184-222mm wheelbase ROAR. I have no idea what my Speedmerchant's wheelbase is. I had no idea that the range was so large.

I think its a progression, my 3.2R is a somewhat shorter car than the new Serpents or Speedmerchants. I guess its like the touring car and offroad classes, just make the car as big as the rules allow and go from there.

Can anyone comment on the dynamics behind why a longer wheelbase would be good?

More Steering
Stability through the corner
etc

Hey bkspeedo,

Im not sure if im right, but a longer wheel base helps with corner speed and stability.

Hope this helps
Mike

That's what I've been told too. Cars are generally going for wider front track too. The latest V-Dezign Carpet Ripper V has 2mm longer wheelbase and 3mm wider front track than my CRC Gen-XL. Cars are slowly moving to what is more optimal with the weight of LiPo than what was best with NiMh.

I'm not at all sure about the longitudinal cell positioning though. There are various potential problems in my mind, especially if the cell is not central. There are other ways of moving the centre of gravity further forwards.

Trev

What you say is true, Vesa is indeed working on a new car.

What we noticed last year is, that with loosing a heavy NiMH battery, you've also lost pressure on the rear tires, which means loosing reargrip (also has to do something with chassis roll). The cars got much more agressive then the where with NiMH's.
Last year I've only raced my battery forward on every track, and even put my elec's more out front. Widend my car on every track with 2mm on each side. Also when looking to front tyre sauce. with NiMH's I would sauce the tyres sometimes for almost 50%, With lipo, putting on 30% was much, and most of the time I've put on less.

All of this is just because with lipo's te car's are having much more "steering" then with NiMH's. That's why the lipo conversions of Asso, SpeedMerch, and CEFX got longer and wider, to make the car drive a bit more easy.

I don't think it only has to do with moving weight forward. I've just converted my RC12R5.1 to this battery conversion, and the electronics aren't so "wide" as the were with the old battery position. This would mean the car will chang's from left to right much faster. Which will make it quicker, true chicanes, but also carry more cornerspeed true the corners.
The cell isn't central but with the picture displayed my car is perfectly balanced with out any lead (old pic):



The only thing I'm wondering is why all the guys put the battery plugs out front. This will put the "heavy side" of the battery on the rear, which will make it more agressive, then putting the plugs on the back. But I'll try and test this tonight maybe.

Regards Robert

I see you've received your Sanwa shit!
Studied the manual already?

You drive your 1/12 this way, I will drive it like last year.
If you still win, I quiet the hobby, if not...

If not, I'll get you a beer?

Let me rephrase that.
No I won't quit, offcourse not, I'm the only piece of competition for you!...

But a beer (or 2) i will never refuse!....

well if he wins or not i will keep trying to keep up with you two ;-)

love my 1/12th but i think a new one is needed this year looking at the new designs i think my chassis wont be quick enough

Nice build.
Thanks for the pic

Wonder if CRC has a longitudinal battery chassis in the works, or if they're satisfied with their performance last season...

It'll be interesting to see what comes next, I remeber once I tried a slightly longer wheelbase 1/12 by combining a DB12 with a DB12R. It was very stable but felt very lazy in the corners, would be interesting to try that again with todays lightweight lipos.

Is there a quick and easy way to increase a 1/12 scale body's front-end downforce? I have a Parma EE-1 right now and on my somewhat shorter-wheelbase CRC car and it completely loses the front end at speed, making me need to slow down excessively for the hairpin at the end of the straight or shoot wide while it has great steering and rotation at lower speed. Any suggestions?

You are not going to like this answer but the EE1 is not as good as the AMR-12 from Protoform. Try the Protoform and I think you will like it much better. I have also had really good luch with the CRC bodies.

Steve Dunn
Indianapolis, IN USA