40/60 cross weights. What is wrong in my car?

[TURBO2GO]

I went to see a friend who admittedly is somewhat new to corner balancing, although he is a first rate mechanic with a ton of build, fabrication, and race experience. He had acquired some scales and he said he would help me corner balance the car. This was done in his garage, on a cement floor that looked and he claimed was flat, although I have some doubts.

Anyway we disconnected the sway bars, put the car on scales and the cross weight was something bizarre like 38/62. He raised the front right and the rear left, and got it to 40/60. With me in the car, it is 41/59. This is still so far off, it is mind boggling. He didn't want to do more, as he was worried about making the car lopsided. How can a car possibly have 60% of its weight on only two cross wheels? What's it doing? Balancing itself on the front driver and rear passenger?

I suspected perhaps the floor was not as even as he thought but my question is, how close can you get an NSX? what's a good number? And how do you keep adjusting without screwing up rake and/or making the car lean to one side or have some strange look to the car?

 

[Brylek]

When I had my car corner balanced I was sitting on the driver's seat and the entire car was sitting on a leveled alignment - this is the only way to do it right.

 

[dquarasr2]

What were the individual corner weights?

(Any updates since original post?)

 

[TURBO2GO]

His "even" floor was not so even. It was a complete waste of time.

 

[dquarasr2]

Wow, something is really, really wrong with the measurements. Even less than 1/2 of a percentage point off can create a nightmarish handling car. I cannot fathom how those measurements are even close to being right.

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

3085 lbs? Is that with you and a full tank of gas?

 

[stuntman]

Do NOT measure on an "even" floor, esp if you dont know what youre doing.

Make sure the FL and FR lengths and RL and RR lengthd are even. That will more often than not put you very close to 50% cross weight. Doing this, my nsx was 49.8%

You can really screw up your cars handling if you just start cranking rounds into the spring perches. The nsx is a stiff car and pretty evenly balanced. Id set them even and leave it alone until you get it on a proper surface and someone who knows what they are doing.

 

[TURBO2GO]

Make sure the FL and FR lengths and RL and RR lengthd are even.

What does this mean exactly?

Yes clearly I took it to the wrong place. I will have it redone.

 

[stuntman]

Set the height of your left front and right front spring perches the same, and your left rear and right rear the same.

I contributed to a few old posts on how to corner balance a CSR. Recommending to keep the fronts and rears within 1/4" of each other ( from right to left) when corner balancing. Setting them even will put you in the ballpark until you can get it properly adjusted.

 

[ENT]

That weight distribution sounds suspiciously like F/R not a cross weight. Maybe he had the scales pugged in incorrectly.

Cheers,
Ian