THANK YOU for the info Traveler2! I will check my settings, reset, and see how everything goes.
While getting ready to start painting my McLaren I noticed when I used our kitchen oven to heat the body to tighten the body sides, the body must have gotten too hot, and it warped the rear window pillars a bit! I can get the windows to fit, so it's not too bad, but if you really look you can see it. Lesson learned about trying stuff learned on YouTube! It's a great excuse to buy another body and practice my airbrushing!
Thanks Again! Drew

Update: I checked both of my chassis and my 98mm car was already pretty much like you had suggested, but both of my RTR kits only came with 4-0.5mm plastic shims. I have a 20pk of PN 2mmX 0.2mm stainless shims, so I used 1-0.2mm shim below the knuckle, and a stack of the 2 plastic shims with a single SS shim above and below giving me 0.2mm below and 1.4mm above the knuckles on both cars now. That setup gives my front end a ride height of 2.1mm, but I have the rear axel height at it's lowest (highest ride height) setting and all I can get with 20mm wheels is 2.2mm of ride height. Both cars are basically the same other than being 94 and 98mm.

Now the 94mm Skyline has 19mm N0 fronts and 20mm N0 rears, and hasn't traction rolled after 25 laps and has just the slightest bit of tire chatter when I push it in the corner. I can probably play with springs to get rid of it. Or could going to 21mm wheels in the rear help with the added ride height? The body will take N+1mm wheels in the front without hitting even with the suspension fully compressed, but the car will climb the walls if you hit it just right! It has gone down most of the straight with 2 wheels on the track and 2 on the wall! Both have PN V3 94/98mm rear pods, and I haven't found a way to raise the ride height other than with the plastic bearing holders. I've also tried 20mm W-1 rears, but since I have the body mounts adjusted so the body sits even with the bottom of the chassis, they rub when the suspension barley moved. I can grind the inside of the body, but it's pretty thin where they rub on a molded body line. So it's narrow rear wheels unless I move the body clips, but then it looks like a Baja racer with the rear end jacked up with big tires instead of a race car.

Again THANKS to all for the help, and forgive my ramblings but I slipped another disk in my back. SO I'm stuck in the recliner till it works it way back in place.

You're welcome! Sorry to hear about your back issues Drew. I’m sure it’s frustrating to have to wait for it to resolve itself!

The extra shims come in the spare parts bag in the ReadySets. Check and see if they are still there, but most people lose them because they are so small and are loose. The stainless ones will work, and its less of an issue with the inverted kingpin setup, but they can get hung up on the kingpins (and even scratch them up) so I much prefer the stock plastic ones. Avoid N+1 fronts and 21mm rears on the Skyline. Are you using the number 2 bearing holder with the 2 right side up? I can get between 2.5 and 3.0mm rear clearance with half worn tires. You can shim between the bottom of the chassis and the t-plate, but I'v never had to do that. Glad to hear you are moving in the right direction. Beats the alternative

I double checked the bearing holders on both chassis when adjusting the spacers, and they are both in the lower position.

I don't have the cool ride height gauge like you, yet, but my pinion tool from Kyosho is just over 2mm thick, then I use razor blades that are 0.5mm thick to check from there, then use 0.1mm plastic card stock to TRY to get exact. IF I wanted to try to shim the T plate, what is the best material to shim with? I think I still have a broken carbon T plate. Would that work? They are both driving good, but we're always looking to shave time, right.
I couldn't find the larger spacers you were talking about, so I went back to the box my last RTR came in and found a bag of parts stuck to the packaging, and it had 2 of the spacers in it! So on the 94mm chassis I just have 1- 0.8 and 0.5 above the knuckle which leaves me with 2.2mm all the way around. It drives great with no traction rolls or chattering. Hope to get some better times!!!
Yea, back problems just down right suck! I was diagnosed with Degenerative Disk Disease when I was 24 after 5 spinal surgeries in 2 years! So I was put on long term disability and became a stay at home Dad, which was awesome and about the only good thing about it! 20+ years later I'm still walking, but I have to be very careful in what I do, as this disk slipped by reaching to open a drawer at knee height. So finding Mini-z's and Yall are a God send for my sanity!
Thanks Again for EVERYTHING! Drew
p.s. I flipped the bearing holders around. I must have been sleep deprived when I was putting it together.

I started painting my McLaren12C, and SkylineGTR33, so I switched my 98mm to a Jomurema and the 94mm to a Ferrari 575 Maranello, and I'm still trying wheels on the Jomurema to get the best handling, but the 575 is GREAT! Ran my fastest lap AND shortest overall time so far!!! So THANK YOU ALL for the help and parts to get me where I'm at, because without Yall I'd still be using half speed on the radio!
Class- Stock
Date-05/22/2023
Location- Central Texas
Race Time- 5:48 minutes / 348.734seconds
Fastest Lap- 4.245 seconds
Chassis- MR-03
Body- Ferrari 575 Maranello
Wheelbase- 94mm
Tires- F- N19mm +1mm PN Dish-Kyosho low height medium / R- W20mm +1mm Kyosho Ray- PN KS Radial soft
Motor- PN70
Batteries- Eneloop 800hv
Front Springs- red
T-Plate- PN #3 Silver Carbon
Motor Mount- PN V3 94-98MM
Dampener (If applicable)- PN MR2061 Graphite Disk Damper- both disks with green springs/PN Dual Center Spring Shock Orange rear/green front
Dampener Fluid (If applicable)- Dry
Gearing- 64pitch 10t pinion/53t spur PN Ball diff
Notes- Car is driving great! Only reversed once this 75 lap stent and FINNALY broke the under 6 minute mark on this layout!




Take Care and Drive Fast!
Drew

Glad to hear your cars are working better Drew! On the Jomurema, I run 20mm 1N/2W. Even though it has room for more under the body, the wider the chassis, the harder to get it to turn on this tight layout

Traveler2 I tried running what you run on the Jomurema with new PN KS-M medium fronts and soft radial rears. This is the first time I tried the KS-M formula, and they have much more grip, and while it's great in the rear it is too much in the front! They are causing me to traction roll very bad in the first corner off the straight! I have to back out of the throttle and feather it or over I go! I reread most of the last 300 pages of the Mini-z thread to get some help, so with that I went to the hardest front spring and it helped quite a bit, but while looking over the front end I noticed the arms weren't level above the springs. So I pulled the upper arms and after quite a bit of looking I found that a few of the plastic shims from Kyosho were off. I had 4 shims at 0.49mm, but the 2 that were supposed to be 0.8mm were actually 0.59 and 0.72. So I've replaced the 2 bad shims with the PN metal shims for now, but I have some PN plastic shims on order, and some more 19mm wheels, as well as some more tires.
I've also weighed my cars, batteries, and bodies, and wow does it add up fast! My 98mm chassis is at 84 grams and my 94mm is 88g with a PN top shock. My Eneloop batteries come in at 47.5 &47.6g for each set of 4, while my 2 sets of Speed House's come in at 49.65 & 49.4g. The factory painted Ferrari 575 M is 41.41g and my rattle can Jomurema is 40.89g. So that puts the 98mm at 172.39g and the 94mm at 176.91g, and you have to add 2 more grams if use the SpeedHouse batteries! From what I remember reading that's close to 10g heavier than what Yall are running for your sanctioned races. Hopefully my airbrushed bodies will shed some weight, because I don't see where I can loose 10g.
Anyway almost done with my 12C, but the rain is slowing the painting process. Also been struggling with kind of a weird dizziness after running 50+ laps when going threw the switchbacks before the straight! It's like my mind is seeing everything a millisecond behind what is going on! Almost like I'm blinking as the car goes threw the turns, but I'm not. So I don't know. It's much worse with the Orange Jomurema, so maybe it's the orange of the body, and the sequence of the red corners, the way the slightly different colors of the RCP tiles laid out in this setup, or...? I have been driving a lot more each day, so maybe that is it.
Anyway Thanks for all the help! I'd given up on this scale RC a long time ago if it wasn't for Yall!
Take Care and Drive Fast!
Drew

Hey Drew. I have noticed a similar dizziness running this layout at times, so you are not alone. I usually take a break from running when I experience it because I’m also usually not running consistently clean when it happens.

I recently switched to PN front tires, but have been experimenting with the KS, not KS-M compound. The amount of steering is insane compared to the various Kyosho 30 deg fronts I ran previously, and it took some getting used to. Also dialing back the steering dual rate helped. But now that I’ve gotten them working on most of my cars, I can’t see going back. I can get through the course so much quicker with the sharper steering response of the PN fronts.

As far as weight, I’ve had to add brass or tungsten weight to the bottom of most of my cars, except for the box stock ones where it wouldn’t be allowed, to help with the handling and reduce traction rolling, so I wouldn’t worry too much about the weight of your rides. To help you compare, my Box Stock rattle can NSX with no added ballast comes in at 169.4g, my Stock airbrushed F430 GT with lexan windows and the bottom fully loaded with weights came in at 188.2g, my Stock PNR2.5W 3500 car without transponder came in at 190.1g and my Stock EVO 4100 car is at 194.0g, so your cars being in the 172-177g range are on the lighter side.









Keep up the investigative and exploratory approach you’ve been taking and you’ll continue to find issues and then solutions that help your cars and your times.

Glad to hear I'm not suffering from a brain tumor with the dizziness! LOL When it started I switched direction to CCW and I had no problem, but then again I suck at CCW so I was no where near as fast, so really not a fair comparison.
I'm also glad my cars are light for Stock Class cars! I was thinking some weight would help, but man it's going to take some getting used to, because I can feel a HUGE difference in the way the car handles when going from an unpainted, no window White Body to one of the bodies I listed previously! The cars carry way more speed into the corners.
When going through the mini-z thread I saw where guys were going with larger pinions and smaller spurs to help with the amount of drag break of the PN 70T. They didn't say or I missed on what circuit board they were running, so I was wondering if the current MR03 boards can handle it? Or is it worth trying? I have a full 64p PN gear set for my ball diff, but only a few 53t spurs for my PN Gear Diff, so I'll have to order some to try if it's worth it. I have a 9/53 combo on my 98mm with the gear diff, and a 10/53 on the 94mm, which would probably be better suited if I switched the pinions, and the PN 70T motors are barely warm with the lip test after 75 hard as I can drive laps. Batts are also cool to the touch as well as the circuit board cover. So I think I'm probably safe, but I would rather ask before burning a car up!
Thanks Again and Drive Fast!
Drew
p.s. I have been running PN KS radials in the rear since I started last year, but I was using Kyosho 30* Low Height slicks on the fronts 99% of the time, but also KS Medium Slicks up front. Though since I don't have a truer I stuck with the Kyosho's as they calmed the steering. I got the KS-Ms to try since we keep the house pretty cool, for Texas standards, at 72* in the Summer and 68* in the Winter. The track sits on a wood floor and our house is Pier and Beam so the floor is pretty cool, and I thought the KS-M's would keep the same traction level throughout the full 75 laps. I have noticed the KS take some time to warm up, so traction changes from start to finish since I've gotten faster and in more in control of my cars. I'm going to try a KS-M Hard front, because other than the traction rolling the KS-M's drive great!

The windows in some bodies can add a lot of weight, and it’s up high, which is why Lexan windows are popular when allowed. You won’t notice added weight at the bottom of the chassis on the speed as much, but you should notice the improved stability. Cut up tungsten welding rods are a cheap way to do that.

Gearing is critical on the Mini96, 9/53 and 10/53 are good on the PN70T and you shouldn’t have a problem with it on the FHSS boards. You can experiment a little with gearing, but don’t think you’ll have to deviate too much from where you are. Keep in mind there are currently two versions of the PN70T motor. The bushing silver can version and the ball bearing version where the can looks like it’s been blacked out. The BB version has a lot more drag brake, more than I like, and I love a lot of drag brake.

The PN tires also come in low profile height, so you don’t need a truer for them either. Keep in mind on the PN tires, the harder compound gives more turning, so you may want to go to soft not firm if you are traction rolling on mediums. I know, it’s counterintuitive.

Keep on testing…

Thanks for all the great info Traveler2!! I really wish I could find Lexan Windows for all my bodies, but at least at Kenon they have been out of stock since I started with mini-z. SO I don't expect them to ever be available. Since I screwed up my 12C body I might try to make my own lexan windows, but the 12C white body's window is pretty light and thin to start with. It might be lighter compared to lexan and glue I would use to make my own, but for windows like come with the Jomurema anything would be lighter!!! Heck lead tape would probably lighter! I will be building a green Jomurema with a lexan roof. I never thought I could traction roll a Jomurema, as it's a tank, but I was WRONG!
Thanks Again, take care and drive fast! Drew
P.S. Traveler2 you have some awesome bodies! I keep my eyes open for a few of them, but when I do find them they are priced out of my reach! Body availability is one of the more frustrating aspects of Mini-Z's. Kyosho came up with this awesome little car that can be made into soo many different chassis packages, but with no bodies to drive them with, there's no point! I understand marketing as I was in retail sales for years, but come on Kyosho dribbling out main components they're shooting them selves in the foot.

Well I'VE BEEN BAD!!!
I got a little click happy after some adult refreshment this afternoon when searching through Banzai and ordered a NB4 with chip for readysets, along with a Mazda and Toyota LM, and Camaro and 12C white bodies. Also found some great deals on parts u can't find instock here! Shipping was a bit, but when you add up the savings I still came out ahead even IF u could find it here.
I finished the 12C's paint, slapped on a few PN decals, and now I'm just waiting for the light buckets to dry to complete it, so hopefully I will have some times with it, and try to beat my 575M times! Still having problems getting "dizzy" on the switchbacks, so I'll try driving from the only other place to drive from, since the track is in a small odd shaped room, and see if it helps.
SHHHH DON'T TELL THE WIFE!
Take Care and Drive Fast! Drew

You'll love the NB4 coming from a stock radio! I need to see if I can improve any of my times, since today is the end of the month. My fastest times so far came in the first half of May and I haven't had much M96 time since I've been racing locally at a couple of tracks.

Drive fast!

Joining the challenge!
Fresh out of the box car, fresh out of the box track, and a bit bumpy at the joins.

Class- Box Stock
Date- 21/05/23
Location- Brisbane, Australia
Race Time- 6:12.2
Fastest Lap- 4.46
Chassis- MR03 FHSS
Body- Mazda Miata
Wheelbase- 90mm
Tires- R: Gekko S, F: Gekko M @ 22.4mm
Motor- MZ9P
Batteries- Eneloop
Front Springs- Stock
T-Plate- Stock
Motor Mount- RM
Dampener (If applicable)- Stock
Dampener Fluid (If applicable)-
Gearing-
Notes- Out of the box with tyre and gearing changes only. Mx5 shell easily rides up the barriers and the chassis is bouncing around on the tile joins.

Only got to run a few times this month so never got a good run.

Stock

Date-5/23

Location- California

Race Time-284.48 seconds

Fastest Lap-3.57

Chassis-Pn 2.5

Body- Unknown

Wheelbase-94mm

Tires- R Marka 10. F PN soft slick

Motor-3500KV

Batteries- Enloop

Class-Box Stock
Date-5/5/23
Location-Winston-Salem, NC
Race Time-276.6
Fastest Lap-3.44
Chassis-MR-03 FHSS
Body-2012 NSX
Wheelbase-98mm
Tires-PN KS Med fronts, Marka V1R10 rears
Motor-Stock
Batteries-SpeedHouse 800s
Front Springs-Kyosho Orange
T-Plate-Kyosho FRP 6H
Motor Mount-Stock MM
Dampener (If applicable)-None
Dampener Fluid (If applicable)-K 15k grease on top shock
Gearing-Stock Gear Diff/7T pinion
Notes-No changes from last month. My best time came early in the month and I couldn't improve on it.