Alvin

My ride (tamiya ta04) allows me to set the droop, but right now it's at the stock settings.

What do I need to set it? What should I set it too? Is there a guide online or somewhere on the purpose of droop? Can you guys give me a brief description here

Been adjusting one setting per week before heading down to the track, it's fun to play the car this way imho
Tommorrow night, it's toe-in test! (from the previous toe-out).

Regards,
Alvin

IMPACTPLAYR

iTrader: (7)

Get the Associated droop guage, it costs $2 so that shouldn't be a problem.

here are the steps:

1] remove the wheels, shocks, and swaybars

2] place the flat part of the guage under the chassis so that the steps are under the outermost hingepin on the arm you are adjusting.

3] choose the setting you want to adjust (which numbered step) and adjust the droop screw until the arm just rests on the step, but is not being supported by the step.

4] repeat for all 4 arms. make sure you always use the same setting on the left and right arms, but settings may differ from front to rear.

For the TA04 start with a setting of 3 on all arms, use a higher setting 4-10 for smoother tracks, use a lower setting 0-2 for bumpier tracks. allow more droop on the front if you need more traction during accelleration, allow more droop in the rear if you need more low speed steering or front traction while breaking.

when I say more droop, I mean a lower numbered setting on that side of the car.

Hope this helps here is an illistration from the guages paperwork.

Alvin

IMPACTPLAYR, thanks!

BTW, what do you support your chassis when you set the droop? Must the chassis be at a predetermined height? (I noticed at one of my LHS they sell Hudy droop blocks which are very expensive. )

For my "setup board" I use a piece of marble tile. Hope that is sufficient for now...

Thanks again!

Alvin

HarshGuy

iTrader: (6)

I use 2 of the AE gauges one on each end of the car so that the whole car is "level". I do have one question, I had also been told to take the shocks off, but seems to me that if your shocks are actually setup such that they aren't letting the arms fall completely down that the droop you set without shocks is actually not your actual droop, so I've been leaving the shocks on and makgin sure that they are fully extended when I set droop ....am I missing something?

Speedo

XTreme did an artical on it a while back, you may want to see if you can find that issue.

Racer X

iTrader: (2)

...and a damn good article it was (I wrote it). The droop screws limit downward travel so the shocks shouldn't effect it either way...the shocks shoud NOT limit travel when the car has droop screws. If they do, make them longer. The second easiest way (and the way you shoud do it when setting up a car) is to take the tires off and put the car on a flat surface (glass or a setup board it fine, a sheet of stone is not unless it is finished and polished). Make sure the chassis rests flat on the surface (if it doesn't, the chassis is tweeked, try loosening the top plate and untweek it). Measure from the bottom of the arm to the surface. This is how much droop you are currently running (usually in mm). Make sure both sides of the car have the same amount of droop. Adding more droop (increasing the distance) USUALLY takes away from that end (Example: more droop in the back=less traction). The less droop you run (the smaller the distance) the slower the car will react, but it will have more grip. If you are running on carpet, run very little droop and the car will react very fast. On a temp parking lot track, reducing the droop will give you more grip, butthe car will react slower. Thats it in a quick nutshell and theres much more to it than that. Try to find the article, but even that only stratches the surface (for instance, droop will effect the car differently front to rear too, changing on and off power steering). Hope that helped...