Turning into a bogey track..
First up, was a meeting at the Bayside club. From the last update, I struggled with the car this track, a wayward screw underneath the chassis meaning some pretty inconclusive results. This time round, I was determined to improve the consistency of the car… and the results were inconclusive again! Doh! Did manage to work through quite a few settings, finding out that a few things I would normally do on the old car, don’t work so well for the new one (front diff, spring change). Car itself was quick, but as the night got cooler, struggled a lot to keep heat in the rear tyres over the full run. Steering wasn’t an issue, but in the two higher speed turns, car was very sketchy to drive, and had to be very gentle (or slow) to stop it snapping out. Tried quite a few smaller changes to see if I could fix it, but whilst what I tired helped a little, never got rid of the issue. Even ended up trying bolting on some brand new Sorex 32's… and went a fair bit slower, so back to the Rush36's. Ended the night a bit perplexed, and thinking that I needed to look at another route for that track.
Suggestions, thoughts, and testing
So over the week, I hit up the Team Consultants (Chris Grainger and Matt White) for ideas and suggestions to try, with the plan of testing Bayside specific changes at Logan, as I was already really happy with how the evo had been performing at that track.
The suggestions given were;
- Speed 6 Bodyshell (instead of a LTC)
- Lighter rear diff oil (1k from 2k)
- Kit 2mm top decks
So the following weekend, it was time for more testing. Many runs later, now had a much clearer picture of how the above changes affected the car. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the softer diff did take away some on power steering, and generally make the car easier to drive. Not what was needed for the Logan track, but certainly a step in the right direction for Bayside. So this went to the top of the list. The thinner kit top decks were interesting. The car felt more reactive, but also less consistent, whereas the thicker 2.5mm decks were no slower, but gave a smoother, easier to drive feel. To me, it felt as though the kit decks were allowing the car to flex too much.
The Speed 6, as normal (this is something I’ve tested before) felt nice on track, stable, but slower than the LTC-R. I also managed to finally grab a GX whilst at the track (thanks to Action R/C), so another option to try.
Overall though, Logan was a good night. Posted lap times that were within 3/10ths of my PB laps, and that’s despite being on old old old tyres, and running on a track that certainly wasn’t in the best condition. Positive signs for sure. Even more positive was looking closely at the average times, consistency was around 0.2s over a number of runs, and I’m putting that down to the car. Simply put, it’s just easy to drive fast!
Setup - EC – Bayside – 17Aug14
Interclub Round 3 – Kind of….
And with that, I felt a lot more prepared for the Interclub meeting at Bayside for the next weekend, even had the GX shell painted with a lot of effort in it’s White Knight scheme (putting stickers on is hard!)… that was until the weather intervened. Heavy rain over the weekend meant the event got called off. However, a brighter Sunday did allow for some afternoon practising. Applying all the suggestions from the previous week, car was now much improved. Also played around with springs and droop, finally settling on similar droop to Logan, as well as springs. The lighter rear diff certainly helped to tame the rear end snappiness, but there was still a nervousness and occasional moment that cost time. The speed 6 was, well, slower, and I ended up prefering the 2.5mm top decks again, despite the prevailent bumps in the track, over which the increased flex should help absorb.
Having thought further in the week about the issues, I remembered that I had previously used the option rear hub plates to help lock the rear of the car down. Trying these in the last couple of runs, straight away was a different animal. Suddenly had a lot more confidence that the rear end wouldn’t step out. This was also commented on by latest schumacher brissy racer Terry Norman, who was observing trackside. Noted that the car was far better in the first turn, looking far more settled.
Turns out it was so settled, that I could go back some of the other Logan settings, namely 2mm ackerman. I have real thing about this at the moment, as I’ve been finding that I don’t like the feel of less ackerman shims. The steering feels too direct off the centre, but then also loses mid-corner. Pushing the links straighter by using more shims helps to make the steering feel better, at least for me and my driving style.
I did test out all the bodyshells as well, doing several mid-run change overs to gauge the difference. As expected, LTC was the fastest, Speed6 safe but slow, and the GX somewhere in between. The GX was quite interesting, as it would turn in hard similar to the LTC, and then, well, stop… Stable yes, but didn’t get through or exit the corner as well as the LTC. Felt a bit disjointed in how it drove through the turns compared to the Speed6 and LTC, which although they behave differently, both drive though all parts of the turn in a similar way (speed6 smoothly, LTC on the nose). The GX seems to change it’s attitude mid-way though the corner… well, the instant that you show it’s fat backside to the airflow! It probably needs more work in all honesty, as well as more track time. It’s another option though, and good to have in the inventory.
Regardless, ended the day far happier with the setup… and the only significant changes between the two setups now being ride height, droop (to compensate for the ride height!), diff, and the rear hub plates. Now I will probably add springs into that category, as the Ride Red’s seem to work quite well at Bayside some days. But that is in the ball park for number of changes from track to track… :p
