I guess this is something that I haven't quite grasped. Why is this? From where I come from (full scale) flex, for the most part, is undamped and not desirable. A stiffer chassis allows the suspension to work more efficiently, and it's much easier to damp the movement of the suspension to suit your needs.

I'm not saying your wrong, but it goes against everything that I've been taught and learned.

exactly!! if you run the blue aluminum braces you make the chassis more stiffer. but if you are running on blue groove tracks with insane traction its good to run them but if your on a slippery track then your car will be all over the place!! semi grove is ok but you will have to learn how to handle your car.
this is why b4's always run plastic chassis for more flex!!

good post

Can anyone explain why????

From my full scale racing, usually in low traction (i.e. rain), one would run the softest suspension possible (turn shocks to the softest setting, run soft springs, if possible, and some even disconnected sway bars).

Do you guys run the same shock and spring setup but with a more flexible chassis setup on low traction tracks?

This is nothing like on road full scale. This world is more like the world of dirt oval racing. If you're familiar with these types of cars they run what's called a pull bar from the chassis to the rear end to allow it to flex forward to gain bite. On dirt, running high power to weight ratio's like we are you have one of two choices, bite or wheel spin. If you run a rigid chassis to combat wheel spin your suspension would have to be so soft that any types of bumps or jumps would ruin your handling. Running flex in your chassis allows you to run a somewhat stiffer suspension package to soak up bumps and jumps as well as when you get on power that torque will transfer and flex the chassis instead of blowing the tires off giving you more forward and side bite. More bite is faster laps and easier to drive. The chassis works like a spring so lets say your coming out of a corner and you get on the gas hard, the chassis will flex letting the wheels bite and take off then the way steel and aluminum works it unloads instead of bending putting that torque back on the wheels once they are hooked up. The stiffness of your chassis braces speed up or slow down this reaction. This is how you can run an aluminum brace on super high bite tracks because you want that torque to the wheels immediately since they won't spin but on a looser track you run plastic braces so the chassis will help wheel spin.

just try it and you will see

very well said!!

Ok, that makes sense, and effectively is what I was thinking; running too soft will cause the car to bottom excessively on a bumpy track, so you use chassis flex to allow one to run a slightly stiffer suspension. However, in my mind, I wonder how you can effectively damp chassis flex. Perhaps it's so minimal that it doesn't really matter. That makes quite a bit of sense to me, as in slippery conditions one would like to slow weight transfer as much as possible.

I looked up the pull bar/lift bar thing, and came across:
http://www.circletrack.com/techartic...ech/index.html

Unless I'm misunderstanding something, this is quite different than chassis flex, no? From the article, it sounds like it's more along the lines of slowing the torque applied to the tires, which one could accomplish by adjusting the current limit on the ESC instead of controlling chassis flex.

That's not exactly an explanation.

Again, I'm not saying you guys are wrong. Not in the least, however I'm not really one to just accept things without asking questions. I like to know why things work the way they do.

BTW, thanks for any explanations. I'm just looking to learn!

I want my 8be

$37 shipped to you?

OMG!! this Tekin is about 2 seconds from going off the 3rd floor balcony.

I want it!!!

It's worthless. I've been screwing with it for 3 hours. It won't work.

Ooh. I just read your other post and now you can keep it. Only thing I want are the stickers that came in the box

Sadly, I know the feeling. I guess we will both be in-touch with Randy soon...

I posted the problem on the Tekin forum. I don't understand what's going on with it. Is it just that much of a piece of crap?

Well, when it works and your on the track... its just Awesome! Very smooth... unfortunately for me, I've had a number of failures with it lately. Extremely frustrating to say the least. I own a Castel/Mamba system too... it too has failed in the past... but seems to be able to take more abuse (at least from my experience). Both Tekin & Castle have fantastic cusomer service. Tekin has been exceptionally understanding and flexible with one of my out of warranty ESCs. The absolute solution to all this is really to have a back-up kit ready and waiting when your at a race. It seems sooner or later any ESC on a 1/8th Electric Buggy will give out at some point. I've been too busy lately to build my 2nd RC8BE which is in my closet. After this weekend's failure, you can bet I'm going to start getting it put together soon. Send Randy a PM. Hopefully he can help sort things out for you. If not, just know your in good hands if you do have to send it in. Factory defects do happen on a production line and some do get passed quality control...

I'm curious to know how Novak's 8th Scale buggy stuff will do once its out... If they figured out a way to be both reliable and smooth... they may just get the edge on the rest...