Monday, November 28, 2016

DRB-REW and General RWD Tuning Directions


Recently I mostly maintain and drive my REWs ... Setup has been pretty solid for the last year.


 But there's a bit of development that still goes on as RC  trends emerge.




On our GCRCD slippery epoxy colour concrete, there is very little grip once the tyres get a little worn or covered with surface dust & particles. So getting the suspension to work more effectively has meant all but eliminating damping resistance for fast acting shock movement.

Going for the lightest oils available with larger piston holes can help to allow weight transfer and increase mechanical grip. The blue machine is actually playing with Zero oil and the softest of ultra-soft springs. The silver machine is still endowed with 10Wt Silcon Oil however it uses dome pistons with very little resistance.

Feeling is surprisingly very very similar.


I have changed up the rear of my REWs with the outermost shock positions catering for the longest lever action with least resistance and full use of stroke during pitch and roll. Rear squat on acceleration is now much more noticeable. Dive under braking also much more noticeable.

Driving and balancing the car is now more fun and enjoyable.

I try to resist increasing tyre grip as this leads to an unrealistic RC speed and simply elevates the exponential speed fight. That goes for FRONT and REAR. Keeping scale speeds prevents the fight for RC "racing".
 
In 2017, I think our standard front tyre may also be enforced to normalize performance.

Japan standard HDPE tyres are still used on the rear of most of my cars. Topline TST-002PE and  RC-ART RT-01 SH and Speedline CR-1 are all about the same speed.

At many Japanese circuits all 4 tyres are specified as control, but there is still some room for some tyre play on the front.

This some what due to this point borrowed from real drifting. When you practice. You put a good set of front rubber like Advan Neova, then, you put your thrash rubber on the rear. Any old crap that will be turned to burned toast at a reduced cost. You definitely get a benefit from front end balance and good turn in. But as competition time comes around, are you ready for the even 100% control tyre rule and the car balance that comes with them?

When front tyres remain open in RC, there is a massive difference in corner speed from using a softer front tyre. A chassis can hold the driving line and simply increase speed by not sliding the front (understeer) without any change to chassis setup. Corner entry speeds especially become a noticeable difference and we can't play with tyre pressure like you can in RC touring car with different sponge inserts.

But in RC we don't increase the rear grip for competition, basically we'd have to reduce the front grip for competition and therefore go slower.


Using super soft rubber or soft plastic front tyres and harder plastic rear tyres is kind of missing the idea of chassis balance and tuning. Totally relying on mechanical tyre grip through the front of the car ensures the chassis will never ever loose front traction.

That's why we have controls. Not to make it harder, but to make it consistent and somewhat real. So if we set a control tyre that has extremely little wear. Let's use that control all the time on all 4 wheels.

A test of the new Yokomo Tyre and others may result in a world spec. Do you think?
RCDC Japan is trying to create this kind of competition.


For now, easy setup dictates that about a 1 compound increase on the front to rear is enough to maintain line without issue and keep a speed balance, but is this necessary or should it be normal?.

For Example :  should we eliminate our softer fronts and gain our grip through chassis settings and not tyre.

RC-ART Derive RT-01 SH Rear & RT-01 H front 
Topline TDT-002PE and TDT-005 Front
Speedline CR-1 rear and Speedline CR-2 Front

RC-ART Derive RT-01 SH are probably a great shape for front and rear. There is actually a Round version also.

Topline TDT-002PE are a great rear tyre but the edge is sharp for a front tyre.

Speedline CR-1 can make a good balance to these up front for those who like large camber or castor. On the rear they can have a smaller patch.
Visually each brand looks identical. Without visual markings on the tyres control is all but impossible to regulate. you could swap them all to the softer set and go faster still

Places like Hikotech have their recommended RWD tyres as the softer of the two compounds. This allows battle with 4WD to be immediately possible. But honestly, they can get a little fast.


Flat Vs Round Tyre. Getting consistent results from flat tyres typically involves removing a lot of geometry change from the front of the car. As I personally like a lot of castor and camber up front visually. Flat tyres simply don't work effectively for every situation.

So...

Is there an answer. Yes. 100% control tyre. But do we want to be Tyre Police... Not really.

If there's an imbalance out there. Take it upon your self to go for the slower option rather than the faster one.

ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE can change to soft tyres and go faster. But that's not the point of Scale RC drift. The challenge actually is to be more towards the scale speeds shared by real cars. 

1000km/h no thank you.

Anyway... have a think about tyre vs chassis grip on your circuit and have a chat about how fast is real or RC.

1 comment:

  1. Still new to RWD. You mention (and pictured) that you have the rear shocks to outer most position. Thought I read somewhere that it recommend for rear setup to have rear shoxks laying down??

    ReplyDelete

Got a question or a comment. It doesn't hurt to ask.