Wow.



My car is a completely different animal. I went in for corner balancing at Pro Tuning Performance in Ft. Worth. Long drive, but they hooked me up for $125 bucks on a Sunday, a fraction of the cost of other shops in the Dallas area. On the way home I drove by some curvy roads I am very familiar with, and I could totally feel a difference in the handling of the car. I was able to take the curves faster, while having my car feel more stable. I was very very happy! (Note that I also installed wider wheels and Toyo T1R's so I'm sure that plays a part as well)

Then on Tuesday, i took my car in for an alignment at Cobb Tuning. We discussed my driving style 'aggressive' and my needs 'performance at track days, spirited driving on streets, but still daily drivable' and they set me up with a performance alignment that 'would reward me for aggressive driving and handle much better than stock, but not totally beat up my tires'.

I picked up the car and on the drive home, oh my! The car handles infinitely better than before. It begs me to push it harder through the curves, enter at higher speeds and get on the gas earlier. Turn in is super sharp and crisp.

I was happy with my handling before, after installing the hotchkis sway bars and bilstien coilvovers. I had no clue what I was missing. I HIGHLY recommend everyone who wants more out of their car than accelerating in a straight line to go get corner balanced and aligned at Cobb!

 

Do you know what they adjusted to corner balance the car? Sounds like a good investment if you're serious about tweaking everything you can from the car for track purposes.

 

You need coil overs to do this. No way to balance the OEM suspension.

 

To corner balance the car they adjusted the ride height at each corner, till the weights at the diagonals matched up. More detail on corner balancing is available in the link in my first post but the summary is:

By changing the ride height at each wheel, you change how much weight it bears. So they put the car up on 4 interlinked scales, one under each wheel, and adjust heights till the diagonal weight totals are equal to each other.

Spent the weekend at MSR, and it was totally worth it! Now I need seats and a harness so I can cope with the added G's... it never ends!

 

Got a set of Bride seats available

 

Adam, man that sounds awesome.
I wana do this 1 day. $125 sounds like a good deal.

 

Yeah, it's normally $400, and next cheapest i found was $350. You are welcome to a ride in my car to see how it handles now.. Of course you don't have an earlier frame of reference but you can compare to your car's current handling I guess.

 

That be really nice of you... You coming to the meet next weekend?

 

Yup! I won't be able to stay for long though as I just bought a house an hour ago, and will need to be painting, caulking and fixing the next few weekends.

 

^ CONGRATS! Good time to buy.
Cool, we will take both our cars for a spin n check out the difference(s). I will PM you as the date gets closer.
Congrats again and enjoy your new house.

 

Did they put ballast in for driver weight while corner balancing?

 

Yup, they actually used Brake Rotors to simulate my weight in the driver seat. I better not gain or loose any weight

 

OK cool. I'm extremely interested in this.

125 sounds too good to be true, was this a special deal for you or something?

Also, what did Cobb charge you for a 4 wheel alignment?

 

Maintaining your diet so that your corner balancing effort is not gone waste. Hmmmm.

 

a little birdy told me the only way to properly corner balance our cars is with adjustable end-links on the sway bars..

do you have them on your hotchkis?