Woofa8

G'day Ray,
As i have said to you i am looking to start offroad at Keilor with an onroad background. So 2wd buggy will be my starting point. Question is B5 or B5M?

Thanks Mark

clw

Ray:

Ground up some green DD's last Sunday in 30°C heat on an outdoor abrasive track, turned them into slicks. It was ugly!

Looking at your tire chart it looks like Orange Bar Codes V2 is the rear tire for a calcium treated clay track when it's this hot. What front and compound should pair with these on a B4.2?

Also, where do the new Dirt Webs fall in your chart?

I'm just looking for a good tire to bang out laps and sharpen up my skills so durability is a plus.

Thanks

Jouster

iTrader: (1)

Hey Ray. Thanks for all your advice.

After racing last weekend there's a few more bits I'd like to put on my B4.2 RTR to get it up to spec. I'm looking at 12mm shocks, alloy hexes, alloy rear hubs, CVA's and a couple of other small things. My problem is the cost of those parts almost works out to the same cost as buying a B5. Seriously, for another $60 I can just get a B5 with all that and more. If I throw my running gear in it I presume I have a better car for the same money. So my question is...what would Ray do?? Are the upgrades I'm looking at worthwhile or are they the sort of things a newbie will not really notice anyway??

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Sorry for slow replies guys, I have been away on a business trip working mega hours.

For 17.5 I would go the rear motor. The mid motor car is good if you have high grip, flowing layout and lots of power. The rear motor car will generate more traction and unless you are going at mod speeds the pendulum effect isnt bad. The b5 rear motor is very stable, light and is what I recommend to start.

I would go for a bar tyre for sure on that sort of track unless there is dust. If its dusty and abrasive use 3d. If low dust then
Bar codes. Dirt webs are very precise if there is very low dust, but wear maybe more than bar codes.

orange if its dry, hot and abrasive.

V1 or b2 bar code is personal choice. V1 is smoother in corner to throttle transition. V2 has more peak grip but needs a more point and shoot style.

My advice: upgrade the electronics but dont touch the car too much. Hexes are useful in that you can use more standard wheel sizes, but just use the basic plastic ones. Upgrading to bb springs may be more cost effective than the entire shock. Dont worry about alloy hubs or cvd. Ti turnbuckles may help add strength plus you can install them onto a b5 in the future.

Basically learn how to drive it to its limits without spending mega bucks. Maybe look for cheap 2nd hand b4.2s if you want to get to latest spec.

rigor

iTrader: (44)

Congrats Ray!

http://www.teamassociated.com/news/r...t_in_Australia

Thanks for all your help and advice you give here. There should be more like you in this 'sport'.

Take care,
Jesse

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Thanks mate. Shame there was no video as the car was really good, especially after adding the extra weight as per the setup sheet I linked a few posts back.

Glad you guys enjoy the thread!

mookins

Hi Ray,

Me yet again. This time about shocks and some other small bits and pieces.

I have the B44.1 and am trying out some tuning techniques so that I can establish a car setup all on my own from basic principles. In doing so I have meticulously pulled apart the entire suspension setup and have rebuilt it, checking for binding, bent pins, cracks etc. One thing that caught my attention were the following:

a) The rear springs rub against the shock body, providing a little bit of resistance and horrible sound. Would you say this "binding" is going to be negligible and is to be accepted or is it a sign of a problem? Nothing seems damaged, bent etc. The springs and shock shafts are brand new.

b) The front springs are so short that they do not even contact the spring cups until the threaded retained is wound down at least 10.5mm. The rear contact the spring almost immediately. It doesn't give you much room for adjusting the ride height and it doesn't make sense to not just use a longer spring to make use of the entire thread. Any reasons you know of or can think of? If I can find longer springs of similar rates, could you see a problem with using these?

c) When I tighten the lower shock seal cap all the way on some shocks it seems to create large amount of friction (stutters a bit too) while on others the shock feels smooth. I can only think of two possibilities for this happening. Manufacturing tolerances of the o-ring spacer or the seal cap; or the o-rings have swollen and change the squash factor. What is your procedure for doing up the seal cups? Do you just tighten them until you have the appropriate amount of sealing and smoothness or some other method?

d) Although not a stock part, I am using the RPM arms and they were a very tight fit in respect to how it mates with the front bulkhead. I contacted RPM and they said that it just needs time to wear in. The hinge pin bores on one of the arms were not in perfect alignment and thus it is very tight and the arm is not moving freely on one side as compared to the other. Do you use RPM arms and if so do you have any tips on getting this to play nice if indeed you found the same? I was informed by RPM tech support not to ream the arms; they seemed to stress this point. XRay seem particularly open to reaming the arms so I can't see what the big deal is if I were to go this route as I could go from the 0.11" (2.79mm) up to a 3mm metric pin.


For those of whom are interested in the thread regarding tuning your car, the thread is here
http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric...ber-links.html
and the person giving most of the advice is fredswain. Most of it seems quite logical and will be interesting to see how I go with it.

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Hi Mookins,

a) This is normal with the 10mm shocks and springs. Its not ideal, and is part of the reason that the team switched to big bore springs even using small bore shocks. You can switch to the 12mm AE springs using the big bore lower spring retainers, and using a spring retainer from a Slash to let the spring sit on the upper retainer (there is a link to this in one of my early posts on this thread).

b)Make sure you have the longer lower spring retainers on the front, and the shorter spring retainers on the rear. The lack of adjustment is a legacy of the 10mm spring range being designed for a 2wd buggy, which has a lighter front end and heavier rear end.

c) This is caused by seal swell. With new seals, you can run the lower caps tight. After the seals swell, you can back the lower cap off a little but best performance is with fresh seals. Use the AE green slime to coat the seals, this will help the seal last longer before swelling.

d) I havent used the RPM arms sorry. Id give them a couple of runs and if they havent broken in by then, you could try reaming - but you need to be careful as if you go too far, you cant go back!

Ive read the fredswain link and in general the principles are the same as full size suspension tuning (trying to get a similar natural frequency front and rear). Our cars are so heavily damped I dont believe it is as critical compared to a softly damped road vehicle, but there are some good points in the thread and interesting reading.

Ray

Jouster

iTrader: (1)

Hi Ray

More rookie questions relating to my B4.2RTR. I need to get a new body but there seems to be some confusion over what might fit the RTR chassis. Apparently all the other B4.2 chassis are longer by 8mm so a standard B4.2 body won't fit properly?? I purchased a Proline Bulldog B4.2 body and it doesn't seem to be the correct shape. It seems to be about 8mm longer.

Would that mean the best body to get to fit this car would be a standard length B4.1 body?? I see there's some B4.1+8mm bodies which I presume are the same size as the B4.2 Factory Team, etc.

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Hi mate,

Yes the shorter chassis requires a shorter body. Any body for the B4.1 will fit, other than ones listed as +8mm.

My favourite for this length was the JConcepts Punisher:
http://www.jconcepts.net/store/index...roducts_id=409

Alternatively you could also get the longer chassis (which does help the handling and stability of the car):
http://www.teamassociated.com/parts/details/9637/

Ray

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Over the weekend I competed in the SCT Stampede at Keilor. I love Short Course Trucks so I was looking forward to the event and did a bit of setup work on the SC10.2 on this track which has high speed corners as well as lots of direction changes. There is also a triple jump with a sharp lip that initially caused me a lot of issues.

It was a successful weekend with my truck taking the win after some close racing with Ash Peeler.

My SCT setup is now posted on the Keilor website:
http://keilorrc.org.au/setups/2014_S...r_Stampede.pdf

I highly recommend installing the JConcepts front and rear swaybars on the SC10 - they make a huge difference on a track like Keilor, especially through the first few sweeping corners. If you dont run them you will probably need to run orange or purple front springs and grey rears.

I usually run a large ballast weight behind the battery (~70g), but I found the truck would always kick up at the back over triple. Taking it out helped it jump much better. I also ran a heavier rear oil to help the jumping.

note: for some reason, sometimes these editable .pdfs dont work on all smartphones, so you may need to open with a PC.

EDIT: if you are having trouble viewing the pdf on a smartphone, go to the menu and make sure 'annotations' are turned on. Thanks Mark Poli for the tip!

Ray

clw

Hi Ray:

What's your take on Dakota Phend's domination at the Cactus Cup and his setup change to 1.3x4 pistons with thick oils? I think in 2wd buggy he ran 40 front and 32.5 rear. Does this have any crossover to Associated buggies?

Thanks

KL1977

Hi Ray

You recommend to run orange or purple front springs and grey rears without swaybars. What about shock locations, oils etc. to make it work with those stiffer springs.

Thanks

ray_munday

iTrader: (4)

Generally a setup like that will have heavy static damping, but low pack. From what I could see the track was quite grippy with a rough surface texture so this may have helped get extra traction in the bumps. I havent played around with the 4h pistons on the AEs. The highly sugared tracks tend to respond a bit differently to normal dirt tracks so its hard to say if it will be useful everywhere, but would be interesting to try.

The oils in my setup are already quite heavy, so I would start with the firmer springs to control the roll and possibly an extra limiter in the front shocks.

KL1977

The oils in my setup are already quite heavy, so I would start with the firmer springs to control the roll and possibly an extra limiter in the front shocks.[/QUOTE]

Thanks Ray!

Do you usually use the 4th hole on shock towers in your sc10.2?
What is the reason why should not use the 3th hole?