So, another long day at the track yesterday, and ran through a lot of settings. Track layout was the same as last weekend, but traction was a lot lower. Started out the day by just having a sighting run to check out the track, and check the difference in lap time. Turns out that the traction was a lot lower than last weekend, with the laptime ending up around half a second slower. Car still didn't feel too settled, and still seemed to push.. but still quick!

Anyway, first change I wanted to try was switching back to the roll bars and and a softer springs. Mounted up the 1.1mm bars, and then moved the springs out 1mm. Straight away, the car felt more settled with this change, and more consistent too, finding it easier to place the car in the same place lap after lap, although the fastest lap was similar. So a positive step, and as I expected in some ways from going back to the roll bars.. I've personally, never liked a car without them, just feels wooly when roll control is only on the springs. I did also try softening off the springs more (moving then out 0.4mm) with the roll bars, but again it started to loose consistency.. albeit with same fastest.

Next up, I wanted to try running back to back with the Symetric and Asymetric damping again... and this time, to be quite honest, didn't feel a huge amount of difference! I had to do the switch back and forth twice to confirm this, Lap time was the same, and although the asym felt a bit better over the bumps, so I left it like on asym for the rest of the day.

Next on the list was IAS. Now this was something that I had been wanting to try for a while, just always run out of time! Anyway, didn't take too long to get mounted up and setup out (although helped out mounting some F1 tyres for another racer at the same time!). On track, the car felt like it had more steering all-round on the tighter and twisty sections, but wasn't quite so easy to get into the sweeper off the straight, and seemed to bog down in the middle corner.. so I switched back for the next run, and this was simply the best the car has felt. I think there was a combination of just re-checking the settings (had slightly more toe-in on the rear on one side to the other, and the camber off a little), and the settings before, but it was good everywhere. That was proved out by looking at the times... 32laps, fastest 12.6, avg 12.8, that works out at 6 1/2 mins. Can't get much better than that!

Anyway, with that under the belt, next up I wanted to try out the transverse motor setting... now this was an interesting change. Mounted it all up, including moving the battery out 4.5mm, and left the rest of the setup as before. Car even tweaked up dead straight with no adjustment on the RHS! On the track, car did feel like it rolled more, but with the bars, it was really good. Even clocked my first 12.5's of the day, but I ran into issues with the spur. Basically, had the nut come loose, and this made the bevel gear etch a groove into the spur, meaning the nut couldn't hold the spur in place. Not sure how to get round that at the moment... maybe a spur with different material (currently using a Kawada) could stop this. That issue meant I switched back to the longitudinal motor after only two attempted runs, but also gave me the idea that I had the long car a bit too stiff in roll...
On the second run for the trans motor, I also dropped out the reactive castor on the front, seemed better into the corner, but maybe not so good in the middle, but left it as it was, as other things to try!

So last few runs of the day, started playing around with the bars and springs again (spot a theme here!). Firstly, from the same setting, moved the shock out 0.2mm, and kept the same roll bars...and promptly managed to match the 12.5 from the transverse motor, but a bit scattered on the average. So for the final run of the day, went back to the same spring setting from earlier, but using the 1.0mm bar... and bingo. Even with tyres that were well past their best (same set from last weekend), hit 12.5, and managed 6x 12.7's in a row at one point. Very happy with that, a good improvement, and feeling much happier with how the car felt.

Interestingly, looking back over the final setup now, and looking at what I tested throughout the day, the settings really don't look too different... it's softer on the springs, and with roll bars, but otherwise not a large amount different. Anyway, that's what I'm going to take on the car for Thailand, car re-build is now underway!

Regards
Ed

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