Sleighty

hey,
Just wondering if anybody here had ever raced on a polished wood floor? or on a sports hall type floor? Anybody got any setup tips for this very slippery surface? What tyres does everybody use and what car and motors etc?

cheers
Sleighty

DaveW

iTrader: (1)

This may sound silly, but detail the floor with a bucket filled with 8 gallons of cold water and one large bottle of rubbing alcohol mixed in. Use a standard mop and make sure the floor is dry before you run! You should be able to run any basic soft compound rubber tire on this surface, and any rubber left after the run can be removed with remopping the floor at a later time with the before mentioned solution.
- Dave

fatdoggy

Question - Would'nt soft compound foams work on this type of surface? Just a guess...

stulec52

iTrader: (26)

well, I raced on tons of these types of surfaces when I lived in the Uk.

More often than not, you are not going to be allowed to put stuff on the floor, and anyway the sliding is all part of the fun, the trick is to have slightly more grip than everyone else.

what class are you running?
TC?
buggy?

I got tips for most classes, but if it's touring cars then get yourself some Schumacher NARROW (!!!!!!!) Yellow compound minipins and you'll be more than half way there!!
They don't last too long is the only problem.

Let me know what sort of thing you are thinking of running, and I'll help you out.

have fun, it's a blast !!

Randy Caster

iTrader: (47)

Herminator should be posting here before too long

Herminator

Hey! err.... ok... you're right

Well stulec52 pretty much said it. I'm guessing you'll be running touring cars indoors, in which case you'll deffinetly want Schumacher mini pins. They come in 26mm and 21mm and yellow and blue compounds, yellow being softer. Most people go for yellow because grip is at a premium but tyre width choice is up to the hall you race in. Some places you can only run nearly new narrow yellows and expect to get any sort of grip, which is very expensive in tyres. Other places you can run newish tyres and be sliding all over the place until you've gotten the mini pins half worn down. Where I race there doesn't seem to be a huge advantage in narrows so I use 26mm yellows, which last a little longer, and they are best when worn in a bit. I would normaly go for a soft insirt, some people even cut an insirt in half so it's extra narrow and use that to just keep the middle of a 26mm tyre inflated. Others run with no insirts at all, especially when using 21mm tyres.

The best starting place for a setup indoors is one with a tendancy to understeer, it's a lot easier to slow down for a corner with the rear end planted, then it is to go around a corner with the back end trying to overtake the front.

Not at my own PC so don't have any pics of my car ready to go racing on wooden floors

Sleighty

well i run 26mm mini pins on my tc with no insert, i have tried the narrow tyres and they are faster but like you guys said, they wear out very quickly. I havent tried inserts in a while and the idea of running half an insert on a 26mm tyre does sound quite a good idea.

Anybody have any more setup tips, I have a HPI Pro 3 which at one time seemed to work very well, and now for some reason it doesnt?

Sleighty

John_S

hey i used to run a tc3 indoors and now run a baracuda i run with 26mm yellow mini pins without inserts and have removed the droop screws to give more chassis role and have put shiums under the front and rear camber links to make them higher thats about all the modifications i have done to the car and have ever needed to do

sosidge

I used to run a pro 3 on slippy floor.

My setup was roughly pink spings on the front and something a bit stiffer like a grey or navy blue on the back, with about 40wt oil. 3 degrees front caster blocks with 2 or 3mm spacing under the link. Rear link in the upper hole on the rear hub. Narrow Yellow pins. That was roughly it. A good thing to do is set the car with lots of suspension droop, this creates more grip. Some people like the Pro 3 with the standard soft silver springs, but I found they made the car a bit too vague.

stulec52

iTrader: (26)

I really miss racing on the low grip floors, I was even pretty good at it !

In my new home City they wouldn't even consider such a backwards move ( or so I'm told...)
mind you there will be ice on the ground for about the next 5 months here so I might just have to do some oval ice racing !!

I found that with my set up Narrow yellows worked best on wood and the 26mm's worked better on the games hall type surface.
And like Herminator said set up for understeer, so basically get as much rear end grip as you can find then work the front end grip up until you get the balance you like. Oh and goes without saying (almost) steer the thing on the throttle !!
Maybe another couple of things to consider if you can is to rate your speed controller so that the power comes in slower (either do this by radio expo adjustment or speedo setup) also either slow down the steering a little or turn the rate down.
I used to race ( way back when) an RC-10 buggy in the big games hall, the best it went was when I put an old Futaba 128 ( yes really) servo in it. It was so good I won a big ( 100+ drivers) event with it, and even lapped the then current UK buggy champ ( Tony Wells) in the A final who was driving the same car !
ah, happy days......