Thanks for the info.

At this point, one of the confusing things is also that everyone seems to have their own way setting up and tweaking 12th scale cars. With sedans, things are pretty simple and straight forward.



I have one more question.... When you guys put your car on the tweak board, do you put the front or rear on the balance/floating beam side?

Front however best way to tweak 12th is to set ride height then on flat surface from the back lift up the low part and center of the pod and look for which wheel lifts up first then adjust tweak screws

It's fast, simple and free

I personally don't use a "tweek board/bar".
Once mine is set with scales it's good.

When I did use a tweek bar it was to check the return of the rear pod, not tweek the car. I was raising and lowering the springs to change the "dead spot" (space between the spring and lower pod plate).

I liek to use the quarter method but I use male deans connestors as I can get more weight on the wheel to move it giving me more accurate determination of which wheel is lighter weighted


Remember to check the front suspension for even droop first!!!! Very Important


Then what I do is set ride height. push the car down a couple of times to settle the suspension (front and rear)

then placing the deans on the wheels as far forward as I can with out them falling off

and slowly pry up the front using a sharp tipped screw driver or dental tool in the exact middle of the chassis.

then if for example the left side drops first then tighten the opposite side spring tighter by no more then 1/4 turn


Also to calm down my car I usually add about 1/2 turn of preload on the springs.

Never understood why people would put extra effort into replacing coins when they can just lift back up and see the space between rear tires and surface?

bad eyes, old age....

Oh I forgot about the elder factor

Ok... thanks.

How's this for a setup procedure:

1) Get car balanced left to right on balance pins
2) Check front axle height w/ calipers(Mark Payne style)
3) Set pod droop
4) Set ride height with a fresh set of equal/trued tires
5) Set front camber/toe
6) Recheck ride height
7) Check front droop w/ quarter/coin-drop method
8) Check rear tweak by picking the car up from the center of the rear pod
9) Put car on tweak board to double check accuracy of #7 and 8 above


Sound good? Any thing out of order?

No need to check ft and back tweak just one or the other and I have only used the back method

Tweak board is really just for checking the return to center which by the way some say to have it not return fully but almost. This is probably dependent on setup and personal preference of how you want the car to handle

IMHO

Edit:

And you can check pod droop simply by lifting up the shock and see how far it raises. No coins necessary for ft droop just look at any sag in between the bottom of steering block and ballcup in lower arm like maybe .1mm or .2mm. You can see the sag by slowly lifting the ft up till the sag is gone and that is your ft droop

Wow, we really look at set-up differently!!!

Checking both front and rear tweak can show you potential problems in your chassis. If the front tweaks flat, but the rear is off, or vice-versa, then you have a problem some where. Possibly more droop on one side of the front end, or a bound up side link, etc.

I also look at sag and droop as two different things. Front droop to me, is the gap between spring and pivot ball. Sag is how far the suspension settles into the springs when race ready.

In the rear sag is running the center of the chassis lower than the front-end, and rear edge of the pod plate. Droop is unsprung down travel of the rear pod.

Thanks for the info...

Question about the above scenario. If the front tweaks flat with the coin method, wouldn't that indicate even front droop between left/right sides, provided the car is balanced?

Yes

not really. for pan cars, front droop means the amount of up travel available. while for touring cars droop is a measure of the down travel stop.

so if the the front tweaks flat, then you have verified that the front end's down travel stop and the rear tweak are in balance. note the front down travel is tough to mess up unless you have different ride height shims on the left and right sides. so measuring tweak by lifting the front is a check on the rear.

if the rear tweaks flat, then you have determined that the front droop and rear tweak are in balance.

so what this all means, is first tweak the front end to get the rear correct, then check the rear tweak to see if there is a front issue. clear as mud?

I am sure it has been discussed before, but what is the best way to color your white wheels black?
Thanks in advance....

All of these different ways of checking tweak and balance make my head hurt (kidding), but seriously all I do to check tweak is make sure that at rest the chassis is straight, that all of the links and kingpins, springs, and other moving parts are equal side to side, the chassis is still flat, and it all moves free. I can do all of that with a set of calipers and a reamer and thats probably 95% as good as a perfect tweak station approved setup.

One of a few things I have learned is that by far and away the most important measurement on the car is to make sure the servo horn is dead center in the chassis, if its off by 0.010" you will feel it in the wheel and the car will refuse to steer evenly left to right. Also I always run a bit of preload on the rear sidesprings, and that makes the car seem more predictable. As long as everything moves free and the car steers with the same aggression left and right, I mostly leave it alone.