the lowest settings to start and then after final adj. all end up at a different height. A would this make the spring rate on each shock different and B if this is ok when adj spring platforms for personal pref I asume the amount of adj to be the same on each regardles of settings

Spring rate is the same no matter how much you compress it (within reason, ie if the metal rings touch then you've run out of compression! ) So adjusting the platforms will not change the spring rate.

Sorry, don't understand question B

Dickie

Thanks Dicki, let me try to clarify. am I right to say that for wet weather a softer ride is prefferd which is set by shock adj. and raising or lowering the spring platforms withing reason is used to alter corners and ride height? have I answered my own question

Correct!

Having the actual weights isn't as important as just balancing the car from side to side. Here's one take on it: LINK