If you’re going to spend some serious cash on a suspension upgrade for your vehicle, you want that suspension to actually enhance the handling; right? Not everyone is performance oriented when it comes to aftermarket suspension needs. For those of us who still enjoy a well balanced vehicle, corner balancing your suspension setup is a must.
What is corner balancing?
Corner balancing means just that; the corners of a vehicle are balanced. Not 1:1 by weight, but 1:1 from opposing corners in terms of weight displacement. If a vehicle is balanced proportionally, it will exhibit finer handling characteristics under heavy driving. Faster handling equals faster lap times, and going fast makes us happy. That’s corner balancing!
The HKS Hipermax coilover system easily installs and comes with all required hardware. Shadetree mechanics can expect 4-6 hours, while trained technicians 2 hours max for install not including alignment.
Are all coilovers corner balanced from the factory?
The reason high end coilover components are more expensive is because they’re built by highly qualified technicians throughout the entire process. Many cheaper suspension solutions are built in the proverbial button factory by drunken idiots who can barely read a TV dinner recipe let alone decipher the perplex requirements of tolerance manufacturing standards. So the answer is not just no, but an appalling absolutely not with a hint of disgust.
As you can see, the vehicle has achieved a 50.91% weight distribution which means that it is balanced only .09% out of a true 50/50 corner balance.
As you can see above, the balancing was nearly 100% true. To get a street car this close by simply unboxing a set of coilovers and installing them is outright amazing. There were no adjustments made to ride height, damper, rebound, etc. The only thing changed was the vehicle’s alignment in order to accommodate the drop in ride height from OEM spec.
Check out the video at the top of the page for the full testing, or also see the rest of my build series for more information about the vehicle.
See more videos on my YouTube channel