S_fender

Factory guys try 2 mm upper deck and chassis and upper deck with the "wings" removed seems to be a 2 mm.

DaveW

iTrader: (1)

Just buy a pair of steel 3mm motor screws (you can find them the appropriate length in the Xray parts box at your LHS), use a Hudy ball hex driver, and magnetize the driver. No dancing, or special angles with the car. In and out easy as pie.



- DaveW

wyd

iTrader: (51)

I think with any car a nice P-Dub bumper is helpful. Then I would say your standard parts like a caster block, a arm and stuff like. The same stuff you would likely buy to have spares for any car. I would have an extra set of gears as well just incase. No different than keep extra belts around.

Hey Soviet I see you bought yourself an RDX. Use to have one before I quit racing for a few months and then returned with my FT TC4. Must say the RDX is a nice car. If your not going to run alum. steering knuckles stock up on the plastic ones as they see to break very easy. My car have alum caster blocks and steering blocks so breakage wasn't a problem. Only ever broke a rear a arm. Not sure what it is but those steering blocks break easily. Last big race I was at two guys I knew broke 10 between them and they were not hacks........seemed liked any bump on a wall and they broke. Other than that the car seems pretty bullet proof as any car.

Bob Barry

iTrader: (22)

Really
Delicate
Xray


Things I keep on hand for a TC4...outdrives/spools, castor blocks, set of arms front and rear, spare CVD's (at least rebuild kits), input shafts (no one ever seems to have them in stock and I know they will eventually wear), Hinge pins, Shims that go under the suspension blocks (.025,.050,.075., and .100)

I have a ton more but these are the ones I would focus on. The drive train on this car tends to wear faster than all my other cars. That's the price you pay for having shaft drive.

beerbarron

Has anyone considered/attempted re-engineering the steering rack by using parts from other cars? It seems like if the rack had upper mounts in addition to the lower mounts it would have a lot less slop. Strange things is my 18t has really sloppy steering too.

Last race I was traction rolling all over the place. Rubber tires carpet. I have never had this happen before. The only thing I was doing differently was putting Paragon on the tires. The traction was awesome, so I'd like to keep using the Paragon. But I'd like to eliminate the traction rolling. Should I get rid of the super soft setup and use a foam setup with lower roll centers or something else? Another racer was having the same problem and he glued the sidewalls of the tires. It seemed to have worked for him but the glue was coming off very quickly.

Bob Barry

iTrader: (22)

Use more of a carpet setup. If you can find one of the carpet setups from the Novak race this year (obviously not yet) then use that to start with. As far as the steering rack issues. I have none. I have built three different cars and all are the same. There is a slight amount of play in there, mostly ball cup related. Everything else can be shimmed out.

Derby Bros Racing

iTrader: (7)

thanks for the suggestions guys.

for those who have modded their ackermans, do you happen to have some pics? how did you get rid of the slop?

Bob Barry

iTrader: (22)

what ackerman mod are you referring to?

Derby Bros Racing

iTrader: (7)

i honestly don't know. i am new to the car but i notice a lot of play coming from the ackerman when swinging the tires left to right. it seems like it's coming from where the bearings are installed. i got the arm locked already and i think it's good enough for that part.

wyd

iTrader: (51)

I had some slop where my bearings where but it was because when I had everything tightened down the it had some gap above the bearing. I took and sanded the part that the bearing sits and made it a tad shorter and this tightened up everything some but not enough to bind.

Derby Bros Racing

iTrader: (7)

oh great! i'll try that.

thanks man

AM03GT

iTrader: (13)

only 2 things need to be done to "tighten" the steering...

i put tighten in parentheses because you want to have some slop...

1) The hex shaped bushings can be sanded shorter as wyd suggested... or you can shim the small gap with axle shims... works the same, shims are safer cause you aren't changing the piece.

2) sand (needs only a tiny bit) the top hat bushings shorter as well (sand the smaller diameter face). It doesnt matter if they are over-shortened. Use an AE#7337 washer under the button head screw and adjust the rack using these screws. As long as the holes aren't stripped on the bellcrank pieces this will allow all the adjustability needed to get your rack just right...

at this point there should be no undesired slop in the steering at all.

Derby Bros Racing

iTrader: (7)

thanks for the step by step detail i will sure do that so i can get rid of unnecessary slop.

anything else that needs to be fixed on the car?

AM03GT

iTrader: (13)

nope. just tuning the car from there...

if you plan on doing a lot of shock oil changes i'd invest in some VCS2 bladder cap upgrades. makes shock oil changes MUCH faster and more manageable trackside...

wyd

iTrader: (51)

The slop in the steering rack isn't a huge issue as long as your rack works smoothly and your car tracks straight. Like AMO3GT mentioned you do need a little slop. If you take all the slop out of a car it will never track straight. Found this out years ago when racing dirt oval. I was really proud of mysleft for shimming all the slop out of my car only to find out that it would never track straight. Actually took a few shims out of the car to get some slop back and the car tracked perfectly.