Switching to a Steering Wheeel TX from Sticks
 

I have recently switched from a lifetime on sticks to a steering wheel tx. I has set the steering expo to -10 to help tame the buggy in a straight line but notice that it feels like the buggy wants to carry on turning when I straighten up. I have had a top racer who uses sticks drive my buggy and he tells me it's fine so I know it's all working. Could I be feeling the expo giving me less movement than existing and causing my issue, I will try -5% next time but am interested if anybody has experienced similar.

Also any tips for somebody converting to the Wheel from sticks? Thanks in advance.

If it is a more advanced transmitter you probably can adjust the spring tension on the steering wheel helping you to feel and stay more put on the center.

But why switching to a steering wheel? Because the current advanced sticks are too expensive? If so, did you see the Futaba T4GRS. it is a midrange priced stick transmitter.

I have a T4GRS at the moment and trying out the 3PV, I don't think the spring strength is adjustable.

Reason is that I am ok braking for a corner/hairpin but feel I am losing out as I struggle to just dab the breaks for jump faces - with the wheel it's feels much easier.

I am not a fan of expo rates because they tend to create snap oversteer issues if the expo rate is too aggressive, what you are describing is the same problem in reverse having a steering lag on return to center which is exactly what expo was designed to do.

Consider using the steering speed setting instead which will keep the full range of steering input linear and make the car easier to drive at the same time being a win-win for what you want.

Another thing to slow down servo speed (besides installing a slower servo) is to reduce your BEC voltage on the ESC if possible. In contrast, I often max out the BEC to 8.4V just to get my servos to turn a little faster ;)

Thanks, I will have a go at reducing the expo and see how it is, then try the speed setting. At least they are all easy changes to make on the rostrum.

If you have a speed setting.... The 3PV has not...

Ok thanks for the head up re no speed setting on the 3PV, I thought it might be similar to the T4GRS with the speed setting. I will check but sure I am currently at 6v for the bec so wont be able to turn that down.

I will reduce the Expo to zero and see what the effect is and then see if I can find a compromise, although as I am getting used to the wheel the smaller adjustments aren't as difficult now.

Well reducing the expo helped yesterday, so definitely not the setting for me.

Use toe in, and crank the expo back up. If your servo is jumpy around center, increase until it's smooth. If your servo is slow, by all means use no expo.

I use -25 on steering and +25 on throttle as a start point.

Never reduce speed electronically. Widen the car, lay down the front shocks, adjust roll center. Those add stability to the car. Dialing down the radio adds nothing.

I've been club racing for about 15 years now, and while I might consider myself an expert driver, I am far from the Pro level, ha! Anyway, I have talked to many pros and attended many race clinics from pro drivers to gain as much information from them that I can to improve my skills.

That said, the majority of pro drivers that I have talked to have shared that they spend more time dialing in their radio settings more than anything else to get the proper fine tune they need as track conditions change.

Having a radio with speed settings is probably the single most important feature I use as it helps me prevent getting traction rolls so I dial back the steering speed until I hit the sweet spot. Sometimes the track will get loose and the car might spin out on hard acceleration so dialing back the throttle speed can improve traction as well.

The biggest mistake I ever made was reducing my dual rate to gain stability, it's very important to always get max steering throw and tune the car so that it can be drifted... I do this by running bald tires on the street and force the car into drifts so that the car doesn't spin out on power in a turn. Once the tune is set, then the car is track ready with radio settings for the fine tuning aspect later.

On a turf track, I start with 85% steering speed and I increase the speed by 2% after every run as the tires wear they tend to lose grip and the increased steering speed will compensate for wear, by the time I reach 100% steering speed it's time to replace the tires with a fresh set.

I have found that toe-in on the front will drastically reduce corner speed to a fault, I rarely run 0° toe and almost always run between 1° to 2° of toe out depending on the tire choice and level of grip. I find it better to adjust the rear camber where -2° is my baseline and if the rear end is kicking out and I need more side bite then I'll go anywhere between -1° to 0° of rear camber to help lock in the rear.

I highly recommend reading the following tuning manual as well:
https://storage.googleapis.com/sodia...p%2520book.pdf

Good Luck!

Speaking as someone who is also in the process of switching from sticks to wheel (I was starting to have twitchy thumbs mid-race), I don't think there is any setting you need to change just because you are using a wheel.

90% of this will be because you are not used to the wheel. Just keep practicing and re-learning your inputs.

The other 10% will be small settings adjustments you can make to get the right feel - but you're following the same rules as you would with the sticks.

Personally I ran expo on sticks and I'm running the same expo on the wheel. Expo for me is about how smooth your "smallest" steering movement is, if the car is twitchy when you correct your line on the straight, run a bit more expo.

But first of all I'd focus on practice. As much track time as you can get, and don't play with the radio settings after every run.

I'd also recommend getting a "basher" of some sort that has a wheel. I tried to switch to a wheel for racing about 12 years ago and it was a failure. However over the last couple of years I've done a lot more driving with RC crawlers using a wheel, and the switch to racing has been much, much easier this time around. I'm basically as fast as I was with the sticks already, only issue I'm having is with "panic" braking if something unexpected happens, sometimes my finger goes to throttle instead (you don't brake much with crawlers). Also my mid-race thumb issues have been cured because the wheel controller is much easier to hold on to (secure in one hand instead of half-held in two).

Also as an FYI, as a 4GRS user as well, I do not think the 3PV offers as much adjustability / fine tuning, consider the 4PM Plus