Tuesday, October 28, 2014

UF1 MIDWEST ROUND 2 CARBONDALE il

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4jXTVVFFpAoc2lOeGREdFZ5cXM/view?usp=sharing




Just some commentary on the race...Carbondale was a 1/12 layout. Grip medium, came up as the day went on but nothing special.

There were several new CRC cars in attendance, and they looked very good. Jim Piersol won the overall with the CRC , so they have a very solid package.

SO I did do changes throughout the day. I tried the angled links first as I know it also helps put a little traction into the car too, and the track was a little green in the morning. To me, the car was a little tight on exit as the grip came in, and it may be because I tend to drive the car out of the corner on power. I didn't get all the rotation I wanted, but maybe I am getting a little ham fisted on exit.
I did move the links to the extreme outer position, parallel. On this point, the car was still pretty stable in the morning, and I didn't change this during the day. Looking at Skip Starkey's SP-1 car, he was all the way in, parallel as directed in the instructions. HE did let me try his car, and I think I could take a little grip out of the front end with the narrower setup. That might be helpful if a traction roll is coming on. After the last race I put my car back on the track this way, and it actually turned much harder this way. At the same time, while ideal for this track, it may twist up a little too much and become inefficient. I think you have to go to the next side spring with this kind of change. I think it may be a track dependent setting ...like wide for more open tracks and narrow for twisty tracks. I will try this out at the Halloween Classic.

On the steering knuckle, I went to the middle hole. This was a little more reactive. Looking at the CRC car, I also wanted to straighten the links out a little so I took spacers off the rack making the ball stud shorter. This helped keep the front from chattering, and it seemed to get through the turn better as well. Normally on Tamiya front ends I like to be all the way back but this car liked the middle hole. Good change.

I went up and down on the front of the upper arm. Especially early in the day the car was a little twitchy, so I raised the arm up 1mm, lost a little steering so I added front droop (2mm) to get the car rolling. That worked pretty well, and as grip came in I went down again 0.5mm, and finally back down to where I started at the beginning of the day. I did keep the added droop. I didn't change the rear of the upper arm, but with the links set differently, it might be better with less reactive caster. I noticed the car screeched the front tires mid corner.

Cut lower arms seemed sort of vague, I didn't get a feeling one way or another. I probably changed too much during the day to concentrate on this, which is probably subtle. Maybe it might help tire life.

I am now fully narrow on the front end. It did help to get more steering.

I also have the shock in the antenna post hole (most forward). If you keep the spring the same the car will loosen up late in the run, but you do get the steering. I'm not sure if I like it though. I upped the oil 5wt and that helped. Going to a tamiya silver spring (kit spring on cheap cars, similar in rate to HPI silver oddly enough) bound the car in the twisty stuff, but good on power. Went back down to the tamiya blue linear (a couple steps above the blue mini car spring). I will go back to the middle hole on the chassis for the shock.

Overall, the big problem with the car is a push. I think it's way closer after this weekend and being able to see what it does on a track like this, especially in comparison to the CRC car with a good driver. 

Friday, October 3, 2014

Speed Passion SP-1 carpet setup medium to high bite

Link to my setup for The Gate on the first UF1 weekend



https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4jXTVVFFpAoQXJGWlo5SUt2Rlk/view?usp=sharing

The long and the short of it, Part 2

This goes along with a future post I will put up on setting up the Speed Passion SP-1 for higher bite carpet, but I felt like I wanted to focus on the subject of the long battery.  

This last weekend, I went to the first UF1 MIDWEST race at The Gate outside Cleveland.  After a bunch of changes to my car, I had something I could work with.  One of the changes was going to a short battery.  I as well 'm always willing to look at things that I think are or aren't working for me, and I wanted to see if I was missing something on the battery.  I think everybody else had a short pack installed, and I was still a little off, so I went with a shorty as well.  

The lap times seemed to be better with the short pack, at least initially, so I left it in. I was throwing a bunch of stuff at the car and I let that part of the setup ride.

Fast forward to just before the 3rd 15 minute main.  The car was right there, and I was looking for a little bit more speed.  I noticed my car get a little soft deep into the 15 minute runs, and it was running out of front bite  as well.  I threw the long pack in just to see what it would do.

Hot lap all weekend was a 9.3 by Brian Wynn of CRC.  I know I got down to 9.4, but that is just the hot lap.  The car with the long pack reeled off 3-4 9.5 second laps in a row, and felt awesome, so I knew it was on. The car was planted yet felt a little free in the corner due to the pendulum effect of the added rear weight.  On top of all that, traction roll was reduced to the absolute minimum.

I started 3rd in the mains, and while Wynn was gone I was able to get past the second place car and hold that position until about a minute to go.  I basically roasted the fronts off at about 13 1/2 or 14 minutes in, which was much better than 5 minutes in.  Part of this was probably over driving the car, especially with the confidence I had going into the last race.  It was also hard to say exactly what I needed to do as I had been changing the car so much.  That said, my car was great when I left the track, and  I feel like I have proven, at least to myself, that the full size pack is the best choice.