Originally Posted by
user1
I just built my B5M and have to say I am disappointed in the design of the suspension. Tuning droop with spacers under the shock pistons?!?! Come on. Looking it over, it would have been so easy for them to put droop screws in the back A arms. The chassis is could have had ears coming out like on the RC8.2e and wouldn't have cost them a penny. The front is a little trickier but with a little design work they could have incorporated the ears in the front hinge pin mount. It really is disappointing. Let’s face it, spacers under the shock piston is a very amateur design. I would rather turn a screw to adjust droop instead of tearing apart a set of shocks in between rounds. That is assuming you have time to do that. With droop being such an important tuning tool, I would think Associated would have made it better for their customers. Don’t get me wrong, I like the car in general, but with just a little effort, it could have been really nice.
Droop screws are not ideal either--their setting drifts and being so close to the chassis, they're not very much of a hard stop compared to limiting the shock stroke. You'll find that the pros run limiters and unscrew the eyelets even in 1/8 scale racing now days and many times throw those droop screws out.
The proper way to adjust droop on these cars is not to rebuild the shocks, but run the limiters that allow you to adjust the shock eyelets (screw in vs out) to get the droop you want. This is how it is done on most 1/10 scale cars, and certainly every platform that currently holds a world title.
For example, run 1 limiter in all shocks and you can easily reach all shock droop settings with the eyelets. Popping a shock off and unscrewing the l eyelet is super simple and a very hard stop for the suspension.
Wayne