one thing you could try to make is a cheaper upper bulkhead. i was thinking of making the flats out of CF, and the upright shock tower retainers out of acetel or some cheap to get, easy to machine plastic.
something that doesnt cost $70 lol.

dont see how the bellcrank could fit on the lower deck with the placement of the third belt in relation to the battery. but if you were interested in making chassis plates, some kind of hardware retainment for the battery would be nice. maybe hard plastic blocks to hold the batter steady, and a thumbscrew retainer that lets you slide it out fromt he belt side.

one thing i havent seen tried was putting the bellcrank in front of the chassis using a pushrod to activate similar to nitro car brakes. kinda ugly, but makes a lot more room in the middle of the car.

I'll look at the bulkhead solution and I noticed the issue with the front belt but I think I can come up with something that's at least better than using the top deck for the steering assembly. If I go the route of designing in the use of a shorty pack, I may have more room to work with.

Thanks for your input, all is appreciated.:nod:

You could raise the middle pully up to make room for dual bellcrank below it or lower it with grooves in the chassis to have it above using stand offs. Above is better prob as it would be more in line with the steering.

Rick,

With the shorty pack and dual steering bell crank is the ticket and gear diff... I know you can come up with an idea... I really wanted to give the E4 another try... But anyways got rid of my TC6 and switch to Taimya 417x... ;)

Oh really?
The 417 is a nice car...
I figure, why not revisit the E4 for the fun of it. I've got plenty of parts so why not play around with some ideas. First I need to get my 1/8th pan car running then I will look into other projects.

Geardif would be complex to machine on a desktoP mill. Better trying to convert an xray or similar to fit.
Shorty pack wont make any more room for the dual bellcrank with he middle shaft carrier in the way.

Right, but I may be able to incorporate the steering into a new mid shaft carrier block.

looks to me like you can lose almost 5mm if you slot the chassis, and drop the shaft down so the pully follows the bottom line of the chassis. maybe attach the tensioner to the block somehow. or sandwich one between the bulkheads and the top deck.

maybe you could use the upper deck support stand offs to mount a stubby dual bellcrank, or use shorter ones. thinking ntc3 swingrack.

ygpm

trying to set my e4 up a little better for the parking lot.
which is the best place to take the rear downstop measurement? and is there any meaning to the rear hub carrier numbers? i have some plastic ones with 1 and 2 on them, short of mounting them up and checking on my setup station, are they different?

open to suggestions on setup. our track is somewhat smooth but has some variations. sprayed with soda.
was running mostly kit settings on 32's but finding the car a little sluggish mid corner and exit.

this will also be my first weekend with the D3 out, so curious how that will work. my lrp seems to have great rip out of the corner, dispite the 3.6 fdr, but when it gets up to speed, you can see it kind of fall off like it wants to go more but its being held back..

If anyone is looking for a decent, optioned e4, i might be selling mine. Has yodog spacer, kfactory upper bulkheads, f/r knuckles and lots of spares. Id prob try to get $200 obo. Not desperate. Just wanna try something else, this time brand new.

Well guys, here are some preliminary thoughts on redesigning the E4 layout with a new chassis.
It will now have the room for a dual crank steering and will accommodate a shorty pack with plenty of placement adjustability for the best balance.
I got a lot of work to do but it's a start.:D

Hello !

Great job for the chassis layout.

But to be honest; if the target is to finish with a "almost" standard layout (I know, the motor still remains on center) with battery on the right and electronics on the left, I can't really understand where would be the advantage to continue with the E4 3 belted basis.

There are still some disadvantages:
-More weight (extra belt, bearings, axle, holder and screws).
-Wrong flex (this is the most important problem on the E4, and why we changed to the E4RS II).
-Delay (the front end always get power with a little delay vs the rear end, due to the 3 belts, this is a problem with high power motors).
-More sources of problems (especially with the side belt which is very exposed).

I've been a huge supporter of the 3 belts layout during two years, and worked a lot with Kevin Ting @ Team Magic to improve it. We realized together a very modified prototype for the 2011 season to completely change the flex problematic. When Kevin told me he will switch to a standard 2 belts layout, I was very disappointed about that, as I was sure we could continue to develop the 3 belt car. So, I considered to switch to the AE TC6 (I'm working for the Swiss distributor of AE and TM, so I have the choice). But when I got the E4RS II drawings and discussing with Kevin about many little details, I understood this car isn't the 98297392th "remake" of many other cars. Now, after 10 months with the E4RS II, I can say the difference of performance between the E4RS (even with my prototype) is simply huge. I have no regrets about the switch from 3 belts layout to the 2 one.

But, I can perfectly understand how passionate many E4 users could be about the 3 belts design. We all thought at one time or another that we had something special (and it does), and we loved it. But right now, I'm very happy to work on the E4RS II, which is also a special car, even if it seems very similar to others.

nice prelim. though i agree that changing the placement of the crap on the car defeats the purpose a little. all i would do is raise the front center pully up to top deck height, and put the dual bellcrank where the pully used to be on main chassis level. or a dual bellcrank from another car that allows sideways servo placement.

i dont have your cad skills, hard to explain, unless i were to maybe take a pic of my e4 will proposed equipement layout? if shorty pack is a main design aspect, then you have lots of room for steering by moving the pully.

ps, have you had a chance to compare the e4rs2 directly to the tc6? im on the fence about my next tc. leaning to the vbc but also tc6.1 and e4rs2.

i really like some of the elements team magic brings to the table, but the fragility of some of the plastics is no good on my e4. i dont like reliance on super expensive aftermarket just to finish a race.
with that said, my fully optioned e4rs is actually a damn nice car to drive. very high corner speeds and stablity. though not as much speed on the straight in our spec class. the steering seems tempermental is my only real quam. any little tap and it goes out of whack =(

Thanks for your response,
I actually switched to the TC6 a couple of years ago but still have all my E4 stuff laying around. Some of the guys have been asking for a viable conversion that will improve the chassis flex issues and eliminate the battery tray configuration.
What you see with this design is just some ideas I had about keeping the central motor position and fixing some of the stuff many drivers have been complaining about. Since I already had the stock layout modeled, I figured, why not play around with some alternative configurations in SW.
Another idea I was pondering is a similar layout like the old HPI RS4 which had a centrally mounted motor and 2 belts just updated with the E4 suspension and a transverse mounted, shorty battery pack.
Like I said before, it's just some ideas.:D:D:D:D