Crabbing

[DaveG28]

Noticed at the end of this weekend that my Bmax appears to have a crabbing issue, the steering is set turning right for the car to go straight!?

Everything looks straight in terms of the suspension, is there any way for this to be a driverrain issue?

Or could it be because I tend to use individual cambers on each wheel (eg I set it to wear out the centre treads on each tyre, not matching left to right?)

Unfortunately I am doing a lot of this from line of sight as I don't have a setup station or anything to use, so any ideas appreciated!!

[Southwell]

Well if it's crabbing i would say something has bent or broken.

[DaveG28]

Could it be my rear shocks? If one compresses differently to the other it may throw the side to side rodeheight out I guess?

[Nick Goodall]

It wasn't something you noticed when you were driving on Astro or Carpet was it??

[Southwell]

Could be a tweak if it is.

[sosidge]

Setting individual cambers is a bit strange as we race on tracks with left and right turns, I just have mine at about 2 degrees and "eyeballed" to be even all round. It goes without saying that your shocks need to be even left and right and that the suspension should move freely.

Crabbing sounds a bit strange - although I have managed to fudge my rear gearbox (setting the mesh too loose - see my earlier thread :doh: ), and when the car was running virtually front-wheel-drive at the end of my final yesterday it did pull to the left a little on power - so check that you are getting correct drive too.

[DaveG28]

It was on carpet!

Suspension moves freely and seems fine, but just wondering!

Would it be worth me taking the topdeck off and then retightening back on? Same with all the hinge pin mounts?

Reason for individual cambers: there is still always more left or right depending which way round it runs, and indoor on multi surface you also have different grip levels. Eg a clockwise track is more right handers, but they could be on polished wood, while the left hand turns are on high grip carpet. When I raced full size cars we had a 4degree max camber rule, so ran 5degree on the "outside" wheel and 3degree on the inside to give 4degree axle to axle! We won the championship that year and went quicker with that setup, so have always had a free and easy approach to cambers ever since!

[DaveG28]

Re: tweaking

Thinking this may be the answer, when I rebuilt the shocks the other week and put them back on, despite me making sure shaft lengths etc were all equal, had a bitch of a time getting the left hand rideheight equal to the right, starting to wonder if it's a twisted chassis...

[DCM]

I think Ian is suggesting (and I have had this before), that if the carpets knap is in the right direction, it makes the car not drive straight.

[DaveG28]

I think Ian is suggesting (and I have had this before), that if the carpets knap is in the right direction, it makes the car not drive straight.

Ahhh, I see! I'll check it out on another surface!