symmetrical balance

[ericS2the6]

this thread refers to turbos and may apply toward other models as well

Hello,

is anyone else concerned with the left to right side weight distrubution of our cars? apparently the japs designed their car for their home market in mind, which you cant fault them.

our LHD cars feature a battery, driver along with all other interior and mechanical components which suit a LHD vehicle, power antenna, muffler, and emergency jack, all on the left side of the vehicle. this amounts to almost every significant asymmetrical part of the car on our driver side.

what could this add up too? factor in a 150 lb person, and surely the left side tires are being compressed more than their right side brothers. should one compensate for this?

subaru states one should fill the front tires ~2 psi higher than that of the rear. perhaps one should apply that rule along with one (1) psi higher for the driver side. LF 33, RF 32, LR 31, RR 30.

I believe balance is key in an automobile, perhaps this is the anwser?

[BAC5.2]

Gas tank is on the passenger side, that amounts to a fairly large bit of weight.

The exhaust runs right under the drive shaft, down the center of the car. They just chose a side to have the can drop out of.

Battery is on one side, exhaust manifold and turbo etc run to the opposite side.

It's fairly likely that the car is pretty well corner balanced. The best and most "correct" way of changing the balance would be with coilovers and properly corner weighting the car.

[ericS2the6]

gas filler is located on pass side however i thought the tank itself is on both sides.

most of exhaust is down the middle, but the muffler is not.

turbo, manifolds on the pass side yes, however they are more centrally located. battery is not so much

[BAC5.2]

You've got the ABS unit on the passenger side to counter balance the battery.

The muffler amounts to a very insignificant amount of weight (MAYBE 20 pounds at the most), you could say it's offset by the filler neck itself.

What does the fore-aft position matter? I thought you were concerned with side-to-side weight balance?

Power antenna and emergency jack add up to very little as well, and you could say that's offset by the turbo.

It would be pointless for me to corner weight my car, as I have my battery in the trunk and diagonal to my position, but I bet if you counter balanced the car, you would be surprised at the side-to-side balance.

The difference would probably be so minute that you would never notice it. If you are THAT serious about the weight balance of your car, you should be on coilovers, where you can actually do something about it.

[professor]

I have a calibrated truck scale here at work, I could park my car with right side on, then switch and weigh left side, and settle this question fairly fast. Of course doing that both full and empty of gas would be best.

It is surprising what a little weight shift can do, a friend who is an SCCA class champion routinely weighs his "wheels" one at a time for balance. Shifting a battery from front to rear can move things from 53/47 to 50/50 in some vehicles.

[Legacy777]

I want to go weigh my car on the truck scales outside of town. I did this a while ago with my AT and FWD. I didn't do a f/r distribution however. I'd like to see how it is now.

i don't think I'll get as fancy as the l & r though

[BAC5.2]

At the Feed and Speed, I weighed 3230 lbs with my sub/amp, and a back seat FULL of random misc. crap. That's 5mt, AWD, ABS, Turbo.

My buddy has the counter weighing gear, so I might just have to head over there one day and settle this. However, like I said, my car isn't stock in weight distribution anymore.

[entirelyturbo]

Subarus can claim more than just a low center of gravity and simplicity in their drivetrains. They also make the car pretty balanced L-R, relative to other makes anyway. Both sides of the engine are symmetrical about the longitudinal axis, as is the transmission, as are the 4 equal-length axles, as is the gas tank. The battery and muffler I find insignificant, and I'd go so far as to say the muffler which is located towards the left is closely offset by the cat which is located towards the right...

[BAC5.2]

The battery shouldn't be seen as insignificant, as it weighs a good bit.

I moved the battery to the trunk That, and the ABS likely offset any left-bias items.