Corner Weighting?

[cantfind1]

Have to say John I disagree! You don t need to explain to me the process or what it achieves that's not what I am asking.

I am asking where to get it done, I have had it done many time in Australia and America and only once over here but was not quite happy with it. So I am looking for another place, quite simple really.

Corner weighting is essential if you fit coilovers to a car that is going to be used on track, even if you can't get it spot on, which in a right hand drive M3 is virtually impossible (they were designed as a left hand drive car afterall) it will be miles better than if you had not performed the simple corner weighting.

You can t just fit coilovers measure the ride height and be done with it if you are going to do any serious driving. End of!

This is one of the reasons many people don't use Thorneys anymore, wrong information in my opinion.

[_Nathan_]

It is a completely different process to setting up suspension and geo, dont mix the two up.

Done as part of setting up and geo not saying it is the same thing.

As with all these things you can find a compromise that works well for a trackday car, sure it might be a little out when you have differing passenger sizes or with different fuel loads but still better than not having it done at all (and arguably no different to a race car where your corner weighting is compromised on fuel load between beginning and end of a race \ fuel stint).

As an example Plans did my Noble with 40kg in the passenger seat as it was a halfway house between passenger and none, in a car as heavy as a road going M3 the weight of the drivers clothes is neither here nor there!

PS. Fuel is approx 0.75 kg per litre :smokin:

[Thorney]

Have to say John I disagree! You don t need to explain to me the process or what it achieves that's not what I am asking.

Simply trying to be informative

Corner weighting is essential if you fit coilovers to a car that is going to be used on track, even if you can't get it spot on, which in a right hand drive M3 is virtually impossible (they were designed as a left hand drive car afterall) it will be miles better than if you had not performed the simple corner weighting.

Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion, however getting it 'spot on' as you say will change as you change weight in the car, hence its a pointless exercise unless you maintain that as a constant, for most people even on track day cars thats important to know.

You can t just fit coilovers measure the ride height and be done with it if you are going to do any serious driving. End of!

I believe I said that quite clearly, I even made a seperate post about it, the process of geo is abour camber, toe, castor, trail, height, tyre pressure, dampers, spring settings, spring types etc

This is one of the reasons many people don't use Thorneys anymore, wrong information in my opinion.

As you say in your opinion, which of course you are entitled to. However, having founded the CSL Cup, won multiple races in it myself (14 seconds last Donington round is still the largest margin of any win this season or last) and running multiple cars both race race winning I'll rely on our credentials.

Take a look at last year, at Donington Park I ran my car on 6 degrees of negative camber, Dan Stringfellow and the others all took the piss in the paddock saying it looked silly, fast forward to now and the whole grid is running 5-6 degrees from last years 3-4 degrees. Dan was having major issues in handling and set up last season, even considering changing suspension, I did three laps of Brands Hatch and suggested stiffer springs and softer damping (which was the exact opposit to what he'd been told by all the self appointed 'experts'). Fast forward to now, he's stuck with Nitron who have redeveloped his suspension with guess what? Stiffer springs and softer damping and hes winning straight away (end of last season he didn't beat me once in last 4 races).

I think I have a rough idea what to do.

My point is that corner weighting on a car where the actual chassis weight displacement will not meaningfully change over the course of its use is very much worth doing, but for 99.99% of all track day cars the range of weight variance that the car will undergo even during an average track day makes the process excessive and there are better things to spend money on to get ultimate track times. If you disagree with that then fine, vive la difference but please dont say I'm wrong, we simply dont agree, thats fair enough.:beer:

[Thorney]

Done as part of setting up and geo not saying it is the same thing.

As with all these things you can find a compromise that works well for a trackday car, sure it might be a little out when you have differing passenger sizes or with different fuel loads but still better than not having it done at all (and arguably no different to a race car where your corner weighting is compromised on fuel load between beginning and end of a race \ fuel stint).

As an example Plans did my Noble with 40kg in the passenger seat as it was a halfway house between passenger and none, in a car as heavy as a road going M3 the weight of the drivers clothes is neither here nor there!

PS. Fuel is approx 0.75 kg per litre :smokin:

Nathan this is my point, there is no such thing as a compromise corner weight - its all compromise as its a dynamic. If that dynamic is minimised then corner weighting has a positive effect but this positive effect is minimised for each change in that dynamic.

Think of it this way, if you're 2 feet from the dartboard you're accuracy is pretty good, paying for glasses so you can see the board better makes sense. If you're 40 feet from the board being able to see a bit better isn't like to make much difference!

[Thorney]

As an example Plans did my Noble with 40kg in the passenger seat as it was a halfway house between passenger and none :smokin:

You see this makes no sense at all, so unless you had a 40kg passenger in the car the car wasn't corner weighted at all, in other words the car was deliberately out? Weird.

Tell me this, do you weigh your passengers? Do you re-corner weight your cars each time you fill/refill with fuel? If yes then corner weight away, if not then.......

[cantfind1]

Simply trying to be informative



Fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion, however getting it 'spot on' as you say will change as you change weight in the car, hence its a pointless exercise unless you maintain that as a constant, for most people even on track day cars thats important to know.




I believe I said that quite clearly, I even made a seperate post about it, the process of geo is abour camber, toe, castor, trail, height, tyre pressure, dampers, spring settings, spring types etc



As you say in your opinion, which of course you are entitled to. However, having founded the CSL Cup, won multiple races in it myself (14 seconds last Donington round is still the largest margin of any win this season or last) and running multiple cars both race race winning I'll rely on our credentials.

Take a look at last year, at Donington Park I ran my car on 6 degrees of negative camber, Dan Stringfellow and the others all took the piss in the paddock saying it looked silly, fast forward to now and the whole grid is running 5-6 degrees from last years 3-4 degrees. Dan was having major issues in handling and set up last season, even considering changing suspension, I did three laps of Brands Hatch and suggested stiffer springs and softer damping (which was the exact opposit to what he'd been told by all the other self appointed 'experts'). Fast forward to now, he's stuck with Nitron who have redeveloped his suspension with guess what? Stiffer springs and softer damping and hes winning straight away (end of last season he didn't beat me once in last 4 races).

I think I have a rough idea what to do.

My point is that corner weighting on a car where the actual chassis weight displacement will not meaningfully change over the course of its use is very much worth doing, but for 99.99% of all track day cars the range of weight variance that the car will undergo even during an average track day makes the process excessive and there are better things to spend money on to get ultimate track times. If you disagree with that then fine, vive la difference but please dont say I'm wrong, we simply dont agree, thats fair enough.:beer:

Fair enough, but I think his wins are down to his engine mapping which was done by a friend of mine! Hence why you wanted his car compression checked after he beat you and you couldn't understand why, as you thought it was running to much compression John! lol

I'll stick with my opinion of your company thanks. And yes it is my opinion don't want to put anyone off!

I think you underestimate the knowledge that some people have mate!

[Thorney]

Actually that was Jamie Martin at first race at Rockingham, and the less I say about him the better really, sometimes running a large teams means I get things ascribed to me that are in fact said or done by others, comes with the territory really.

I've no idea who you are, but you seem to know Dan, ring him up, in fact ring his dad even, at Brands Hatch he drove my car (now raced by Nick) and he asked me to drive his car, ie he wanted my opinion. He came back after a stint in mine and said how well it handled, especially the kerbs. He asked my opinion on his car and I said it was simply springs too soft and he'd been going stiffer and stiffer on the damping to compensate. All of the other people he'd spoken to (including a few Kumho racers) all agreed with what he was doing when I said that was wrong he was dubious (undestandably I guess) At Oulton Park he drove well (won first race) and his dad came over to us and said "you were right, you're the only people we've spoken to about this who suggested that and you're right, thank you"

Credit has to go to Nitron for working with Dan (and I believe Shirmer) to redevelop the kit but the overall idea, based on three laps of a wet track to go stifer springs and softer damping was me, sorry.

Dan is quick because Dan can drive, he'd be quicker though if he made some changes, which I think he knows but what the hell, if I'm such a nasty person why would I offer to help.....nah far easier to post on a forum.

[_Nathan_]

John - Do you come in each lap and corner weight based upon the fuel used so far? No.

Now take that compromise and expand it a bit, I'm not saying the car will be perfect but then no car is once it has used some fuel etc. The fuel load in my car (and indeed your M3) could vary by 85-90KG if it started with a full tank and ran to the reserve collector then add some driver weight varience on driver change, still worth doing though IMO and I assume you'll still corner weight your e92 for British GT?

You found 0.7 seconds a lap through corner weighting your vx220, if you could find half of that by being half way towards perfect from your starting point then it is worth doing no?

Of course it isn't going to be perfect at all points during the day but then geo won't be either after you've banged it off a load of curbs and people still set that.

Anyway, my opinion is just that, not trying to change your mind just putting another opinion there for people to read, I've not run a race team so that puts me on the back foot anyway. No point in arguing

[cantfind1]

I have never said you were a nasty person.

All I wanted to know was where to get my car corner weighted in this country near London.

Not a hard request!

I know you do corner weighting but I didn t go to you because of bad experiences in the past and once again I am proved right by your in ability to listen to the customer.

You don t need to know who I am, it doesn t matter. The fact of the matter is that you don't know everything there is to know about these cars, but you assume you do.

Thanks for pointing out that corner weighting is dynamic and that fuel changes during a race and weight changes! wow I never realised. :bigcry:

My simple point is and what Nathan pointed out is that no you will not get it perfect but that doesn't matter, half way is better than way off. Which is what people with road legal track cars are trying to achieve! QED

That's why we spend stupid amounts of money on gaining 20HP, only to find that most of the modifications exhaust, remap, etc etc do bollocks all!

Until you find someone that really knows what they are doing and unfortunately I have not found that person to be you John.

I am out!

[Thorney]

John - Do you come in each lap and corner weight based upon the fuel used so far? No.

No, but we know we use between 22-28litres of fuel per race with some leeway for extra time etc so worse case we're out by about 20kg. Minimal.

Now take that compromise and expand it a bit, I'm not saying the car will be perfect but then no car is once it has used some fuel etc. The fuel load in my car (and indeed your M3) could vary by 85-90KG if it started with a full tank and ran to the reserve collector then add some driver weight varience on driver change, still worth doing though IMO

THats what I dont get, 85-90kg variance is so big that it makes corner weighting near enough moot (uness there has been a problem with the car) in other regards.

and I assume you'll still corner weight your e92 for British GT?

Yes, we test and corner weight it full, empty and midway, look at the laptimes and the data, however with endurance races the compromise is so large (different drivers) we only do it to check the data and see how weight affects lap times, the car isn't corner weighted in the same way as we would a sprint car, theres no point.

You found 0.7 seconds a lap through corner weighting your vx220, if you could find half of that by being half way towards perfect from your starting point then it is worth doing no?

The VX220 weighed 785kg's wet and only had 160bhp, its a momentum car so things like corner weighting (which we did actually to change some tyre wear patterns we were getting can make a much larger difference)

Of course it isn't going to be perfect at all points during the day but then geo won't be either after you've banged it off a load of curbs and people still set that.

Completely agree

Anyway, my opinion is just that, not trying to change your mind just putting another opinion there for people to read, I've not run a race team so that puts me on the back foot anyway. No point in arguing

Not arguing. My only point was that someone wanted to spend money on their track day and I was simply suggesting that money would be better spent elsewhere, thats my opinion, its not shared no problem.

Put it this way, if this thread was "I've got £300 in my pocket, I want to be quicker on track, corner weight the car or get some instruction?" we wouldnt have this discussion.

[Thorney]

To answer the question.


Top of my head, BM Sport (SE), Plans (SW) are the London ones that spring to mind but sure there are others.

[_Nathan_]

Agreed on last point.

[glendog74]

[DazBlackCSL]

These really need corner weighting :smokin:

[glendog74]

Weigh-hey! :thumbs: