Marder 2WD Handling Advice

[Porschester]

Hey guys,

Just got my Marder up and running properly and I was wondering if I could get some handling advice. Basically ..

1. How should I set my adjustable diff? tight or loose? I'm thinking the looser the dirt is the looser the diff has to be .. reason being is that its quite tight and in the freezing conditions i'm almost uncintrollable, constant spin outs when I hit the throttle.

2. I have some front cable disk brakes and a standard single rear disk. When I brake on a corner the car is kind of pushing through the corner and not turning agressive enough .. how should I adjust these brakes? more 'braking' on the front or rear? whats good practice?

3. One more, How to get more turning authority at speed and when slow?, ok so i will back off the tight diff a bit but do i need to tighten up the steering servo saver? or add weight to the front? I really want the front to bite into the turn a bit more. Maybe some bigger tyres? any recommendations?

Any ideas would be great .. or if anyone knows of a thread that discusses this that would be great too.

Thanks

Porschester

 

[dwarfy]

I have front cables & have set them so they are not too agressive. Seem to work well enough. Not had them long so might change this when the better weather comes. As for turning in, mine digs in big time on corners (on grass) & flips if you are too heavy on the throttle. I put this down to the tyres being like new but I also have twin Hitec 5745mg servo set-up so its also got plenty of poke for when the going gets tough. Cant comment on the diff - mine is standard and is more than good enough for bashing

This is mine :cool2:

 

[bambam]

do you have any pictures of how your brakes are connected to your servos and where they are fastened to on the front end to pull from?

 

[aaean]

leave the diff for the moment.

for the brakes you want them all set so on full brake motion on the transmitter only just applys the full brakes on the car. i set mine so on half trigger on the tranny i get mild force on the brakes, and on full movment they lock solid.
for the bias (how much front vs rear) set the fronts to come on a little earlyer and harder than the rears
.

brakes on 1/5th are much more like brakes on real cars, you cant brake in a corner without upsetting the balance of the car and the steering, as soon as you lock the wheels by braking to hard you have lost control of the car. brake and set the entry speed before entering a turn, once your car is in the corner keep the power on then after the corners apex (peak/center) acellerate out of it. try not to coast round them (keep the rpm high enough so the clutch is always engaged)


for the steering you might want to play with caster/camber and toe settings a little. (if you don't know what those are google them)

for a RWD car for decent steering you idealey want TOE OUT on the front wheels (so as you look at the car the front wheels are both pointing outwards) never run toe in on a rear wheel drive unless its a very very fast track . around 1-3 degrees of toe out is ok, but the more you have the more @twitchey@ it is to drive in a straight line.

ajusting the caster angle will alter how a car takes and go's around a turn. very little caster angle will make a car turn in very quickly but it will feel numb on a corners exit, having larger caster angles does the oppisate, the car turns in initially slow then you get more response in the exit.

for camber the more negitave you have the more grip around a corner you will have.

i would set the car up to say have a degree of tow out on the front wheels and 1.5 degrees of negitave camber on the fronts. on the rear dial in some toe in on the rear wheels (helps it to run straight under power/speed)and 2 to 3 degrees of neg camber. i then just play around with the caster angle depending on what sort of turns i am takeing.

if the car is understeering on the front (which is what yours sounds like its doing) try reducing the grip on the rear wheels or increase camber on the front. its trickey at first finding somthing that works, but in my experiance very little ajustments can make big differances. always run the car as low as you can. the higher it is the more likely it is to @roll@ around a corner, lowering the center of gravity will always reduce the bodyroll meaning you can take the same corner with more speed (jsut remember that ajusting the ride height does alter the camber and toe settings slightly) if the cars to low it will damage the chssis or cause you to have loss of control when it toutches the ground

i like to run with the rear end having a little more grip than the front, or try to set the car up that way, try to get the car so the front end sits slightly lower than the rear end (again this should put more bias on the steering under speed) also remember with having more braking on the front when you brake going into a corner if you turn just as you are about to come off the brakes most of the weight and grip is on the front wheels meaning you get more steering response, its also the same when you go full gas the steering will loosen off as most of the weight is then on the rear wheels

as a rule of thumb on loose surfaces or a track with alot of low speed corners/hairpins loosen off the diff. or a high grip track with alot of grip and long sweeping corners tighten it. there is no prefect setting there either, its down to drivers preferance.

spring rates and shock setup will also alter how a car runs and turns

 

[dwarfy]

Them pics are from before I put the brakes on :blush: I will post some tomorrow if I get chance. Where abouts are you bambam?

 

[bambam]

cheers mate. i live in helmshore.
my brakes are catching the wheels also so i think i need to put a longer stub axle on or bigger squares. but im trying to figure out if you fasten the brake block to the shocker tower. as i don't have any holes there.

 

[Trebor]

do you have any pictures of how your brakes are connected to your servos and where they are fastened to on the front end to pull from?

you will have to drill and tap your shock tower to fix the brake block:boat:

if its the standard plastic 1 then there is no problem

this is how it should look when connected





as for the rear brake there are plenty of options......

1.....large epoxy brake disk...7497 not the:no: best but cheap

2.....tuning brake set with steel disk and proper brake linings...8449

i have this set up on my marder but with a 9445 disk...pretty good for the

money

3.....then we go on to twin wheel cable disk brakes...8452 cheap intro brakes

also done with an upgrade tuning set up...8452/5 these are as the intro but

with better disks and alloy bits and are pretty good

4.....then lastly are hydraulic disk brakes...9440 very good but expensive

i have them on my Leopard and touring car

 

[bambam]

Cheers Trebor, my brake setup has 1 extra mounting plate which confused me. maybe its for a touring car or something.. Il just take it off.

 

[pipeous]

great writeup aaean.

 

[Porschester]

thanks for the info guys. i will try a few things and get back to you ..

i never thought to toe out!

 

[aaean]

oh if you still find the car likes to topple over after adjusting a load of settings try different tyres (you might be getting to much grip)