has anyone else had this problem?

I personally havent had this issue before, BUT i never run full droop.

I think the only real solution is to reduce the droop, or possibly remove some material from the cross brace of the arm.

...Ari

Ok last weekend here in Western Australia saw the MORBC club run the 1/8th State titles for Buggy and Truggy. With a great interstate turn out meant racing was going to be tough. With a few minor changes during Practice we were ready for the start of the qualifying rounds, With weather was also in our favor with the night air coming in racing was under way.



With a bit of "night racing" advantage we came up well with 10th in Buggy and 7th in truggy at the end of the first 2 qualifying rounds on Friday night.




Saturday saw the great run continue on Jaicob picking up were we left off the previous night with some of the faster interstates getting there eye in and picking up the pace as well.. with the new track starting to show some rubber Sundays finals looked to be a hard fight.



Sunday saw us starting out 1st in the B main in Buggy at the second corner we were 14th and with some work to do, Jaicob managed to claw back into 1st but with 9min remaining the front center grub screw coming out saw us drop back fixing the buggy and getting back out there only to have it go again saw us out.



The Truggy A Main was fast pace and great to watch with the lead changing a few times and positions changing almost every lap we just kept pushing Jaicob ended up 7th in Truggy and we were happy with the out come. It was a great weekend of racing and also catching up with old faces from over east having a chin wag is always good.



Jaicob would like to thank HEI for the help and support through out the year.

Race Report- W.A State Titles 2012
The W.A state titles were held over the weekend of the 20-22 of April with the new aarcmcc rules in place. Qualifying would now consist of 6 rounds of 7mins races with your best 4 counting and finals of an A-main, B-main and so on. Top 10 go straight into the A final and then top 5 bump up from lower finals.
The racing started on the Friday with a midday start to attract more eastern state drivers over for the event. The track had been redesigned and been down for about 4 weeks prior to the event. We had only 1 race meet on the new track and 1 practice prior to this event so we still hadn’t been able to get a good setup for the XB9 and this meant practice was taken up with making changes and testing tyres for the upcoming qualifiers. We also decided to run the truggy so Brent could get more valuable track time during the event.
Qualifying: Start time for us was around 7:00pm with the truggy up first and the track had cooled down along with the ambient temperature. The pace on the track by the faster guys was in the 36-37 sec lap time and 12 laps per heat was the time to beat. Brent made a good start in the first heat posting best lap of 38secs and an 11 lap mid-range time.
In the buggy we had been running on M3 Blockades during the day and with the drop in temp we decided to change to M4 compound. Brent’s first run was good and he was sitting in 9th after the first round.
In the second round of truggy we had a wheel come unglued and didn’t complete the heat. Brent made a good start in the 2nd buggy qualifier and after 4 laps Brent made a bit of a bobble approaching the final table top and got caught on the approach.Four cars the proceeded to run into our buggy and broke the front upper link. This put us out of the top 10 down in 29th.
The rest of qualifying was run the next day on Saturday with an early 8:00am start. In the truggy we could only manage to get mid-range 11 lap times but not good enough to break into the top 10. Brent finished in 13th overall and went into the B-Main. We ran Proline revolvers in M3 compound for all the qualifying.
In the buggy Brent could not manage a 12 lap heat but he posted some very quick 11 lap times. During the day he just became more and more consistent and this was good enough to get into the top 10 and make the A-Main in 10th place. We had been aiming for the A-main since we missed out last year by a few secs. With the buggy we had been on M4 blockades and in the last 2 runs we changed to M4 revolvers as the grip came up.
Sunday finals consisted of getting the cars ready in the morning. The B-Main truggy final was up around 1:00pm and Brent made a great start from 3rd on the grid to lead after the first lap. We had put on M3 revolvers again for the final as the wear was quite low. Brent finished the final in 1st place 2 laps ahead of 2nd with the top 5 going into the A-Main.
We changed the buggy slightly in setup for the A-Main by putting in some more droop and changing the roll centre which we trailed in the 10 min warm-up. Unfortunately we had a runaway about 4mins into the warm-up. Luckily for us the car was stopped quickly and no damage was done. In the pits we found the battery solder connection had broken. We fitted a new battery and looked forward to the final.
In the truggy A-Main Brent made a decent start and was in 9th after about 4 laps trying to work his way up the field. We made our first pit stop and came out in a lot of traffic which he stayed in. Unfortunately on the large double-double jumped he got shunted from behind and landed awkwardly breaking the front hinge pin sending us out after 23mins. We finished 13th overall but very happy to make the final.

In the buggy main we started out of 10th hoping to make up some positions. Brent made a great start and was in 4th after the first lap. He then made a bit of a mistake exiting the double-double jump and dropped down to 12th. Brent then went about working his way back up the field and with our 10min run times we also had an advantage in the pits. As always in these finals a few flameouts from cars in front and breakdowns saw us battling for positions 4th 5th 6th and 7th in the final minutes. Brent couldn’t quite make up the gap over the last 5mins of racing and we finished in 7th. We are very happy with our first state final A-Main drive.
Brent would like to thank HEI Australia for the support and products. We run the X-Ray XB9 buggy and XT8 truggy. Proline tyres and Novarossi motors.

Great job guys, congrats on the A-Main performances.

Hi all,
Has anyone noticed there seem to be a fair bit of play in the bottom of the shock??? When shocks are built hold the shock body and move the shaft sideways. There seems to be a lot of movement there especially when the shaft is fully extended. When pulling the shocks apart the plastic shock guides (where the the o rings are) seem to be quite loose.
Could some of you please check if your kits are the same?
Help would be greatly appreciated
Cheers...

Andy, Yeah mine are the same, i dont think it makes too much difference. I have been running my shocks with the same set of bushes for about 12 litres and still running, yeah they have a bit of play but dont think it makes much difference on the track.

If you want less play you can run the 808 bushes, the have a deeper bush, the one that goes in last, it will hang out of the bottom cap but wont make any difference to up travel as it only a couple of mm. With the deeper bush you get more support on the shaft and thus less play.

...Ari

Thanks Ari

Ok weekend just gone saw the second leg of the WACC (Western Australia challenge cup). This leg was run on the grass at Radio Rally Club, And is quiet challenging with the super high grip... If you don't run there often set up can be quite tricky not having the XB9 there before we had a few changes through out the day by the end of the day we were happy with the XB9(but knew we could have a bit more), Going back through the set up sheets from the 808 we tryed a few changes which made the XB9 better. Semi heat 2 on Sunday saw us move out to the front and being able to hold it through out the 20min semi.. Truggy was the same but having some great duels with fellow competitors made for some nail biting racing....

Truggy main was 40min and with a great start we were managed to get into and run with the front pack having positions change every few minutes and coming down to fuel stops also made for some close racing but it was Jordan Steward holding onto 1st place and Jaicob grabbing second close racing and the track starting to blow out made for some great racing...

With the Truggys out the way we were also second off the grid in Buggy getting a clean start and holding onto second behind Josh Pain we settled in and was building a great gap.... But by the 22 minute mark our clutch bearings decided to give up the ghost which made for a quick bearing change, Once back out there we were dead last but managed to crawl back into 8th spot....

Great weekend and real close racing, Bug thanks to the RRC members for putting on a great show....

Info direct from XRAY regarding XB9 Shocks

Dear Distributor

There is some confusion and misinformation about the tolerance of the XB9 shock pistons between the customers. The XB9 pistons were designed and produced cca 0.2mm smaller than the diameter of the shock body. This is NOT a manufacturing fault but this is made by purpose to allow the shock pistons to move ultra smoothly. Same tolerance we use for other cars and same tolerance is used by some other competition cars as well. So there is no fault, everything is made by purpose.

We can of course make optional pistons which will have less gap between the piston and shock body but this will require to use different shock oil and when it is colder it makes more difficult to set-up the shocks, the setting is more sensitive and this is of course more complicated for regular drivers.

Most of the "problems" are created by few drivers, some of them team drivers, who start the issue and it rolls like snowball. The Kyosho shocks which are considered as bench mark have the same toleracne of pistons, same number of holes, same angle of pistons, same diameter of holes, the XRAY o-rings seal perfectly while the shocks move freely and the shock membranes are very good as well.

In case you will get any questions or comments about this matter you will know the above information .
We will update the XB9 and shock piston information to make sure the information is also available publicly. Please feel free to provide this info to your customers.

Thanks and with best regards

Over the last couple of months racing has been a bit quite with the winter months. We have been racing on the grass during this time with our efforts concentrated on one of the series of races over the year. This event is known as the Masters series. Points count for where you qualify and finish in your final. Brent's worst qualifing during this 3 round event was 5th in the 2nd round when we ran into a few problems but he finished 3rd in the a-main for that round. The final round was held during last month with Brent qualifying in 2nd place to Craig Laughton ( Losi). In the final he finished in 2nd place to Craig meaning he won the series overall.

Our next major event was the 3rd round of the Challenge Cup held in Geraldton about 4 1\2 hrs drive from Perth. The locals put on a great event with qualifying run on the Saturday evening running into the night so the finals can be run early Sunday so us townies can get back home at a reasonable hr. Brent qualified 4th overall with us chasing set-up on the XB9 the whole time. The track blew out after the 2nd round and progressively got worse with great holes and ruts all over the place. For the final we went as soft as possible with the new progressive springs and decided to run a Blockade tyre in the final as the track had slowly started to show some rubber but only on line. Brent made a great start and was in 3rd place behind Craig Laughton (Losi) and Josh Pain ( Associated) . Brent held this position for the first 20 mins of the race with car looking great and really dialed. He battled with both Craig an Josh until Josh ran into some transmitter problems dropping down 2 laps. Craig then ran out of fuel coming into the pits putting Brent into 1st with about 10mins to go. We then had a problem with the wing twisting sideways on the car which we fixed during the last pitstop putting Brent out right behind Craig for the last 7mins of the race. It stayed this way with the 2 of them battling for the win with Criag getting the win 0.2 secs ahead of Brent. A great battle to watch for the final.

Brent thanks the support of HEI and uses Xray cars Proline Tyres and Novarossi engines.

Brent and Shane would like to thank HEI for the support this past year. We had a very good season with the products and support from HEI and look forward to another great year in 2013. Really liking the xb4 at the moment and of course the xb9 and xt8.

Regards
Brent and Shane