tc3team

Ok. So here's the deal.

I race indoors on carpet and my local club recently banned additive.

What kind of setup changes can I make to the car to make it feel better?

I race on foam tyres, the two thoughts I've had so far are:

1) change to a 30mm rear tyre

2) use a thinner rear diff oil (I think I am on 3,000 at the moment).

Obviously the car is pushing a bit more now than I would like it to and the grip levels are not there.

it's very frustrating knowing that in June I was TQ and racing in the A often, these days I am in the B and a few laps down.

Setup isn't something I excel on but when the car's right, the lap consistency is also good.

The car is an Xray T4 '13

The parts of the setup I can remember are

2.9? front spring
2.3 rear

50wt front, 40wt rear.

26mm 45shore front

26mm 42 rear

3.5mm ride height

no droop on the rear

Titan blitz g35 shell

Thoughts?

Thank you in advance

I did consider changing to rubber tyres as these are allowed, but the track is very small (7 second lap time) so you need a lot of steering.

Some people have tried cs24 but they tend to overheat and change characteristic too much to feel like a safe tyre to use.

Boostinswifty38

iTrader: (6)

I only race Carpet rubber on my sedan. Sold my '13 but I'm on the new '15. Good cars.

I am not sure how this will work for you or not, but in general to get better grip for me on Carpet with rubber I would definitely go lighter springs. 2.3 all around or 2.3 and 2.5. Softer oil (try 30 to 35), short camber links. I would also play with the arm hingpin. Moving them down to try and get the car to roll more. Raise the ride height a little bit. I would also definitely do lighter rear diff oil. I'm usually at 800 in the rear until grip comes up. Want more turn in, try a gear diff up front with 1mil or 2.5 mil. More camber will also help cornering. What is your toe?

tc3team

Useful to know, thanks for the suggestions

I like the car, very durable. Only one rear belt broken through wear and tear.

I already use a gear diff up front, I think it has 50,000 in it. I tried 500,000 and it was generating way too much steering (but that was when we used additive).

3 degrees rear toe IIRC, 0.5 Front toe out.

oeoeo327

iTrader: (75)

Softer settings to generate more roll should generate more grip at the expense of chassis response - if I were in that situation, I'd contemplate using a softer foam tire. Are you lacking grip in the front or rear of the car?

Was there a specific reason your club decided against the use of traction additives?

Boostinswifty38

iTrader: (6)

Like I saidCo can only give advice based on rubber touring. My foam is limited to wgt.

niznai

Yep, softer suspension, more roll is what I would go for too. Lighter oils, perhaps 40/30 and raise the inner camber link in small increments firstly in the rear. Leave the front diff alone for the time being, doesn't seem excessively stiff. Lighter oil in the rear diff if you get spinouts.

chensleyrc1

iTrader: (38)

I used to get away with "cleaning" my tires with orange hand cleaner at the tracks for no additives. Worked great, lol.

2uzferunner03

Cleaning rubber tires with simple green makes them very sticky. Not sure what it would do to foam.

tc3team

I can see a lot of setup changes being tried lol.

On my earlier thoughts I do think rubber tyres are not the way to go as predominantly the club has used foam in 3 or 4 of its classes and only 1/10th off road uses rubber.

Softer foams are an option but will be at the cost of tyre life and possibly grip rolling if the grip comes up too much.

The floor got messy after the carpet had been down and a few people may have been irresponsible with how they used additive.

oil based additive is a ***** to get rid of, so rather than loose the venue, the club laid down the rule.

I am not in favour of the rule, but I can totally understand why it was banned.

I don't really know if I'm lacking front or rear end grip, all I know is the car is pushing a bit more than it used to.

I ordered some Tamiya 53633 springs recently, but I doubt i'll be using them now! lol

oeoeo327

iTrader: (75)

This solution does work in a pinch - perhaps your club could adopt this solution instead of banning all forms of an additive (?)

Back to the OP's dilemma - I'd use the same compound tire front and rear, or perhaps swap the front and rear sets of tires to put the harder tire in the rear of the car... That should help the car rotate a little easier.

nf_ekt

iTrader: (115)

no droop on the rear?

tc3team

That would be a nice compromise but I don't think it's going to happen unfortunately as it leaves the door open to allow the situation to spiral out of control again.

I do have quite a few different tyres to try so that will be an option

tc3team

Well, my wishbones are level, so I guess that equates to having no rear droop.

It's not the fastest way around the track but I've got frustrated with setup so much that I'm throwing the back end of the car around hairpins lol

not really sure if I should be laughing or not impressed with how my results have slumped from being TQ in June, to being in the B recently....

I'll battle on with things though

Chris Haigh

iTrader: (41)

We're in the same boat here as we're not allowed to use additive on our carpet track and everyone is racing on foams since the traction is better. Here's what my XRay setup looks like:

26mm 40 shore tires front
26mm 32 shore tires rear
Stock shock springs
30 wt oil front shocks
25 wt oil rear shocks
50 wt oil rear diff
No rear swaybar
5mm ride height front and rear
Droop 3mm over ride height front and rear
Bitty Nardo body

I'm also running some pro-squat in the rear to increase weight transfer to the rear when accelerating out of corners and have had good success with that. I've also added some current limit to my esc to help control wheelspin under acceleration with less traction.

With this setup, the car is very forgiving and practically glued to the track. It may not have as much steering as you're looking for, but it's prefect for me as I prefer my cars to not have a ton of steering. I TQ and win the A-Main here just about every race night with it.

Tires get rotated and ride height readjusted after every heat. Tire wear is usually less than 1mm at the end of the night, but that's where my tire truer has paid for itself already.

Racing on foams definitely takes more work, but it's still possible to go fast on them without the use of additive. Just makes it more difficult.

Boostinswifty38

iTrader: (6)

Also gotta remember, manufacturers today are designing and building around rubber touring, not foam. So flex characteristics and such are quite different.