Setup for slippy surfaces?
 

Has anyone had any joy with a setup for low/medium grip surfaces with the S401. I was at Worksop yesterday for my first run with the car and struggled to get anything near a solid setup. The problem being the car hooking round corners both on and lift off throttle. Tried loads of changes most with no great effect. I was running saddles with 60g of weight behind the saddles, under the gearbox supports. Front 1.5mm anti-roll bar. No rear roll bar. 400cst losi yellow springs rear, 425cst losi black springs front.(does anyone know the poundage rating of the Sworks springs?). Kit 3000wt oil in diffs(not enough time between rounds to change due to running 2 classes, would have tried heavier front oil given time). I tried a multitude of changes to roll centres etc but at best I was struggling to put power down due to the lack of weight over the rear.
We predominantly run on a mix of slippy wood and carpet and really need to get a locked in back end for such surfaces, any ideas? :confused:
Car seems pretty bulletproof and good to work on and I really like the engineering designs this brings to 1/10th offroad, just need a setup. Cheers.

I watched your car a fair bit as you were on before my friend. From what you say Id try taking out that rear weight so far back. Although its pushing dowwards it will also want to swing sideways.

Moving the weight foreward should give understeer a bit more on power and make it safer (in my opinion)

Something else id try would be adding an extra degree of rear toe and use a rear anti roll bar. The extra toe should lock rear in while the roll bar should take a little grip away but also make it break away in a controlled way as opposed to gripping loads then suddenly rotating like it was.

I add weight to the rear of mine when I want the rear to break traction and pivot easier :thumbsup:

I think you will find if you put in a 7000 weight oil in the rear diff this will help. Having a heavier rear diff oil helps make the steering smoother and straighten up better on the exit of the corner

Cheers for the reply Danny, I started off the day with no weight in at all, and gradually added in as much as I could fit in the available space. My pal with the orange one was running shorty config and had 85g behind the battery and a 25g rear skid weight too. His handled a good bit better than mine with a similar suspention setup which leads me to think I need a lot more weight as there really is no weight over the rear end. I just checked and saw that Im only running 2deg rear toe in and I could get another 1 deg by changing the rear insert and will definitely try that as I will a rear ARB. As for the diff oils I will defo go up on them but the norm is usually heavier oil in the front than the rear. I was thinking 7000front and 5000rear.

Col.

Adding weight, when the car is in saddle layout, is indeed not the solution. It already weighs a ton without. You should only use the 2degree in very high grip conditions, so start with that.

Have you also considered playing with ride height? Amount of droop? Wheelbase?
Shock oils even seem a bit thick to me: try 400front and 350/300rear

Good luck with it!

For low grip:

Front:
Upper roll centre in lower hole
Lower hinge pin in upper hole
middle hole on shock tower
outer hole on arm

Rear:
Upper link inner bottom on tower and outside on hub
Outer hole on shock tower
inner hole on arm
long wheelbase
max rear toe

Shocks depends what pistons u have. I ran 4x1.3 in front, with 5x1.2 in the rear, with 500 and 300 oil. Durango 3.75lb front spring, 2.05lb rear.

10k in the diffs, and no roll bars

Thanks Steve, will give this a try for the weekend. Much appreciated.

RCPower, thanks. Just remembered that I was running 3 deg rear toe and gave my pal a lone of the inserts for his final which is why I thought I had been running 2 when I checked afterwards. Tried playing with ride height and it was better when running lower, I neglected to set the droop screws which in hindsight may have been a bit of an error! Thanks again for the help folks. Cheers.

Col.

Thought I'd let you know how the car went yesterday. It was like the polar opposite of last weekend. It was like a different car completely. I've never driven a car so easy and compliant on a mixed wood/carpet surface before. It took me until the finals to get used to how to drive it harder and astounded me with how you can really push it on. Im confident with a few minor tweeks here and there I'll be able to improve my qualifying positions now. Really pleased with it. Cheers folk.
Col.

So, what were the most important changes you did make in the end?

Glad to hear you are going in the good direction!

Probably the damper changes, change to a short wheelbase and a 75g weight behind the saddles. To be honest I changed near enough everything so hard to pinpoint a few specific things. As well as the above changes I added roll bars, set the droop, rear toe, removed the rear gearbox braces, and a few other things too. I am glad I've got a good base setup to tweak from now and revert to if need be.

What diff oil´s are you running ? 10k f 7k r

10k in front and rear

Setup
 

I ran

Diffs front and rear 10000

Front
Shocks - top middle, bottom outer
Upper roll Centre in middle hole
Lower hinge pin lower hole
Pistons 5 hole 2 @ 1.2 and 3 @ 1.5
32.5wt oil
Pink springs

Rear
Shocks top as kit, bottom outer
Lower hinge pin front middle rear outer
Camber link inner just below middle
Pistons as above
30wt oil
Blue springs

Camber
All 4 corners set at -1.5degs

Droop
Front 0mm
Rear -4mm
(Sitting on 20mm Hudy blocks)
Height was set when driveshafts looked level



Outdoors will be keeping same setup with changes made to diff and shock oil
Lighter oil diffs 7500/8000 all round
Heavier oil shocks 37.5 front 35rear