Just a quick post on the shock length option on the TRF 103. The local track was closing up shop for good, unfortunately, and they had one last race day. I brought out the Tamiya as this would be my last chance to race there, and to try a few things out for the up coming May TCS race in Ohio.
I had changed the car around a bit to use the Gravity RC tires for a Motiv RC series race. I tried the longer shock as part of the package, as the Gravity tires don't produce as much traction as the TCS/Pit Shimizu tire. The longer shock tends to help rear bite.
Anyway, I was more or less changing everything back to the previous setup for TCS tires as the day went on. I changed the shock back to a short set up. It took a run or two to figure out what was going on, but the light bulb went on, and I changed the shock back to the extended configuration. With the short shock, the car had sort of an abrupt steering feel. Going back to the longer shock smoothed the car out, and seemed to make it rotate better. Most of the time I have felt a longer shock plants the car too much, but this was a perfect feel, and on high traction, too.
Again, this car surprises me. It does a lot of things I don't expect, and behaves much differently than most of the other cars I have tried. The long shock working even in high traction makes some sense in light of the car's abundance of steering. There seems to be as much front bite as you need, even with a totally planted car. Locking the rear down just makes the car better to drive. Worth a try!!
