Lug Centric balance

[Ploddit]

After a few thousand km's of wobble I found a pro tyre shop with the LUG centric balancing adaptor.

For a mere €7.50 plus €5.50 to remove wheel - all five are done .... no more vibrations.

The guy was obliged to do them three times each and the final weights had to be the rim clips ones as sticking them on the wheel didn't work.

I had one pair of tyres balanced conventionally recently and when put on to the lug centric machine they were miles out.

So a happy surfer thanks to info from here.

[ROMEROTECH]

I've got to do exactly the same.

I'm now told that larger tyres are difficult to get right with weights stuck on the inside of the rim so i'm going to need rim edge clip type weights fitted.

I bet mine are miles out with the amount of balance wabble i get over 60mph.

[TonyN]

umm, you ideally want them done on the wheel nuts holes, especially stock Toyota alloys. Lug Centric is the 'right' way, Hub Centric usually works, but if you can't get them balenced easily sometimes thats the problem.

Most tyre shops balence them with a taper on the hub hole but its not ideal just its quicker and easier.

A good fitter and decent tyre will balence fine, big M/T's are harder, but have always got 33 or 35" A/T's to balence perfectly. Even my PitBulls are balenced pretty well, but my 35" Boggers arn't/won't!

[ROMEROTECH]

I'll need to find somewhere in Northampton if i can otherwise i'll have to travel. Northampton isn't the best for this kind of thing.

[Ploddit]

Fail

I meant Lug centric.....

With a adaptor with three studs and special conical plastic washers on the bolts.

Can anyone change the thread title?

[puddlesurfer]

Some one nicked my local (proper) tyre fitters lug centric balancing adapter - He says he thinks someone saw it and realised it was worth £££ and had it way while he was fitting wheels back to a car.

[TonyN]

Fail

I meant Lug centric.....

With a adaptor with three studs and special conical plastic washers on the bolts.

Can anyone change the thread title?

Lol, not sure I can do it on phone, you might have to live with it for while.

[ROMEROTECH]

I'm still struggling to find somewhere to balance these wheels up with a lug centric type adapter.

Is this the same thing as using a finger plate??

[ROMEROTECH]

At last!!

It was sorted by National Tyres, one of the places i never thought could or would do a good job.

To be fair, i think it's probably more down to the chap that did the job. 24yrs old with a background in mechanical and electronics engineering (qualified), looking to do a degree in Motorsport engineering. Works for National because that's all there is at the moment. Such is the state of the UK!! Shame he works for National, but then good he was there from my point of view.

They have an adapter plate they use on French motors with no wheel center bore, which was bolted to the balancing machine. This plate has a maximum of 5 lugs on it so he removed two of them, measured the PCD of my wheel and used that to adjust all 3 lugs on the adapter plate to my PCD.

Couldn't balance the wheels with rim edge weights as they just wouldn't grip/clip to the edge so he tried with the sticky weights. He got every tyre spot on zero and the weights are out of site!!

It is now a pleasure to drive my Surf at motorway/dual carrigeway speeds. What a transformation, and only £26.00 all in.

Nice one national!!

[Ploddit]

Cool, makes such a difference - like you my concern is now fuel consumption not wobbles to speed.

[ROMEROTECH]

Fuel consumption is a bit trickier.

Modifying your driving style to be more smooth on the steering and brakes, feathery on the throttle, lots of coasting where possible, keeping the vehicle moving instead of coming to dead stops, watching traffic ahead to plan your moves, right tyre pressures, no unnecessary weight carrying (i need to cut large slices off me for that one!!) blah blah blah.....I'm sure you already know these things.

Just making sure your motor is running in tip top condition helps.

Other than that you need more low down power by way of torque and not bhp. That's where you get fuel savings. I know there are turbo, exhaust, fuel pump and induction related mods you can do but it's all bit hit and miss as to just how effective these mods are without being able to remap for those changes.

I appreciate these are not overly complex machines but they do have an ECU and that controls everything. That's the key to making better use of your engine initially without modifying anything. Once the vehicle is running as best as it can you should then think about engine mods.

To be fair though some of these engines have done some very big mileage and i would be hesitant to push them too far for fear of them going pop, remap or no remap. So mods for fuel efficiency instead of outright power would be the way forward. Fuel efficiency brings it's own benefits from a power point of view anyway.

I see the intercooler conversion being of most benefit initially. I'm not sure how beneficial an induction mod will be. The standard airbox is quite big and the air filter looks like it probably flows quite well. My only thought there is rerouting the air inlet piping to the airbox to make sure it gets max airflow from outside. I've not taken a look yet and it may be fine as it is, i don't know.

As for increasing turbo boost, that's fine if you can specifically increase spoolup and boost from lower down the rev range as it's not a huge amount of use anywhere else really. I think these motors go well for what they are. Mine does a ton fully laden and doesn't take that long to get there. I would like a bit more oomph though from lower down. Specially for towing.

Such a pity these motors can't be mapped as that would be my next port of call. I'm really not sure these piggy back devices do much apart from use more fuel so unlikely i'll go that route. Pity there isn't an aftermarket ECU around to replace the OEM box.