Serpent S411 Eryx 3.0
06-09-2014, 05:18 AM
#121
06-09-2014, 09:30 AM
#123
You know my original set up...
All at once I made the following changes.
1.4 frt/rear bar. Middle hole links. (Frt 5mm/.5, rear 2/3), center screw in top deck, went to 4* hubs (think 6* is faster but aluminum bends. Going to fit xray stuff on), 1million front diff, 500cst rear, shocks in 3rd hole, 2.5 xray springs all around, rear blocks 0/3.5, 1.5 front camber, 2.0 rear, 1mm hex spacers. Also wheel base maxed to rear (6mm front of arm). I did this change early on an it rotated like a freighter, but easy to drive. I think the light oil in rear diff helped the rotation issue and it's still easy to drive. If I think of other changes I will edit the post.
Per your tip Cody, this weekend I hope to get back and try .5mm spacers under all blocks cause the chassis rolls a lot. Rebuild the shocks and put 500cst all round. The car is really close. Took about .5/sec off my lap times.
All at once I made the following changes.
1.4 frt/rear bar. Middle hole links. (Frt 5mm/.5, rear 2/3), center screw in top deck, went to 4* hubs (think 6* is faster but aluminum bends. Going to fit xray stuff on), 1million front diff, 500cst rear, shocks in 3rd hole, 2.5 xray springs all around, rear blocks 0/3.5, 1.5 front camber, 2.0 rear, 1mm hex spacers. Also wheel base maxed to rear (6mm front of arm). I did this change early on an it rotated like a freighter, but easy to drive. I think the light oil in rear diff helped the rotation issue and it's still easy to drive. If I think of other changes I will edit the post.
Per your tip Cody, this weekend I hope to get back and try .5mm spacers under all blocks cause the chassis rolls a lot. Rebuild the shocks and put 500cst all round. The car is really close. Took about .5/sec off my lap times.
Last edited by Adam B; 06-09-2014 at 11:03 AM.
06-13-2014, 12:29 PM
#124
3.0 short term testing
So I have had a couple test sessions with the car now and here are some of my observations.
First I have run the car with the out of the box setup and ran that for one of the club races, the only thing I changed was trying going to Grey springs in the front, to which I didn't like that change as much as the original black springs up front.
During my second time out I began to change several things from the stock setup. I ended up with 4mm rear wb spacing, 0mm ackerman, changed both the front and rear upper links to the mid holes, and flipped the read diff to the high setting. also changed the front springs to yellow. These changes produced my best and most consistent times in comparison to my 2.0mm graphite car.
The car still feels nice and tight and pretty slop free,the steering rack is so much better.
A couple of things that didn't work so good. I tried going to the older style top deck in a 1.75 thickness, this made the car dig in the front pretty hard, causing the occasional 2 wheel corner or out flip. The deck that comes with the car gives the best balance so far.
Another thing to note, for those that are planning to just get the upgrades and run the hard 2.0mm graphite chassis. I have both cars setup very similar in equipment so weights from one to the other should be pretty close. What I found is that although the aluminum chassis is overall heavier that the graphite chassis, the aluminum chassis with the 3.0 lower bearing mounts actually gets the car slightly lighter than the previous configuration. So it looks like they got the mass weight lower without having the cars overall weight heavier.
The car itself has a different feel to it, hard to describe, but it feels like the car is numb or well dampened, not in a bad way though, more like you can drive it that touch harder before it starts to fight back. It seems to carry corner speed very well. Also feels well balanced.
One thing I did change during the build of the car was the DJC pin retention springs. I changed one set of them so that they are tightening themselves during rotation just so they (should) stay on a little better as they spin up. (Basically changing them from leading into the spin but trailing.)
First I have run the car with the out of the box setup and ran that for one of the club races, the only thing I changed was trying going to Grey springs in the front, to which I didn't like that change as much as the original black springs up front.
During my second time out I began to change several things from the stock setup. I ended up with 4mm rear wb spacing, 0mm ackerman, changed both the front and rear upper links to the mid holes, and flipped the read diff to the high setting. also changed the front springs to yellow. These changes produced my best and most consistent times in comparison to my 2.0mm graphite car.
The car still feels nice and tight and pretty slop free,the steering rack is so much better.
A couple of things that didn't work so good. I tried going to the older style top deck in a 1.75 thickness, this made the car dig in the front pretty hard, causing the occasional 2 wheel corner or out flip. The deck that comes with the car gives the best balance so far.
Another thing to note, for those that are planning to just get the upgrades and run the hard 2.0mm graphite chassis. I have both cars setup very similar in equipment so weights from one to the other should be pretty close. What I found is that although the aluminum chassis is overall heavier that the graphite chassis, the aluminum chassis with the 3.0 lower bearing mounts actually gets the car slightly lighter than the previous configuration. So it looks like they got the mass weight lower without having the cars overall weight heavier.
The car itself has a different feel to it, hard to describe, but it feels like the car is numb or well dampened, not in a bad way though, more like you can drive it that touch harder before it starts to fight back. It seems to carry corner speed very well. Also feels well balanced.
One thing I did change during the build of the car was the DJC pin retention springs. I changed one set of them so that they are tightening themselves during rotation just so they (should) stay on a little better as they spin up. (Basically changing them from leading into the spin but trailing.)
06-13-2014, 02:54 PM
#125
So I have had a couple test sessions with the car now and here are some of my observations.
First I have run the car with the out of the box setup and ran that for one of the club races, the only thing I changed was trying going to Grey springs in the front, to which I didn't like that change as much as the original black springs up front.
What did you not like about grey? Was it bottoming out? Or was it slower side to side due to the softness?
During my second time out I began to change several things from the stock setup. I ended up with 4mm rear wb spacing, 0mm ackerman, changed both the front and rear upper links to the mid holes, and flipped the read diff to the high setting. also changed the front springs to yellow. These changes produced my best and most consistent times in comparison to my 2.0mm graphite car.
4mm rear wb in the front of rear arms? What was original setting?
The car still feels nice and tight and pretty slop free,the steering rack is so much better.
A couple of things that didn't work so good. I tried going to the older style top deck in a 1.75 thickness, this made the car dig in the front pretty hard, causing the occasional 2 wheel corner or out flip. The deck that comes with the car gives the best balance so far.
What is the thickness of the top deck in 3.0?
Another thing to note, for those that are planning to just get the upgrades and run the hard 2.0mm graphite chassis. I have both cars setup very similar in equipment so weights from one to the other should be pretty close. What I found is that although the aluminum chassis is overall heavier that the graphite chassis, the aluminum chassis with the 3.0 lower bearing mounts actually gets the car slightly lighter than the previous configuration. So it looks like they got the mass weight lower without having the cars overall weight heavier.
The car itself has a different feel to it, hard to describe, but it feels like the car is numb or well dampened, not in a bad way though, more like you can drive it that touch harder before it starts to fight back. It seems to carry corner speed very well. Also feels well balanced.
One thing I did change during the build of the car was the DJC pin retention springs. I changed one set of them so that they are tightening themselves during rotation just so they (should) stay on a little better as they spin up. (Basically changing them from leading into the spin but trailing.)
First I have run the car with the out of the box setup and ran that for one of the club races, the only thing I changed was trying going to Grey springs in the front, to which I didn't like that change as much as the original black springs up front.
What did you not like about grey? Was it bottoming out? Or was it slower side to side due to the softness?
During my second time out I began to change several things from the stock setup. I ended up with 4mm rear wb spacing, 0mm ackerman, changed both the front and rear upper links to the mid holes, and flipped the read diff to the high setting. also changed the front springs to yellow. These changes produced my best and most consistent times in comparison to my 2.0mm graphite car.
4mm rear wb in the front of rear arms? What was original setting?
The car still feels nice and tight and pretty slop free,the steering rack is so much better.
A couple of things that didn't work so good. I tried going to the older style top deck in a 1.75 thickness, this made the car dig in the front pretty hard, causing the occasional 2 wheel corner or out flip. The deck that comes with the car gives the best balance so far.
What is the thickness of the top deck in 3.0?
Another thing to note, for those that are planning to just get the upgrades and run the hard 2.0mm graphite chassis. I have both cars setup very similar in equipment so weights from one to the other should be pretty close. What I found is that although the aluminum chassis is overall heavier that the graphite chassis, the aluminum chassis with the 3.0 lower bearing mounts actually gets the car slightly lighter than the previous configuration. So it looks like they got the mass weight lower without having the cars overall weight heavier.
The car itself has a different feel to it, hard to describe, but it feels like the car is numb or well dampened, not in a bad way though, more like you can drive it that touch harder before it starts to fight back. It seems to carry corner speed very well. Also feels well balanced.
One thing I did change during the build of the car was the DJC pin retention springs. I changed one set of them so that they are tightening themselves during rotation just so they (should) stay on a little better as they spin up. (Basically changing them from leading into the spin but trailing.)
06-13-2014, 03:16 PM
#126
The stock setting is 3mm shims in front and rear of the rear arms. So he moved them back 1mm.
06-13-2014, 03:36 PM
#127
It felt slower in transition.
As Adam said. (Thanks)
Thickness of the 3.0 top deck is 2.0mm (401495), but it also has the front opened up, or considered the super flexi deck. The 1.75mm (401563) is the full filled front deck same as the 2.0mm deck (401374).
As much as I'd like to say that you can convert the 2.0 to a 3.0, (and all the parts will fit), I do think you'll not get the full advantage of the lower mass weight that the aluminum chassis creates.
I also forgot to mention as Cody said, I manged to put the car off the wall a few times at speed and found that the chassis is more than durable and doesn't take on a tweak with other hits either.
As Adam said. (Thanks)
Thickness of the 3.0 top deck is 2.0mm (401495), but it also has the front opened up, or considered the super flexi deck. The 1.75mm (401563) is the full filled front deck same as the 2.0mm deck (401374).
As much as I'd like to say that you can convert the 2.0 to a 3.0, (and all the parts will fit), I do think you'll not get the full advantage of the lower mass weight that the aluminum chassis creates.
I also forgot to mention as Cody said, I manged to put the car off the wall a few times at speed and found that the chassis is more than durable and doesn't take on a tweak with other hits either.
06-13-2014, 08:53 PM
#128
Had some good results on the low-bite carpet track here in Indy. The layout was interesting. It drove pretty well actually but looked really weird for some reason.
Major changes were Serpent gray front springs, 400cst oil all around, long rear wheelbase, and 1.2 swaybars. The rest was pretty damn close to kit setup. The LTCR was stable all over, but the Mazda GX was faster.
To me, the GX has more entry steering but is stable/slightly pushy at high speeds. The LTCR in comparison "dug" a tad midcorner, but had a good amount of high speed steering.
The BIGGEST thing that helped the car was a rear-steer system. I don't have the official Serpent kit yet so I pieced my own together. For the rear toe blocks, I was at 0.5/2.0 (so 1.5* at the arms), with the tie-rods I put static toe at 2.5*, then configured the "bumpsteer" to give about 3.75* upon compression.
I could drive the car as hard as I wanted and it STUCK. As soon as I was at the apex of the corners I could hit the throttle and power out of the turn. It also seemed to help rotation in the fast corners. I was running Sweep32s to everyone's Sweep28s and Jaco Green (28) and only had traction issues if I got way off line. As Mr. Wishbone mentioned earlier, it seemed like the car got better the harder I drove it .
The car was also very responsive to the rear shock position. In the two and three hole, the car over-rotated just a bit too much midcorner (I think on high bite it'd been perfect). When I moved the rear shocks to the 4th hole the car became MUCH easier to drive everywhere. Something to keep in mind...... when the car's back end swings out midcorner at low speed, stand the rear shocks up. When it's happening at high speed, go down to a 1.2 swaybar (I ended up doing both).
I was very happy with the car on the low bite carpet track here. I think the car would've been even faster if I had started the night off on Solaris medium, but I didn't bother to try them until after the main. Ideally I'd run Sweep28 or even a softer Sorex, but I was glad that the Sweep32 actually worked great. I was also worried about the aluminum chassis freeing the car up too much, but that certainly wasn't an issue.
Major changes were Serpent gray front springs, 400cst oil all around, long rear wheelbase, and 1.2 swaybars. The rest was pretty damn close to kit setup. The LTCR was stable all over, but the Mazda GX was faster.
To me, the GX has more entry steering but is stable/slightly pushy at high speeds. The LTCR in comparison "dug" a tad midcorner, but had a good amount of high speed steering.
The BIGGEST thing that helped the car was a rear-steer system. I don't have the official Serpent kit yet so I pieced my own together. For the rear toe blocks, I was at 0.5/2.0 (so 1.5* at the arms), with the tie-rods I put static toe at 2.5*, then configured the "bumpsteer" to give about 3.75* upon compression.
I could drive the car as hard as I wanted and it STUCK. As soon as I was at the apex of the corners I could hit the throttle and power out of the turn. It also seemed to help rotation in the fast corners. I was running Sweep32s to everyone's Sweep28s and Jaco Green (28) and only had traction issues if I got way off line. As Mr. Wishbone mentioned earlier, it seemed like the car got better the harder I drove it .
The car was also very responsive to the rear shock position. In the two and three hole, the car over-rotated just a bit too much midcorner (I think on high bite it'd been perfect). When I moved the rear shocks to the 4th hole the car became MUCH easier to drive everywhere. Something to keep in mind...... when the car's back end swings out midcorner at low speed, stand the rear shocks up. When it's happening at high speed, go down to a 1.2 swaybar (I ended up doing both).
I was very happy with the car on the low bite carpet track here. I think the car would've been even faster if I had started the night off on Solaris medium, but I didn't bother to try them until after the main. Ideally I'd run Sweep28 or even a softer Sorex, but I was glad that the Sweep32 actually worked great. I was also worried about the aluminum chassis freeing the car up too much, but that certainly wasn't an issue.
06-15-2014, 06:32 AM
#129
Finally got to run my 3.0 yesterday at Leisure Hours in Joliet IL. Its a very large permanent asphalt track and we had ideal conditions.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
06-15-2014, 09:42 AM
#130
Finally got to run my 3.0 yesterday at Leisure Hours in Joliet IL. Its a very large permanent asphalt track and we had ideal conditions.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
06-15-2014, 11:37 PM
#131
Hi Guys, to me the 3.0 looks like a great chassis, i have always enjoyed Serpents kits and this one looks like its a step ahead to me. Will someone please post some pics of their chassis if you have any?
06-15-2014, 11:59 PM
#132
Finally got to run my 3.0 yesterday at Leisure Hours in Joliet IL. Its a very large permanent asphalt track and we had ideal conditions.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
Let me just say this car was great. Even with the aluminum chassis it makes an insane amount of grip.
It was very responsive to set up changes and most importantly.....it was fast.
For anybody who is worried about quality, performance or parts support.........this car is awesome in all 3 categories.
I´ve tried the 2.0 with alu chassis and new motor mount on a big low grip track and it felt good, the flex feels right. The car weighs in @1400 g with TP 6000 mah, motor with fan, HW 2.1 speedo, steel screws, steel drive shafts and steel spool.
06-16-2014, 05:43 AM
#133
06-16-2014, 05:46 AM
#134
06-16-2014, 05:49 AM
#135
http://www.petitrc.com/reglages/serp...see2014051011/
I started with the second setup in the above link.
Changes I made: 1.2 rear bar, rear shocks in #3 hole and I was a little lighter on shock oil.
The car TQ'd and won mod in a pretty competitive field.