Corner balancing with coilovers

[BTM]

Hey guys,

Any of you have experience going from a standard strut/shock & spring setup to coilover, with respect to the difference that being able to corner balance has made on the car's handling?

My thinking is that there are three main areas of improvement available when looking just at springing & damping (i.e. not sway bars, links, and all that other suspension related stuff);

1) Firmer springing and damping: this can be had with even a budget setup like FRPP shocks & BMR Handling springs (the stiff ones...not the Performance ones) for ~$800 or less

2) Adjustable damping (compression / rebound): cheapest way is probably Koni shocks/struts with whatever springs you want, these seem to be nearly same price as non-adjustable FRPP

3) Corner balancing: need coilovers, and if you also want adjustable damping, you're probably in for ~$3K

So my question is - for the S550 GT PP, how valuable is being able to corner balance? I'd imagine some cars / chassis are more sensitive than others to this. Anyone got experience with corner weights of a performance standard suspension vs. coilover (i.e. how unbalanced was it before), and how different did handling feel after being corner balanced?

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[Gearz]

In general, the advantages of coilovers are adjustable suspension height, the ability to do corner balancing, and they make it easy to change spring rates.

By itself, corner balancing doesn't make a huge difference in handling. Taken to an extreme, setting the corner balances way off from nominal will make the car turn really good in one direction but bad in the other. This is what the circle track guys do with adding "wedge", they're changing the corner balance. You can be close without getting perfect and it'll handle just fine.

I've found that in the long run it's best to go ahead and get nice coilovers (with good shock valving, like Bilsteins, JRZ, etc.) and tune the handling with spring rates - for a competitive track/autox car. If it's just for the street then don't bother with coilovers.

 

[Whiskey11]

In general, the advantages of coilovers are adjustable suspension height, the ability to do corner balancing, and they make it easy to change spring rates.

By itself, corner balancing doesn't make a huge difference in handling. Taken to an extreme, setting the corner balances way off from nominal will make the car turn really good in one direction but bad in the other. This is what the circle track guys do with adding "wedge", they're changing the corner balance. You can be close without getting perfect and it'll handle just fine.

I've found that in the long run it's best to go ahead and get nice coilovers (with good shock valving, like Bilsteins, JRZ, etc.) and tune the handling with spring rates - for a competitive track/autox car. If it's just for the street then don't bother with coilovers.

You left out the most important aspect of quality coilovers: Having dampers valved to match the spring rates.

On my 2009 I went from Steeda Sport springs and Tokico D-Specs to Ground Control Coilovers with 440/200 sprinsg then 550/275 springs and that car was absolutely sublime on an autocross course. Absolutely insane. Car rode better on the coilovers too because of the above mentioned matched to spring rate dampers, even if the GC Coilover setup used twin tube Koni shocks custom valved to the spring rates.

 

[BTM]

Excellent advice, thanks guys!

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