Corner Weight

By Jon R. Belanger

In the last issue we covered the first step in chassis set-up; ride height. With that accomplished the next step is Corner Weight. For once, your vintage vee will be much easier to work on than a current vee. Both cable suspension and Z-bar equiped cars lend themselves to this proceedure quite easily.

Here's how to do it. Get your car back on that smooth, level garage floor with the tires aired properly and the driver sitting in the car. Disconnect the Z-bar to prevent any chance of a false reading, then settle the suspension by rolling the car back and forth. Assuming that a set of big buck scales is out of the question you can make do with a set of conventional bathroom (or UPS) scales. The suspensions movement has a tendancy to jam the mechanism of most conventional scales, but this can be avoided by placing the scales on a piece of plywood with a couple of pipes under the wood to allow sideways movement. If you cannot come up with a complete set of four scales, two will do... but you'll have to use a set of dummy blocks equal to the height of the scales to keep the car level while being weighed.

What you need to remember is that weight transfers diagonally i.e. as you raise the spring perch on the left rear, the right front will increase in weight. Likewise, as you lower the spring perch on the right rear, the left front will decrease in weight. Vees, because of their design, will generally weigh quite heavy in the rear as compared to the front. This is OK! Don't worry about balancing ratios (front to rear) on both sides of the car. Just try to keep the corners within 5lbs of each other... front to front and rear to rear.

With this accomplished, your Vee should handle more predictably and should corner and brake the same in both right and left hand corners.

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