Anytime you drive through a corner the load on the inside tiresis reduced and the load on the outside tires is increased. Thisphenomenon is commonly referred to as "weighttransfer."
Anytime you drive through a corner the load on the inside tiresis reduced and the load on the outside tires is increased. Thisphenomenon is commonly referred to as "weighttransfer."
Adjusting (or proportioning) the weighttransfer between the front wheels and the rear wheels of the racecar can have a huge effect on how your car handles.
Excessive weight transfer on the front wheelscan cause your race car to push (understeer) in the corners asshown in this photo. Likewise, excessive weight transfer on therear wheels can cause the car to oversteer. Your objective is to"balance" the w eight transfer to meet your specificneeds.
PERFORMANCE GOALS
It is often said that "Four equally loaded tires is theoptimum condition for cornering speed." This may be true ona "skid pad" where the car is driven in a perfectcircle and at a constant speed; however, it is not necessarilytrue on the race track. Tire width rules, race track size, shapeand surface along with driving style may require differentloading on each tire to get through the corners more quickly.
For example, when you accelerate hard out ofthe corner, additional weight on the right rear tire tends torotate the car counter-clockwise when viewed from above. Inextreme cases, this will cause the race car to be loose.Conversely, additional weight on the left rear tire can cause theopposite condition. Excess weight on the left rear wheel tends torotate the car clockwise when accelerating out of the corner.This condition is often felt as a "push" (orundersteer).
There are many ways to proportion the weightand weight transfer among the tires. You can change spring rates,spring angles, change wheel off-sets, raise or lower the Panhardbar, etc.
Your goal for these manyadjustments is to find the best combination of weights for eachtire when your car is in the corner so that it will not oversteeror understeer for your particular driving style, trackconditions, etc.
SOFTWARE ADVANTAGES
Computerized Chassis Weights calculates the weight on eachtire when the car is in the corner.
By quickly making changes in the computer toyour springs, roll centers, etc., you can see what happens to thecorner weight as a result of those changes (see example atright).
Some changes to your race car result in smallchanges to the wheel loads and others make large changes to theloads. Use this software and you will quickly learn which changesfall into which category.
This is a huge time savings over the trial anderror method of making one change to the race car for hot laps orqualifying, making another change before the heat race and thenmaking a guess at a change for the feature race.
The Computerized Chassis Weights software is easy tooperate. You enter your race car's information on simple"blue print" style screens as seen at the right.
The software also has many pop-up work sheetsto help calculate any information that you may not already know.Work sheets are available for spring rates, roll center locationsfor both the front and rear suspensions, motion ratios, corneringG force and more!
Besides calculating the weight on each tire inthe corner, Computerized Chassis Weights also calculatesweight percentages, weight jacking results, and is the onlysoftware on the market today that can calculate the preload oneach tire.
A really fun part of the software is that youcan add or remove fuel on the computer screen and see theresulting wheel weights. You can also play "what if"with weight, such as adding 25 pounds of lead 8" in front ofthe rear axle, 8" left of center and 10" off theground. Then the software shows you the new weight on each tireand automatically recalculates the center of gravity height forthe whole race car.
Using the Computerized Chassis Weights softwareis an easy and enjoyable way to improve your handling. So, don'tlet the competition get ahead, order yours today! Use the buttonbelow to go to the order form.
Please note; this software is for non-wingedrace cars.
MINIMUM COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS
IBM compatible, 640K ram, dos 5.0 or higher
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