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Share your Tips for soggy running

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Here in England it’s wet. Autumn is a damp time for most of the country.
 

When I head out to the park for some bashing with my Comicals, the combination of wetter and slightly longer grass saps a lot of the fun. I run slower. There is plenty of wheelspin, but no fun drifting. I actually get stick sometimes 

Anyone like to share how they maximise (RC-based!) enjoyment in damper days? How can we optimise our setups?

Tyres, ground clearance, wheel size, damper config? What works for you?

 

 

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Here's my immediate thought: Avoid wet grass.  Grass is all well and good for club racing when it's cut short before each run and you have proper tyres, but it's a bit rubbish when it's too long or you're running stock tyres.

I'm not sure if there are better tyre options for the comicals.  You really want something with some spikes to get some traction on the grass.  You could try some 2.2 buggy rears - they wouldn't look as good but should offer some bite, although if the grass is long you'll still have issues with sliding over it instead of cutting through it.  Basic Tamiya spikes (e.g. off the back of a DT-03 or Top Force) should be an improvement, but if you really wanted grip you'd get a proper wet grass tyre.  An RC racing specialist (like RaceCraft RC) might be able to advise the best tyre and insert combo for wet grass.

I'm not sure what adjustments you could do to increase the ride height or how much difference it's likely to make.

Generally if you're lacking traction you'd consider softening the car, but that might just cause more sag and hang you up on longer grass easier.  You could experiment with softer springs and adjust the collars to get enough ride height, and probably soften the damping to match.

That said, I'm not really a suspension setup expert, maybe some of the more dedicated racers here can offer better advice :)

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I ran three buggies the other day in postal racing attempts, probably a few 5 min races each on short cropped freshly mown wet grass and whilst it was drizzling, all three on schumacher soft compound 2.2 inch large spikes, they did OK and could certainly hit their normal top speeds of 25-28mph and corner well, however two of them overheated motors and ESC's and on one the battery got very hot too, run times were half or less than what I'd normally get on dry tarmac.

The only buggy that was least affected was the Thundershot because its bathtub chassis keeps it quite clear of debris. The Avante2001 and Vanquish both sucked up so much mud, dirt and grass that their ESC's and motors were buried in it and for some odd reason both suffered a huge amount if grass being tightly wrapped around their rear dogbones but the thundershot had hardly any, quite strange, I guess the lower arms on the thundershot provide a little bit more protection from longer grass than the open and exposed lower arms on the two avante class cars?

All three cars were setup with soft suspension, the two softest sprung (thundershot and vanquish) got the fastest lap times.

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On my buggies better rubber will make the most difference to grip - I would use Ballistic Buggy green compound on wet astro for example, or classic Schumacher 6 pin / Yokomo TR32s on wet grass. 

I'm currently completing a CC02 as thought it would be a good winter basher, to help deal with the wet. I've used a Savox water proof servo, and a waterproof receiver (in a receiver box). I'm also going to add a lexan splash guard under the motor - would take a lot more than that to really waterproof a car (like Xv01 type mudguards maybe and a decent undertray / compartment for electrics) but cooling can be a problem, and brushless motors don't tolerate water like brushed motors do. 

If going out in the wet a lot then protecting bearings with extra grease and giving everything a good clean / oil more regularly will help, this also applies to UJ and CVD joints. Shock boots can really help as well as they stop wet material sticking to shock shaft - which in turn wears the seals and pollutes the shock oil with dirt. 

Undertray can really help depending on the car too - smother the bottom is the less stuff will stick to it, and stops all the little holes and fixings filling with mud and dirt as well

Edited by BuggyGuy
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Another for Ballistic Greens for the rear (short grass/astro).

Silver Darts work ok too.

Cut stagger (2wd) seem to work on anything!?! 

Blutack in open reciever / Esc ports 

GT85 helps stop mud etc sticking to things, 

Use a dry lubricant on externals (driveshafts etc) as it doesn't gather mud as.much a grease.

If you're planning on doung it alot, you can get ,computer blower cleaners, that make a great job of blasting grass/mud off after a run.

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Loads of good suggestions here, thanks everyone!

Will check out some tyre options first and try to jack up my ride height.

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I ran my King yellow in the snow the day  before yesterday and it was a blast! would advise getting 6WD lol :D
Seriously though, I have an air compressor and blast everything clean after running in snow, mud or wet grass.

Oh and I hit everything with silicone spray and then blow off the excess after spray 

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Its fun I have been giving tires a lot of thought lately due to lots of rain but I'm running more on tarmac. so open to any good suggestions. I tent to use m-grip or s-grip but that only because usually run on concrete and due to the pandemic,  I am using the car park where I live. Its has been laid down in summer, so its nice and fresh still, but I have been going through them faster than I am use to. 

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3 minutes ago, DayRider said:

Its fun I have been giving tires a lot of thought lately due to lots of rain but I'm running more on tarmac. so open to any good suggestions. I tent to use m-grip or s-grip but that only because usually run on concrete and due to the pandemic,  I am using the car park where I live. Its has been laid down in summer, so its nice and fresh still, but I have been going through them faster than I am use to. 

I tried tarmac tyres on tarmac on a few of my 4WD buggies and they were very poor whether dry or wet. In the end I found schumacher carpet tyres (Cactus rear and cactus fusion fronts) gave the best grip by a wide margin. I was using silver compound (super soft) and they gripped well even in the wet. However I only managed about 50 mins race time from each set before they started to wear. Would probably get maybe 2 hours total out of a set before they were un usable on tarmac.

Sadly they are 2.2" tyres so are probably way too small for comical cars, but it should give you an idea that super sticky small spiked tyres are better than tyres with large flat areas of rubber with grooves as designed for tarmac. 

 

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14 hours ago, mud4fun said:

I tried tarmac tyres on tarmac on a few of my 4WD buggies and they were very poor whether dry or wet. In the end I found schumacher carpet tyres (Cactus rear and cactus fusion fronts) gave the best grip by a wide margin. I was using silver compound (super soft) and they gripped well even in the wet. However I only managed about 50 mins race time from each set before they started to wear. Would probably get maybe 2 hours total out of a set before they were un usable on tarmac.

Sadly they are 2.2" tyres so are probably way too small for comical cars, but it should give you an idea that super sticky small spiked tyres are better than tyres with large flat areas of rubber with grooves as designed for tarmac. 

 

Thanks for the tip. Just looking online and found a site that I haven't used before with some really good options, RaceCraft RC?

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