The steering turnbuckles level should be a good starting point. If you start changing that, you enter the difficult world of ackerman settings.
In a nutshell: ackerman defines if your car generates more toe-in or toe-out when turning the wheels. Max efficienvy should be that your car doesn't generate any toe-in or toe-out when turning.
This setting is mainlly controlled with the position of servo and by placing shimms under ballstuds etc. This is generally something I don't want to mess with too much. I let the boys who are designing these cars figure out the optimum setting!

Another thing that's influenced by placing shimms under the ballstuds is bump-steer. Again in a nutshell: it's how the steering angle of your car changes as the suspension is compressed.

As general advice: mount your servo the way it's described in the manual (same size servo saver, servo position etc.), than you're safe. There's already too much things to adjust on these cars. Just make sure the steering links can move freely without touching any of the suspension parts in any position.

Most people who have a first look at 12th scale think these cars are non-adjustable, and need only to be dialled in with tire selection. How wrong they are!

Jaybee,

Mark's method is very detailed and I would use it to baseline a car the first time I built it and to recheck settings on occasion. It is not something I would try to do between heats or at the track when practicing. It just requires too much attention to detail for that in order to get the results.

I normally use a laser tweek station from Integy at the track and on occasion I use the two cents method. For my level of competition it's fine, but I am going to baseline my car using Mark's method and see how much it helps.

By all means do follow his instructions for building the front suspension. This must be free and accurate or it will cause issues with handling that can be hard to overcome or figure out.

Greg

2 stage tires
 

This has probably been answered before , What size are you guys starting off with for the two stage Jacos F/R ? What is optimum size and what is the throw away size . I run a L4 w/ lowered pods .
thanks Bob :tire:

Bob,

Optinum size-front 1.65" rear 1.74", that is what I ran at indoor champs. As for throw away size, you get @3 runs at that size.
For club racing I run @ 1.69 fronts and 1.78 rears, and they would last for @ 2 weeks of club racing.


Walter

Balls or No Balls
 

I noticed that some carpet knives have balls under the tweak springs and mine does not. How come? :confused:

Rollover,

Is there anything under the side springs at all?

If not, someone may have removed the balls. In either case you should install them. They act as a perch for the springs to rest on so that when a load is applied the springs sit square.

Greg

I bought the kit new and there were no balls in it.

In the 3.2R there aren't or doesn't need any balls under the springs. The rear cross brace was lowered. What they did was eliminate the balls and put on a shorter stand off, then a longer set screw was added to get the spring to reach the chassie. You can run balls under the springs if you choose, there is room for a shorter set screw and the ball. I have had all versions of the carpet knife from the original to now and have been very a custom to putting them in. At Cleveland this year I took them out and really liked the car.

Agreed 1/12 scale cars are more about small finite adjustments and how you build them makes 100% difference. I think some people run a certain car and don't like it then they get another car and don't like it. It is usually because there is a bind in the car and doesn't allow the car to work well. If you were to talk with some long time successful 1/12 scale drivers you will find that it takes a lot work to build a car properly, alot of people just slap them together and get the same kind of result. If you have any questions about what to look for or how to correct issues please feel free to ask.

Hey, I might have a suggestion. You are absolutely correct that the o-ring can cause the chassie to curl up. If you remove the rear pod assembly and put the chassie on a flat surface is it not flat? You might find that the chassie relaxes when you take off your rear pod. First I always use steel screws for the football plate. second make sure the football plate will easily drop on to the side screws. If it doesn't either the chassie could be slightly off or the foot ball plate. Either is corrected with a dremel in just a couple of minutes. If you are talking about the car fully loaded and the chassie is bowing that would be a normall thing. If your tweak if off by a lot and everything seems to be balanced ie radio gear and rear football not binding it is very possible that the front end is stiffer on one side than the other causing a tweak. You need to go through your front end and set like .005 spacing of play in either side of your front end. If you don't have any play in either side there is no way to judge how much pre-load you have from 1 side to another. Counting shims isn't always accurate. So if you free up your football plate and check your front end and your car tweaks good. Don't worry about the bow in your chassie.

Pulfinator = Mike Pulfer? If so just wanted to congradulate you on your Cleveland Stock 12th scale win this year. Merry CHRISTmas and a Happy New Year to you Mike and your family, please tell your dad i said hello...(i guess the "lil" mike can finally die off.. :lol: :lol: :lol: ...ah memories from the four years i raced in the middle 80's, man that was a long time ago... :cool: )

3.2r
 

My 3.2r is a few months old but came with the spring balls and I assume taller standoffs. Are the new lower standoffs a new part# or is it a running change?

With my servo on mounts (not flat on the chassis) the steering links point down toward the center. Should they be level? It's a carpet knife with the factory servo mounts, airtronics 94145, and small servo saver.

Thanks Kev, It'd be great if you could check out the turnbuckles.When I move the steering from left to right (or right to left) there seems to be some binding due to the angle of the turnbuckles.It also seems to cause a lot of play in the servo saver.

Outlander, mine wanted to do the same thing with my tires trued to "club racing" size. The reason is the front suspension is shimmed up very high (relatively speaking) but keep in mind that the servo doesn't move when you raise the blocks to lower the ride height, so many times you run into the turnbuckkles binding on the flat spot of the front arms. I simply filed that flat spot a lilttle lower on mine to get rid of the bind.

If we were fast as Kevin then we wouldn't have to worry about running tall tires at the club races cause they would just send us more....LOL
J/K Kevin- ;)