Fg Sportsline ???????

[sidewayzbaja]

Well , I am in the process of buying a Fg sportsline. I heard that they don't like to go straight (No traction). What would be the key in fixing this problem before I buy one. Can some one help me out with some tips?????

 

[Sharkey]

thats all in the suspension setup and tire choice. its a 2wd car so the first thing you need to do is change your driving style. if you have come from smaller 4wd onroad or 1/8 scale buggy, forget everything you know about driving, aside from what the controls do. the best thing i read was that these cars drive like an 800hp street car, so think about what would happen if you drove that like a smaller scale 4wd. you cant just hammer the throttle and go, you have to roll into the throttle, all your inputs have to be very precise and smooth. i came from 1/10 scale electric and nitro touring cars, did that for 10 years before getting into large scale and could drive fairly well, took me the better part of a year to begin to think i had a handle on my sportsline.

the next thing would be tire choice. tires on these are not like smaller scale cars, they react to heat just like a race car tire. its important to select your tires carefully, different compounds for different track temps. fg has a tire temp chart on their site, good idea to follow it. for dusty parking lots id say go with extra soft rear and soft front no matter what, however in the summer heat you will just melt them off in a hurry. i have 4 pairs of tires, all different compounds. as pavement temps change so do my tires. usually run a medium compound front in cool to warm weather and in hot weather i go to a hard compound (or if i find i have too much steering), and the rear gets extra soft to soft in cool to warm weather and medium in warm weather when i have hard on the front.

chassis setup is the next thing. set the car up to fg specs and go from there. these cars react big time to small changes, so its very important only one change at a time. something as little as 0.5 degrees more or less rear toe-in can make a world of difference.

i cant stress enough how much of it is the driver. i fought for the first half the year with the car setup and didnt get very far. once i pulled my head out of my ass and stopped thinking i was a good driver and it was all the car's fault did i finally start to be able to turn laps with it.

 

[sidewayzbaja]

Do you still

thats all in the suspension setup and tire choice. its a 2wd car so the first thing you need to do is change your driving style. if you have come from smaller 4wd onroad or 1/8 scale buggy, forget everything you know about driving, aside from what the controls do. the best thing i read was that these cars drive like an 800hp street car, so think about what would happen if you drove that like a smaller scale 4wd. you cant just hammer the throttle and go, you have to roll into the throttle, all your inputs have to be very precise and smooth. i came from 1/10 scale electric and nitro touring cars, did that for 10 years before getting into large scale and could drive fairly well, took me the better part of a year to begin to think i had a handle on my sportsline.

the next thing would be tire choice. tires on these are not like smaller scale cars, they react to heat just like a race car tire. its important to select your tires carefully, different compounds for different track temps. fg has a tire temp chart on their site, good idea to follow it. for dusty parking lots id say go with extra soft rear and soft front no matter what, however in the summer heat you will just melt them off in a hurry. i have 4 pairs of tires, all different compounds. as pavement temps change so do my tires. usually run a medium compound front in cool to warm weather and in hot weather i go to a hard compound (or if i find i have too much steering), and the rear gets extra soft to soft in cool to warm weather and medium in warm weather when i have hard on the front.

chassis setup is the next thing. set the car up to fg specs and go from there. these cars react big time to small changes, so its very important only one change at a time. something as little as 0.5 degrees more or less rear toe-in can make a world of difference.

i cant stress enough how much of it is the driver. i fought for the first half the year with the car setup and didnt get very far. once i pulled my head out of my ass and stopped thinking i was a good driver and it was all the car's fault did i finally start to be able to turn laps with it.

Do you still Have your fg sporsline??

 

[Sharkey]

yep, if you have a look in the touring car section you can see pics in my thread titles "fg build thread." ive done a bunch of changes this winter, its half evo now. you can see the pics and build info there

 

[sidewayzbaja]

Thanks

Thanks for the tip. Well I am mainly going to try to use it for straight away Racing

 

[pipeous]

Yup tires are 80% of the battle in traction. Depends on the surface too. Sharkey said a lot there that is good advice. It's hard to get a handful of throttle until you have the vehicle going straight, plain and simple. You'll find where coming out of corners is the time to get on throttle after a few spins and if it breaks loose, let go of the throttle until you have it under control again or you'll just make it worse.

once you start thinking like you are driving a real old fashioned rear wheel drive car, then you can start getting faster. and old fashioned I was thinking about a Hemi Cuda or something like that. You'll see why most of us prefer 2wd on road soon enough too. less crap to go wrong, never gets filthy, rarely do we break stuff.

welcome to on road. lucky to have racing. it's taken us years to get a regular group just out running. and I can't wait to burn some laps again. make some side rails right away. they protect the pipe and sides of the body a ton. most of us just made our own.

 

[sidewayzbaja]

So If go

Yup tires are 80% of the battle in traction. Depends on the surface too. Sharkey said a lot there that is good advice. It's hard to get a handful of throttle until you have the vehicle going straight, plain and simple. You'll find where coming out of corners is the time to get on throttle after a few spins and if it breaks loose, let go of the throttle until you have it under control again or you'll just make it worse.

once you start thinking like you are driving a real old fashioned rear wheel drive car, then you can start getting faster. and old fashioned I was thinking about a Hemi Cuda or something like that. You'll see why most of us prefer 2wd on road soon enough too. less crap to go wrong, never gets filthy, rarely do we break stuff.

welcome to on road. lucky to have racing. it's taken us years to get a regular group just out running. and I can't wait to burn some laps again. make some side rails right away. they protect the pipe and sides of the body a ton. most of us just made our own.

So If I get a set of semi wheels & tires It would be a little better than the sportsline wheels ?

 

[pipeous]

just have softer tires in the rear. I run same front and rear on semi because the rears are wider. they wouldn't look right on a car though... my bud has mammoth on road tires on his mustang and it looks silly. I razz him at least once a week about it haha.

especially now that it's cold. the tires take a long time to warm up and don't stay warm unless you keep doing laps. so softer tires in back keeps it planted. I was running grp extra soft rears and soft fronts. that gripped well. when it's warm out they wear faster and you can get away with using harder tires/compunds.

if your sportline tires are anything like what came on my sportline f1, then they are junk. so hard. I tried everything to soften the rubber. I use label remover to basically melt glue and sprayed the tires then wrapped in plastic bags. it worked for a bit... those are the tires I am going to use on the vw because it's 4wd. and it's still going to be a drifter. I could barely keep the f1 from spinning out without going so gentle on throttle. now with the grp's it's a demon. ya I like GRP. I think they are every bit as good as pmt and cost much less. they are on the f1 now, were on the mustang when I sold it, and have them on my bike. fg supply has grp pre mounts really cheap too