Tag Archives: high grip

May 14 2016
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driving, JQ Europe Tour, Race Reports, RC Tracks, THECar Advice

Euros Warm Up – Day 2

IMG_3593[1]Today was a good example of sucking to suck once again. I mean my car felt good, specially after I put that thicker rear swaybar on. It was easier to point and aim through the chicanes and felt better on the high grip. However, mind pump was a problem and I just didn’t drive very well. It looks so easy. On a fast high grip track you need to be smooth, and you need to stay on power so the car won’t flip. So it’s almost like I need to just go for it more and not drive like a girl. No, wait, scratch that, Jessica Pålsson almost beat me and Malin Karlsen has already beat a lot of top guys. We can’t use that saying any more. I would be better off driving like one 🙂

So tomorrow I have a 1/4 final where I can figure out my driving, and then see about doing damage in the semi final. I am not changing my car because it is good enough. I will focus on improving my driving. I need to slow down enough for the corners, hit my lines, maintain my corner speed, and stay on throttle. The 1/4 final will be perfect for figuring the track out in a race situation. If I could do the rest of the track as well as I do that woop section in the middle then I would be dialed!

And of course we have next week for practice too.

It’s good to watch Ronnefalk negotiate the track, poetry in motion. It looks so easy.

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May 13 2016
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JQ Europe Tour, Race Reports, RC Tracks, THECar Advice

Euros Warm Up – Day 1

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What an EPIC track. Almost 1 minute laptimes, a really big elevation difference top to bottom, I don’t even want to guess how much, but a lot, uphills downhills, shicanes, big jumps, burms, I absolutely love this track. Even though they tried spoiling it with sugar, I was still smiling. If they forget about the sugar for the Euros, it will be amazing!

With the high bite, we had to make some changes to the car, but as I have said before, don’t get carried away. At this point, the car is very good, and to get it right for any given track, only small changes are needed. This is what we did:

  1. Thicker diffs, 12.5-10-5 for improved stability and corner speed.
  2. Less down travel, for less chance of going up on two wheels, and less chassis movement. 100mm front, 121mm rear (60mm with wheels)
  3. Stock swaybars, 2.3mm front, 2.5mm rear, however debating weather to go to a 2.6mm rear or not. On an offroad track a lot thicker swaybars usually make the car harder to drive, so the stock ones are good for high bite in most cases.
  4. Rear hub 1 step back, so 2 shims in front of the hub. This improves stability and reduces chassis movement and front to back when accelerating and braking due to the longer wheelbase.
  5. Harder springs, black front, grey rear, or as I am running now, HB Yellow front and rear. They are harder and work on higher grip.
  6. Steering link to the rear of the ackermann plate, in order to smooth out the steering. This works really well in my opinion.
  7. Low rideheight, I ended up running 26mm front and rear.

That’s it, the car was very good with these small adjustments, and we will be focusing on driving, and other minor tweaks to shock oil, camber, and possibly that rear swaybar.

Below you have a video from inforc.net, featuring a lap by ME. Yes that’s right. Car looks good doesn’t it?

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Jun 17 2015
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RC Tracks, THECar Advice

Short Arm EURO Setup

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This setups has worked well now on a few different tracks, but I ran it first at the Bittydesign Contest in Italy. The track is quite spectacular, a mix of European and American track features. High grip , high speed corners, but also technical jumps, off cambers, and hairpins. This is a good EU setup with a short rear arm, which makes it work well on jumps and tight sections. Give it a try.

Barco Setup

Video of track

Under the hood

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Jan 17 2014
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JQ THE World Tour, JQ USA Tour, RC Tracks, THECar Advice, Travel Stories

White Edition at Palm Desert Raceway – Setup Changes

Palm Desert Raceway in Palm Desert CA! Very high grip, and high tyrewear when dry, after the dust clears, medium grip with low tyrewear when run wet. Normally they always run it wet I hear.

On our way to Phoenix for the Nitro Challenge 2014 warm up race, Peter Martin and I stopped at Chris Marrale’s home track for some testing. The conditions were tough, and perfect for testing. The track had high grip sections, but due to dust, also low grip sections, and there were some rocks poking through the surface. We ran it dry in order to find a good setup in this challenging condition.

When getting to the track, the car felt edgy, and the rear would just lose traction suddenly due to the dust. I made a few setup changes which really improved the car. I ran AKA soft Impacts which were good.

I moved the front shock out on the arm, which helped with calming down the steering. Another option would have been to increase the front swaybar thickness to 2.5, from 2.3. Sometimes the car doesnt jump as well, or handle bumps as well when moving the shock out, that is when the swaybar change would be a better option. One thing that I did not try, but that could have been good, was to lengthen the front link on the C-hub, in order to smooth out the steering response.

I also moved the rear shock one hole out on the shock tower. This really helped to increase the stability of the car. The rear did not squat as much, and it didn’t get as unsettled going from low grip to high grip or vice versa. Another thing to try on the rear would be one step harder spring, or shortening the link to the middle column on the tower. I didn’t shorten the link, because of the low grip sections of the track.

Below you can see the setup I ran, larger version, and more setups HERE.

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