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But there’s a few things I want you to know: - I have used the ‘Hoff-cut’ explained in an earlier post. If you don’t know what this is, I suggest to scroll down now :-) - on regular tracks I would never run the rear shock oil harder than the front shockoil unless the rearend is really diving in hard (harder rear shocks give more rearend traction midcorner) - I also cannot recommend running different rebound front and rear unless you use Ride tires. Those tires seem to like this very much due to the fact that the tire sidewall is very high and relatively soft and therefore makes the car dive alot. More front rebound will make the cars response sharper and therefore makes it easier to get your lines right. - I really suggest that you try the following coniguration:

Use a 3-groove plate in the rear only! Keep 4 groove at the front NOTE: you need to add 0.5mm shims between bracket and bulkhead in order for the ballstud to be the same height as with 4 groove plates!! so 0mm @ 4 grooves = 0.5mm @ 3 grooves!!

With the 3 groove plate in the back of your car only!, use the outer hole on the rearhub. This will result in your rear camberlink beeing an in-between length between 4 groove short and long. Something that can also be acchieved by using redrilled rearhubs with a hole exactly in the middle. But that’s more effort to do :-)

This little Setupchange will give you : more precise turn-in, more midcorner rotation and more forward/brake traction.

However,you also need to know that with CPX tires, even though it will feel nice, it’s slower. But it works perfectly with Sorex, Ride, Xenon, TOP Solaris and any other tire apart from the carpet CPX tire I have ever used.

If you read my last post you might already know that I don’t like the way Yokomo springs make the car feel. A lot of times it makes it pretty easy to drive and is good against traction roll but the sacrifice in precision and willingness to change direction for me doesn’t cut it.

Therefore Tamiya springs for me are best when you encounter very high traction. You might also want to try HPI Gold / Silver in regular conditions and pink /silver in high bite conditions with Ride tires (sounds strange I know, but when your chassi is rubbing along the carpet the car won’t tractionroll, that’S the trick really), or Ride Springs (purple front red rear).

Apart from that, this setup is my basic starting point for any track on any tires. and 99% of times my car is just spot on in the first run already.

So have fun testing!


Some pictures of my car as used at the ETS apart from Speedo and motor obviously:

full view


rearend


rearend again


frontend


steering assembly

How to make this:
- use the 2 long post from a double-post steering or any other post that is the same height as the original bulkhead mounting surface
- put 5mm shims underneath the steering post
- flip the steering hub upside down and mount the plate that connects to the servo link on 2mm spacers
- mount the servo link ballstud upside down

This will make the steering feel better and makes the car easier to drive, especially in high bite conditions where you nearly never use the full servo travel

full front view:

You can see the DCJ driveshafts. I not only remove some material from the c-hub but also from the inside of the steering hub. If you have used your driveshafts already, along with full lock, you will find that the retaining ring rubs slightly on the inside of the steering hub. I don’t like parts that touch eachother unless they are meant to, so I use a small milling bit in a dremel to take of 0.5 or 1mm of material, just where the ring touches. This way the steering knuckles are still rigid enough to withstand impacts but yet, there’s no physical contact of the two components.


December was really not my month to be honest, but january looked to be far better.

My bachelor-thesis was going well, uni-work was fine, and all was just great. Until one of our lecturers told us that his exam has moved to Friday 20th, 11 AM. That’s Friday, day 1 of the Italian ETS…

Due to this beeing my last semester, skipping this exam was just not an option so I changed the hotel booking and just made the best out of it.

This beeing said, the exam was going very well. 3 left then.

I jumped into the car directly after I had finished which was around half past 12 and off we where to Italy. Welcome onboard HoffAir :-)

Traffic around Munich was a nightmare and it got even worse when we arrived in snowy Austria, where they limited the topspeed on the motorway to 80 km/h!

With the snow gone traffic got better as soon as we entered Italy. Unfortunately though it’s not germany so the speedlimit was still 110 km /h with 130 allowed occasionally.

I called Uwe Rheinard somewhere in Italy and he told me that Q1 was scheduled to start around 18.30! Satnav said arrival time would be 19.20. You might find a problem there :-)

I was very frustrated as you might expect but kept doing the speed limit. Not want to risk my licence and a lot of money for a qualifier.

We arrived in Scandiano a bit past 7. As I was walking into the hall I found that they prostock category was still running and after speaking to Chris Ashton I got told that I was on in 6 minutes!!!

My tires where unprepared as nobody expected me to arrive in time and everybody who has ever seen a ride tire knows how stiff and huge the middle rib is on those and that they don’t work in the first run when untreated.

I quickly threw in the motor and put the tires on my car though and there we where. First run ever there and it beeing the first qualifier didn’t help much tbh :)

I was allowed to do 2 practice runs after the qualifiers had finished so atleast I was able to settle in a little bit. I was still well behind the regular arrivers in terms of practice.

Q2 Saturday morning was looking good. The car felt great in the warm-up laps. Very aggressive and precise. That was with Ride Springs.

What I found out during the run was that, even though the traction was not as high as I expected, it still was enough to make my car traction roll. Another qualifier done then.

This meant I had to do 2 out of 2 to get into the A-Main which is a tough call at an ETS race. I switched to Yokomo springs which I never really like. But they are super soft and take away nearly every bit or traction rollyness. Along with glued up front sidewalls this made the car pretty easy to drive. I finished 7th in Q3 and a small coming together with Zdenko Kunak in Q4 cost me too much time and I finished 9th for that round. Unfortunately, the time I lost was just too much and I ended up beeing 11th because of 4/10th … Anyway that’s racing.

BQ then. Straight after the start of the first main, the second placed driver .. forgot to turn in, or brake … and drove straight through the side of my car which broke both, the speedo and the motor! Not finished a single lap there.

The second main was better. I had a very clean and mistake free run but still running yokomo springs I was not happy with the overall feeling of the car.

I changed to Tamiya White/Blue for the last final. A classic spring combination that proved to work on many tracks before. The result was staggering. It was a totally different car this time around. A lot more precise, more cornerspeed, more steering and best of all, a lot easier to drive. I was able to do very clean laps and drop my fastest laptime quite a lot.

In fact I was totally on pace with the A-Main front-runners.

I’ll be there in time for the next ETS race for sure. This time in Gran Canaria on tarmac. I’m really looking forward to that one and aim to do better there :-)

My car was great so I’m confident.

But first I need to do the rest of my exams and visit the Nuernberg Toy Fair 2012. Will be a very nice show. If you are there, make sure to check out the Schumacher booth.

Some pro’s and con’s of ETS Rd2:
pro:
-the Hotel was very nice
- Dinner in “La Trattoria” was served within 5 minutes and was the best Italian food I have ever had
- The track layout was surprisingly technical for an ETS track
- my british teammates joined me this time
- the drive to and from Italy was very pleasant, but driving through Germany on the way home has to be the highlight :-)


cons:
- the track was VERY bumpy
- the hall was pretty cold!
- the “toilets” not even deserve this name, “the hole” is a much better transcription
- speed limits suck!

new bodyshell with some design adjustments. Really like that one and Kitty is back!

I hope you enjoyed reading. There’ll be a toyfair special. I will visit the show on Friday, February 3rd.

So long, keep racing!

Martin.