joeyb19

hey guys, i am new to the r/c world, so i am needing a whole lot of help..myself and some of my friends have bought ntc3's and we are just racing them in a parking lot right now. we have taken the "touring" bodies off and put oval late model bodies on. we mainly race in ovals, and right now we are just using the optional foam tire setup that they suggest in the manual that comes with the car, but for some reason we cant get them to turn left that well. we have tryed putting side and rear wings on the car's and they definately help but i was wondering if there is something else we can do to make them turn better, such as springs, caster, camber, or anything else. we have kept it a "gentleman's agreement" that we would stay as stock as possible until we actually start racing on a track. i believe the car has copper springs on the front and gold springs on the rear. i forget the numbers i have right now for caster, camber, and toe but like i said its setup exactly the way it says to in the manual. if anyone can help, it would be greatly appreciated..

thanks in advance,

joey brown

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

What tires are you running, Foam or Rubber?

I know you want to keep it stock as possible, but to get this car to turn left, you might want to buy some green springs, red ones and a blue one too. Put the green springs on the left side of the car, front and rear, put the red one in the right rear and the blue on the right front. change the shock oils out to Left front to 25wt and left rear to 35wt and the right front to 35wt and the right rear to 55wt... (to get better handling I would suggest going to dual stage shock pistons.)
Then, if you are running foam tires, put the 26mm wide tires, 38 shore on the left side and the right side use 30mm tires, 42 shore on the right rear and a 40shore on the right front.
for camber and toe, in the rear, run 2deg rear toe-in on each side and run the left side tire at 0 camber and the right rear at at least 4 deg camber...you can adjust the right side to get the tire to wear flat after you run it a bit.
For the front, use 0 toe. you want the tires to be strait forward, run the caster clips all forward on the left side and on the right side, just 1 in the front of the arm. For the camber, this is VERY IMPORTANT, and you will understand why after you drive the car. Run the top of the tire out on the left side, that would be -2 deg camber and the right, I've ran as much as 4.
The tires in the front of the car will be angled like this: \---\ and in the rear the tires will be like this: |---\

If you want the cars to be more realistic, we used to run nascar style pancar bodies.
This will get you pointed in the right direction. please give me some feedback after you have ran this, and I will look for my old setups for the cars and some information that will help you guys.

joeyb19

thank you for the help. we are going to race this weekend and i will let you know how it works. and just to answer your question about tires, we do run foam. i believe its 26mm, and 30 mm. thanks again for the help, and if you have any other setups, you can e-mail them to me at [email protected]

thanks again,

Joey

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

after digging for a while on my old computer I came up with some stuff that should help. It may seem confusing at first, but I will post later when I have time how to read it if you have questions.

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

this is the most important part of an oval setup. This sheet is like GOLD, once you learn how to read it, you will be amazed at what your car will be capable of. You realy need to get the dual stage shock pistons to get the most out of your car.

a briefe rundown on how to read this chart is:
each set of <-> arrows is for that corner of the car.
example, track bar is width of the car.
If the right side of the arrow is yellow, on the right rear, that side of the car needs to be extended out. If it was the left side of the arrow, that side of the car, (right rear) would be narrowed. I always made changes by .5mm.
JUST BECAUSE IT SAIS TO NARROW THE CAR, DO NOT DO IT ON BOTH SIDES, JUST THE SIDE THAT IT CALLS FOR.

RPM makes the two stage shock pistons part # 80430 and #80420, and they do work on the NTC3 for oval very well. (yes, they are for off-road). here is a link to where to get them:
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXEV42&P=7
http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXEV41&P=7

xman

iTrader: (11)

Thanks for all the info. I have a question....what does the diff numbers represent: frt 1/2, rear 1/4 does that mean turns out from tight on the diff screw? Also that last sheet is very detailed but I don't know if I'm reading it right. I couldn,t tell if each block of info represented one setup for a particular track you may encounter or something else. Lastly what tires would you recommend for running on a aged black top parking lot race that provided the most grip and assuming all the above suspension tuning was done for racing oval?

Thanks again

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

No problem. In the six blocks, in the top of each block, in red, Loose Exit or loose entry, Push (overall pushes everywhere), ect.... These are the changes needed to tighten up the car.

A car that is too tight will push. A car that is too loose will spin out.

To point you more in the right direction, if your car was loose, (rear of the car swings around) you would want to work on the front of the car first to take away some steering, then work on the rear to get the best traction.

and if the car was not turning, the rear of the car is too tight (too much traction) and you would start working on the rear of the car to take some traction away.

As for the track conditions, I would almost always start out on the softest tires and work my way up from thier. Tire wear will be an issue until you get the setup correct and you stop spinning tires. If you only have access to electric foam tires.....Purple and double purples work very well, double purples on the outside. If you have nitro foams available, I would run 35 or 38's on the left side, 26mm both front and rear. This side of the car has less wieght on the car. on the right side, I would run 30mm tires (rear) ones, running 38's or 40's,..... watch tire wear to make sure that the tires are not coneing to the outside (on the right side of the car), adjuct the camber on the right side to keep the tires wearing flat or slightly to the inside.... If you start chunking the right rear, you need to go just a little more till that stops.
To get the car to get more grip to turn in, you could run a 30mm tire on the left front, but run a SOFT tire if you do this. Remember that the left front tire is tipped out on the top, this alows the tire to use the outside edge to "carve" into the corner, The rim of the tire is harder on the outside this giving more force/grip/traction to the rubber that is on the outside edge, wher the rest of the tire will flex some. Look at a Nascar car sitting in pit lane, the tire looks tipped out a lot.

If you are running a 2speed, make sure that the car isn't shifting too soon, that will cause the car to get very loose about half way out of the corner. you want the car to shift just as the car gets strait, or right after you hit the apex of the turn, anyplace else will cause you a lot of grief in getting the setup just right. Once you get the setup down and get the car to do what you want, then you can start moving the shift point into the "that" area to get faster speeds down the straits, but DO NOT TRY THIS UNTIL YOU HAVE THE CAR SETUP PERFECT.

driving lesson
No matter what size track you run, you want to remember this. Keep the car moving, the more time you spend on the brakes, the slower you will go. The best way to keep your speeds up is to get consistant. In Oval, you may want to take the car and try roll it into the corner...DON'T, you need a little brake to set the front of the car down to "plant" the front tires so it will turn. Just a slight tap on the brakes will work...at the instant you get off the brakes, turn left. The car should dive into the corner....

Getting back onto the throttle: If you break a track into 4 corners (traditional oval) take turns 1-2 and 3-4. The best place to start is just past the end of 1 and just into 2. After you find the "line" (see diagram) and the car is working, you can start getting back onto throttle sooner and sooner till you find yourself letting off to keep from hitting the wall on corner exit. (note: when I was running Oval, I was on throttle 95% of the track. the other 5% was to tap the brakes and enter the car into the corner)

DRIVE LINE: In oval racing you want to diamond the track as much as possible. In a diamond, you have 4 points. The closer you can run to these points, the faster you will run. oval isn't about drag racing down the straights, its about getting into and out of the corners the fastest. A car that gets thought the corners faster will almost always beat a car that is fast in the straits. (note: I almost always ran on OS CV12 "red head", on my NTC3 when running in parking lots. Many times, I outran Novarossi, JP's, RB's and all those faster engines, because the setup of the car was better and could get through the corners)

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

I just noticed that you are in Columbia SC....I learned all my oval racing in Summerville SC. They have a concrete Oval on 17A, you also have one in Easley at the carolina RC complex, and in Rock Hill at The Grove.

If you want to get some tires that are AWSOME, BSR made some touring Cap tires, the same tires that Pan cars use on outdoor tracks. They are pricey, but worth the cost to go fast. Pinks for the front right.. greens for the left side and reds or blues for the right rear. I think RC4less still has some, or you can call him and he should be able to get ahold of John Foister to get some. when running the large tracks, I ran those, but others ran foams. they both have goods and bads, but I liked the BSR cap tires....they were more consistant for those 500 lap runs. but for smaller races, the foams were just as good, unless you were on concrete.

I almost forgot...TIRE BALANCING!!!!! In oval, everything is about being smooth. A car that feels fast is usually slower than a car that feels slow. Tires that are a slight bit out of round or unbalanced make the car very unpredictable.

joeyb19

thanks again for the information. i ran this weekend, and the car was way better then it has ever been....

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

start using the tools that I posted before and you haven't seen anything yet.

2002 2003 2004 Gascar Oval National Champion
2003 US Concrete Oval National Champion
James Burrows

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

any updates on your racing?

serpentjack

Great Info...SWEET!!

joeyb19

the car turns great! the only thing I am having a problem with now is the car scrapping on the bottom left side. i am gonna try to raise the car up by moving the shock location. thanks again for the information

rcfoolz

iTrader: (22)

If the car is turning hard in, that is something that you will have to "deal" withLOL Just turn the shock collars down(if you have threaded shocks) on the left side about 1.5mm or add just a little more shims.

joeyb19

i dont have threaded shocks yet. they are still the stock shocks. like i said that car turns much better, and thats what i was really looking for. info was great thank you