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doza28

doza28

Well-Known Member
Messages
309
Location
bournemouth, UK
Hi all,


After selling my two previous FGs, I have bought another.:) This time its the one i wanted- the LWB. This is mainly as the Bodyshell range is better :)
Hoping to purchase one of the discontinued Bmw 320i STW shells...love the old touring cars!
I got a fair bit with the car when i bought it. It was actually listed on ebay and has previously been raced at Mendip. Spare tyres as well as a couple of small boxes of bits. Came with a good radio system too as well as lots of bits i would have bought such as the carbon side guards, FG intake, ali arms and discs all round. Also has an EVO chassis :)
Just need a couple of pointers from the more experienced of you out there..

After doing a little bit of car park running, the car has HIDEOUS understeer! From previous racing experience in 1/10 and also from reading posts on here, Tires seem to be a BIG thing on these. Perhaps, the ones i have are not suited to the colder weather at the moment as they are of the harder C/D compounds, but it still runs on either on or off the brakes/throttle, even with temperature in them. I have adjusting things which i knew worked with 1/10 such as softer roll bar/springs settings but there wasn`t much of an improvement.
It does also have a Limted slip in it, which appears to be adjustable as it has a grub screw. Not sure what i`m doing with it though.... :rolleyes: All i know is that coming out of turns you can still hear a lot of wheelspin through one wheel.
Any ideas would be appreciated. Although i am just running it in local car parks, i am keen to race next year!
 
tires is key, took me half my first season on 1/5 scale (coming from 1/10) to figure out most of my issues were tire choice. for cooler weather, extra soft on the rear, soft up front. if it still has understeer, go with extra soft fronts. leave the rest of the car alone and try that. if one tire is spinning out of corners you can tighten up the screws on the diff (this will tighten the diff up) however this is a fine line in a parking lot, its very easy to go too far and then it will always oversteer out of corners.

tires first
 
Thanks for the replies!
I suspected that the tyres would be the key. I also discovered today that I had been adjusting the spring platforms for ride height without noticing the grub screws had touched the chassis limiting the height was getting, therefore increasing the spring tension. I have now wound the front end back even more, so i should find the front dig in a little better.
Hopefully going out with it later on after watching Mr Hamilton win the Gp ;-)
 
well, if the tires are too hard no matter what you change the car is still going to push. if the tires don't have any grip the suspension cant do its job. what your could do if you live close to where you rn the car, try heating the tires up somehow (set them on the furnace register, oil heater, etc) and get them warmed up, slap them on the car and see how they work. they are going to cool down quite quick if its cooler out, however it should give you an idea what the car does with sticky tires.

personally, in parking lots i throw the down-stop screws in the toolbox. i find i need the full travel of the suspension. i set the rideheight to around 18mm front and 15mm rear. generally whatever springs and shock oil you have will be fine for now. ive found in rougher lots i take the swaybars right out.

i would just recommend not driving it too hard till you get the right tires on it. like i said, i ran half a season on too hard a compound and id think i was getting the car sorted out, go a little harder down the back stretch (parking lot track) and out the back end came and end up with another car in my door, or unable to get the car to turn and hitting the curb at the end. it really wasnt till a very hot day (38*c) when my tires actually got sticky to the touch and the car drove like it never had before that i realized the tires were my issue. id hate to see a post here with pics of you new car bashed up because it got out of control and you couldnt stop or turn.

by the way, post up some pics of it.
 
thanks for the tips..

I took it out again earlier and it was a big improvement. Temps were about the same as the last time i went out. I obviously had the front end too stiff.
It is only on a car park, but using drains as reference points, I have created a mini circuit. The car is still moving around a lot at both ends at different points through the corners, so I have accepted that the tyres will need changing to get the best out of it and assumed this would be the case once I had seen what compounds i had. Having the more experienced of you to help is a bonus though so thanks.

I am currently running around 1 degree camber front, 1.5 rear with the ride height about 15mm both It has orange springs front and yellow rear. I don't have a toe gauge, but it looks like it has a small degree of toe-in on the rear.
I have noticed from various other posts, that set-ups do seem geared towards giving as much grip to the rear as possible which makes sense given the nature of the car. I always used to have my 1/10 quite loose... get the front end in and then sort the rest out lol!

I`ll try and get some pics up tomorrow... thanks again guys!
 
camber and toe depend on conditions. fg says to set the camber with the chassis pressed down, i find that doesn't work the best for me. i set my camber and ride height, around -0.5 in the front and 1-2 degrees in the rear and adjust the rear till the tires wear evenly. the front i run around 0.5 to 1 degree toe out, and the rear 2-3 degrees toe in. lots of toe in helps the car stay planted.

im sure you have figured out by now that these drive very different from a 4wd 1/10 scale. the rules of chassis setup are much the same, however i find that a slight adjustment on a 1/5 scale makes a huge difference.
 
tires and suspension. too stiff of suspension on a rougher lot will just chatter. I run with Sharkey and our lot is rough. I run light oils in shocks and keep the dif loose. swap rear tires between softs and extra softs depending on temps. I always run the same fronts

just think lwb you can run a semi body too. I way prefer the truck. easier to fill the tank, start, stop, adjust the carb... carry handle so can one hand it. wider tires, little more ground clearance for rough lots... and well it intimidates most of the car drivers haha
 
Here are some pics of the car. :)

The car park I use is not too bad, as long as you avoid the speed humps that is!

Shame everyone seems to be so far up north! Noone else I know really has one of these near me. Around Bournemouth the area is probably better suited to Bajas...

The local clubs are all for 1/10th electric now, and off road truggies/buggies.

I used to have a Lorry. That was the first FG I had a few years ago, but I always wanted to have a car really. It just came up for sale brand new in a model shop and I had the money to buy it... Sold it after about 6 weeks. :(
Looked a beast though!!

Then i bought the SWB Porsche last year, again because I had the money at the time. I loved it initially but then thought about converting it to LWB but the cost was too excessive so I sold it to another member on here.....

Third time lucky! lol
 

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It looks like you've got what started it's life as a sports line touring car or truck. the chassis is a comp chassis not an evo chassis.

It's difficult to suggest a set up but if you use this as a guide/base set up you won't go too far wrong.

Front
Shocks 7000wt oil

0 degrees camber

5 to 10mm toe out

caster, swivel pin position and shock pistons are something for you to play with as there are too many unknowns with how things will react with you plastic shock towers and sports line shocks

droop 54mm measured from the top of the axle

ride height 18mm


Rear
shocks 5000wt oil

camber (pessed down) 3 degrees & 2.5 degrees on the pull start side
3 degrees toe in (this measurement is the most important of all - it must be exactly the same on both sides) When adjusting this, close your front rod ends almost all the way up leaving a thread or two visable then do the rest of the adjustment using the rear turnbuckles - once you've done this, make sure you have about 5mm of play in your drive shafts when you've got the car on all 4 wheels on your bench.

2mm to 4mm of anti squat

droop 48mm

ride height 15mm

You could do with an alloy radio plate - plenty on evilbay or make your own, it's only 3mm after all.

Tyres are a mine field. what works on a parking lot may not work on a track and vise versa.

if you need anything else, just ask.
 
Mike1970 said:
It looks like you've got what started it's life as a sports line touring car or truck. the chassis is a comp chassis not an evo chassis.

It's difficult to suggest a set up but if you use this as a guide/base set up you won't go too far wrong.

Front
Shocks 7000wt oil

0 degrees camber

5 to 10mm toe out

caster, swivel pin position and shock pistons are something for you to play with as there are too many unknowns with how things will react with you plastic shock towers and sports line shocks

droop 54mm measured from the top of the axle

ride height 18mm


Rear
shocks 5000wt oil

camber (pessed down) 3 degrees & 2.5 degrees on the pull start side
3 degrees toe in (this measurement is the most important of all - it must be exactly the same on both sides) When adjusting this, close your front rod ends almost all the way up leaving a thread or two visable then do the rest of the adjustment using the rear turnbuckles - once you've done this, make sure you have about 5mm of play in your drive shafts when you've got the car on all 4 wheels on your bench.

2mm to 4mm of anti squat

droop 48mm

ride height 15mm

You could do with an alloy radio plate - plenty on evilbay or make your own, it's only 3mm after all.

Tyres are a mine field. what works on a parking lot may not work on a track and vise versa.

if you need anything else, just ask.
Click to expand...

Wow.....:)

Big thanks for that Mike!!

You sound like a Guru with these things lol.

Just a couple of questions, mainly to do with Droop. I assume this is essentially the measurement of the drop of the suspension when its unloaded? It was always something i didnt bother tinkering with. I only really made changes to the caster/camber/ toe etc when i raced.

Also looking at the car, apart from the Radio plate, would you suggest swapping the plastic towers for the Alloy ones?
 
By the way....


here is a very rough image of the `circuit` path i drive around the drains lol

so sad ......


at nearly 30 :eek:
 

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I currently have `d`s on the front and `c`s on the rear.

Having now checked the set-up against whats been suggested here, i wasn`t too far out. Only needed to adjust the rear toe slightly and the front ride height. The front was also still to hard i think. Going to get some shock oil i think and overhaul them a little.

Be good to see how it goes though next time i run it. :)
 
Mike1970 said:
Just think on that the set up I've listed is just a starting point/somewhere to go after a rebuild, a lot of set up is down to individual taste and track conditions.
Click to expand...

Thought I would just post a thanks to you guys for all your set-up help. After fitting `c`s all round, I have finally got the car handling really sweetly with really good turn in and positive drive out of the corners. I have manage to find a really good spot with smooth tarmac on an industrial estate, and with a few football cones set up as corner markers got myself a good spot to test the car. I have put in a few evenings on the car stripping, cleaning and fettling. I bought an Fg toe/camber gauge which is not only ideal at setting up the rear toe, but i found that the track width was not even with one side sitting out more than the other.
The brakes are now set-up perfectly and pull the car up really well, although i`d really like to get some hydros at some point, although this means a chassis change my comp chassis is a little old.
Cant wait to try the car and myself on a track:D
Attached is a pic of my new `playground`.

No one to bother me lol (except the mrs asking when i might come home:p)
Wind blew just as i took the pic lol
 

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this is doza28's car being treated to a gentle drive round car park stig style




just to let you know mate im looking after it
 
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