Have any of you ever weighed your rotating mass? I have not but I was going to order some scales one day. I was just curios how much weight could be saved from FT box parts to upgraded parts. I remember learning that rotating mass was about equivalent to 6 times the non-rotating mass. At least as far as acceleration was concerned. I use the steel diffs and aluminum axles in the rear, with the plastic axles and steel diffs in the front. Oh yeah thats for stock racing. Its heavy but reliable and the diffs almost feel good. I am looking to make the car faster, and lighter parts in the drivetrain might have to be next.
Originally Posted by koabich
Let's see for stock carpet, the FT TC4 is pretty darn good right out of the box. There are some small improvements that can be made however, especially for stock racing:
-IRS Composite Dogbones
-IRS Aluminum layshafts
-Wipple Carbon Drive Shaft (I just received mine the other day and wow, this thing is incredible...you will not believe how stiff and how extremely light these are)
These mods really lighten up the drivetrain without reducing realibility. Plus the IRS dogbones have pin cushins that help greatly reduce wear to the outdrives!
Also, you will want to run the plastic outdrives in the rear or the car and either the plastic outdrives or the IRS aliminum outdrives in the front. You can run the stock Associated plastic outdrvies in the front. They wear really well and are more than strong enough to hold up to the abuse that stock racing dishes out. They do have a tendency of snapping on really hard front impacts however, so I recommned the IRS outdrives.
I also like Acer ceramic bearings, diff balls and thrust balls. These make a huge differe IMO.
I don't think this car needs as much rear toe in as others say but I'm that's more personal preference than anything else! I like the use a Circle block instead of the square block in the rear. This gives me -0.5 degrees or rear toe in.