I'm super discouraged!!!
 

I raced my cat sx today for the first time and have to say I have my doubts about this car, as bad as that is to say!!!!

I was racing on a dirt track

In practice a harmless slide at low speed on my rear wheel resulted in a broken hub....a couple of high jump landings resulted in two broken arms(both broken at the pivot pin) and two bent aluminum pivot blocks(both left front)

I am by no means a expert racer but I have been mucking around in the hobby for 20 years and have never experienced anything like this. To have broken different parts would have been understandable, but to have the same part break in the same way from landing a jump clean stinks!!!

The car bottoms out in a thud all the time, I know what you will say, put stiffer springs. I did, didn't help.

I know Shumacher has softer arms and plastic pivot blocks as option parts, will changing them help or is this kind of breaking normal. My question is this, what do I have to change to make this buggy last like a 500 dollar buggy should?

How big are the jumps and what oil are you using etc.

Broken v little on my Cat SX so far. Had it since June last year.

Any big bolders on the track?

was it very cold?? plastic gets brittle when its cold, having said that we have never had problems like that, and we have tested are old car big time.

No bolders, the jumps give about 2 feet of air.

I'm using 40 weight oil and lellow spings. I though ti might have to do with the lipo being on the left, because every time I corrected my car with the throttle the car tilted left mid air

I'll post a picture of the track

Have you done the droop mods with longer shock bottom ends ?

A bit more droop would aid landings.

No, I did't get the memo....I am glad That you guys are here to help but maybe shumacher should create a simple site for these type of mods.

I also saw that someone was making a bar to join the bivot blocks,making them stronger, but I can't find anyone selling them. I very curious about the softer shock arms... do they break less than the originals.

I was also thinking of a old school mod.... we use to put a small piece of gas feul tube on the shock shaft to keep cars from bottoming out. Do you think it will affect the handlind in a negative way, because these guys already have a low ride height.

This sounds like the exact same thing I went through a few years ago with a Corally RDX touring car. The very first time I set the car on the track, I hadn't even gotten to the driver's stand and was hit by another car practicing, and it broke a rear arm and hub carrier. Following that, every time I put the car on the track for practice, heats or races, something on the car broke. I'm not a world-class driver, but I'm not a hack either, and I couldn't believe how much breakage there was.

Ironically, I sold the RDX for a Schumacher Mi3, and never broke another part for 2 full seasons of racing touring cars (stock rubber). As much as I thought the RDX was a beautiful car with absolutely top shelf quality and design, the car just had really bad mojo in my hands. No matter what I did, I was buying replacement parts and sitting in the pits repairing things on far too regular of an occurrence. I still think the RDX was a really great car to drive, but I couldn't hit ANYTHING because I knew it was so fragile for me. Regardless of how many strong parts I put on the car, I still bent or broke them, and it ruined my driving. I drove every session paranoid of breakage—missing apexes by over a foot on purpose. It wasn't worth it anymore, so I sold the car.


What I'm trying to say is maybe that car and you aren't having good juju. Cut your losses, and move on to something else before you lose your mind with the car.




Just a thought from someone who dealt with the same thing before and spent a lot chasing "fixes."

Bad vibes is right, I'm about to call a witch doctor to try lift the curse. My partner is running a cat so I bought it to be able to share experience and parts. He actually hasn't broken as much as me all year as I did in two qualifiers.

I was always a (sorry) kyosho fan. I'm going to give the cat two more races...If I cant get it to handle the way I want I'm going to make cat soup out of it.

So can all you cat pro's out there please give me all the help you can with this

Thank you

I had simular problem, I will explain. My Cat was good straight out the box, no problems, then I changed a few bits during routine maintanance, then it broke almost every run, I did spurs, diffs came un done, wishbones, and even had trouble with the receiver, I worked through it, fixed all the broken bits, and it has been good since,
So don't give up too quickly, and once you have worked all the bugs out I think you will really like the Cat:thumbsup:

It seems the current generation of Schumachers aren't for everyone - I've been hearing reports that both the Cat SX and Mi4 are high-maintenance vehicles - fast, yes, but for the likes of me, who drops his car on the track with barely a glance, not a good match.

I'm wondering if the Cougar SV will depart from this trend - it certainly looks tough!

The maintenance is not a problem. It has a couple of issues that have to be addressed.

where can I buy the bar that joins the front pivot blocks

He is Stegger on here [email protected]

I have both braces he makes, but not even used them yet:woot:

Might be worth checking your chassis isn't tweaked and the weight balance is ok if it isn't jumping very well as you could be doing a lot of landings on one side, rather than landing flat.

something is wrong, every time I correct with the throttle the left side dips. Can anyone suggest a reason?

I find the car weak too, the softer arms will help some though. The BW brace is essential as the alloy front blocks are imo very soft alloy.

I like the car I just dont think its made strong enough for todays brushless performance.

I don't think that brushless motors have too much power for the car to handle, I actually think the car is too heavy. The weight is making it hard for me to setup.He's a link to a video of the track. I broke my front arm once on the last jump, before the staightaway, landind a little past the jump on the flat. The second arm broke on the first jump after the straight again because I overshot the jump. As you can see ther is no real big air jumps and its on dirt so its even more forgiving. Can anyone suggest a setup for this track?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moRuBYauvq0

Cool track. I can't for the life of me think why you couldn't get the CAT to run nicely over that. I'm sure someone who knows the car well will be able to help with some setup advice.

Could be a siezed wheel bearing??? My car jumps good, its not the design of the car thats giving you trouble, it must be mechanical.

I had the same thought and bought a set of acer ceramic bearings to replace them all. Or the easiest answer is that I am a horrible driver:( and make a good car go bad.

Try my seup from the Euros - its listed in the manual.

Si

I guess your Simon Moss...i'ts a pleasure. I'm goining to do that this weekend, I also found a couple other of your setups on the web that I'm going to try. I got two questions if you don't mind. how do you adjust the lenght of the shock, do I simply unscrew the ball joint or do I change the shaft. And how would I limit bottoming out?

Thanks
Bill

I can answer this one - use longer ballcup cut to length you need - unscrewing isn't safe as you are risking stripping thread in ballcup.

You wouldn't happen to have a part number would you?

U2989Ball Grippa Sockets - (pk 8)

Found it here

http://www.racing-cars.com/main.asp

Don't be hard on yourself there Bill,when you get this car setup right you will love it.Keep in mind it was only your first race there.When i took your car for a spin there i found your camber was out of wack now everyones setup should suit there driving style of course.Im sure if you took my cat sx for a spin you would hate the feeling of it.but for me it works great and as you know im always tweaking something but one change at a time.when you take the car for a first run don't focus how fast you will go but how you can get around the track without crashing and picking up the pace from there.

Dennis
Cat SX
Cougar SV (Soon)
B44
B4

Thanks David I ordered some, and alot of other spare parts:cry:

This is my friend I race with, I am the paduwan and he is the jedi night. After taking the car out for the first time getting used to it and my initial setup, he decide my setup sucked right before the first qualifier and changed everything. After that everything started to go south. The next time you come near my car Denis I might bite your finger, and not gentle like.

I will defeat you my master!!!

Don't worry...You'll find I catch on real fast

Good job:thumbsup:

I have been driving the Cat for over a year and still finding little set-up changes, with the help of my masters Moss and Williams:thumbsup:

I just got my replacement bits for the cat and noticed the front pivot blocks are alot beefier, they are also with 4m srews up from 3m. Do you think I still need the brace from stegger?

I'm still alittle unsure about what oil to use in the shocks, Mr. Moss uses thinner weight in the front and lighter in the back, but I'm afraid of bottoming out my front end. What should I do?

Give that set up a try that I mailed ya
My kitty is real comfortable to drive

Make sure your motor is close to center belt and lipo is as close to center as possible

after you break the stock arms ....try the med flex....if they still break easy .... put the arms in boiling water for 10 or 15 min.......that will make em flex

That's what I'm doing, your setup and moss's are almost the same exept for the 12.5 front steering blocks and the oil. It's the lighter oil in the front that I don't understand. I used 40 in the front my first race and bottomed out heavily, going to 25 will probably make it worse.

Oh ok

I can see your point about the thinner oil

I'd say don't go with the 25 oil. I've tried it and could never stop the car bottoming out. I found a switch to 350cst made a huge difference, even though that only works out to 30W in most brands. This was running 3 hole pistons and cut diaphragms. If its big, big jumps you would probably want to go with something like 400 or 450 cst.

It could just be that the brand Simon is using works out a bit thicker than some other brands of 25W.

The front brace is awesome - I'd class it as a necessity if you are on the M3 front screws. With M4 you should get away with more impacts - but only time will tell.

I ordered the braces from Stegger and some other parts from Schumacher America right before they closed, the medium wishbones were in that order. Stegger I'm not worried about but I have a little concern for the American order, I hope it didn't get lost in the transition. I ordered from the UK and recieved the parts in two days...stunning service.

I use Schumacher oil, but the track that setup is designed didnt have any big jumps. To be honest I would stiffen the sping first rather than go up on the oil - you need it to be reasonably soft to generate the grip.

Si

Your absolutely right, I raced today and had very little front traction. I had Losi 40 oil and shumacher grey rear spings up front and traction over the bumpy sections was almost non existant. The rear was great with shumacher yellow springs and 30 Losi oil. Only broke one front wisbone today, witch is a good thing. The only recurring problem was the servo arm striped on me a couple of time. The first one was original, the second was a original but not for my servo so that stipped too, the third lasted me the main. I'm figuring to go with a aluminium servo arm but not sure if it will damage the servo, my futaba servo has a aluminium spocket so aluminium on aluminium isn't the ideal senario. Does Sumacher or anyone else make a servo saver arm for the lipo setup?

Do you have ballstud in top or bottom hole on your servo arm?

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