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Chassis stiffness options - Printable Version

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Chassis stiffness options - Nonfractal - 29th-Aug-20

Interesed  in experiences on this subject.

Common knowledge on this subject can be summarised like this (I think;)

Wood tracks ; the stiffer the  better
Plastic tracks : softer works  better (except for mag racing)

Is this your experience? 
Alan W

RE: Chassis stiffness options - DPJ - 30th-Aug-20

I find that most cars I own have a motor pod that can be adjusted independent of the chassis. RevoSlot for instance - chassis is tight to the body. Motor pod is loose to allow roughly .4mm of play on the screws attaching it to the chassis. Aside from that, the biggest adjustment are NSR Ultragrip or Supersoft tires.

For my classics (15 year old Fly cars for instance) that don't have a motor pod the only upgrades are new rear tires like above. Sometimes I'll replace the rear axle entirely including adding aluminum wheels, if the original wheels start to slip on the axle. These cars might have their body screws tweaked to allow some movement, but usually the tires make a drastic improvement.

RE: Chassis stiffness options - BAracer - 30th-Aug-20

(29th-Aug-20, 07:13 PM)Nonfractal Wrote:  Interested  in experiences on this subject.

Common knowledge on this subject can be summarised like this (I think;)

Wood tracks ; the stiffer the  better
Plastic tracks : softer works  better (except for mag racing)

Is this your experience? 
Alan W

Not from experience, but would a soft chassis dampen the influence of any interaction between an uneven plastic track and the front wheels? 

Equally, would a softer chassis allow more 'sway' in body movement, so again, helping dampen the effects of an uneven plastic track?

RE: Chassis stiffness options - Johnno - 11th-Jun-21

(29th-Aug-20, 07:13 PM)Nonfractal Wrote:  Interesed  in experiences on this subject.

Common knowledge on this subject can be summarised like this (I think;)

Wood tracks ; the stiffer the  better
Plastic tracks : softer works  better (except for mag racing)

Is this your experience? 
Alan W

Still learning all this and associated adjustments for body float etc so can't chime in too deep, though I have all my bodies with float via the body mount screws, for cars such as NSR I've been tinkering slowly and seem to find that the motor pod is tight, the guide drop arm fixed tight and the body with float via the body screws.

I've fixed the drop arm as this was causing the cars to deslot more, after fixing the arm problem was solved, yet I thought the drop arm would really assist with the undulation of the over pass and crests but it hasn't for me.

I run on four wood tracks, consisting of three MrTrax wood tracks and one ex-club wood track.

I've also recently started tuning the body screws from front to rear, the rear might have a full 1.5 turn backed off while the front might only require a 1/4 turn back off. This will vary from car to car and brand to brand, even the same car and brand within the same car and brand, eg my two Scalextric Trans-Am's have their own body screw settings and one I even  had to insert a Chuppa Chup stick to remove the side play in the guide, while the other one is perfect. Obviously one was a Wednesday car and the other one either a Friday or Monday car.

RE: Chassis stiffness options - steveaca - 12th-Jun-21

I have no experience on wood tracks but on plastic I generally find that heavily magnetized cars run better with hard chassis whereas non-mag cars are better with a slightly softer chassis setup.

RE: Chassis stiffness options - tatter06 - 12th-Jun-21

(29th-Aug-20, 07:13 PM)Nonfractal Wrote:  Interesed  in experiences on this subject.

Common knowledge on this subject can be summarised like this (I think;)

Wood tracks ; the stiffer the  better
Plastic tracks : softer works  better (except for mag racing)

Is this your experience? 
Alan W

That's the perceived wisdom I have followed but never actually tested. I suppose with an nsr or Scaleauto GT3 this would be pretty easy to test as different stiffness of chassis are readily available and the same pod/motor/gearing/axle/tyres could just be dropped in to each back to back to minimize the influence of other factors. I have a black and green chassis for a well run-in NSR corvette I can try this out on.

RE: Chassis stiffness options - Savage GT - 13th-Jun-21

My personal preference is soft chassis for aw/sw on wood tracks, stiffer for inline.
This is in conjunction with stiffest possible motor pod always.
If the chassis isn't podded, then a strong non flexible rear axle to motor mount area is the number one priority above anything for me.