Quinton

iTrader: (2)

I picked me up some scales today and weighed my car. It's off about 15grams left to right and about 70grams from front to back.

So how do I go about setting up my car? Do I got for equal weight at all 4 corners or...? I don't know the principles or philosophies of racing setups though.

Can some of you more experienced racers give me some tips?
Thank you!

(my rc18t is WAY off from left to right )

ae_ntc3

i read somewhere that you balance the car out by adjusting the collar on the threaded shock body which also increses/decreases ride height.

Quinton

iTrader: (2)

I don't mean balance as far as ride height, I mean balance as in it's off 60grams from left to right.
Just add lead weights? or what?

ae_ntc3

i dont know why but it also adjust the weight. if you can imagine that on the left side of the car the ride height is 1mm and on the right side of the car the ride height is 10mm.this will put more weight over the left side of the car making it heavier.this applys front to rear and left to right.

Ian C

HI. Weight on each wheel will make a difference to handling but as standard the parts are usually arranged so that the car will be balanced as close as possible. I wouldnt worry too much about it. What car is it you have though?

ANd regarding adding weight to balance it out, dont. that may balance the car left to right but will decrease your cornering speed, acceleration and braking distance greatly. Keep your car as light as possible regardless of wieght distribution.

BimmerDriver

Quinton, depending on your ride height, screw the spring adjuster up on the light wheel, or down on the heavy wheel. This will change the left/right balance of those wheels. Notice that when you jack weight in the left rear, you correspondingly add weight to the right front. Weight adjustments occur on the opposite side of the other end of the car. You may have to adjust the front springs to get the rear balance correct. Maybe you can slide your battery a little right/left, forward/back to get better balance, as well as your ESC and receiver.

For road course racing it is better to be as close to 50-50 split as possible, you need to make left and right turns. For ovals where you always turn left try to obtain more left side weight overall, but make the right rear a little heavier than the left rear. If the car oversteers, move the weight a little more to the left rear.

Perez

iTrader: (4)

We measure our 1/5th scale cars with scales and it really makes a difference. the first thing you want to do is take the sway bars off or disconnect them and make sure the ride heights are correct. Put the car on the scales. You can drive yourself crazy trying to get everything perfect, but you can get a good driving car if the weights are in the ball park. This is done by adjusting the shock collars, or adding weight. Sometimes when you adjust the front right shock, you might see a result of more weight on the rear left scale. Sometimes not. Just play around a bit till its close. I ve always worried about side to side weight rather than front to rear. So, after the weights are in order mark the position of the shock collars with a sharpie and reconnect the sway bars. the sway bars should not effect the weight distribution. If it does you got to tweak the swaybars. Take the car off of the scales and remeasure the ride heights. After adjusting the weight distribution with the shock collars, the ride height might be too high or too low. Use the marks on the shock collars and adjust the shock collars equally till you find the ride height you desire.
This isnt the only way to do this, My friend Eric P. always adjusts the weight distribution soley by tweaking the sway bars and not the shock collars. And he is the fastest 1/5th scale driver in the U.S.
so try it and report back
P.S. make sure the surface your doing this on is perfectly flat. Use a level.

bsmooth

iTrader: (18)

..I read in another forum that you should mark the scales so the tire sits exactly in the same place. If you picked the car up, then set it back down on the scales a few mm right or left, i'm sure you would get different weight readings.

Quinton

iTrader: (2)

I'm not going to get TOO picky I just wanted to get an idea off how the wieght was distributed on a couple of my r/c's.
My yokomo gt-4 is 325g and 340g on the fronts and
395g and 410g on the rears.
The lighter side has the fuel tank on it and it was empty so I don't think I will mess with it from left to right.

Now my rc18t is WAY off, 115g on the left and 60g on the right.

ae_ntc3

when i balanced my car i used longacre scales and it did not matter where i placed the wheel on the scale.i balanced a 1/10th nitro tourer and a 1/5th.

Quinton

iTrader: (2)

I didn't want to fork out the dough for digital scales so I just went to Wally and got the cheap food scales.
I'ld like to weigh my 1/8 buggy and savage too but they're only 500gram scales.
I bet they could really benefit from some balancing.

Artificial-I

iTrader: (17)

On the subject of scales. Has anyone used the Integy Weight Distribution system?

Slotmachine

iTrader: (4)

If you put your car back on the scales and adjust 1 shock collar 1/4 of a turn you will see how drastically the weight changes. You will not get the weight even front to rear , but you do want to get it even left to right. This will help to make the car handle equally in both left and right corners and it will help under braking making it stay in a straighter line.............

Pyramid

I wrote some example about doing weight balancing. Just clik on the last line of my signature.

slooookomo

iTrader: (4)

Real race cars use scales to do corner weight. There are two ways to balance a car, by measurement or by weight.

Most nitro cars are fairly well balanced left to right by design. Using the Hudy droop guage with all shocks and sway bar disconnected and measure your droop are the same. Then connect your sway bar and use the linkage on sway bar to make sure they are equal on both sides. Next connect the shocks and put equal amount of preload on the shocks to get your desire ride height. Because by design they are balanced left to right, measurement will get you close to perfect.

On 5th scale or electric, the weight distribution are not that great left to right. You will need to use corner weight. Put the car on a Hudy jig first, slide scales under all 4 corners. Use spring preload to adjust until car is balance. The result is a car with different ride height left to right. Make sure you push the car down and measure on rebound.

Because of slops in suspension or bearings, it will be impossible to get it perfect.