I was under the impression that the droop screws came out at the same time the "factory team" version cam out.

I beleive I too have been told that the droop screws on the new arms will indeed work on the old chasis... My impression is that the screws will hit about half of the surface... probably not the best arangement but I think it might work.

As far as I can tell, the droop screws just simply aid in setting the ride height of the car... or at least the maximum ride height. I'm not convinced that it's all that helpfull if you can get the ride height you need without using the screws...

I've got the full graphite chasis, but mine is the older version, without tabs or droop screws. I purchased mine used from a guy who had just purchsed the new "factory team" kit when it first came out. He is the one that told me about the droop screws and ears, and how that was one of the main differances between the car he sold me and the new car... I think the only other differance was the Factory Team comes with light weight outdrives I think.

I race on a 45 by 65 carpet track with about a 145 ft center line.

Every race day I make one change that I think will improve my racing. The change I want to make for this Sunday is to increase the front toe out from .5° to 1.0°. The thinking is that this will increase my steering at the corners at the end of the straight away and will increase the steering at the high speed sweepers in the infield.

The downside will be that steering will be decreased at the exit of the corners. What types of front toe out are people running on carpet? Is my thinking good as to what I can expect from this change?

Brant,
Thanks for the info on the droop screws, arms and chassis. That clears things up. Sorry, don't have the experience to comment on your toe-in/toe-out question.

TMFU,
Thanks for your info too. I was told that without the droop screws, the inside suspension was free to extend to it's fullest when cornering. With the droop screws, the suspension is limited as to how far it will extend, and prevent the car from rolling too much. Until I try the new arms, I installed stiffer springs in front and a roll bar to see if that helps. My first heat on new tires last week, I kept traction rolling in the corners.

The droops screws provide one of the most useful tuning aids on the TC3. They aid in building your shocks too because with them you dont have to put in shock spacers. When using 6 in the front it got really hard to assemble the shock/spring assembly because not that much shaft was extending to grab ahold of to unscrew the shock bottom.

My son runs a tc3 on a dirt oval track. Of all the posts, I have not seen anyone say anything about dirt oval racing. He runs rubber x pattern tires, and a few factory hop ups. He usually has his share of driver problems, for about 3 laps, then settles in for the rest of the race. I was wondering if anyone uses the aluminum steering rack, and aluminum front steering parts? We use the gold springs on the front, and green on the back. Does anyone have any setups they care to share? He runs this on a hard clay track, with banked corners.

What I don't understand about droop is this...

Why is it objectional to have more downward travel of the suspension? It seems to me that as long as you get the ride height right with the springs, it should not matter if the suspension has extended travel, as would be the case if you don't use droop screws or spacers in the shock.

I'm new to touring car racing, so if I'm off on this droop stuff, please reply.

I believe the first reason you want to control droop is that as the car accelerates out of a corner the front end rises. As the front end rises, it becomes unweighted, and thus steering is reduced. The front droop controls how much it rises. If it rises 4mm, then steering would be reduced to a greater degree than if it rose 2mm. The second reason you want to control droop is that as the car brakes into a corner, the rear end rises. As the rear end rises, it becomes unweighted, and rear traction is reduced. The rear droop controls how much rear end rises. If it rises 4mm, then the rear traction would be greatly reduced as compared to if it rose 2mm.

Having a problem getting my TC3 untweaked. I used a setup station to set camber and toe. Adjusted the shocks to equal length. Then used a MIP tweak station to set the shocks. The left rear shock is screwed down more with tention than the right shock. Is this cause for a tweaked chassis that might need replaced? I bought the car used so I am not sure how much it was hammered on. Although, the parts dont have excess wear and the suspension, steering, and hubs were pretty tight. One last detail; this is the version with no droop screws. Would it be better or cheaper, to get composite arms with the droop screws and try to untweak the chassis in this manner? Thanks for any help.

TMFU downward travel of the suspension isnt necessarly a bad thing. But its very avantageous to be able to control it. The more downward travel you have the more chassis roll and more sluggish your car will be. So droop is used to dial in or out traction and chassis roll more or less. There is a great article in XTreme RC, I cant remember the issue but when I get home from work today Ill look it up. it explains things fairly well.

Take a look at HPI's web site, www.hpiracing.com (http://www.hpiracing.com.). In the FAQ section there is a link for car setup. This is one of the better sites that I have found for car setup. There is also a link in that section for a web site that has a lot of theory on car setup. Should be required reading...

[This message has been edited by nickname999 (edited 01-30-2002).]

boostedgtp-

1. Check for bent hingpins
2. Make sure that the shocks are built the same internally!!!! To check, turn down the shock collar that is already turrned down a lot and see if the chassis goes UP. If it doesn't, then that shock has hit the internal limiters and wont go up anymore. If the other shock has more travel, then the two sides are not the same. I guess you said you measured the shocks so maybe not....
3. Loosen motor and see if it changes tweak. Sometimes the motor cam can tweak the chassis.
4. Start all over and back off all shock collars. Set ride height approximately. Also-dont make all tweak adjustments off of one shock. Loosen the one side opposite the side you want to tighten down. Also, lets say you want to turn the right front shock collar down, you can also turn the left rear down as well.
Sometimes I tighten or loosen a particular shock depending on where ride height is if you know what I mean.

Hope this helps more than confuses!!

[This message has been edited by rayhuang (edited 01-31-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by DaWrench:
Trixter:

Hi,
Sorry for not getting back here sooner. you asked for the part numbers for the Shuie blades here they are

U2033M: you'll need two of these.
U1918G: extra blades in case you lose/break one.

this is a easy swap. just pull off the blades and pullout the pins. then take out the pins from your CVD's ( we run the plastic ones)and carefully tap the Shuie pins in and install the blades. we have been running them for over a year on carpet/asphalt with the plastic diffs and no signs of any wear.
I have installed them on all my cars and even the T3's we run and no failure as of yet.

Thanks

DaWrench

</font>


I got the above mentioned parts yesterday and installed tham last evening. It all went very smoothly. I was supprised that the fit in the new plastic outdrives was so exact. What a good deal. I may even look at trying some of these on my XXXNT.

Thanks again.

PS I think your email address might be outdated.

Can you take the pins out of the metal CVD's like you can the composite ones? Someone mentioned using blades on their T3. Looking at my steel CVD's it doesnt look like the pins come out.

I have a tc3 racer with lit out drives what can I do to free up the drive train
And I tented to forget to check wheel nuts after every run and now I lose a wheel once a night sometimes even if I tighten them any ideas on what I can do sorry about the spelling

Sounds like you need a new set of wheel nuts. Make sure the little plastic insert in the nut goes down over the threaded part because that is what locks it in place.

order them the other night is there any thing that wont ware out as fast

wattson,
here is what i do to my drive-train and it's a free as anyones... first of all, take all the grease off the gears, second, take the shims off the outdrives... sounds weird, but it works, and my gears are not wearing much if any....

thank you
ill take the shim out of the front i took it out of the rear a long time ago

Questions from a New tc3 freak.
"What Aluminum hop up parts are better than the Factory Graphite pieces?"
Titanium parts sure cost $$, any advantage?
Thanks, I'm glad I found this Board http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

What ever is on the TC3 factory team car is about all you should ever need at this point I think. Even some of those parts are not really nessasary.

If you don't already have them, threaded shocks are nice...

In my humble opion, titanium screws and such are not needed, and are just for show.

Wattson: try putting the wheel nuts on with the nylock on the inside (backwards), most of the problem is not in the nut but in the length of the axle that extends through the nylock portion of the nut. Or, you could pick up a bottle of clear finger nail polish and put a dab on the axle threads before installing the nut, it dries quick acts like lock-tight and releases easly.

rc-jockey: save your money on the alum parts, graphite are brittle, just use the composite parts til you have mastered the art of not hitting anything. The advantage (if any) of light parts are negated very quickly when waiting for the corner marshall to put you back in the race. After you have mastered the driving part start replacing parts that are worn out with parts that will reduce rotating mass, or are stronger or lighter than stock parts. Composite parts flex to absorb the impact, alum bends and is ruined, graphite breaks, stock up on the graphite parts. I agree with TMFU that the threaded shocks should be the first alum part, makes the car so much easier to adjust.

Good luck to all

Thumper

wattson....try the Trinity wheel nuts, they are lowerprofile that the stock nuts. Far as freeing up the tranny, if you feel comfortable about removing the seals on the bearings do so and spray out the greese they pack in them. But remember that now the bearings are exposed to dirt and more cleaning will be needed but this lets the drivetrain freewheel more.

boostegtp...couple questions on the car...are you setting the car up race-ready but without the body? when you use the MIP tweak station are you doing both ends of the car...turning the car around? The only other question is it the composite chassis? I had one and found the car wouldn't handle right to which I found the chassis was tweaked. I bought the graphite chassis and the car handle 100% better.

Hope this helps

Just an update from yesterday's carpet racing in Stockton, CA (site of this year's '02 ROAR Carpet Onroad Nats).....Barry Baker absolutely dominated the track....2nd place was one lap down and going a second lap down when time expired...everybody else was already 2 laps down...his tc3 was...well....DIALED!)

Associated also sells nuts that have lower profile and where the nylon will reach the axle and therefore stay on... I don't remember what part number they are... They come in a bag with six aluminum low profile nuts... (not anodized) and also about six black plastic/nylon nuts... I don't know for sure what these nuts were originaly packaged for, but the aluminium nuts that come in this package work great for the TC3...

I really have no idea how those blue aluminum nuts got used on the TC3... they don't work. Unless you turn them inside out like someone else suggested.

Hi guys,

I haven't raced my TC3 since Novemeber. Any funky new mods or hop-ups come out?

Gibbous,
Does your car have droop screws? Other than that....nothing really that new.

I finally acquired an IRS chassis....works very well on carpet.

Is the center drive shaft weak? We had 4 shafts break between 2 guys running Mod on carpet today.

Hey Boss,

Yeah, I got 'em. Working nice. My next upgrade might be a digital servo.

Masami - I've broken shafts on occasion after a crash or some other catastrophic event. I'd still call it uncommon, though.

TheBoss
I just got a IRS chassie too. Its really sweet. Can you email me a carpet setup? jaokco@att.net

Masami,
with the stock TC3 driveshafts...ALWAYS glue the ends to the shafts, especially in mod.

I have repaired several driveshafts at the track for the mod guys with Team Losi tire glue.....if the shaft has never seperated, just dribble a little glue around the seperation where the shaft and the end are joined together.

PowerPark...check yer email.

The droop screws should not be used to set ride height. Ride height should be set using the shock collars.

If the droop screws are used to set ride height, then you are pretty much eliminating uptravel, and thus, pretty much eliminating chassis roll. You then risk picking up the outside tires when cornering hard.

Here is a simplified way of looking at droop:

Whichever corner (front or rear) hits the screws first is where the greatest pressure on the tire contact patch occurs, and thus where the 'steering' occurs.

So, if the car's uptravel (the droop screws affect the uptravel of the chassis) is limited at the rear before the front, you will get a push-like situation. If it is limited at the front before the rear, you will get more steering.

As I said, that is a very simplified way of looking at it.

NOTE, this is something a lot of folks forget --&gt; you can use that droop gauge to set your droop, but droop is directly related to ride height. The droop limits your _uptravel_. Most of the folks that are running foam tires on the TC3 limit their car to 1mm uptravel front and rear.

Depending on my tire size, in keeping a 4mm right height front and rear and 1 mm uptravel, sometimes my droop setting is 6 front, 5 rear, and sometimes it is 7 front, 6 rear.

Droop needs to be set from ride height.

So, to set the front droop (uptravel):

1. set the car down
2. compress the chassis
3. see what the front ride height is
4. For the front, lift up at the front shock tower until the chassis hits the droop screws, then measure that ride height at the front. From there, the difference is your uptravel.
5. repeat steps 2 thru 4 to set the rear, but for step 4, lift up at the rear shock tower and measure the ride height at the rear.

I pretty much eyeball it now and go by feel, but the above is a more accurate way of measuring your uptravel.

Once I have that set, then I will use the droop gauge and see what the droop settings are and make them equal left to right.

Also, if you have your car ride height biased either front or rear, then your droop settings will vary due to that. Again, droop/uptravel is affected by ride height.

If you change your ride height setting, then your droop/uptravel setting will change.

For example, if you lower your ride height and not adjust your droop settings, then you will cause your car to have more uptravel, and thus more roll.

-Rich


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by TMFU:
What I don't understand about droop is this...

Why is it objectional to have more downward travel of the suspension? It seems to me that as long as you get the ride height right with the springs, it should not matter if the suspension has extended travel, as would be the case if you don't use droop screws or spacers in the shock.

</font>

I think I understand now... Too bad I don't have droop screws... and I'm too lazy to tear apart my shocks all the time to adjust it...

I guess if I figure my ride height is going to be pretty much the same all the time, I can just make the adjustments once inside the shocks and then live with the results as the tires wear.

Or I could go buy a new graphite chassis package and use my old parts as spares...

Maybe next year.

TMFU/Glenn - I'm pretty sure you can use the arms with the droop screws with the old chassis. Or, you can buy the factory team chassis I'm selling. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

Anyways, your car felt pretty good when I drove it at G.R. so I would just run it as is for now and just get more used to turning right. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/biggrin.gif

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by rchang:
TMFU/Glenn - I'm pretty sure you can use the arms with the droop screws with the old chassis. Or, you can buy the factory team chassis I'm selling. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

Anyways, your car felt pretty good when I drove it at G.R. so I would just run it as is for now and just get more used to turning right. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/biggrin.gif</font>


yes he's right you can use the droop screws on the older chassis, i use them on mine and they work fine, pretty close to the edge of the chassis though.

Sweet! Yeah, I thought about this a little more, and the droops screws I have are a little bevelled at the end. One could probably grind that down so it is flat and thus give a bigger contact patch for the old chassis to hit.

-Rich


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by steve ruff:

yes he's right you can use the droop screws on the older chassis, i use them on mine and they work fine, pretty close to the edge of the chassis though.</font>

Speaking of droop and ride height... my problem is traction rolling in the corners. How much does tire size play into all this? I'm running Proline Purples front and rear at the size the come out of the package. I have my droop set similar to other racers I run with, but notice that many of them have the tires trued down much further. It would seem to make sense that my droop should be more than theirs(me having bigger tires), given equal ride height. Otherwise my uptravel would be more than theirs, correct? Sound logical? If I don't have more droop, would this contribute to my traction rolling problem?

Hi Sheath,

Yep, if you are running bigger tires but have the same ride height as your buddies, who have smaller tires, then you will have a lot more uptravel and thus a lot more chassis roll.

So, you will need to have a higher droop setting than your buddies.

Measure what their front and rear uptravels are using a ride height gauge (if you like the way their cars handle) and then set yours to be the same. Then use the droop gauge to get your droop settings equal left to right.

I'm sure you already know this, but don't forget to gear down from what they run since you are running much larger tires. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

Thanks, Rich, that makes sense. I guess the lightbulb should have come on when my problem started after I put on new tires. At least I remembered to gear down.

No problem! Glad I could help!

There are so many things that affect handling on these touring cars. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

The best thing is probably to rank each compenent (ie: camber link position, camber link lenght, shock positions, shock oil, shock spring, etc) as to how much they affect the handling of the car and then work from there.

I usually try to keep some aspect of it constant (ie: camber link positions, camber link lengths, and shock spring and oil) and adjust other areas. I usually start with droop as my first adjustment when I go to a new track. After that, then mess with diff tightness front and rear, etc.

I'm not like Josh Cyrul and those other pros who can tell exactly what needs to be changed. So, in order to not go crazy trying to change everything, I leave certain settings constant and adjust everything around that. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif Nutty, eh? hehe!

btw: the droop setting may or may not help your traction rolling issue. Camber setting, how much you are doping the tires, and other factors can cause it.

-Rich

I race carpet with my TC3. I run yellows on the front, purples on the rear, and 80 wt all around. I started with a 4.5mm ride height and was rubbing at the corner at the end of the straight and in the infield sweepers. I moved to a 5.0mm ride height and that wasn't enough. so I went to white springs up front. All of a sudden my car wasn't as easy to drive. I changed back to yellows up front and the ease of driving came back.

I've bought and installed front and rear sway bars with the thought that I could lower my ride height to 4.0mm and not drag on the carpet, and my ease of driving would still be there with the yellow/purple springs. Any thoughts on this?

A few questions:

1. Are you running rubber or foam tires?
2. Are you running stock or mod?
3. What are you camber link positions, shock tower positions, and droop settings?

We can work from there. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

RPM used to make some clips that snap on the shock shaft. You could use these to limit the up travel to keep the chassis from draging. My would drag enough that it was loose in the high speed sweeper. This fixed that.

The droop screws don't need to be ground flat they won't exert enough force to justify that. I have ran mine forever on the old style chassis and there are no marks.

Hi,

Got a quick question. Could someone measure how much space there is for the ESC? I'll be usingn a stardard servo and futuba reciever. I want to use a novak dually, but I think it's too big. If it, how much will it affect CG by putting it vertical? Thanks

rchang,

front:rear tires - jaco purple/orange http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/tongue.gifurple
motor - stock
front camber link - lower;inner
rear camber link - lower;inner
front shocks - outer
rear shocks - outer
front droop 1mm uptravel
rear droop 2mm uptravel

Brant

The amount of space for a ESC in a TC3 with full size futaba radio equipment is very small, I could not get any of the speedos I had in that spot... I think it's less then 1.2" front to rear. I wound up buying a Quantom Pro Reverse... mostly because of the size, but also because I wanted reverse with reasonably good specs.

I see many people putting the speedos in vertical. I really don't like that option, but short of a really tiny speedo like the Quantums, that is what you will need to do.

Hi Brant,

Your setup is pretty close to what I have. My suggestion is for you to raise your camber links to the inner, upper holes. The car will steer harder, so just dope less of the front tire and dial out steering on your radio. That should help somewhat with the chassis roll. You are getting a lot of camber change with the camber links lowered like that which causes your chassis to roll more. I assume you have the long camber link position at the rear (outer hole on the hub?). Anyways, raising your links will help keep your chassis flatter when cornering.

Don't forget to reset your camber settings when you raise the links. :-)

If you don't like the feel of both camber links raised, then lower the front link only. That should smooth things out a bit.

What is your camber settings? I run about -1.5 up front and -2.0 at the rear.

The other thing I did to help with this is I also bevelled/rounded off the bottom, outer edge of the chassis. You can either do it with a dremel or a belt-sander.

-Rich


<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Originally posted by Brant:
rchang,

front:rear tires - jaco purple/orange http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/tongue.gifurple
motor - stock
front camber link - lower;inner
rear camber link - lower;inner
front shocks - outer
rear shocks - outer
front droop 1mm uptravel
rear droop 2mm uptravel

Brant</font>

rchang,

You are talking about raising the roll center of both the front and rear tracks, and if it gets to difficult to drive, lowering the roll center of the front track. "I 've always been afraid to play with the camber link positions, but you have put in on my mind!" If I am going to try this I had better spend a test and tune day at the track versus trying this on a race day.

When you talk of steering hard, do you mean that a little input products a lot of response, or do you mean the total amount of steering increases?

My camber is set at 1.5° front and 1.5° rear. My tire wear is pretty even so I am reluctant to move to 2°.

Brant

Hi Brant,

Yeah, if you tires are wearing flat, then leave it alone. Just reset the settings once you change the camber links. http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/smile.gif

When I raised the links, the car felt like it smoothed out better and had a lot more consistent turn at corner entrance, mid point, and exit. I could drive a lot harder in to the corner yet keep good corner speed.

Personally, I like a "sensitive" car. Some other folks don't.

Definitely try it out in a practice session. It will probably take a battery or pack to get used to.

However, I am fairly certain the car will react a lot better for you (be a lot more responsive) -- especially through switch backs/chicanes, etc. You can probably soften up your car shock wise. But, do the camber link positions first and see.

Anyways, when I ran the camber links in the lower holes, the car felt too lazy for me.

Actually, if you raise the link you lower the roll center correct? The further up and in the lower the roll center is what i thought...

By moving the link up, the roll center is moved up.

Think of it this way....the imaginary line (an X) from the lower left inner hinge pin to the upper right inner hole on the shock tower (half of the X)....other half being the lower right inner hinge pin and the upper left inner hole on the shock tower.

By raising the inner camber links, the roll center is moved up...because the center of the X is raised....and the car will react sooner to the change in the chassis as it enters, traverses, and exits the corners.

Now, by moving the inner camber link positions in or out, affects how quickly the car reacts in the corners. Why? The further out on the shock tower the inner, upper camber link position, the sooner the suspension is affected by the chassis roll....so....the quicker reacting the car will be (if the traction is there, etc, etc).

Just a thought!

[This message has been edited by TheBoss (edited 02-28-2002).]