So, I have been debating buying a longacre setup or coming up with something of my own...not that madd thing where you buy like home depot scales.

What are you guys doing outside of just going to a shop?

I have some ideas but it looks like the technology isnt really available at a club level right now.

My dilema is I change tire sizes depending on the track, currently racing Roebling at the end of the month im at 225/45/15, Sebring 205-50-15, Daytona back to 225s.

So my ride height is changing constantly and its about $300 ish to get the corner balancing done per visit. SO 3 visits and i pay for a set of longacre almost.

DIRTY19, I think this could have a lot of tech in it and I did search but didnt see what I was looking for specifically for my ideas.

 

I think a set of long acre scales, or equivalent, is a good investment. You can offer a few local guys balance service and you can pay off the cost of the scales pretty quickly.

 

what is this home depot wizardry you speak of?

 

You are right there isnt much if anything that suits this.. Im subscribed!

 

Subscribed as well!

 

http://madracingproducts.com/html/goods___services.html

Others have come up with similar setups with like extra rigid scales from home depot. I have seen some using bathroom scales welding them all together or something. A lot of the forums with this info have the images not working.

 

For the cheap guys like me...

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/ICP-102030

http://www.circletrack.com/featuredv.../photo_06.html

 

That seems like a whole lotta work for not a lot of accurate results. If you don't want to pay for the high end digital scales, a set of Ruggles scales will get you a reasonable number for next to nothing. They use levers to allow the use of bathroom scales. While the accuracy isn't lab grade, it is plenty good enough for what you are doing.

I started my racing career with a set of those. They work. I have stepped up to a nice set of Longacre digitals. Sold the Ruggles for $50. You could have a complete set for less than 300.

 

I have found the single wheel scale is accurate as a longacre 4 wheel setup, that is IF you get the height of the hub scale to have the car as near as ride height as possible. If it is a 1/4 inch off it will hurt the accuracy a lot.

 

But how would you be able to check the weights with the "race" tire pressures? Different tracks create different "hot" tire pressures, ( say Daytona VS Robeling Road), and you should be corner weighting with hot pressures as it changes weights(alignments should be with "hot" pressures also.

 

Don't mean to be disrespectful but really, c'mon, we are for the majority , weekend racers. Heck I think that I've corner weight the car once with JW help.
Corner weight is overrated, get in the dang thing and drive it , all this hupla do about corner weight and left foot braking and blablabla.
One of the fastest drivers I know that will probably drive laps around lots of peeps here , including me, didn't even check the tire pressures. He changed the shocks when the car was bouncing all over the place.
So drive the thing. Hot tire pressures, maybe at another level but not here.

 

If your hot pressures average at most tracks say, 36 then set them at 36. From my experience on scales, air pressure does so very little on the scales compared to on the track, it takes quite a few psi movement in one tire to see the scale numbers move much. That's why you dial the weights in with your coil overs and ballast first. On track you can definitely feel a couple psi though it's more for fine tuning at a track for a particular day or track condition then on scales.

 

I have to say, the corner balancing I had done by a local shop made the car leaps and bounds better for me.

No disrespect, but left braking and corner balancing your car is in 2 different worlds. When you are dropping a grand or more on a weekend race, I personally want the car to be properly setup so I can get the most out of it.




My idea I was looking at was using load cells or a psi sensor inside of thin mats, I just can't find anything like it.


I will probably just end up with a long acre set and call it a day but wanted to see if anyone had any better ideas or methods.

 

Subscribed. I love stuff like this.

Hopefully someone chimes in with some sweet garage engineering.

 

Why not do them exactly what came off each track? Too much work? If you check the pressures after each session, and write it down, why not use it? If you set cambers by tire temp across the tire, why not weights by pressure?

 

i love that im in a hipo college. i can just head over to the hipo sns class and get my car balanced there.

 

i mean do high performance race teams ever sell their sets for cheaper than new? is that a possible route.. cause they wat the new biggest and best thing the gotta make room and sell off other stuff i would think

 

No they buy the best and never let it go.
We are talking scales that cost a couple grand. Not something any of us would consider picking up used..
If they did sell them it would be out of our budgets.

 

Setting tire pressures and loggin pyrometer temps are far more effective and that's why they are utilized often. Even then, a pyrometer reading straight off the track can only do so much and as a backup you must observe wear. If you are that sensitive to your car and driving then go for it and setup the car for the multiple air pressures..one day when you have to adjust your psi at the track for a certain condition you can throw that out time balancing it out the window. Nascar is the only place that 1/2 lb air pressures are used to tweak the balance/wedge. I don't think the best road race teams including F1 does that, because it is far too detailed in my opinion and most people here wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a few psi anyhow.

 

Hoosier takes some of the guessing out with some baseline specs for tires.

Harbor Freight scales!! ha ha

My buddy might come through and is going to loan me some Long Acre scales for now.

 

A few psi? That's not my experience. When a car is properly set up close to optimum, you could have a situation where the rear end is stepping out just a tad too much. So I came in and dropped the rear tire pressures by 0.5 psi hot each and it made the car just right, added more confidence because I was feeling less likely to lose it on some corners, I was able to push closer to the limit, and proceeded to a decent 1/2 second lap time improvement. If the car is not set up well, then changing pressures by small amounts will not be a useful tuning tool.

As for corner balancing, it is essential if you have adjustable perch heights and are not running stock dampers. You can be so far off in terms of cross-weight without scales that you would be amazed. I have checked my friends cars (they are all too cheap to buy their own) and many might have an error of 200 lbs total (50 lbs off each wheel).

You can buy a brand new set of Longacre scales, model 72581, for about $880 complete, which has a capacity of 1100 lbs per scale. Not going to be good to corner balance your pickup truck, but for most Hondas, even ones with turbos up front, with full tank and driver in the car, they have enough capacity.

 

I bought a used set of scales....they are out there.

 

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/sout...er-scales.html

 

Thats not a bad price considering its a investment.
I figure it pays itself off without having to go to 2 or 3 trips to the race alignment specialist.
Definately a upper catagory tool, that isnt needed everyday.

 

This is very high on my list of tools go get my dirty hands on.