Corner balancing is a critical suspension tuning technique that optimizes how weight is distributed across each of your car’s four wheels. By adjusting suspension components—primarily spring perches on coilovers—you can achieve more even weight distribution, which translates directly into improved grip, better handling, and more predictable cornering behavior. Whether you’re preparing for track days or simply want your street car to handle more confidently, understanding corner balancing can unlock significant performance gains.
What Is Corner Balancing and Why Does It Matter?
Corner balancing, also known as corner weighting or scaling, involves measuring the weight at each wheel and making precise adjustments to equalize the load distribution. The process shifts the carried weight of each tire by adjusting the suspension’s spring height. The ultimate goal is achieving what’s called a 50% cross weight—where the combined weight of the right front and left rear wheels equals the combined weight of the left front and right rear wheels.
The goal is to get the diagonal weights even, meaning the Right Front and Left Rear corners will carry 50% of the vehicle’s total weight and the Left Front and Right Rear corners will carry the other 50%. If these cross weights are not equal, you could compare the suspension to an unstable table with uneven legs. In a car, this translates to turning one direction better than the other.
When your car has improper corner weights, you’ll experience inconsistent handling characteristics. Your car might be really fast in right-hand turns, but understeer in left turns. If you get the car neutral in left turns, it oversteers in right turns. This frustrating imbalance can make your car unpredictable and difficult to drive at the limit.
Understanding Cross Weight and Wedge
You’re targeting a cross weight percentage as close as possible to 50%. When the cross weight deviates from this ideal, your car is said to have “wedge” or “reverse wedge.” If the percentage is over 50 percent, the car has wedge; if below 50 percent, the car has reverse wedge. More wedge means that the car will likely understeer more in a left turn. The advantage to wedge is that the left rear tire carries more load, so the car drives off the turns better. But in a right turn, the opposite occurs and the handling is worse.
In almost all cases, the loss of cornering performance in one direction is greater than the gain in the other direction. For road racing, autocross, and street performance driving, the cross-weight percentage should be very close to 50 percent, within a half-degree either way, to keep the handling balance similar in a right-hand turn compared to a left-hand turn.
How Weight Distribution Affects Grip and Handling
Weight distribution significantly impacts a vehicle’s handling, stability, and overall performance. A vehicle with a balanced weight distribution is more responsive and stable during cornering, reducing the risk of loss of control or rollover. A vehicle with a balanced weight distribution can brake more effectively, as the weight is more evenly distributed between the axles. A vehicle with a balanced weight distribution can accelerate more efficiently, as the weight is more evenly distributed between the driving wheels.
The relationship between tire load and grip isn’t linear due to a phenomenon called tire load sensitivity. The larger the contact patch area, the lower the load per unit area of the contact patch, which translates into somewhat higher grip, up to a point, due to something called tire load sensitivity, where the coefficient of friction decreases with the amount of load. This means that doubling the load does not have the effect of doubling the grip, which falls short of the value that ‘classical’ friction theory would predict. Hence for rubber tyres, area matters. The larger the contact patch, the higher the coefficient of friction.
This load sensitivity is why corner balancing is so effective. By distributing weight more evenly across all four tires, you ensure each tire operates closer to its optimal load range, maximizing total grip available to the vehicle.
Essential Equipment and Preparation for Corner Balancing
Before you begin corner balancing, you’ll need the right tools and a proper setup environment. The quality of your results depends heavily on preparation.
Required Tools and Equipment
The most critical tool is a set of four corner weight scales. Corner balance scales will record weights and percentages and are a critical tool for race car setup. They do most of the mathematical heavy lifting and display critical weights and percentages. Modern wireless scales offer convenience and portability, with systems available from manufacturers like Longacre, Proform, and LABA7.
The Proform 7,000-pound Slim Wireless Vehicle Weighing System is reasonably priced—around $800 for the entire set—wireless, uses over-the-counter batteries, and comes with its own carrying case. The system turns on and off with ease and the wireless system finds each of the four scales perfectly every time.
You’ll also need adjustable suspension components. To properly corner balance your car, you need to have shocks with adjustable spring perches (i.e. Track Pack Bilsteins, Ohlins, Nitrons, etc.), and a set of weight scales. Fixed-height suspension systems cannot be corner balanced without adding or removing physical ballast.
Additional helpful tools include spanner wrenches for adjusting coilover perches, a level surface or leveling blocks, wheel chocks, and a jack with jack stands. Some enthusiasts also use laser levels to ensure their scales are perfectly level, which is critical for accurate measurements.
Creating a Level Working Surface
Make sure the floor is perfectly level; use shims under the scale pads if needed. Small angles can throw off your readings significantly. It’s important to ensure that the surface being used is flat. If you aren’t sure if it’s flat, an easy way to check is to hose down the floor and let it show you where the high and low spots are. If the spot can’t be made flat, you’ll need to find a new one.
If your garage floor isn’t perfectly level, you can use leveling blocks or roll-off platforms. These accessories allow you to compensate for uneven surfaces and still obtain accurate corner weight measurements.
Preparing Your Vehicle for Accurate Measurements
Your car must be in race-ready or typical driving condition to get meaningful results. Top off all fluids. Fluids can have a huge impact on weight percentage, especially fuel. Try to set your fuel level as close as possible to the way the car will be raced.
Put the driver weight in the car, preferably the driver. Use a load of fuel for where you want the car balanced, either at the start of the race, the end of the race or an average between the two. This ensures your corner balance reflects actual driving conditions rather than an empty car sitting in your garage.
Set tire pressures first. Tire pressures must be consistent and set to your target operating pressures before weighing. Unequal pressures will skew your measurements and lead to inaccurate adjustments.
It’s best to have the car aligned before scaling. Changes to things like caster can jack weight and will affect corner weights. If possible, it’s a good idea to touch up alignment settings after corner balancing as well.
Finally, disconnect the shocks, when possible, and the anti-roll bars. Anti-roll bars can bind and affect weight readings. Disconnect your sway bar end links to make sure they are not affecting the height by unwanted preload. We recommend disconnecting both sides to remove any bind from the sway bar bushings. The end links will stay disconnected until the corner balance is complete.
Step-by-Step Corner Balancing Procedure
With your equipment ready and your car properly prepared, you can begin the corner balancing process. This requires patience and methodical adjustments.
Initial Weight Measurement
Position each wheel squarely on a scale pad. Bounce the car at each corner prior to scaling, too, this will make sure the suspension has settled. Bounce the car at each corner to free the suspension from any bind, then roll the car onto the scales. This settling process ensures the suspension isn’t binding and that you’re measuring true static weights.
Corner Balancing starts by rolling the car onto the scales, and you can then get a view of each corner’s weight. On top of that, most scales will provide you with a front/rear weight bias, and the vehicle crossweight. The crossweight is calculated as the combined right front and left rear weights added together, then divided by the total vehicle weight. This displays the right/left balance of the vehicle, which means for most any car that turns both directions the ideal number is an exact 50 percent.
Record all four corner weights and calculate your initial cross weight percentage. This baseline measurement tells you how much work you need to do and which corners require adjustment.
Making Spring Perch Adjustments
The adjustment process involves raising or lowering the spring perches on your coilovers to shift weight between diagonal corners. Corner balancing is the process of carefully shifting the weight on each wheel by adjusting spring heights.
Understanding how adjustments affect weight distribution is crucial. When you raise a spring perch (adding preload), you increase the weight on that corner and the diagonally opposite corner. Conversely, lowering a spring perch reduces weight on that corner and its diagonal opposite.
Doing just 1) will lower the RF and raise the LR, doing just 2) will lower the LR and raise the RF, doing just 3) will raise the LF and lower the RR, and doing just 4) will raise the RR and lower the LF. This diagonal relationship is the key to corner balancing—you’re always working with pairs of diagonally opposite corners.
How much you should adjust the perches depends on spring rates, but you can start off with one turn at a time to gauge how much of a difference it makes. It’s important to remember that when adjusting weights you’re also affecting ride height. Therefore, it’s best to make small adjustments to each corner than large adjustments to only one. This is a skill that takes some practice and some patience. This is not a process to be rushed.
The Iterative Adjustment Process
After each adjustment, you must lift the car, make your changes, lower it back onto the scales, settle the suspension, and take new measurements. Corner balance – Wheels need to be on, camber correct or pretty close, air pressure right, toe close/good, caster correct. Then you need to jack up the car, adjust, lower, bounce, roll back and forth a bit, then check corner weights again.
Use blocks the same height as your scale pads to move the car off the scales to make adjustments. This allows you to roll the car forward and backward to relieve suspension bind without changing your scale setup.
Even for someone who does corner weighting all the time, it took multiple adjustments to get this car perfect. Don’t expect to nail it on the first try. The process typically requires several iterations as adjustments to one corner affect others.
You’ll spend hours chasing perfection, so in most cases getting within a half-percent of an exact 50 will still be very good for most drivers. A cross weight between 49.5% and 50.5% is generally considered excellent for street and track use.
Balancing Ride Height with Corner Weights
One challenge of corner balancing is maintaining your desired ride height while achieving proper weight distribution. Moving spring perches upward or downward (to lower or raise height, respectively) on adjacent corners (i.e. LR+RR, or LR+LF) has a minimal affect on corner balance while affecting ride height at those corners.
If you need to adjust ride height after achieving good cross weight, work with adjacent corners (same axle) rather than diagonal corners. This preserves your corner balance while allowing ride height changes.
If you are struggling to get a 50/50 percentage difference side to side or are finding it difficult to achieve your target front to rear distribution and are heading into a situation where your ride heights are widely different then stop. Sometimes, it is better to have a slightly uneven set up and a more level car than having 100mm height differences all around the car to achieve a target weight as the different ride heights will also make the car handle poorly.
Post-Corner Balance Setup and Verification
Once you’ve achieved your target cross weight, there are several important final steps to complete your setup.
Reconnecting Anti-Roll Bars
Once the corner balance is done, you will want to reinstall your sway bar end links. Ideally, you will have adjustable end links so they can be reconnected without any preload. Your suspension will need to be fully loaded and settled when you reconnect them.
Reconnecting sway bars with preload can undo some of your corner balancing work and introduce handling inconsistencies. Adjustable end links allow you to set them to the correct length for zero preload at static ride height.
Alignment Verification and Adjustment
With the corner weighting now complete, it is likely that the alignment will have been affected considerably. It is highly advisable that the alignment is corrected following a corner weighting session. Your alignment may have changed from the spring perch adjustments during the corner balance process.
Check and adjust your camber, toe, and caster settings after corner balancing. The changes in ride height and spring perch positions can alter suspension geometry enough to affect alignment angles.
Documentation and Record Keeping
Record your final corner weights, cross weight percentage, ride heights, and spring perch positions. Once we have our final numbers, we enter them into the spreadsheet for the owner’s records. This documentation allows you to return to a known good setup if you make changes later or need to rebuild your suspension.
Take photos of your spring perch positions and make reference marks. This makes it easier to replicate your setup or make informed adjustments in the future.
How Corner Balancing Improves On-Track Performance
The benefits of proper corner balancing become immediately apparent when you drive your car, especially at higher speeds and in demanding conditions.
Enhanced Grip and Traction
A properly balanced race vehicle will significantly improve its handling and overall performance on the track. By ensuring each tire carries an appropriate load, you maximize the total grip available from all four contact patches.
On any car, weight that presses down on a corner improves the grip of that tire. However, due to tire load sensitivity, distributing weight evenly is more effective than overloading some tires while underloading others. For any given vehicle, unequal loading among the wheels represents a waste of potential grip, because the gains and losses do not balance out.
Reduced Understeer and Oversteer
If the car understeers or oversteers in only one direction, check the cross-weight percentage. Improper cross weight is often the root cause of directional handling imbalances that can’t be fixed with other suspension adjustments.
While several different setup parameters could have caused this situation, a likely cause is excessive cross-weight. Corner balancing can correct that. Once corrected, your car will exhibit more neutral handling characteristics, turning equally well in both directions.
If the front left and right rear corners are heavier than the other corners, you might find that the car feels more responsive turning right than it does left. But once you’ve started turning right, the car is more prone to oversteer because of the lighter weight left rear corner. The car could also feel sluggish when starting a left turn, but more controllable after the turn is initiated. Corner balancing eliminates these frustrating inconsistencies.
Improved Corner Exit Speed and Stability
With balanced corner weights, your car maintains better traction through the entire corner. This allows you to apply throttle earlier and more aggressively on corner exit without upsetting the chassis balance.
If cross weight is closer to 50 percent, that will assist with handling during left and right turns, which is exactly what road racers need to be fast at each portion of a winding road course. The predictability and consistency that comes from proper corner balancing builds driver confidence, allowing you to push harder and carry more speed.
More Even Tire Wear
Balanced corner weights lead to more consistent tire temperatures and wear patterns across all four tires. When one corner is significantly heavier or lighter than optimal, that tire will either wear prematurely or not contribute its full potential to grip.
By monitoring tire wear patterns after corner balancing, you can verify that your setup is working correctly. Ideally, you should see similar wear characteristics on all four tires, indicating that each is doing its share of the work.
Common Corner Balancing Mistakes to Avoid
Even experienced enthusiasts can make errors during the corner balancing process. Being aware of common pitfalls helps you achieve better results.
Neglecting Proper Preparation
The most common mistake is attempting to corner balance without proper preparation. Weighing your car with inconsistent tire pressures, without the driver, or with an unrepresentative fuel load will give you meaningless numbers that don’t reflect real-world conditions.
Improper corner weights can make the most accurate suspension alignment worthless. Unequal cross weights can destroy a road racing car’s handling and sap driver confidence. Don’t waste time with a perfect alignment if your corner weights are off.
Making Large Adjustments Too Quickly
Aggressive adjustments can overshoot your target and make the iterative process take longer. Small, methodical changes allow you to understand how your specific car responds and reach your target more efficiently.
Remember that adjusting one corner affects its diagonal opposite. Making large changes to multiple corners simultaneously can create confusion about which adjustments are helping and which are hurting.
Ignoring Ride Height Consequences
Be aware that when you are moving your ride heights up and down you are also affecting the roll centre location which can increase or decrease the roll moment at the end being adjusted (front or rear). This can lead to creating under or oversteer if the roll centre is being moved.
Extreme ride height differences to achieve perfect corner balance can actually harm handling by disrupting suspension geometry. Sometimes a slightly imperfect cross weight with reasonable ride heights is better than perfect numbers with compromised geometry.
Forgetting to Settle the Suspension
Failing to bounce the car and roll it back and forth after each adjustment leads to inaccurate measurements. Suspension components can bind, and springs need to settle into their natural position under load.
This simple step takes only a few seconds but makes a significant difference in measurement accuracy. Don’t skip it.
Advanced Corner Balancing Considerations
Once you’ve mastered basic corner balancing, there are additional factors to consider for optimizing your setup.
Accounting for Dynamic Weight Transfer
It’s important to remember that scales measure static weight and do not account for dynamic forces like downforce and weight transfer. While corner balancing optimizes your static setup, weight still transfers during acceleration, braking, and cornering.
Weight transfer occurs when the vehicle accelerates, brakes, or corners, causing the weight to shift from one part of the vehicle to another. This transfer affects the load on each tire and, consequently, the vehicle’s traction and stability.
Your corner balance provides the best starting point for these dynamic conditions. A well-balanced static setup ensures that weight transfer during driving happens from an optimal baseline.
Adjusting for Specific Track Conditions
In some circumstances, a “balanced” car is not the goal. Circle track setups, for example, often target different percentages. These cars are only turning left and typically use scales to baseline their setup, then make changes at the track to fine tune the car to that night’s racing conditions.
For oval racing or tracks with predominantly left or right turns, you might intentionally deviate from 50% cross weight to favor the dominant turn direction. However, for road courses with mixed turns, 50% cross weight remains the ideal target.
Considering Spring Rate and Suspension Stiffness
Corner balance becomes much more important on track and race cars due to the high spring rates—small changes in height greatly impact weight carried. Since optimizing the handling performance is the key point in chassis and suspension setup, corner balance becomes very important.
Cars with stiffer springs are more sensitive to corner balance adjustments. A small change in spring perch position has a larger effect on corner weight with stiff springs than with soft ones. This means you may need to make smaller, more precise adjustments on heavily modified track cars.
Integrating Corner Balance with Other Setup Changes
Corner balancing doesn’t exist in isolation. It works in conjunction with other suspension tuning elements like spring rates, damper settings, anti-roll bar adjustments, and alignment settings.
When setting up a new set of coilovers, there are actually a few elements to pay mind to: alignment, spring preload, ride height, and corner weights. There are other related items that come into play when you’re getting serious about car setup, like fine tuning the damping characteristics and making sway bar adjustments. But the former list comprises the essential items when first setting up your car.
The recommended sequence is: set spring preload, establish ride height, perform corner balancing, then verify and adjust alignment. Each step can affect the others, so you may need to iterate through the process.
Maintaining Your Corner Balance Over Time
Corner balance isn’t a one-time setup. Various factors can cause it to drift over time, requiring periodic verification and adjustment.
When to Recheck Your Corner Balance
You should verify your corner balance after any suspension work, including spring changes, shock replacement, or alignment adjustments. Even seemingly minor changes can affect weight distribution.
Additionally, check your corner balance periodically even without changes. Springs can settle over time, and components can wear or shift slightly. Many serious track enthusiasts verify their corner balance at the beginning of each season.
If you notice handling changes—particularly directional imbalances where the car behaves differently in left versus right turns—checking corner balance should be one of your first diagnostic steps.
Portable Scales for Track-Side Adjustments
We take these scales in their handy wheeled case to each event and use them all the time to check overall weight (to ensure we don’t go below the minimum) and to weigh our gas jugs before and after each fill up (for fuel consumption calculations).
Portable scale systems allow you to verify and adjust corner balance at the track. This is particularly valuable for race cars where fuel load changes significantly during an event, or when you want to fine-tune your setup based on track conditions.
Documenting Changes and Results
Keep detailed records of your corner weights, cross weight percentages, and any handling observations. Over time, this data helps you understand how your specific car responds to changes and what setup works best for different conditions.
Note the date, conditions, and any other relevant factors. This historical data becomes invaluable when troubleshooting handling issues or trying to replicate a particularly good setup.
Conclusion: The Foundation of Balanced Handling
Corner balancing is one of the most effective suspension tuning techniques available to improve your car’s handling. By ensuring each tire carries an appropriate load, you maximize total grip, eliminate directional handling imbalances, and create a more predictable, confidence-inspiring driving experience.
One of the most important aspects of racing is having a good handling balance. Setting static weight distribution and adjusting cross-weight percentage is one way to assure good handling. Taking the time and making the effort always pay dividends.
While the process requires patience, proper equipment, and attention to detail, the results are immediately noticeable. Whether you’re chasing lap times on track or simply want your street car to handle better on your favorite back road, corner balancing provides a solid foundation for all other suspension tuning efforts.
All too often, car owners skip the essential step of corner balancing their vehicle but wonder why the handling got worse after installing a new set of coilover suspension. Don’t make this mistake. If you’ve invested in adjustable suspension, take the time to corner balance your car properly. The improvement in handling and driver confidence will make the effort worthwhile.
For more information on suspension setup and vehicle dynamics, consult resources from organizations like the Society of Automotive Engineers, or consider professional suspension tuning services if you want expert assistance with your first corner balance. With practice and experience, corner balancing becomes a straightforward process that unlocks your car’s full handling potential.