Originally Posted by
PFKAOG
I'm sure I have read some of the same books you have. I too believed what the books teach to be true with R/C cars but experience has taught me that how my toy cars react to changes don't always line up with what books tell me should happen. When I say the plastic rear arms will yield more rear traction than carbon rear arms and that carbon rear arms will be better when traction is high is based off experience and testing for quite a few years. It seems some of the pro r/c toy car racers I have hung out with seem to have come to the same conclusion. Just take a look at the setup sheets that get posted of the setups the pros ran at different tracks. They very depending on track conditions.
You are right, I'm not saying they don't produce more traction, but what I'm trying to say is that it is a Band-aide for suspension that isn't adequate. Whether that be that they are not tuned or simply can't be tuned right due to the limitations of current RC shock designs.
I think that there is also a difference in what you can feel, and what actually produces noticably better lap times. For example, I can see the results in terms of lap times when raising or lowering my rear inner ballstud height. But, if I went and changed my front top plate from plastic to carbon, I might feel a slight difference but the differnence is so small that it is negligable.