Well, after three race nights chasing the car, and breaking it three race nights in a row, the car was fantastic this evening. TQ and win tonight for the Lightning 12M, not bad as we had 11 racers turnout. I didn't have the fastest lap of the evening but was less than 2 tenths off FL. Main thing, car was unbelievably consistent and ended up finishing 3 laps ahead of 2nd and 3rd after the 8 minute main.
I beat three Xray 2016's (one had FL), four 12R5.2's, a 12R5.1 (what my 12M replaced) , and two CRC Xti's. I'm the only one at our track that runs VBC, and an aluminum chassis.
This chassis is beautiful and a work of art (if you're into R/C stuff)
I really think this chassis helped with the consistency of the handling, and for $58, it was worth it (they're $49 right now on VBCRacing USA site)
For the setup, I started with kit setup, but have been altering it as I have run it, unfortunately, that hasn't been much since I kept breaking things. I will say the the 3x15mm turnbuckle that comes in the kit are crap, I put the super steel ones on and haven't had an issue - 'course the car is handling better than in the beginning. I put Team Associated diff lube in the side tubes, took almost all the preload off the center shock, moved the side springs back into the inner setting (I had them over the side links originally like my 12R5.1). Went from 3mm ride height to ~3.5mm in the front. Kept the rear at 3mm. Also, changed the caster from the stock 3.25* to 6.15* (really slowed the steering down and made it less "nervous"). Tires are Graylow rear at 38.5mm, and the fronts are Whites at about 38, maybe just a whisker under.
Again though, the car was great, after just one full race night (wasn't able to run an entire night because I was breaking things I didn't have replacements for) it is already on par with my old 12R5.1 which I had almost 6 months of setup on. This chassis has me excited to keep pushing it. So much so that I bought another one.
Another thing that I was happy with was how I was able to "race" close to other cars. I was able to really push them and force them into a mistake or something so I could get by. The car was really "planted" and that is something I haven't really had with other cars. Again, the car was so consistent and predictable. Was so much fun to drive a car that "works".
Anyway, really looking forward to next Wednesday race night.
