Hi all,

I’ve been reading this thread from the beginning for a few days now since Jim told me on another forum. I’m half way, so not quite caught up with everything recent yet. I’m 47, live in St. Louis, MO and don’t have much experience with RC. I’ve been racing full scale cars in endurance and sprint races for a few years. I also got an XRay T4 to compete in 1/10 scale VTA class (indoor carpet).

I have a question from the past: Do you guys lift at all in Box stock on the first layout you ran here (plan A)? I have a few hundred laps on the Mini-96 now and it’s beyond me how you get under 6 sec/lap, let alone low 5s. I just installed a Kyosho 30 front slick and 20 rear radial and that helped, but I’m still around 6.5 without bumping into anything and for a couple of laps I didn’t lift at all. I’ve observed that hitting the apexes is more important than not lifting, but a full second or more is a lot of time.

So, can someone offer some advice? Is it batteries, springs, the line, lack of practice? How do you guys get that fast? Did you all start at 6-7 sec or am I doing something completely wrong? Also, on the 98mm bodies and since I presume we are all using the stick transmitter because I can’t seem to find a way to bind it to the EX-6R, what is your dual rate setting for steering? All the way up or fairly close to it?

Thanks for any advice and apologies for the long post.

It also depends on which side of the track is being used. When I ran the rough side, mid to low 5s were normal. Once switched to the smooth side. Same cars were in mid to low 6s. With an occasional sub 6 lap. Some cars dropped into the 7s.

Bllly,
We are now running on the smooth side and regularly getting into the 4.7s range for average laps with fast laps in the 4.3’s with Box Stock cars.

Cheers,
Jim

i know you have been on smooth side for awhile. I was referring to what most consider the standard mini96 layout.

Box stock is tough as any mistake is magnified because of the lack of power. Having done a bunch of full scale amateur car racing in my younger years you need to consider a box stock car very much a momentum car.

I find the PN KS tires to be faster than the Kyosho’s by a significant margin, on my box stock car I am running soft rears and firm fronts currently. Finding the correct tire combination is literally 85-90% of your set up.

as mentioned the box stock cars are pretty down on power so you need to do everything possible to extract all the BHP available. Break in the motor, keep the motor clean and use the Bachman brush lube, it works and lastly when you go for a fast stint charge your batteries at a bit higher rate to get some heat in them and lower the internal resistance, it makes a difference.

As far as driving goes, try to link turns together as much as possible, use as little steering as possible...every time you use steering you are slowing the car down. I have found that taking tighter lines refuses the distance travelled and saves significant time. I never use brakes and please experiment with how fast you can enter a turn using later and later “braking” points. Basically all the rules that apply to full scale hot lapping apply to these cars.

Lastly....practice, practice, practice. I would not worry to much about chassis set up yet, when you can do 75 laps and only have 2-3 errors then you can start worrying about fine tuning the balance of the car. While it can be frustrating at times having fast laps to chase will give you something to work towards and make you a better driver and And chassis engineer.

One thing I do recommend is spending some time on the front suspension and making sure everything moves very smoothly, this is hugely important in my eye. I am also a fan of doing inverted king pins. Some say it increases the unsprung weight of the front end but to me is just helps make a smooth front end.

great to have you on board.

Cheers,
Jim

It also depends on which side of the track is being used. When I ran the rough side, mid to low 5s were normal. Once switched to the smooth side. Same cars were in mid to low 6s. With an occasional sub 6 lap. Some cars dropped into the 7s.

Rough (high friction). I haven’t even thought of attempting the smooth one. I have quite a bit of practice to do on the rough still...

Actually, I would switch to the smooth side ASAP. No need to get the car sorted on the rough side and then have to start all over setting the car up for the smooth side.

I actually found the smooth side offered more traction than the rough side. I had my cars fairly well sorted for the rough side and when we went to the smooth side it was traction roll city for me.

Cheers,
Jim