Originally Posted by
Teambcw
Break it down for the new guys T-Bird.... you could explain it better then me..
Will try :P
Originally Posted by
idrummerboy13
mod guys say they make it react quicker and move in the turns faster, and it makes car more forgiving.
i thought the shorty pack setup would push to begin with because it would make up for the lost weight, i found many weren't changing there setup much compared to brents thelkie's
It all depends. A lot of the FT guys (IE Theilke) are running their batteries way far forward. For somebody on ThunderbirdJunkie's level, the weight that far forward makes the car more reactive on initial steering, but actually lengthens the polar moment of inertia (do some reading) making it a little lazy in transient maneuvers (it steers awesome initially, but it's a bit oafish in switchbacks and chicanes) despite having awesome initial steering. Moving the pack back would help with both calming down the initial turn-in and the transient (left to right to left, etc) turns a little more doable.
ThunderbirdJunkie hasn't yet had much opportunity to play with the shorty pack, it's only got a few runs on it, but these are his initial impressions of it. Theilke's setup was ThunderbirdJunkie's baseline when he rebuilt his car with the +8 chassis and shorty pack (and brushless setup, lol, but that's a whole 'nuther story) lacked rear side bite and was really really touchy with the steering and had almost nothing on exit.
Originally Posted by
Teambcw
There is good and bad to both the long and short packs....
the short pack makes it react quicker yes, but most of the time that means it is harder to drive and more mistakes, it can be a bite more forgiving in a rough section.... The long one will have more corner speed on a track with more traction, more run time, more traction in some cases but can also act like swing weight once the car breaks loose... there is no right answer. Many of the locals have both on hand and it is more of how the traction is that day and is a final setup deal.
But you can also position the bulk of the weight further backward making it a little easier to drive. One thing that confused ThunderbirdJunkie about Theilke's setup in particular is the additional sticky weight so far back on the chassis, but the battery so far forward. Seems counter productive.
The other side of it, perhaps ThunderbirdJunkie simply doesn't drive the same as Theilke does, and has since started changing his setup accordingly.
Stupid end of the year holidays interfering with track time
Oh, and take all of this with a grain of salt.