Color0's Micro RC Blog -- A technical brain dump from the mind of yours truly...
Traction rolling? Try this.
Another quickie this week (the long articles will have to wait till my MR-03 arrives!), here's a quick tip/trick you can try if your race MR015 or 02 is traction rolling unexpectedly.
Recently I test drove several Mini-Z's and MRCG's just for fun, and noticed that some of the MR02's were on the very, very edge of traction rolling in high-speed sweepers, especially coming off the back straight. One way to counter this would be to add roll resistance (the MRCG and MRCG1.1 do this), but for the MR015's and 02's, what do you do? You might want to take a look at your disk damper (assuming you have one -- if you don't, buy one for Black Friday ).
Because of the way a disk damper functions, there is necessarily a small gap between the post and the disks. But what I noticed is that if the gap is any larger than necessary, the car can lose damping at a critical time, and subsequently traction roll! So in my case, the fix was simple for the rolling 02's: just swap out for some new disks. With the post/disk gap nearly eliminated, the car I tested became much more composed at the limit and got rid of the flipping problem -- I and the owner could power through the back sweeper without needing to let off the throttle at all, resulting in a nice tenth or two off our laptimes.
So what does this say? The amount of play in your damping system is crucial to extracting the last ounce of performance out of the car. So if it's rolling at speed or just not feeling 100% confidence-inspiring, you might want to check if your disk damper disks are worn out -- they could make all the difference.
PS. For those running tube-style side dampers, replacing the ball ends will accomplish the same effect as getting new disks.
Recently I test drove several Mini-Z's and MRCG's just for fun, and noticed that some of the MR02's were on the very, very edge of traction rolling in high-speed sweepers, especially coming off the back straight. One way to counter this would be to add roll resistance (the MRCG and MRCG1.1 do this), but for the MR015's and 02's, what do you do? You might want to take a look at your disk damper (assuming you have one -- if you don't, buy one for Black Friday ).
Because of the way a disk damper functions, there is necessarily a small gap between the post and the disks. But what I noticed is that if the gap is any larger than necessary, the car can lose damping at a critical time, and subsequently traction roll! So in my case, the fix was simple for the rolling 02's: just swap out for some new disks. With the post/disk gap nearly eliminated, the car I tested became much more composed at the limit and got rid of the flipping problem -- I and the owner could power through the back sweeper without needing to let off the throttle at all, resulting in a nice tenth or two off our laptimes.
So what does this say? The amount of play in your damping system is crucial to extracting the last ounce of performance out of the car. So if it's rolling at speed or just not feeling 100% confidence-inspiring, you might want to check if your disk damper disks are worn out -- they could make all the difference.
PS. For those running tube-style side dampers, replacing the ball ends will accomplish the same effect as getting new disks.
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