I’ve been testing a lot of things, which in all honesty isn’t unusual, but I really stepped it up a notch recently. And the reason for this, is that I felt I had lost pace compared to fellow competitors, certainly at the local tracks. And checking back over times from earlier in the year, that appeared to be the case. So it was on with testing a lot of of things, which by I mean (in no particular order);

Cut and uncut arms, wishbone straps on and off, thick and thin top decks, short and long rear links, low and high roll centres, narrow and wide track, roll bars, shock positions, camber link shims… and a multitude of combinations in between!

A lot of this came from comparing what other racers out here have been doing with their cars (and being comprehensively whooped in some cases!), as well as discussing setups with the UK team. The final piece of the puzzle has been looking closely at the geometry and setups in the RC Crew Chief (RC3) software (for more info take a look here), and comparing that with other known entities… ok, BD7’s ;)
[Just as an aside, I will add another post later with some RC3 details, as well as comparisons on setups, and key points to look at.]

Having been through this minor crisis of confidence, all the testing has given me a much through understanding of what makes the car tick… and it’s also taken me a different tack in setup of late, and it seems to be working well. The biggest change has been going to a lower rear roll centre setup, combined with a narrower rear track and shorter rear camber link.

The whole idea is to run lower rear roll-centre, with only 0.5mm shims under neath the arms. Additionally, narrowing the rear track helps to gain grip on entry and exit, whilst gaining rotation in the middle. Using the shortest possible rear links helps to reduce chassis roll, and improve the camber gain. On track, it’s quite a different car to drive… but going this route has helped to improve my speed at the Bayside bogey track.

The other thing that has been shown up in looking at RC3, was regarding the roll bars. Now I’ve always run the evo with a softer, 1.3mm front bar, with the kit 1.2mm. This was purely to get more steering, and something that had worked well on the old Mi5. Looking at the calculated stiffness in RC3, the relative shortness of the rear bars active bits (for want of a better word!) mean that the 1.2mm is stiffer than expected.. with a 1.1mm being closer to other cars 1.2’s. Again on track this had a good effect, with an improvement in rear stability, without appearing to loose too much in terms of cornerspeed.

The one thing I should point out mind, is that with the narrow hexes on the rear of the car, Sorex rims hit the arms, due to their deeper webbing. Ride and MuchMore rims are fine, but for Sorexs, adding a 0.5mm shim should clear the arm. The other advantage of running the narrow hexes is that it’s then easier to adjust the rear width by using shims.

Anyway, that’s probably enough rambling for now… Happy New Year everyone, and hope you all have success in 2015