Mostly old grey Ozite... traction varies from medium to medium high in comparison to the black stuff.

I bought this car and loving it so far on black carpet. I won our club race only after the second race day. I am finding however that the pull-rods keep spitting at the ends after some very minor touches. One of my pull-rods split after going over a dot on the track causing me to pull off. I did win our last race with a spit pull-rod as I had no more spares with me. Is anyone else finding a problem with the pull-rods splitting at the ends? So far any light taps or even if another driver taps my car lightly they seem to split. I've had not had any hard crashes whatsoever. These have been very minor taps.

I've only had them split during assembly... which can easily go unnoticed initially. I've had many huge crashes on an unforgiving track and zero broken parts so far. It's quite surprising.

Interesting.. I had another race day yesterday and had yet another broken link in the main. 2 corners in, I get around clean and taking a left and the car violently rolls ( no traction rolls all day). Once I start rolling again, my car is dragging it's rear left...I gotta figure this out as these stupid things are a pain in the ass to keep replacing. I have to check if this one is from the original box set or if it's one that I had replaced already. Maybe the stock set were garbage to begin with.

Hi guys,

My base setup for 360V2 was posted in petitrc.

Here is the link:

http://site.petitrc.com/reglages/serpent/SetupSheetsSerpent4X.html#Base

Thanks,
Frenchie

Mine all split right on the mold line during installation (1 of 4 from the kit and 3 of 4 from the spares I bought). The split in the plastic was not noticeable until I compressed the suspension and could then see the ball cup spread open and pop off. Once on the track, the car has been a tank and very enjoyable to drive. Later I switched to the 19mm pull rods for the rear to get better ground clearance adjustment range for USGT tires and they installed without issue.

BTW, I bought some of the "hard" suspension spares and the sound these parts make when you "jingle" them in your hand is absolutely freaky - they sound like they are made out aluminum. I've tested one upper arm - assuming these super hard plastics would shatter like glass but so far it's held up. I have not tested a "hard" lower arm yet however.

Hi! Which tire are you running and how much glue do you have on your side walls front and rear? Other than gluing higher or thicker you can try a few things such as reducing up travel, using softer roll springs, less camber (to an extent), lower ride high, taller wing, thicker wing, body mounted less forward, less aggressive ackerman setting... there are other ways but these ones are rather common.

Thanks for the info. I was feeling that I was the only one having this problem and that it must be something I'm doing. This confirms to me that there is possibly and issue with the link strength. I will try replacing them all as the ones that came in the kit seem to be weak. I only have 2 left on the car that are from the original build. I'm a relatively clean driver and while I do make mistakes, most of them are very light taps or just generally get caught up with other traffic. These links have broken mostly on their own with no track incidents prior that would be the cause of them breaking.

I'll have to check if I can take a picture but I normally don't keep any broken parts in my pit box. It's the pushrods that keep breaking and they seem to split on the ends. I have broken 3 out of 4 of the uppers (20 and a 19.5) as well as 3 out of 4 the bottom long pushrods. Either they are splitting during installation or they are splitting from stress. I haven't been paying attention to them splitting during installation but I will do so moving forward.

I love the car and it's ingenuity but if it's this unreliable for me, it may be time to move to another brand. This is my first Serpent that I have purchased and may be the last. It was either this car or the A800 and I'm starting to regret my decision by going with Serpent. I hope I can get this resolved and start enjoying the car.

I have personally built two 4x's, and I have not seen this on the cars I built. Further, we have had at one point or another 5 or so cars built not break these parts. I am wondering how you are building these parts.

I use a part a purchased years ago to build 1/12th scale cars called a pivot ball installer, it pushes the ball into the joint evenly and during this process, as the two parts are joining the other, the force is being applied evenly and not just being pushed in harshly. I believe I paid 15.00 about 20 years ago.

Can you explain how you build these parts, it help explain what's happening.

Steve

I confess that I'm still using the old school method - a pair of pliers.

It's hard to see from the pictures but they are splitting on the end:



I've traditionally used pliers but the last set I used the Hudy multi tool.

I put the test this weekend at the yearly race in Victoria, BC. I replaced the links with brand new ones and I didn't have a single link failure all weekend. This is after testing the durability of the click track too . I'm glad to say that my issue seems to be resolved. Now, back to enjoying the car.