XXX-4 in unnatural habitat

[SunnySpoon]

My XXX-4 is not completely at home on Carpet.

Does anyone have any set-ups they can share with me?
I run Modified with Schumacher Yellow Pins.
Any help greatly appreciated...

Thanks, Martyn ;).

[Doughty]

not sure at the moment, may have more info after Sunday as I will be at watford, TimG races there quite a bit he might be able to help you out. though i am racing 2WD this sunday Ellis will be racing his xxx-4 so I will see what he does to that and let you know.

is it flat carpet or does it have jumps in?

[TimG]

Martyn,

I have emailed you a powerpoint document with a good base setup.

Let me know how you find it.

Tim.

[TimG]

Martyn,

As Doughty has already said, Ellis is also racing this sunday at Watford and does have a great setup. He does have some modified bits on the car normally. The best solution is to come down to Watford and have a chat with the top drivers, or even me, if your that much in need of a setup ;D

I am going to try and beat Ellis this sunday, I do have the advantage of being on home carpet !!!! And all the testing I do on a thursday night has got to help me somehow ;D

Edited to say: TRY and beat Ellis, most likely fail like every other time he has raced at the same event as me, but I need goals, however farfetched they are ;D

[SunnySpoon]

Thanks guys,

Cannot check sunnyspoon@hotmail.com while in work so I'll check that later - cheers, it's appreciated.
As for the carpet it's usually 95% flat with the odd ripple or jump etc.
Cannot afford to go to Watford as I'm based in Wales.
But I have been told by my Regional Rep. that if I don't go there for the End-of-Year finals he'll break my legs :)

Tim, I'll inform you of how it's going this weekend, good luck beating Ellis...

Chris, cheers, hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks both!!!

[SunnySpoon]

Hi guys, how did it go on the weekend?

Something came up so I couldn't try the set-up last week? Looking forward to it this Wednesday/Friday. 1-way indoors? Hadn't even thought of putting mine in...

Any news on other setups?

[Doughty]

had a superb time racing indoors for the first time in at least 4 years, I almost forgot how much grip you can get!

OK, what I have found was running heavy oils works well, I ran my usual setup but with ~20wt harder all round was good. I ran a very hard front spring too. camber links were not really altered.

this was with 2wd though.

looking at Ellis car and Tim's, and every other xxx-4 they were, what is now know as 'GTiing' round the corners. this is when it picks up the inside read in amost every corner going around the corner on 3 wheels. we have not quite cured this yet, it is not a major problem but it seems we are on the edge of grip roll. I think we need to get the back to roll more in the corner, it seems the front is colapsing.

I would also maybe look at limiting the amount of droop you have.

on thr front wishbone, run the shocks on the outside hole.

[SunnySpoon]

Personally I love indoors, but not necessarily because of the grip - but it does let everyone see the cars lap at a considerable rate.

Did you win?

Thanks for the info. will be working very hard on the car over the next few weeks and so far everyone's set-up and information has been very useful, thanks guys.

[Doughty]

no, didn't win, drove quite poor to be honest. just about got my head in gear in the final but had some rough look on a few passes.

was on for TQ in the last round but over jumped the jump on the strait! ::)

ended up qual 7th, having some superb racing in the fianl, was in a tight battle for 2nd 3rd and 4th and happened that my rear wheel drive over someone front wheel and ended in an upside down doughty car ::)
was superb racing though, I am quite addicted, I am going to try and race mid-week at watford now! 8)

the good thing about indoors is that the tracks stays quite consitant, you could have got in the A or TQ'ed from any round

[SunnySpoon]

That's true, and some of my TQs have come from Rnd3 and even a Rnd2. Although competition is not as fiece in the WRCA so that might explain that and also we mix alot of the classes 2wd and 4wd so there is a great deal of lap time difference which can really mess up a qualifying run!!! Looking forward to the E.O.Y.F. at Watford...

Question time:
Are front anti-roll bars available for the XXX-4? Off the top of my head when I read Tims set-up I'm sure he uses one? Is it just a rear one fitted to the front? In work and I cannot remember what the front shock tower looks like to see how they attach. Could just drill two holes if unavailable, but I'm sure there are no dedicated or 'spare' holes in the front wishbones - at least to my memory... ???

Thanks,
Martyn.

[Doughty]

not sure, a front roll bar would work well. might stop it GTi'n a bit.

not sure if it is available or if it a rear mounted on the front.

[SunnySpoon]

Thanks, sure Tims set-up said he had one?

Will look into this later and post my findings tomorrow...

[millzy]

thats nice spooner two meetings in a row i give you my set up !! you dont use it and then you still go and ask other drivers!!!

lol, only playing kid, still aint got your xxx4 runnig well?!!
i must be lucky, i had "the millz xxx4" runnig sweat well since september, and i dont have "gting", had a little when i had the new rear tower and old front, but now i have both its ace?!!

[SunnySpoon]

Hey Millz! Howz it going?

No dis-respect man, just gathering as much information as possible. From the outset I see most people have a very similar setup as yourself. You car runs well and eventually so will mine.

At the moment though I'm a lot slower than I was with the Predator. TQ'ed the first meeting by more than 12secs, which was atleast half a lap at CMCR and I was a lot slower in a straight line than Bullen.

Since moving to the Losi I'm more like 12secs off the pace. It's not the car, it's the setup. I know it'll get there because I'm getting a lot of support - some from yourself - it's appreciated but I'm still collecting as much data as I can. At the moment the car is still setup more or less for the F3s where Craig ran the car and won. It was bumpy there and the car is very soft all-round because even with 50wt oil I'm using the wrong pistons. Still using the modified rear pivot blocks aswell. They might have to come out for now...

[trekkker]

hi, could somebody post up what setups they were using on there xxx4g at watford as i would be most interested as it was my first meeting with the car and not racing for about 6 weeks,to say the least i was a bit rusty,but an excellent meeting all round trekkker

[TimG]

Sunny Spoon,

You are right, I do run a front roll bar and DONT "GTi" round corners. - Correction needed here. I dont GTI round corners too much, just the odd occasion. Doughty watched my car on Sunday and has informed me it did GTI a little !!!!

There is not kit available, you have to "make it fit"
You need to drill 2mm holes in the front wishbones, thread the ball joints in.
Then replace the top two shock mount bolts with longer ones, and use the normal roll bar clamps and a 4-40 lock nut to secure the roll bar just behind the "lip" on the chassis.
The only thing you have to be careful of, is to make sure the roll bar doesn't foul the front shock tower. Now make the links from wishbone to roll bar. DONE 8)

I still have alot to learn about the car, but I am getting a good grip on the best setup for my driving. :)

[SunnySpoon]

Cheers Tim,

Currently running a roll-bar on the rear so I have spare clips and bars etc. lying around. Where to do you drill holes in the wishbone? Do you keep the 'down-bars' at 90deg or do they have a slight angle?

[SunnySpoon]

Perhaps I'll get more steering (high speed) with 3deg rear toe in blocks (at the hub)?

[TimG]

Martyn,

I drill the holes at the mid point between the inner pivot bar and the inner shock mounting position. The tie rods are at a slight angle, but this seems to have no loss of performance.
I never run a rear roll bar, never had the need. Maybe I will for outdoor tracks.....

I always run the 3 degree rear kickup and 7.5 on the front. There are a number of setup changes to gain more steering. Soften the front suspension or harden the rear suspension are the easiest. Try putting small spacers under the outboard front camber link and have the inboard camber link connect to the outer top hole on the shock tower. You can always add a spacer or two under the outboard steering rod aswell.

HTH.

[Doughty]

Perhaps I'll get more steering (high speed) with 3deg rear toe in blocks (at the hub)?


I would have thought that this would give more rear end grip.

go with one of Tim's sugestions to gain more steering.

running the rear roll bar would make it GTi more, I think we need to try and make the rear end roll in the same way the front does at the moment

[TimG]

Doughty is right about the rear kickup. 3 degree will give you more rear end grip.

The other thing that really does give more steering is run a one way in the front. I do and I know that Chris does, aswell as the other top drivers. ( myself not included in the "top drivers" )

[SunnySpoon]

Tried a one-way outside but didn't like it (perhaps just because of track conditions - it was great in the wet!). I'm going to put the one way in straight after a run with normal set-up to see how much difference it makes. As for the roll bar I may for now see if I can attach a touring car version - via the front gearbox housings (I think there are some holes there) and then just tie wrap them to the wishbones (like a TTech). Will have to see if I can find some that will fit first, but the XXX-s and Yokomo SD look wide from memory...

I think the one way will dramatically improve things. Thanks for the advice on caster but I was refering to toe-in. I should have explained it better, my bad!

I'm currently running modified rear pivot blocks - do you guys run these?

[Doughty]

I have only ever run a 1-way, I dont know how it drives without one.

[TimG]

I may be able to take a couple of photos of the front of my car, so you can see the roll bar fitted.

As for "modified rear pivot blocks", No - I dont run them and probably never will. Even though I dont know what you've modified on them !!!
Just run standard graphite or ally ones with a 3 degree rear kickup.

[SunnySpoon]

Russell Williams and Craig Harris had the rear blocks modified when Craig borrowed my car to win the F3s.

Basically on the rear of the car the rear pivot block (the end closer to the centre of the car not the caster adjusting block), has been machined. Removing around 2mm from the underside. Aparently this allows the car to run more like the XX-4 over the bumps. I don't know as I haven't run the car on bumpy tracks since, but it looked well sorted at the finals over all the bumps.

[Grindog]

Hi, if somebody has a carpet setup that they could PM me, it would be appreciated as the first time that i will run the car, will be this sunday on carpet.

Thanks in advance, john

[Doughty]

Hi, if somebody has a carpet setup that they could PM me, it would be appreciated as the first time that i will run the car, will be this sunday on carpet.

Thanks in advance, john


You wont go too far wrong with the kit setup to start with, you should treat its first run out as more of a 'shake down' run than give it a good ragging on its first time out.

See how it goes, if you run the car as the book then you know where you are going from, someone could give you a setup for the car that is quite personal to them, if you have never ran the car how the book says, you will never know if that setup is good or not.

Hope that helps

[Grindog]

seems a good place to start.

have heard stories about a new rear end suspension that is causing problems on the graphite car. is this true?

thanks, john

[Doughty]

what do you mean about the new rear end? the only major changes from the std car to the g+ were the shock towers.

[Grindog]

just rumours but i heard a lot of top losi drivers were struggling with the latest release as it is different somewhere! i have no idea but was curious.

[richard_cree]

G+ is nothing more than an evolution of the xxx4, i.e. strengthening and lightening parts mainly.

None of the team drivers have had any issues with the new car, in fact quite the opposite!!