Graphite or Gold Pan Chassis - What's more desirable?

[SnoopMaxx]

Fusion Speed one piece, Fibre Lyte / Com Com two piece.

Yeah exactly
http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3856


I still prefer the gold tub over the carbon tub


Morten

[Jay Dub]

I will agree with most of the people here and say I like the feel of the aluminum tub to a graphite car. Bitd, I helped many an AE driver with their cars after the initial switch to the CF chassis cars (both tubs and plates), and they all hated them and quickly returned to the tubs. I personaly believe that there is an inherent quality with the aluminum chassis that makes them more consistent and smooth. I believe it is the energy absorption quality of the aluminum vs the CF. The CF chassis do flex more (in this rc10 specific example), but the also return more of their energy to the suspension and chassis. This makes suspension tuning much more difficult and also causes teh CG to move aroung more eratically. This can be seen with any scale that historically uses aluminum chassis and then CF replacements are tried. 1/10th scale off road, 1/8th scale off road, 1/8th scale on road. I have seeen them all, and its amazing to see the change in the car all other things being equal.

One thing I do like is the new Losi 22, 25 years, and they are just now puting an aluminum chassis on their 2wd car . -Jeff

[fredswain]

Sadly I just bent an aluminum chassis last night. I can fix it. Concrete light poles and full frontal impacts without bumpers don't mix. I was pretty mad at myself for hitting it as I was making a conscious effort all night to not do that. The front left corner of the front plate is bent up and in a little bit and the left brace tube is now s-shaped. I can rebend the chassis back to normal and replace the tube but I'm still kicking myself for making that mistake. I'm probably lucky it wasn't a graphite chassis! That could have been bad.

[fredswain]

One thing I do like is the new Losi 22, 25 years, and they are just now puting an aluminum chassis on their 2wd car . -Jeff

Looking at that car design I suspect their choice of aluminum has everthing to do with front end strength as opposed to it just being a superior material when it comes to handling. I don't think that's the case at all and I think material differences in regards to handling is debatable at best. That car is designed to be stronger than the previous cars so things are heavier duty. The front of that car is very wide. It has very long arms. The problem with that is that as the front of the chassis gets skinnier, it gets weaker and the suspension has more leverage to twist it. Look at pictures of Masami Hirosaka's '91 car. The upper chassis brace is broken. That car had very long arms with a very narrow front too. Graphite couldn't hold up.

If you look closely at pictures of the front of the 22, the aluminum chassis has crossbracing machined into the chassis in this area. It also has an upper plate to help rigidity and strength which makes the front end of that car one boxed in strong structure. It probably has no flex to it either. I suspect they probably looked into graphite and composites as chassis options but felt that machined aluminum as opposed to stamped was going to be the strongest option that was hardest to hurt.

Don't read too much into their material choice when it comes to suspension feel and handling. I think it has everything to do with durability and aluminum is hard to beat in that area. If I'd have had a graphite chassis on my RC10 when I hit that pole, I'd probably have a 2 piece RC10. It broke the battery mount and even cracked the battery tray section in the rear bulkhead it hit so hard. A large pair of pliers and a vice and the car is as good as new. I couldn't have done that with a graphite or composite chassis.

[littleVETTE]

As racers we always preferred that which worked the best in 99% of racing conditions and tracks and that was easier to fine tune, and that was the Aluminum Chassis all the time.
... Even today, as a collector, I prefer the aluminum tub as a shelfer over the graphite chassis.

AMEN

i remember the main reason why people would get the graphite chassis back then, was because they thought that because it was an "exotic" material maybe it would give them the advantage on the track. i think that fits the "collectors" as well. the graphite chassis is the "exotic" catch today.

One thing I do like is the new Losi 22, 25 years, and they are just now puting an aluminum chassis on their 2wd car . -Jeff

i couldn't stop laughing when i read that.

[fredswain]

Everyone that I knew who changed to the graphite chassis back then did so because it was a little bit lighter.

[creeker]

I had started building a graphite runner but after reading the info from you racers, I went back to the CE tub I have. Now I don't know what to do with the partial graphite build I have going. May hold out for cheap parts to make it a runner or may just unload and enjoy the CE I have a brushless arriving for. Thanks for the info.

[fredswain]

Even back in the day it was debatable. Keep in mind that I am talking about before the graphite chassis option came out from Associated. The fastest cars at the track back then seemed to be the graphite cars. It really all came down to driver and car setup. The graphite chassis were aftermarket and were a bit costly so the best drivers also seemed to have the most money.

I know the argument can be made that stamped chassis won world's since then but then again Masami was winning with graphite so go figure. Look at his 89 and 91 world's cars. I remember Joel Johnson's winning graphite chassis Ultima from back in the day as well.

The discussion has me curious and now that I know more than when I was a kid I may just build each one. I've already got the pan car and I just bought a Composite Craft graphite chassis for a mere $17 so I may as well just build a parallel car, set them both up for the same track and then compare them directly. So much of car setup is feel and not necessarily handling so they may feel different but handle equally as well. One driver may just prefer a certain feel over the other. Figure the RC10 has a F/R weight distribution of around 29/71 (according to my postal scales with my setup) so balance isn't exactly something that is inherent in the design of the car anyways.

[kaiser]

the only graphite rc10 i ran was a houge set up and that car rocked. other then that i always ran a tub.
but my houge with the rpm worlds front end would destroy my tub cars on the offroad track.

[extreemduster340]

I have had in person discussions with Ruffy long before this thread started and I can say that I do agree with the statement that most like the tub better then the graphite cars. That being said, I had seen some comments through out this thread about shelving the graphite cars. The cars are not hugely different in that you need to toss or shelf your graphite cars. Especially if your an amateur like myself. Hell im just as fast with my cobbled up RPM worlds graphite car then with my newly built tub car. Can i tell a difference, sure I can, the cars have completely different setups and chassis flex characteristics. To be honest I love running them both, my rpm worlds car feels better in different areas of the track then my tub and the other way around. Im an amateur at best and dont have enough track time with properly dialed cars to tell you that my tub car is x.xx sec faster then my graphite. Maybe soon I will.

One thing Ruffy said to me dispite his experiance with the graphite is " Jamie just try it". So I did Run em guys!!!

[Ruffy]

Yes, you never know if you will like it or not until you yourself try it.
As far as coveted for me, I covered that early on... only aluminum tubs for me.