Home made corner weight gauge / tweak board.

As you all should know your cars should be setup after you have changed or adjusted something between meetings. I know some of you may use the kitchen work top but I have made a board which you can take with you and stay in your wife’s or parents good books.
First off you will need some MDF 15mm thick. You will need 2 pieces cut which will be say 6” longer than the car x 2.5 x its width. You will also need some spacers to go between these big pieces. After this you will need a digital set of scales. I purchased this one from Maplin and it has a 1 gram resolution (more than enough). Once you have the scales you need to cut a hole for them in one of the big end plates rotated at 90 degrees (see picture). Then you need to make spacers up so that the spacer thickness plus the big plate thickness cut above equals the thickness of the scales, give or take a small amount. Once complete assembly the 2 plates using the spacers per the other pictures and paint. One side can now be used as a setup board the other as a corner weight gauge.

Once you have made you board you can use the flat side to measure ride height, camber angles etc. The corner weight side should be used once you have set-up your geometry correctly with batters fitted etc. First off make sure all the shocks are the same length and set at the same height using a calliper or spacer. The moving the car around like above see what each corner weight is. If all your weights are the same you’re very lucky, it is not uncommon to see up to 100 grams difference! Aim to get the weight left to right within 15 grams or better. Front to back is not important and will vary on your car and where you add ballast if needed. Anyway say one corner is lighter than the other. To fix this screw the opposite corner spring tensioner down and measure again. Remember and do this in small amounts say ¼ to ½ a turn. Once that is fixed check the other axle and so on until you have your corner weights side to side reading within 15 grams. Don’t worry about where the shock tensioners are sitting afterwards and remember if you are adjusting right height move both shocks the same amount i.e. 1 turn each otherwise you will just undo what you have done.
Corner weight makes a big difference when the track is slippy and you should notice a car with good balance drifting nicely and not snatching.

Good luck and remember to tell me how you got on if you build one.

George Haining