Originally Posted by
Granpa
Actually, Silvercan racing is all about corner speed. A good 'Can set up is a bit different from a 21.5 B/L set up. The upgrades are the same and are probably more necessary in the 'Can car.
Frankly, and this isn't aimed at you, niznai, cause I know you know this, the reason we do upgrades on a Mini is to increase durability or increase the adjustability. There isn't one thing one thing on any of my cars hat aren't there for one of those 2 reasons.
This probably should be in a separate post, but I'm going to throw it in here. I'd guess there is a question about what upgrades should someone get about every 5-10 pages or so. I've answered the question many times and done that racer a real disservice. Poor guy goes out and puts it on his car [B]AND HAS NO IDEA WHAT EACH UPGRADE DOES FOR HIS CAR. Other than for bearings the better advice would have been to suggest if you break it, upgrade it. It's much easier to learn set ups if you know what each upgrade brings to the table.
What most of the upgrade people don't say (not sure why, maybe they don't know maybe they don't think it's important) is that the mini works just as well without the upgrades. Tony Gray is one of the very few who pointed this out publicly a long, long time ago. This is my experience as well, though not as extensive as Tony's (or any of the other guys of mini net fame). Too bad their site is gone.
Another thing I wanted to add is that weight savings are imaginary. If we speak of Tamiya upgrades at least. I weighed them and the alloy parts are actually heavier. Nothing to write home about but it's another misconception. That is true of all other cars I checked from Tamiya. TRF cars are different, and they don't have plastic options for the alloy parts anyway.
Third party upgrades for Tamiya cars I found are most of the time just crap and I am surprised people still waste their time and money with such stuff.
Back to your helpful advice Granpa, most of the people I see here come with very little experience or understanding and sometimes with below zero skills, hence it's pointless to tell them how to do this or that when they break parts by screwing them together because they don't even have the sense to realise they're doing something the wrong way around. You might say that's harsh, but the Tamiya manuals are about as close to spoon feeding a baby as any of these manuals get.
Nowadays I have noticed (not sure if the Mini manuals do) but others even have a very brief setup section. Nowhere near the Xray manuals, but it's a start. Now, how would one expect some of these people who can't screw two plastics together to get the ball diff right (even though it is all laid out right there, in front of them, and all they have to do is follow the manual)? Let alone finding some really subtle little problem with the plastics and solving it.
Meh.