RE-Xtreme RC Drift Bible - Bodies and Wheelbase

 Not all drift bodies are the same length or the same wheelbase. Lets look at how you can get it right!

 The previous picture was actually modified. In reality, I built this body from 2 separate 250mm bodyshells and joined them together and lengthed to 257mm, but because the rear is so wide, rear toe in and wheelbase spacers are needed to make the body fit on different chassis. this image was before adjustment.

Depending on your chassis maker, It might have different default positions for the wheelbase.
This is important as the body posts are directly related to the chassis position. So drilling the holes in the body in the right place and making everything line up is important.

If you borrow a friends body, 9 times out of 10 it wont fit on your body posts. It's typically due to toe settings or wheelbase spacers in relation to the bodyposts.

this can be eliminated by velcro mounts.as the body posts no longer centre the body. the wheel position is more important.

But here is an example. the Yokomo DRB only has adjustment in the rear. If you adjust in the front, you create changes with toe, castor and other stuff.

When you move the spacers on the rear suspension mounts and you can reposition the wheelbase with limited effects.

But on this chassis you can only re-position the rear, what happens if your friends drift package was already adjusted in the front. The drift package has spacers in the front and the rear. If the front body posts are in a different position, then it's tough.

Buying second hand bodies with posts cut out can be tricky.

The Yokomo DRB setup is something like this as default. But there is 3mm of adjustment built into most RC chassis. This allows for elimination of rear toe in (discussed elsewhere)  or repositioning the wheels to match the body length.

Making the wheelbase longer or shorter as shown here, has a slight impact in handling (even if nothing else is changed) so as with anything, make a change and evaluate. 

 There is a lot of small adjustments on an RC chassis. It takes time to get them all the way you need them.

I remember having a lot of trouble with my conversion chassis.

I had a Yokomo Shaft drive Drift Package and all my bodies were setup in the default positions.
I then bought a D-Like RE-R Belt drive conversion which re-used the common suspension components.

None of my bodies would fit properly and I was confused.
The body posts in relation to the suspension components were set as follows.

Drift package 3mm, 1mm front   1mm 3 mm rear.
in order to get things tight, I needed to change to
RE-R 1mm 3mm front and 2mm 2mm rear.

I eventually was pointed in the right direction with good advice and purchased some new spacers.

Everything was sweetly aligned.

a few mm can make a big difference.

Once it's all sorted, you can enjoy perfect alignment.