Originally Posted by Lonestar

Back from the race.

I was running my freshly built '19 - see above, first new xray since my '17 which had served me well and was a peach to drive.

My first day with the '19 was an absolute disaster, possibly my worst race of the past 20 years. The car was desperately loose, mostly in the sweeper entry and in the chicane.

Layout was tight and technical, except the sweeper (which was not smooth but more of a abrupt entry one, and then smooth). Lo-grip carpet. We run Rex30's and boosted 13.5's. My car was setup as per the stock setup sheet, except the aluminium extra-flex chassis, and 2.5-2.8F. Montech Racer snug with the front bumper. The rest, all stock. Electronics from the previous race, where they did better than fine. I could not get the car to behave, I never found a way to be confortable with the car and "pilot" it, and could only drive very conservatively. Heck, did spin out a couple of times in the sweeper...

Things I've done during the day to no avail, in that order
- tried another set of tires
- glued front sidewalls
- go to 2.7F/2.5R
- go from 450R to 350
- removed the front brace
- toyed around with screws on motor mount
- swapped the alloy chassis to cwf one (yes... I did that during raceday and missed a couple of mains)
- go 5K diff
- heck, even changed motors and speedo setup

Checks I did during the day
- check that I hadn't swapped L/R C-hubs (for caster...)
- changed diffs (in case there was a warped something in there with a missing tooth or whatever)
- detweak after every run (not that it needed it... still do it all the time)
- checked for a binding transmission, it's 100.0% smooth and free
- no fleeing CVD pins
you get the idea.

The car was very very very edgy, I basically had to "endure" it all day and feather the throttle rather than drive it. I'm usually a mid-to-bottom A-mainer with 50/60 or so entries, and this time there were only 29 drivers due to a calendar conflict... and I was bottom of the B, and duking it out with people who usually are two mains below me. I understand I'm getting older and all and the younger guns are getting faster, but the car really really wasn't helping and I was doing one mistake every couple of laps or so, losing the rear all the time. When this is the case, usually it's the tires, but I did pull out 2 sets of Rex30's that day. Statistically, it can't be that.

At this point in time I'm wondering whether I've missed something during the assembly, or whether the nature of the car is to be edgy as hell... I can't believe it's the latter. Xrays are meant to be the RC equivalent of a gucci loafer, ie a confortable car that about works right out of the box with no efforts. Saturday, mine was a POS.

I'll tear it down fully and rebuild it from the ground up. If you have any good suggestions...

Thanks,
Paul