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.
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