Originally Posted by
fredswain
I saw your "3.99" as you called it. Your mod to move the rear shocks ahead of the rear arms was already a conversion kit that X-Factory had offered for a while. Yours did look more factory by using the Associated bulkhead though as opposed to a carbon fiber spacer and long standoffs. It was pretty obvious that this would be a feature on the 4.0. My mid motor Durango ran shocks in front of the arms with a 3 gear setup 5 years ago. It didn't have a laydown gearbox though. I built a mid motor RC10 30 years ago that also had the shocks in front of the rear arms. It's a nice setup on modern high grip tracks but on true off-road dirt it's nearly useless. Design around the conditions though and use what works best.
Yeah, and the XFactory kit keeps all the weight of the shock tower behind the rear axle, not to mention it adds more weight up high. Even the 4.0 keeps the tower behind the shocks, which means my rear tower, wing mounts and wing is further forward than even a 22 4.0
I have 108g of ballast added to my car to make it to the 1540g weight where I like my car. That 108g is behind the motor under the gear box. I can change my weight bias by quite a bit. With a couple small setup changes and the right tires I know my car would be very good on a loose dirt track. When the track is not really high grip my car is very predictable a little bit beyond the limit. I've developed my car around high grip clay tracks, but the concept of mass centralization is going to produce a car that is easy to drive to the limit, no matter the available grip.