Nick, I understand where your coming from mate but believe me I went significantly SLOWER with the B4!!!
My car was from the initial batch in the UK and subsequently it was found that the chassis and rear plate weren't as straight as they should be. That aside I went through everything I could think off;
inline and trailing front hubs
25 and 30 deg castor
weight in the front, weight in the rear, weight all over the shop
ALL combinations of standard front link positions
ALL combinations of standdard rear link positions
Custom rear link positions (both longer and shorter)
Everything you could think of. I've been racing since the mid 80s, am an automotive design engineer by trade (specialised in vehicle dynamics .. although I work in fuel systems now) and believe me I really tried.
The problem I had / have with the B4 is that it's just not consistent enough for my liking, it seemed to do something different every lap! I know some of that will be due to me trying to drive around the problem that I had at that point the previous lap but still .... shouldn't have had that sort of problem in the first place though.
The B3 was just so consistent, supper smooth, loads of steering with no sudden loss of rear end only for it to grab like velcro again the moment you started to collect the slide as the B4 always seemed to do. I also liked the fact that the B3 needed so little set-up change ... basically one set-up for high grip, one for slippery .. job done.
The B4 actually put me off 2wd which in turn meant there was no point in going to nationals (too much driving for not enough track time if you just go for one day) and ultimately my defection to 1/8th rallycross. Guess you could say my B4 was bad enough to put me off 1/10th off-road for about 3 years!!
I am more than happy to try another one if I could borrow one of somebody to see if it was just a physical problem with my own car and all the others are awesome, however I doubt it!!!
Part of the problem, I believe, is that the current crop of cars all seem to have been designed with the "point and squirt" driving style in mind and I just can not get my head around that style, always been the part stick, flowing style driver.
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