143LikesAwesomatix EP Touring Car (A700 Shaft Drive)
01-01-2012, 09:36 AM
#1201
Well, I had my first outing with the A700 yesterday, and all I can say is WOW!
I started off with Tom Maquel's high traction carpet setup, except I ran the dampers with the symmetrical setting, 1.3mm sway bar on the front and 1.2mm in the rear, and 800cst in the gear diff. Within the first battery pack in practice, I was within 2 tenths of my fast lap on this layout that I had set with my 417. Near the end of practice, I was feeling more comfortable with the car, but made a big mistake and broke a ball cup (P01). I also made an error in a fairly high speed chicane and the car tumbled end over end, and was still fine (some setting had been tweaked, but nothing broke).
In my first qualifier, the car felt really good. I managed to beat both my personal records (best 6 min race and fast lap), and managed to get TQ by a second which at our local track isn't easy. Racing against top drivers like Martin Crisp (team Serpent), and Andrew Hardman (many sponsors, although he wasn't there this week). In the final, Martin managed to get in front of me on the 3rd corner and hold me off, but I'm really impressed that I was able to stay as close as I did to him.
Here's a video of the main (my car is orange/blue/white)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZeNbNmBgkc
With the same Tekin RS settings, motor timing, and gearing as I ran in my 417 (coming off at 170-180*F), the motor was coming off closer to 140-150 thanks to the super efficient drive-train. It was also quieter then I expected based on prior experiences with shaft drive cars.
For minimum weight we run 1380 grams, and the car out of the box with my electronics (picture below)and the body, it weighed 1325. It was nice to be able to add all the weight to the center line of the car under the shaft.
All in all, a very promising first outing with the car. Next week I plan on trying some thicker oil in the gear diff (1000cst), running with less rear toe (2.5*), and some different shock settings (although I was very happy with the setup today, I just want to get a better idea on how to use these dampers over the conventional TC dampers). Can't wait to get back on the track with this car!
I started off with Tom Maquel's high traction carpet setup, except I ran the dampers with the symmetrical setting, 1.3mm sway bar on the front and 1.2mm in the rear, and 800cst in the gear diff. Within the first battery pack in practice, I was within 2 tenths of my fast lap on this layout that I had set with my 417. Near the end of practice, I was feeling more comfortable with the car, but made a big mistake and broke a ball cup (P01). I also made an error in a fairly high speed chicane and the car tumbled end over end, and was still fine (some setting had been tweaked, but nothing broke).
In my first qualifier, the car felt really good. I managed to beat both my personal records (best 6 min race and fast lap), and managed to get TQ by a second which at our local track isn't easy. Racing against top drivers like Martin Crisp (team Serpent), and Andrew Hardman (many sponsors, although he wasn't there this week). In the final, Martin managed to get in front of me on the 3rd corner and hold me off, but I'm really impressed that I was able to stay as close as I did to him.
Here's a video of the main (my car is orange/blue/white)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZeNbNmBgkc
With the same Tekin RS settings, motor timing, and gearing as I ran in my 417 (coming off at 170-180*F), the motor was coming off closer to 140-150 thanks to the super efficient drive-train. It was also quieter then I expected based on prior experiences with shaft drive cars.
For minimum weight we run 1380 grams, and the car out of the box with my electronics (picture below)and the body, it weighed 1325. It was nice to be able to add all the weight to the center line of the car under the shaft.
All in all, a very promising first outing with the car. Next week I plan on trying some thicker oil in the gear diff (1000cst), running with less rear toe (2.5*), and some different shock settings (although I was very happy with the setup today, I just want to get a better idea on how to use these dampers over the conventional TC dampers). Can't wait to get back on the track with this car!
01-01-2012, 10:09 AM
#1202
It was very interesting seeing how this car performed yesterday at our local (well two hours away) track. When Steve was driving the 417 he was much slower, and with it being his first day with the car...well done. It is good to see Steve running a car that works well for him, as it makes for much more fun and competitive racing.
01-01-2012, 12:53 PM
#1204
Tom Maquel's gp3f set up uses F1 battery position. One back from fully forward, or all the way forward? On the set up sheet its R1 R2 F1 F2, suggesting R2 and F1 are the two middle positions..on the pdf instruction manual pg31 its F1 F2 R2 R1 which says something quite different. Maybe I got something wrong so I could do with some clarification here
01-01-2012, 01:27 PM
#1205
Tom Maquel's gp3f set up uses F1 battery position. One back from fully forward, or all the way forward? On the set up sheet its R1 R2 F1 F2, suggesting R2 and F1 are the two middle positions..on the pdf instruction manual pg31 its F1 F2 R2 R1 which says something quite different. Maybe I got something wrong so I could do with some clarification here
01-01-2012, 03:46 PM
#1206
Tech Apprentice
Steve TQ'd and was very fast all day, I really like the design of the car and how flat it stays while driving.... The car doesn't seem to roll through the corners!
It was cool to watch a very different unconventional design, I believe Steve is one of just a few Canadians with this car. I am sure with some more bench and track time, Steve will get even quicker!
Cheers
Grant
It was cool to watch a very different unconventional design, I believe Steve is one of just a few Canadians with this car. I am sure with some more bench and track time, Steve will get even quicker!
Cheers
Grant
01-01-2012, 11:11 PM
#1207
Tom Maquel's gp3f set up uses F1 battery position. One back from fully forward, or all the way forward? On the set up sheet its R1 R2 F1 F2, suggesting R2 and F1 are the two middle positions..on the pdf instruction manual pg31 its F1 F2 R2 R1 which says something quite different. Maybe I got something wrong so I could do with some clarification here
edit: so the F1 is for me the second front setting. F2 is the all forward, r2 the all rear position.
The A700 is quit differnet in battery position than on other cars...
most of the mainstream cars if you move the battery forwards it give you more steering ...
on the A700 it make the car less nervous.
Concerning my GP3F setup I have to say that we was using handout tires from LRP, the CPX ..
this tires is pretty unique in his design with a very low profile.
The main problem for me was due to the very low center of gravity of the a700 the car is not "rolling" in the corners. Running on Sorex or ride tires this is a big advantage cause the tires does not overheat and so you can run 5minutes very constant and make less errors.
On a CPX tires when the car does not "roll" you will not get any temperatur into the tires and this result into a very pushing car after the first 2 laps.
thats why I changed the downstops and also the reardiff.
after does changes i was able to run the fastest laps on the track and challenge for the win ...
its strange cause on my tamiya i was fighting with the car to not overheat the CPX
so with the A700 we have to think quite different.more to come
see you on track
regards Tom
Last edited by Tbone13; 01-02-2012 at 06:42 AM.
01-01-2012, 11:48 PM
#1208
Tech Fanatic
01-02-2012, 01:54 AM
#1209
OK Tom thank you for your answer, now I understand where you place the battery in gp3 set up, most forward.
Oleg is saying something different about battery position, F2 most forward. Thanks for clarification.
Please could we have the set up sheet in the same order as the instructions, F2 F1 R1 R2 ? For me this would be more intuitive, the position of the X will correspond to the position in the car, but perhaps others disagree.
Sorry about my original post, on pg31 in the manual its F2 F1 R1 F2 not F1 F2 R2 R1 as I posted. I think I got it now though.
I have used the LRP tyre, yes, very low profile. And I found it difficult to find a good set up so thanks for your help. I want to experiment with the battery position, its all the way back at the moment but I think it will be better to change this.
Oleg is saying something different about battery position, F2 most forward. Thanks for clarification.
Please could we have the set up sheet in the same order as the instructions, F2 F1 R1 R2 ? For me this would be more intuitive, the position of the X will correspond to the position in the car, but perhaps others disagree.
Sorry about my original post, on pg31 in the manual its F2 F1 R1 F2 not F1 F2 R2 R1 as I posted. I think I got it now though.
I have used the LRP tyre, yes, very low profile. And I found it difficult to find a good set up so thanks for your help. I want to experiment with the battery position, its all the way back at the moment but I think it will be better to change this.
Last edited by hana166; 01-02-2012 at 02:07 AM.
01-02-2012, 06:44 AM
#1210
OK Tom thank you for your answer, now I understand where you place the battery in gp3 set up, most forward.
Oleg is saying something different about battery position, F2 most forward. Thanks for clarification.
Please could we have the set up sheet in the same order as the instructions, F2 F1 R1 R2 ? For me this would be more intuitive, the position of the X will correspond to the position in the car, but perhaps others disagree.
Sorry about my original post, on pg31 in the manual its F2 F1 R1 F2 not F1 F2 R2 R1 as I posted. I think I got it now though.
I have used the LRP tyre, yes, very low profile. And I found it difficult to find a good set up so thanks for your help. I want to experiment with the battery position, its all the way back at the moment but I think it will be better to change this.
Oleg is saying something different about battery position, F2 most forward. Thanks for clarification.
Please could we have the set up sheet in the same order as the instructions, F2 F1 R1 R2 ? For me this would be more intuitive, the position of the X will correspond to the position in the car, but perhaps others disagree.
Sorry about my original post, on pg31 in the manual its F2 F1 R1 F2 not F1 F2 R2 R1 as I posted. I think I got it now though.
I have used the LRP tyre, yes, very low profile. And I found it difficult to find a good set up so thanks for your help. I want to experiment with the battery position, its all the way back at the moment but I think it will be better to change this.
of course M Awesomatix (Oleg) is right ..
i used the F1 position who is the second forward position where F2 is the most forward... I edited my previous post. Sorry for that i switched some numbers
king regards Tom
01-02-2012, 07:00 AM
#1211
Thanks Tom I will try this battery position, I get my first test on Saturday
What is your opinion on how the active castor changes the car, with the top link angled forward or backward?
What is your opinion on how the active castor changes the car, with the top link angled forward or backward?
01-02-2012, 09:57 AM
#1212
So, against my expectations, my electrics turned up in time to have a practise today.... ok, I spent my New Years celebration fitting them rather than going out, but in my defense, it had been a crappy week, no one else was around, and going to the bar on your own is just saaad 
!
Anyway, headed to the track today, and had a full 12 hours there. Simply put, and I'm going to try not use any cliche's, Awesome!
(Ok, I failed on the cliche part!)
Still, started out the day by giving my 417 a run round whilst I was painting the shell for the A700. Changed a few little settings which improved that car, and also get my eye into the track, and give a good comparison. Wasn't able to log an laptimes though, as the AMB loop was being used by the off-road meeting on the adjacent dirt track.
As mentioned previously, I started out with with Ivan's ATS settings, although still had the un-cut top deck as I hadn't been able to source a dremel (even with all the off-roaders present.. I mean really!), and wanted to give it a try with it un-cut out of interest.
First run out on track, and just took it easy... well, for all of three laps! The car just inspired confidence, and before I knew, was up and attacking the corners pretty quickly. And guess what, it had a really good balance to it with seemingly little in the way of vices. Having said that, it wasn't perfect, mainly with the car feeling like it was pitching around a bit too much, stepping out on power, and also me not having secured the middle steering rack bearing tightly enough... normal first run niggles
For the second run, I cut the top deck, and kept everything else the same. This time, first corner and flip... more grip then! The balance was better again, no more of the little step out on power, but with the soft damping, the car was a bit tough to drive.
Anyway, for the next few runs, I had a good old play around with different spring and damping settings, refering to a number of different setups (Ivan's ETS and ATS, Tom F's and Mark D's carpet settings), and getting a feel for what did what, and how responsive the car was to even small changes. Suffice to say, I've ended up very impressed with the resolution the car has to even a small adjustment on the spring and dampers.
I ended up on somewhat of a compromise setting compared to the others I refered to, and for me this felt the best, although when I get the opportunity to run laps with the loop working I'll go back and test again. Basically ended up with a fairly soft spring rate, and a soft-ish damping, but also using the roll bars. The main reason for this is that the track I'm on is indoor asphalt, and has a few ripples and bumps in it. Going stiffer on the springs would unsettle the car a little, and having the bumps and high traction, too high a damping rate made the car also respond badly. So softer springing is needed, and to get back the roll control, hello roll bars!
As some others have mentioned, I think I've actually picked up the setting adjustment pretty quickly. Breaking out the feeler gauge is just a matter of course, and as long as I kept the spring calc up on the computer (now there's an iPhone app, combine it with FDR, Castor, and link length calcs, sorted!!), was very easy to pick where and what I wanted to try next.
By the end of the day the balance was really good, with it feeling very different to any other car I've driven, but in a good a way, and also very consistent to boot. Only slight issues I had were a slight lack of mid-corner, and a nervousness around the centre of the steering travel that made it tricky to nail the perfect line into the sweeper every lap.
Now, I managed to (partially) solve the mid-corner issue by trying out some reactive castor on the front. Given I was lacking time, I just switched out the 2mm shims for 1mm in the front, and 3mm in the rear... so quite a big step, but I figured it would quickly tell me what it does! And what it did was just make the car better in the middle... turn-in, hook up, nail throttle.. that simple!
As for the sweeper issue, well I ran out of time to try anything else, but I do want to try out different ackerman options next time out, as well as different roll centres. I also want to try out the asymmetric dampers, but I did run into a snag here. Basically, both my lefty dampers (LF and RR) had an issue with the symmetric/asymmetric screws being very very tight in the body. Unfortunately, so much so that the head in the LF damper stripped. Not a massive issue, as I can get it out using some old tricks, but I need to get the damper out the car first, and that wasn't a trackside job.
Only other issue I ran into the during the day (and I don't count one of the rear toe in ball joints coming loose!) was I managed to strip the thread a little in the LR spring clamp plate. Thankfully, Oleg puts a spare in the kit, but with my ham fisted fingers, think I'll need to pick up a few more! Apart from those two... no other issues. No tweak problems, settings stayed the same when left from run to run, just as it should be.
Overall, very happy with the day, and I think the performance on track has put the cat amongst the pigeons a little... many good comments coming from those watching as too how settled and fast the car looked. Can't wait to get it back on track
Job list for next time includes aforementioned asym dampers and ackerman, as well as battery position (which ties in nicely with the above posts!) and roll centre.
Top job Oleg and co.
Regards
Ed
!Anyway, headed to the track today, and had a full 12 hours there. Simply put, and I'm going to try not use any cliche's, Awesome!
(Ok, I failed on the cliche part!)
Still, started out the day by giving my 417 a run round whilst I was painting the shell for the A700. Changed a few little settings which improved that car, and also get my eye into the track, and give a good comparison. Wasn't able to log an laptimes though, as the AMB loop was being used by the off-road meeting on the adjacent dirt track.
As mentioned previously, I started out with with Ivan's ATS settings, although still had the un-cut top deck as I hadn't been able to source a dremel (even with all the off-roaders present.. I mean really!), and wanted to give it a try with it un-cut out of interest.
First run out on track, and just took it easy... well, for all of three laps! The car just inspired confidence, and before I knew, was up and attacking the corners pretty quickly. And guess what, it had a really good balance to it with seemingly little in the way of vices. Having said that, it wasn't perfect, mainly with the car feeling like it was pitching around a bit too much, stepping out on power, and also me not having secured the middle steering rack bearing tightly enough... normal first run niggles
For the second run, I cut the top deck, and kept everything else the same. This time, first corner and flip... more grip then! The balance was better again, no more of the little step out on power, but with the soft damping, the car was a bit tough to drive.
Anyway, for the next few runs, I had a good old play around with different spring and damping settings, refering to a number of different setups (Ivan's ETS and ATS, Tom F's and Mark D's carpet settings), and getting a feel for what did what, and how responsive the car was to even small changes. Suffice to say, I've ended up very impressed with the resolution the car has to even a small adjustment on the spring and dampers.
I ended up on somewhat of a compromise setting compared to the others I refered to, and for me this felt the best, although when I get the opportunity to run laps with the loop working I'll go back and test again. Basically ended up with a fairly soft spring rate, and a soft-ish damping, but also using the roll bars. The main reason for this is that the track I'm on is indoor asphalt, and has a few ripples and bumps in it. Going stiffer on the springs would unsettle the car a little, and having the bumps and high traction, too high a damping rate made the car also respond badly. So softer springing is needed, and to get back the roll control, hello roll bars!
As some others have mentioned, I think I've actually picked up the setting adjustment pretty quickly. Breaking out the feeler gauge is just a matter of course, and as long as I kept the spring calc up on the computer (now there's an iPhone app, combine it with FDR, Castor, and link length calcs, sorted!!), was very easy to pick where and what I wanted to try next.
By the end of the day the balance was really good, with it feeling very different to any other car I've driven, but in a good a way, and also very consistent to boot. Only slight issues I had were a slight lack of mid-corner, and a nervousness around the centre of the steering travel that made it tricky to nail the perfect line into the sweeper every lap.
Now, I managed to (partially) solve the mid-corner issue by trying out some reactive castor on the front. Given I was lacking time, I just switched out the 2mm shims for 1mm in the front, and 3mm in the rear... so quite a big step, but I figured it would quickly tell me what it does! And what it did was just make the car better in the middle... turn-in, hook up, nail throttle.. that simple!
As for the sweeper issue, well I ran out of time to try anything else, but I do want to try out different ackerman options next time out, as well as different roll centres. I also want to try out the asymmetric dampers, but I did run into a snag here. Basically, both my lefty dampers (LF and RR) had an issue with the symmetric/asymmetric screws being very very tight in the body. Unfortunately, so much so that the head in the LF damper stripped. Not a massive issue, as I can get it out using some old tricks, but I need to get the damper out the car first, and that wasn't a trackside job.
Only other issue I ran into the during the day (and I don't count one of the rear toe in ball joints coming loose!) was I managed to strip the thread a little in the LR spring clamp plate. Thankfully, Oleg puts a spare in the kit, but with my ham fisted fingers, think I'll need to pick up a few more! Apart from those two... no other issues. No tweak problems, settings stayed the same when left from run to run, just as it should be.
Overall, very happy with the day, and I think the performance on track has put the cat amongst the pigeons a little... many good comments coming from those watching as too how settled and fast the car looked. Can't wait to get it back on track
Job list for next time includes aforementioned asym dampers and ackerman, as well as battery position (which ties in nicely with the above posts!) and roll centre. Top job Oleg and co.
Regards
Ed
01-02-2012, 01:50 PM
#1214
Tryhard: You know a bunch of 417 users will now sell up and get the A700 so please don't talk it up too much or will lose the advantage we have 
so please don't talk it up too much or will lose the advantage we have
01-02-2012, 04:08 PM
#1215
hi, want to purchase this car where do i purchase it, i tried to email awesomatix but their email, is not working