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mud4fun

Have things really improved in chassis design?

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15 minutes ago, Wooders28 said:

Let me know how you get on with a roll bar on low grip , I was told to only fit one on high grip. Seemingly to let the car roll more, to try and get grip. Then once your getting grip, alter the link washer height to alter the camber once it's rollled.

Will do.

The Thundershot seems to be performing really well and it has the front and rear anti-roll bars although I'm just not sure if the 4WD makes the difference.  I am seriously contemplating getting a Schumacher EVO L1 as soon as I can afford it. It would be great to compare to all my existing 4WD buggies and would give a much fairer indication of chassis evolution over the last 40 yrs. :)

EDIT: Also me and the kids are hoping to have our much larger garden race track done by April, a major landscaping project. We are also going to fit astro to about 30-40% of it so we can get a feel for running on that surface AND to help keep the buggies cleaner. We've decided to aim for a 25 second lap time (nearly double our existing garden track) as we think that will give us better experience and skills more suitable for club racing. Especially important for the kids as they wish to start club racing when lockdowns get lifted.

Would you advise on what type of Astro is most commonly used on outdoor UK tracks? The stuff I've looked at (the kids like blue!) is going to be roughly £500 just for the main 18-20m straight in 2m width!!!

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3 hours ago, mud4fun said:

I am seriously contemplating getting a Schumacher EVO L1 as soon as I can afford it.

I've just bought an L1 with the Evo upgrades! I'm going to see what progress has been made in the last 7yrs since the K1 😁

 

3 hours ago, mud4fun said:

We've decided to aim for a 25 second lap time (nearly double our existing garden track) as we think that will give us better experience and skills more suitable for club racing.

25 seconds is around what a track lap is, any shorter and the cars start falling over each other, and any longer ,it's a problem with marshalling.

 

3 hours ago, mud4fun said:

Would you advise on what type of Astro is most commonly used on outdoor UK tracks? The stuff I've looked at (the kids like blue!) is going to be roughly £500 just for the main 18-20m straight in 2m width!!

Whatever is free!! 

It'll only be the big name tracks that might get new Astro. It's usually old tennis courts or football pitches that get replaced, and you grab the old stuff, as they'll have to pay to dispose of it.

Contact your council ,and local football clubs etc, and see if there's any getting replaced, making sure to tell them it's for the children's benefit.....🙄😁

Finding the cost of the digging the drainage and the weed control fabric isn't cheap either!! 😳💰💰

 

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@Wooders28 may I ask your thoughts on what class we should be aiming to start with when the kids take up club racing? Is it 2WD ? Or do you think 4WD would be better to start with? And which motor class would be best to start with?

Assuming we ignore initial buggy purchase costs as I'd rather pay more and buy once rather than buy a cheaper buggy now and find we then need to move to the more expensive option within a year.

I'm just thinking that if we know what we should be practising for we can setup the track and the cars to simulate as close as possible a club race event.

PS. Youngest likes the look of the Schumacher storm but is there any stadium truck racing in UK?

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2 hours ago, mud4fun said:

what class we should be aiming to start with when the kids take up club racing?

Without a doubt, 2wd.

Just less drivetrain to worry about. The K1 has a FAB unit, (Front Adjustable Brake) a slipper on a one way, so you can adjust how much braking goes to the front wheels etc. 2wd are cheaper to buy, cheaper to repair aswell as easier, with less moving parts.

2 hours ago, mud4fun said:

which motor class would be best to start with?

We don't really have a motor class over here, that's more an American thing, so you can run whatever you want. So it's more what you think your kids can drive, without crashing alot (not quick, and gets expensive!) then I'd get a quicker one, and turn the end point down on the transmitter, giving them something to aim for. Daniels dad, would only turn the end point up, if he a indecent free race (own fault), which gave him something to work towards.

What will happen, is they will put into the bottom heat, then your finishing time /number of laps puts you into whichever final (in qualifying, you're racing the clock) , top 10 in the A final, next 10 the B final etc. If they qualify for the A, they won't be in the bottom heat the week after! 

2 hours ago, mud4fun said:

Youngest likes the look of the Schumacher storm but is there any stadium truck racing in UK?

Maybe!?! 🤷‍♂️

I raced in the Trucks for 2 years in the Scottish championship, but was dropped ahead of last season (which didn't happen anyway, but...), because of time restraints. We found we where getting that many in 2wd and 4wd, that it turned a race day into a 10hr day,  and if you had to travel a couple of hours , it was a long long day.

Now Schumacher has joined the fold, I'm thinking the Schumacher sponsored drivers will be encouraged to get them around a track, to get the sales up, So.....🙄

If you get an old car, parts can be sometimes hard to get, I'd see what cars are run at the club, as they'll give set up advice, and will have a spare part you need ,if you need it!

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Many thanks for that @Wooders28

We have robin hood raceway venue only an hour away from us and Worksop RC club also an hour away. Robin Hood raceway is a large outdoor astro track which looks great and is the sort of track my kids would like to race on. :)

We will all join the BRCA and the relevent local club once lockdown is lifted. Not much point in paying out fees right now considering we are not allowed to go anywhere and the venues are shut :(

2WD sounds good then, I already have my Cougar and can get the girls one each too. I believe the Storm is actually based on the Cougar laydown so even if youngest got one it would keep spares commonality across all our buggies, saves carting a shed full of spares to each race! 

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10 hours ago, mud4fun said:

We have robin hood raceway venue only an hour away from us and Worksop RC club also an hour away

I've not made it down to either of those, but Robin hood Raceway is defo on my list, and the track we are aiming to be like.

Schumacher have made special tyres for Worksop,which are the ,honeycombs.

10 hours ago, mud4fun said:

We will all join the BRCA and the relevent local club once lockdown is lifted.

The BRCA membership is yearly ,-2021, so you may aswell join now as it'll just mean you get less months membership for your money when you join later (start of Dec was the best to join, you'd have got 13 months) , is not expensive ,it puts money back into the sport/ hobby and it gives you a couple of £million of 3rd party personal liability insurance, even when using them at a park (as long as you're being sensible, but does give you a cone back if met with, "you're not allowed to run cars here" , " well, I've insurance to drive here, have you got liability insurance for your dog?...") 

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I increased negative camber on the Cougar to 4 degrees at the front. It didn't make a huge difference but it seemed to reduce the mini spikes tendancy to 'grab' erratically when cornering hard where one tyre was on bare mud and the other was on a grass tuft. No more than 0.05 - 0.1 second a lap gain on the round 7 test track BUT I gained one more lap so Cougar is back in joint top :)

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UPDATE 24th Jan 2021:

I added even more negative camber to the Cougar, 6 degrees front and 5 degrees rear, changed rear shocks to 650cst oil, leaving front at 350cst. Front shocks laid down in the lowest position possible. On a frost hardened lawn, albeit after a few runs to cut up the surface, I got the fastest laps and best lap counts so far in round 7 of the postal racing, beating my Thundershot by a small margin, and just pipping the Thundershot to fastest lap by 3 hundredths of a second!!

So what have I learnt so far, well I can probably take back all I have said previously and I admit to being an idiot.

The Cougar despite being 2WD has managed to beat some of the finest Tamiya 4WD buggies (Egress, Avante2001, Vanquish and Thundershot) on wet slippery grass/muddy surfaces while using the exact same motor, ESC, receiver, servo and roughly the same overall gearing AND the same tyres!!! Yes, we ran the Thundershot, Egress and Avante2001 on the exact same tyres and wheels as the Cougar, even fitting the slim 2WD front mini spikes to the 4WD cars as the wider fronts resulted in lower lap counts on this very tight twisty round 7 track. 

True, it took nearly 3000 laps of trial and error to get there BUT it got there and it beat them. So in hindsight I'd say that chassis design, or probably more specifically suspension geometry and shocks have indeed improved in the last 30 years BUT it needs one badword of a lot of setup and tuning to get the car to work perfectly for a given track. You can't just show up and drive and expect to win. The Cougar is highly strung and very noticeably affected by setup changes whereas the Thundershot can run any old tyre or any old setup and get within a few laps of the Cougar regardless. 

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