Originally Posted by
BobW
I certainly agree with you comments on chassis stiffness. A lot of research into vehicle dynamics went into this program during development and I can honestly say that not one of the sources I used said the way to better performance was to reduce chassis stiffness. They all state and provide examples of how to increase the bending and torsional stiffness.
The other problem with using chassis stiffness as a tuning tool is now you have essentially added another spring into the suspension. A spring with no damper (shock) to control the response. That's like saying take all the oil out of your shocks and see what happens.
Personally I don't play around with chassis stiffness so maybe I am wrong. We already have more adjustability than full scale race cars so that's enough to keep me happy.
Chassis stiffness/flex in radio controlled racing is simply there to account for the fact that if you hit a small bump, you are only relying on your visuals to react and counter the force put onto the car. This is quite difficult to do with normal human reaction time, and requires a huge amount of focus and ability (two things which I myself lack
).
If you have a totally stiff car with a properly adjusted suspension, the car will not ride bumps very well as the smallest bump will affect the suspension directly which will then move the car around on the surface, making it unpredictable.
If you introduce a small amount of chassis flex, the car will be more settled over bumps and not require any user inputs to steady the car (in a perfect situation).
Coming back to 1:1 cars, this is a non issue, as the driver is quite literally part of the car and can feel the movement and correct the steering accordingly with their subconscious mind, rather than using visual stimuli and the conscious mind, increasing their reaction time.