TimNJ

iTrader: (50)

Thanks, John. I think you might be right about the compound building-up on my tires. By the time the mains came around last night, the tires, particularly the rears, had a very soft/slick/gooey feel to them. Not to mention the fact that I had been using Jack on my tires and this track is mandating Paragon, which I also tried for one of the rounds.

It's a shame, to, because the car was virtually unbeatable in Q1, and my TQ in Round 1 held up throughout the rounds. It just kept getting looser and looser as the night went on. I'll give the lighter fluid trick a shot, but I think I'm also just going to get a bunch of the same tires and run fresh ones for every round.

I try to be real careful with setup and had my camber at 1.5* and toe at +.5. I'm going to make a note in my setup sheet for that track to try 1* camber instead and possibly back off the shock collar a half turn. It really only got loose off-power in the entry portion of 180* turns. It was absolutely perfect in the on-power turns and the off power sweeper turn that led into a 90* turn.

I was good on speed with my Trinity Duo 17.5. After some experimentation, I found that 88.5mm was a good rollout for the motor and the track size. I was actually a little faster down the straight and through the infield than the competition, who were running 19T motors, but perhaps they didn't hit upon the right rollout. (It was the first race at a brand new track)

Anyway, thanks again for the insight. I'll be racing it again tomorrow night at my home track and will report back to the thread with how the car performs.

John St.Amant

iTrader: (1)

Whoa ! They are making you run paragon? Or Jack? Paragon needs to be banned world wide.... that stuff is nasty. Use Jack its healthier

TimNJ

iTrader: (50)

Yeah, the new track that I ran at last night is mandating Paragon. I used Jack, my usual, for the first round and the car was perfect. Then, after the owner told me about the Paragon mandate, I borrowed some from another racer for the 2nd round and that's when the looseness started. So maybe it was just that my tires didn't like having both Jack and Paragon on them or something crazy like that. Oh, and I also chunked both rear tires during that run, for no apparent reason...

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

I've been running a seam of Losi blue tire CA on my Yellow years. I have experienced them peeling and eventually chunking simply due to the mechanical grip they develop even when I don't touch a board and its the 1st run on fresh cut tires . . .I find most tire chunking issues are due to wheel wells taht are cut improperly or bodies that are mounted offset in 12th. It allows the body to come down on the the tire and chunk it. If the body is cut and mounted well I find even tapping the boards doesn'[t cause that much chunking ...YRMV

TimNJ

iTrader: (50)

Thanks, Andrew.

I think I might have figured out what my problem was last night after the first round of qualifying when the car was so perfect, then went to pot. While going over the car with a fine tooth comb just now in preparation for tomorrow's racing, I found that the long plastic shock end had shifted on the shock body (same effect as if it were crossthreaded), not allowing the shock shaft to fully compress, as well as making it hang up when the shaft needed to extend fully. I must have had a hit early in the 2nd qualifier that caused it.

Hopefully someone makes an aluminum version of that shock end, because I highly doubt that last night was the last time I'll ever hit anything with the car. lol

While I was at it, I also changed over to the blue 10 lb. center spring and increased rear droop to 1.5mm since my home track is a little more bumpy than the track I ran on last night.

That leads me to another question... Under what circumstance(s) might you run a bit of droop in the front?

xtrememadness

iTrader: (2)

actually, paragon makes the tires peel. it eats the glue. its why i run parma greys. same traction as yellow jaco but they wear better and hold up a little better with paragon

andrewdoherty

iTrader: (49)

Intersting . . . I have heard rumors of a new tire compound with a grey outer ring with the inner being a yellow compound.

KHoff7

iTrader: (5)

Crc makes some.

Ffejdat

iTrader: (5)

Timnj- Make sure your batteries are taped in well enough that they can't come out in a crash, the shock problem you described sounds like the batteries came out and hit the shock in a hard hit with something, it is fairly common in link cars, or in non saddle pack 12th cars...Usually what happens is the shock shaft gets bent...

SteveL

iTrader: (23)

Are you running the car with the links? This is a characteristic that I've found with every link car I've run. CRC or Speedmerchant didn't matter. Car would be awsome for about 6 minutes and then start getting loose at the end of the run. I had Frank C. work with me on the CRC and Bruce Carbone with the Speedmerchant and never could figure it out. I always figured that it was my driving style that I would basically use up the tires driving too hard just like what happens with real cars. For some weird reason I never had the problem with a t-bar car, of which I've run a number of them. I tried changing my driving style but could never get the hang of letting the car roll in to and though the corners. I'm sure it's the faster that way around the track, but I'm old and can't change now. I'm sure that I'll get bashed for this but it was my findings running 1/12 scale for over 10 years. YMMV If I were you, I would try fresh tires each heat and see if that cures the problem first, then a t-bar.

TraceRacing

Steve,

I've suffered with EXACTLY that problem, car is dialled for 6 mins and then gets all loose. BUT I have the cure!

Essentially what happens isn't that the rears are going off, it;s just that you are developing too much front bite. It happened with me running yellow rears and double pink fronts. As the grip came up on the carpet, the car got harder to drive.

Two solutions:
- run a bead of CA on the outside sidewall on the fronts
- go to a harder front. I've been known to run double pinks in R1, lilac in r2 and purple for the rest of the day. When running purple I found the car understeering for the first couple of laps but then was dialled and got better as the race went on and hit ideal handing from 2mins on

HTH

fludey

Hi i seem to be suffering the same problem with rear end. While I will admit i am going much faster since swapping to the R5 from the L4, i would say it has given me the speed for another 2 laps. But after 6 minutes the rear end starts to break loose.
My set up as follows:
Purple fronts / Grey Rear (CRC track magnets)
22 Front Springs
-1.5 camber
10 degrees castor block
thick spacer to the rear / slim spacer at the front
Silver side springs (just touching no pre load)
Standard Centre Spring
Side damper 20 weight
Centre Shock 30 weight
10.5 novak running 64mm per rev

Can anyone help with 2 problems the rear end grip after 6 minutes, I can live with it but I do end up getting caught in the last few laps.
My other problem is coming on to the main straight my car seems very slow coming out the last corner on to the straight and wants to push on heading for the barriers if I dont ease off. But round the corner at the end of the straight its full speed so struggle a little getting the power on down the straight.

Help

TimNJ

iTrader: (50)

Thanks for all the good tips and info, guys. Trace: I'm going to try what you said about going to harder fronts as the rounds go by.

At my home track, we run a ton of classes, so the grip comes WAY UP from round to round. And if the car runs tight for the first minute or two with the harder fronts, that will be good for me because I'd rather have a car that is a tick tight to start out and then "comes in" as opposed to a dialed car for 4-5 minutes and then a car that "goes away" for the last 3-4 minutes.

Thanks again, guys!

shipwama

iTrader: (3)

i seem to be having gthe same type of problem, i also have another problem., if i really cut it hard into a corner, the inside read tire will lift, causing me to lose traction and turn sharply even into the boards, i thought at first, it was the front springfs, but i stiffened them and nothing, what woul you recommend, stiffening the side springs?
thanks
matt
P.s. what should i be trueing my tires down to, im running Jaco's, grey rears, purple fronts.

CarlosG.

iTrader: (12)

I had the same issue with my DB12r, I ran the front cross brace between the front arms. This kept the inner whel from lifting for me.