Originally Posted by nitro neil

Tony,
I am just about done building my kit. Without running it yet I can share some hits and misses with the build.

Hits
1. The manual is step by step and very easy to follow
2. Hardware is good and very easy to identify. Each step has its own hardware and it is in its own marked bag. There is no measuring of screws. I hope the rest of the industry takes a look at the packaging of the hardware.
3. I didn't have to modify any plastic parts.
4. the truck came with aluminum front and rear hinge pin holders and rear carrier.

Misses
1.The rx8 was a very tight fit and I had to shave down a little notch on the front upper plate. This didn't take any strength away.Not a big deal
2. The battery space is wider than normal sized batteries. They do give you battery pads but in time I would think this will peel back. The extra space is about 4mm this could also be a tuning aid
3. They have missed 4 3x12 screws and 3mm nuts to mount the shocks on the truck. I think with the revisions they are doing it has just been overlooked.

In the next few days I will get some wheels on it and see how it feels with some bench racing. I will also measure out the truck and see what wheels besides the team c wheels will fit and be legal. I hopefully will be running it next saturday somewhere and will let you know how it goes.

Originally Posted by nicholasxuu

Finally bothered to paint the stock body, nice body with a lot of stickers to use.
Also, added a wing to the rear. Using (recycling) broken 1/10 buggy wing. No idea if it's working or not.


Used some parts from axial exo to organize the wires.


Stoch servo arm feels soft, upgraded to metal ones.
Also used TLR ball cups to help accuracy, in my mind.


Put some black grease into the cvd, and used durango's cvd gloves to avoid dirts into it.


The hole in spindle is 3.75mm, while the screw is only 3.5mm, I don't like the play there.
So I used a 4mm drill and expanded the hole. Used metal bushing to make the hole 3mm with M3 screws. The diameter difference is less than 0.1mm now. (Pink spacer helps to further reduce friction, and most importantly, I don't have 1mm shorter screw in my box :P)


Did the same thing in the steering arm, see the metal bushing between screw and arm.


Used 7x8=56g of weight in the rear, supposed to solve the nose dive problem. Later found the nose dive is mostly because of the too soft rear springs, making the chassis bottoming out before goes into the air. changed harder springs actually solves the problem.



Here's the weird part, I got really tired of finding springs, and have bought so many TLR RWD springs, I went to bought a set of Ten-scte shocks instead. Surprisingly not that expensive, 4 shocks costs like $50 new. springs cost extra though.
the length fits perfectly, doesn't even need to add any spacer to limit travel.


Used ten-scte blue front springs (3.9) in the front. Pretty much all ten-scte front springs works. Green (3.6) and Blue (3.9) can make 22-24mm ride height though.
Used sc10 4x4 green front springs (3.5) in the rear. (it's weird but it fits just fine, and it's shorter so I can lower the ride height nicely (as low as 22mm rear ride height))
Not yet tried other sc10 4x4 springs.
Bonded the spring with lower cup, since the extended spring length is slightly shorter than ten-scte's rear shock travel distance.


used shock bushing come with the shock parts, nuts for 3mm shock shaft is a bit small, so added a concave spacer to hold the shock in place. looks nice too.


Today's practice video, not a very good driver, and the track is messy with 2 mini eight, sorry seems forgot to clean the lens.
http://youtu.be/EFVHFbCloVI

Originally Posted by 8drenlnjunkE

Here is the chassis

Originally Posted by symmetricon

Hey Nick, if your truck is bottoming out, it is not the springs fault, there is not enough pack in the suspensions dampening. You should try thicker oils, or pistons with smaller holes or less holes. This is exactly the reason Marcus made the 2 stage piston for the truck, with the stock pistons, you have to run real thick oils to get enough dampening.

Originally Posted by nicholasxuu

bottoming out before the jump, it's a relatively slow compression, damping doesn't play a big row here.
I was using 27.5wt losi oil, with tlr 56 pistons in the rear, it's already very thick for the rear.

I'm currently using 17.5wt losi oil with ten-scte stock piston, much less damping than previous setup, but with hard spring (3.5), it's working pretty well.

Originally Posted by symmetricon

From my experience, if the truck is nose diving, either the rear is too springy or it is under damped and/or doesnt have enough pack and slapping off the face of the jump. If it doesn't have enough pack, it will be very problematic and pronounced when going off jumps at high speeds.

The dampening could be softer, but it must have more effective pack. You can have a suspension with a lot of dampening but with little pack, and you can have a suspension with much less dampening but with a lot of high speed pack. The trick is getting the right amount dampening and pack.

Anyways, I would imagine with that light of oils, the truck is very squirly and springy. The Losi weighing in almost 2pounds heavier is quite a difference in spring rate and dampening.

Originally Posted by symmetricon

So I exaggerated. Lol. But your truck in the vid looked a little nervous. Is the trucks dampening real soft feeling?

Originally Posted by nicholasxuu

1.
It's a practice day, with a lot of bashers driving slash, and even mini-8ight, and with 3 little cute track marshals running around busy flipping those mini-8ights.

So, I was a bit nervous driving it, trying no to crash into anyone's car, and definitely don't want to hurt those track marshals.

2.
It's a bit blurry in the video, but the red beans right beside the straight way are the killers.
In fact, taking the outside lane on the straight is very dangerous. Those pipes kind of sucks the car over it, and even top racers there have crashed there (and brake the right front suspension for sure). and I've crashed there twice.
That's why every time I go into the straight way, I can't pull full throttle until I'm sure the car is safe.

3.
also, the fast sweeper right after the straight way is kind of difficult (for me), you need to slow down, but definitely not with your tail sliding out.
I ended up setting the rear ride height low, and soften the rear damping to keep the rear wheel on the ground more.

For what you've seen, the truck is performing fairly neutral, with slight bit of understeer, and slight power oversteer.

I'll try controlling my finger applying half brake into the sweeper, and then use a more tail happy setup.

Originally Posted by RC*PHREAK

i saw you running your truck yesterday (i was driving the losi with the camouflage lid). for me, the best way to attack that sweeper is not to brake. about 2/3 of the way down the straight, i'll let off the throttle and start my turn, then i'm on (feathering) the throttle through the turn. i've tried the "hammer it till you're bout to turn, then brake, then mash the throttle" method and it's not as fast for me. it's smoother not to have to brake and when you apply a bit of throttle during the turn (more throttle than you think), you're rear end is less likely to wash out. of course there are a lot of factors. right now i have more of an outdoor set up on my truck so my front diff fluid is relatively thick (7K) so it steers real nice on throttle. if i went to more of an indoor set up, that sweeper would probably give me more trouble.

Originally Posted by 8drenlnjunkE

I raced my TS4 for the first time this past weekend. It was an out door 1/8 oriented track. It was a high traction big jump and tight corner type of track. The setup I was usin was one I tweaked out of the box. I used 5000f, 5000c, 2000r diff fluids and for the shocks I used 40wt in front stock piston medium stock spring and 37.5wt rear with stock medium spring. Shock tower I used center hole front and rear and on front arms hole closest to diff and rear arm hole closest to hubs. Truck was absolutely dialed. I am going to run this same setup indoors on a 1/10 track and see how it goes this upcoming weekend. I will keep all posted. The only changes I would possibly suggest or may try is front arms switch to outer hole with shock and a 7000f diff. I'm also running the inside holes on the Ackerman and 13 degree caster up front. I did switch from ball cups over to Dubro ends EXCEPT on the Ackerman. Anything bigger then the ball cup will interfere with steering. I also am fortunate enough to have the new TS415 chassis. It is very nice and makes it feel more stable. Not a necessity but nice upgrade none the less. I'm going to keep testing and tweaking but my above setup so far has been dialed on 2 different tracks. Hope this helps. If anyone has questions or concerns don't hesitate to ask. Below are pictures of the chassis and Dubro upgrades