Miaugi

A friend of mine has access to a set a corner scales, is it worth it to balance my '06 for mostly street driving?

Cape Cod Bob

From my own personal experience I would say NO.
I could not drive in a straight line on the highway. The car would dart from side to side. I would constantly have to input steering corrections to maintain a somewhat straight line.
Bob

LehmanZ06

NO-------

Not unless you do it perfectly.....Put on Hoosier's....and think you can outrun Helicopters......

If you want to lighten the car----then go on a diet.

TOTALLY POINTLESS FOR THE STREET

Manufacturer probably assumes 1/2 fuel load 180 lbs driver........

You could probably corner weight it and never know the difference on the street....unless you were driving 10/10ths..........and at that rate you would ball up the car in no time.

davidfarmer

Totally disagree. If you have adjustable end links for your bars, it can eliminate bar shift and the clunking that happens when the bar slides up against the control arm.

Also, may cars I've seen directly from GM have the corner weights off by hundreds of pounds.

I agree that it won't be a noticable performance gain, but it can help prevent contact issues, and avoid certain types of tire wear in extreme cases.

63Corvette

My 04 Z06 has a track alignment, and is cornerbalanced and bumpsteered, and it drives perfectly on the street, with no handling or tire wear issues (yet). A year ago, I drove it on a 4200 mile road trip. It tracks straight with hands off. Don't know why you would not want it done.....However, I have "0" ZERO toe. Do not align with toe out.

Solofast

David is right, you won't notice a lot, but if a car is aligned and corner weighted a discerning driver can feel it. I used to be able to feel the difference turning left as opposed to right on my C4's, since the ability to cornerweight a stock class car was limited, but with the Z driving it hard on the street in places is a pleasure. Depends on how far out of square your cars was in the first place, but you won't know if you don't do it.

If it doesn't cost you anything, do it and enjoy...

Cape Cod Bob

Wish I had the car still with the adjustable endlinks and corner balancing I'd let you drive it and then you'd know exactly how it sucked.
And I didn't do this myself in the corner of my garage. I had a highly respectable race car shop do it.
Also I found out(after the fact)that the Z06 is prettly well balanced (mine was off about 1 or 2%) so it was a total waste of $$ for me.
Now maybe the older cars carry a different story but my C6 Z06 was in pretty good shape right out of the box.
So, I ripped off those adjustable endlinks and put the car back the way it was, and now I can go down the highway or around some cones, without the car searching all over the place.

Bob

fcarga

I vote for corner weighting. However, if you have a "crappy" alignment, the car is out of square, bad/worn tires, cut bushings etc, corner weighting won't be worth a damn. Also lots of shops say they can do alignments and corner weighting and they don't know "jack". Go ask these people what the proper ride height is and where it's measured, ask them what the proper torque values are and you'll find very few competent shops. Just ask the guys the difference in how their cars feel and perform after someplace like Phoenix set up their car.

ErnieN85

Might not help depends on your sensativity and how far off your car is.
Mine wasn't off a lot but I sure like the difference.
BTW mine was done by Phoenix! Great job

corvettenilesg

I had my 1997 corvette corner weighted and a mild autocross alignment by Danny Popp and it drove much better on the highway, less darting back and forth... and it really corners much better.
(you don't want a full autocross alignment on the street, I believe that will make the car dart left and right on the highway)
Unless your friend really knows what he is doing, I would leave it alone, or have a real professional do the corner weighting, alignment, car height, etc. complete package.

kelp

Alignment #1, for daily and track. Cornerweighting (done right) #2 for track. Saw little difference daily. I'll keep you on the track during those "little suprises".

Turns out my car was only 50 lbs off before C/W. Now, off only 2 (yes, 2 lbs!!!).

Miaugi

Is that with or without the driver in the car?

kelp

Er, duh. Sorry, with. 185 lbs - both shoes attached.

Bimota Guy

Sounds like some of the issues raised are alignment issues, not corner-weighting. At the risk of sounding "parental", if you drive hard enough on the street to really need your car corner-weighted, I hope I live no where near you. Go to a track day and let your car do what it was made to do!

Cape Cod Bob

Nope, you don't sound parential, just uninformed.
Not sure of the others here but I race my car mainly at high speed autox's. Have done many, many track days going back to the early 90's. Any car setup that is beyond my tools or expertise I have done by the best shops I can find (to my knowledge) in the northeast.
I had my car cornerweighted last year (and aligned) by what I thought was the best race shop here in the eastern U.S.
Simple truth is that my times and the car's performance were compromised after that was done. Began to think I was just entering the "old fart" stage of my life and maybe I should take up golf.
Since I don't give up easily, I thought I'd try taking off the adjustable end links, and putting the car back to the way it was.
BINGO, back fast again!
So, maybe the work was not done correctly. Maybe the alignment was off.
All I know is the car is performing the way I want it to now and I'm happy with the way it's handling. I suppose I could go back to the shop and have them redo the job. It's a 7 hour drive from my house.
But I'm not interested in playing around with the cornerbalancing anymore and the car is performing great.
Now, if I lived near Danny Popp, I would definitely see him.
Bob

kelp

Interesting. Your reversibility of "improvements" to restore performance verifies that something was wrong. I do not really know what could have happened. My cornerweighting was done with me in the car, but when I installed the T-1 bars, I was not in the car (uh, well....of course, I was beneath it!). Thus my links were not preloaded. Perhaps yours were and it does not work well that way. Some of these things do not make realy good sense, I try to figure them out best I can. Conclusion: I would definately try again - with another shop, or some friends who have scales.

Oh, BTW I C/W with 1/2 tank of gas.

Bimota Guy

CCB, I am confused since your original reply was NOT to CW for street use. Suggest you re-read mine which concurs.

Regards,
-Steve

rickkym

I was thinking about having my car corner weighted, but it's suspension is a stock 97 setup. Can it still be corner weighted or do you need adjustable end links (that would make sense).

How much does the corner weighting typically cost, and would a stock suspension really benifit?

(Hope I'm not thread-jacking)

Thanks!!

ErnieN85

That's ok Info is what it's about!
Yes you really need adjustable end links Vette Brakes & products in Fla. about $110

aside from that your car is the same as all of ours in the adjustability department!
Corner weighting is just the icing on the cake. When you get the alignment right it makes sure it is equalized between left and right cornering. If you use non adjustable links it may (probably) will put a preload on the sway bars which will negate (some what) the corner weighting.