Since that warped chassis makes you so much slower... can i run my Tamiya TAO2 with friction shocks and hope for a chance at passin ya in a race?!
Just kiddin guys... LOL I have hacked and cut TC3 chassis for years in every which way BUT tweaked. So i dont think the "tweak" is from cutting the chassis and weakening it. Heat... most likely. My experience... heating these composites can actually separate the individual fibers that hold the composite together. Take a heat gun to an old piece of broken suspension arm... or try and cut a chassis too fast with a dremel bit when you are doing some work to it. Heck, just heat it with your soldering iron! It doesnt really melt like nylon, ABS, or other plastics do. It either becomes brittle or weak to the point it will break (when heated beyond the temperature it takes to reform the composite) or flex (because the fibers used to strengthen the plasic into a composite are separated away from the "resin" by heat not hot enough to remold it into another shape... fibers remold at a higher temperature than the "resin" around it) even more. Almost like the chassis composite has no "memory" of its previous shape once it has been heated. Similar to a malleable metal... add force or heat of varying temperature (whatever the melting point of that particular metal may be) and it will remold to another shape. NON-malleable metals, once cast or machined, cannot be reformed (into a useable part) by heat or force... and therefore, have shape "memory". All plasics used in R/C are malleable (generally), save Delrin from that list. (correct me if i am wrong) I think those of you who continue to use a heat gun to "bend" your chassis to previous specs, because motor heat once again warped the chassis, are causing the individual particles that form the composite to separate and making the chassis tweak (bend) even easier from run to run. The answer? I think the fans alot of drivers are installing on the cars is a step in the right direction. Car tech for a while far surpassed the electronic tech that propelled them. Now, with the motors available and the batteries to run them for extended amounts of time... chassis tech seems to need to catch up to be durable enough for the rigors of racing we put them through. I mean geez, we are talking temps in excess of 200 degrees on plastics that need to be flexible enough to not break on a regular basis, and stiff enough to give good driver response, resistance to heat and again... durability.
Proudwinner... looking at your pic i see no warpage. I always checked my chassis when it was fully disassembled though... a ruler similar to yours, and a flat piece of glass to see if it "rocks" like grandma from one corner to another. I will have to assemble the car like yours in the pic... and try it to see if there is a difference.
Something else you guys with a supposed tweak problem may want to consider. The steering linkage from servo to steering rack... and the links going to the steering knuckles from the rack need to be just right. If your EPA on your transmitter is WAY off to get "equal" mechanical steering left and right, then the response from your servo will not be the same from left to right... even if it all looks like it is ok. If it takes 45 to lock left and 80 to lock right... your servo will not respond linearly. It will be like you have a negative curve in servo response going right, and a positive curve in servo response going left. This may translate in your brain as a "hook" caused by tweak when turning left... when in all actuality it isnt. For those of you who have radios with no EPA settings to adjust... then this is going to be a big issue for you. This is another reason i lowered the servo in my TC3... it brings the servo arm lower, lowering the link going to the rack. When combined with proper servo arm placement on the output shaft of the servo and proper link length going to the rack, it enables me to have my EPA for steering only 5 apart for lock to lock left and right. (62L and 67R on my M8, respectively) As long as your links going to the steering knuckles from the rack are the same, all else being ok, you will see a marked inprovement in linear response from your servo, right to left. Just food for thought. I mean heck... if you can raise or lower your camber link 1/16 of an inch and feel a traction difference, dont you think the same changes would apply to your servo linkage?!
Hope this helps...
- Dave