Quote:
Originally Posted by bricol
Just a thought - has anyone raced a CAT as per the original, without all the new bits?
Back in the day, I broke one bottom arm and wore out a few balls in 2 or 3 years of competition.
I'm running one now, pretty much as per original, with a replacement chassis un-cut for NiCads so I can strap Lipos in it, with MMS diffs as per back in the day, with brushless motors, and despite me still not being able to drive as well I remember I used to, it seems to hold up pretty well. Both being assaulted, and being used as a battering ram (sorry  ) by me.
I'm using Procat wheels as I found the JC ones, both the solid and spoked ones, flexed so much, the handling was "interesting". |
Gotto say that apart from running the LiPo Chassis & BossCat diff & slipper (so that it can comfortably handle the brushless motor it is fitted with) the rest of my car is basically as Schumacher intended, original shocks, suspension parts, geometry etc..... I wanted to experience the car (in terms of handling) as it would have been back in the day & I must admit it goes really well - even on astro-turf which is a surface we never raced on back then. So far (Touch-Wood) I haven't broken anything in the dozen or so race meetings I've done with it.
One of the main issues I have had is with how the front end soaks up the bumps, especially on landing off ramps (it seems to bounce back up) I thought the high gearing of the front shocks being so close together may have been part of the problem, so I've moved the front shocks out, by doubling up the shock towers to give an extra outer hole, & moving the bottom mounting of the shock out to the inner roll bar position on the wishbone. The shocks now move more given a set amount of suspension travel... but the problem still exists. On closer inspection I have noticed that a lot of the front suspension movement seems to come from the flex caused through the pivots for the crashback system - I plan to remedy this with a ball joint & tie rod across the shock towers to resist this flex, so hopefully the shocks will actually do their job!
Regarding the battery position, I haven't tried it in any other position than shown in my photos - to be honest once the electrics are installed there is little scope for moving the battery too far... however my final intension is the try the car with the battery to the most forward position, with ESC & RX behind, with the main belt & front diff + driveshafts removed to make it 2wd
- One of the reasons why I think the car doesn't soak up the bumps quite so well & has a tendency towards grip-roll on the high grip astro is the fact that I haven't added any weight to compensate for the light LiPo battery (it was way under weight when it was scrutineered when it ran in the vintage class at the recent Mid East Regional) - I plan to add some under LiPo weight to compensate - hopefully this will help also