Cougar 2 Team_Rebuild for racing

[Groomi]

Thanks - I'm sure I'll need it!

Will look into doing a few races at Maritime Raceway. I think my mate who's got me back into all this has done a few races there in the past.

Nearly finished packing all my stuff for tomorrow - I have no idea whether it's too much or not enough. Last time I raced I took whatever I could carry on my bicycle LOL!

[Groomi]

Race Report!

Having changed the gearing and tweaked a few settings, I was keen to run the car once more before race day just to make sure all was working well. So I took it to a local carpark on Saturday and gave it a blast. When I stopped to tweak the toe-in the motor then refused to turn - it was jammed. Not what I wanted the day before the race and not with a motor that I had took out of it's sealed box only a couple of days before. I stripped it down on the bench and found this:

I can assure you that screw does not match any that I have so I can only assume it was there from the factory. Luckily the motor didn't jam whilst running so no damage was done.

So on to race day and I don't really know where to start. Eden Park were trying out a new circuit layout in an effort to increase laptime, and they had come up with an incredibly complex layout - made all the worse by a thick frost! Not really the gentle acclimatisation i was looking for. My plan was to just drive as much as I could during practice as the most noticeable improvement during the day was surely going to come from me rather than the car. However, after a couple of laps it was evident that the car would barely make any of the corners such was the lack of steering. I swapped to the softest tyre I had (Yellow minispikes) and tweaked the camber, toe-in and ackerman geometry one at a time. Each made an improvement to the handling and I was able to spend longer lapping and getting myself up to speed.

In the back of my mind was the temptation to swap to the Cougar 2 front-end to shorten the wheelbase and almost certainly improve the steering issues, however I was determined to stick with the long wheelbase as I'm sure I'll need it when I move on to brushless in the future. Here is my car alongside my mates Cougar SV - note the near identical wheelbase.


Between heats 2 and 3 I decided to reduce the castor angle to improve the turning further. This proved to be the right choice and driveability improved a great deal, although I then became guilty of overdriving it and not really going much quicker. However, I think I managed to demonstrate that even in cold, wet and frosty conditions, on a tight and twisty circuit, that the long wheelbase can work. Where it worked really, really well was through the banked raceway corner and on a very bumpy but straight section where I was consistently faster than many of the other cars I was racing against.

Anyway, results were:
Heat 1: 6th of 8
Heat 2: 6th of 7
Heat 3: 6th of 8
Heat 4: 4th of 6
By virtue of others' mechanical gremlins, I was bumped up to the back of the grid for the B final. After a disastrous first lap that took about 20 seconds longer than normal, I managed to finish 8th of 10.

Given my painfully obvious lack of driving skills, I'm very pleased with the results. Not a single mechanical issue all day.

So, experience filed in the design bank. On to the next developments...

[Groomi]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I had a number of people come and talk to me about the car. Good to see such goodwill towards running such a machine.

[DerbyDan]

Excellent!! I bet you are buzzing today, thinking back on what you achieved & what changes you can make for future meetings to improve your performance?

I know that this was how I felt after my 1st meeting back to Off Road racing with my vintage RC10.... the biggest problem for me was nothing really to do with the car, it was more 'me' getting back used to driving on the bumpy stuff again... also I'd never raced on a full astro track before & that takes some getting used to! I've never raced at EPR before is that an Astro Turf track?

Please keep this thread updated with your continuing exploits!

[Groomi]

Excellent!! I bet you are buzzing today, thinking back on what you achieved & what changes you can make for future meetings to improve your performance?

I know that this was how I felt after my 1st meeting back to Off Road racing with my vintage RC10.... the biggest problem for me was nothing really to do with the car, it was more 'me' getting back used to driving on the bumpy stuff again... also I'd never raced on a full astro track before & that takes some getting used to! I've never raced at EPR before is that an Astro Turf track?

Please keep this thread updated with your continuing exploits!

Exactly that! Lots of stuff whirring around in my head with things I want to do next.

EPR is mostly astro with a large high speed concrete banked corner (very tricky in the frost!) and a short cobbled section too. There are two large jumps but in the configuration they had it yesterday, there wasn't enough run up or grip for most cars to get more than a couple of inches of air. What jumps I did manage to do the car handled very well.

Like you, I'd never done anything like this before. My previous racing life was very low-key indoors on polished wood and latterly carpet, but always smooth, no jumps (unless you hit the fire hose marking out the circuit). That was back in Rugby with a club I helped to start up, but I don't think it was the same club as is still running there now.

I'll continue posting - it's quite enjoyable reading stuff back. Also I'm getting lots of helpful advice both on the thread and in PM's - what a great forum.

[REMJ666]

Ya brought it home in one piece...That is a really good start for someone who has never raced before...Just takes alot of practice and tweaking to the car...That is crazy about the screw in the motor...Luckily it didn't hurt it...

[Groomi]

Thanks. It's built like a tank (and weighs the same as one - 1600g fully loaded!). When I hit a length of plastic trunking used to mark out the track, it shattered while the car barely slowed down LOL!

[tesla33]

hello where I could find parts for my cougar 2? front parts

[Groomi]

hello where I could find parts for my cougar 2? front parts

Wishbones and hub/steering assemblies tend to come up on Ebay from time to time or sometimes it's worth buying a cheap donor car. If you're wanting new parts then it's a bit more of a challenge.

What parts do you need?

[Lonestar]

Good job Groomi!

you might want to try cut staggers like your mate's SV if you need more front end...

Paul

[Groomi]

Happy New Year everyone - somehow nearly a whole month has slipped by since my last update! Lack of progress has been due to erratic work requirements, Mrs Groomi deciding December is a good month to decorate the lounge, hosting the in-laws for Christmas Day (hence needing to finish the lounge properly) and ofcourse New Year celebrations and a bout of illness for good measure!

Anyway, due to family commitments in February, I have been given a pass to go racing this Sunday. With very little time to do anything to the car it will be mostly the same as before but hopefully with a better set-up. I'd already drawn up a list of things that needed sorting from the previous race meeting:
1) Lack of tyre options. For winter, definitely need a set of silvers.
2) Steering seems slow. Investigate and resolve.
3) Cornering issues. Turn in was slow with mid-corner understeer. Turn in was probably related to item 2, but wash out may be related to springs I have been advised.
4) Diff feels quite rough - think I may have had it set too tight. Rebuild.
5) Bump-stops. The car bottomed out easily and there is approx 10mm wasted suspension travel beyond the bottom out point front and rear. Resolve.

1) The first step was to sort out my wrong-tyre situation from December. Not willing to leave things to chance with Santa, I ordered some silver Minispike rears and silver cut-stagger fronts before Christmas and they have now arrived. Another couple of sets of JC Racings finest five-spokes were also duly ordered and should arrive tomorrow. So that should give me a choice of new silvers, used yellows and used greens. Given the weather forcast of cold and damp, I suspect the silvers will do the trick.

2) Upon investigating the cause of the slow steering I discovered that the hub carriers were stiff. I noticed this during the build along with all the suspension joints, but whereas the suspension has settled in freely, the hub carriers haven't. So a tiny bit of filing has ensured they now move freely and the steering seems to work so much faster. That should help turn in a lot.

3) I have been advised that the standard Schumacher springs are not very consistent in their compression, so have managed to get a few pairs of Team Associated springs from Ebay. I'll give these a try and see if they offer any improvement. I have also moved the camber link mounts further inboard and fitted longer links accordingly. This should all help the mid-corner understeer I experienced.

4) I wanted to build up a complete spare transmission anyway, so tonight I have built one up which I'll run on Sunday. The sideplates are plain aluminium this time and the eccentrics are the 'bone' coloured plastic ones which still offer the same finite adjustment as the aluminium ones. The diff is exactly the same spec pro-diff with aluminium outdrive holders and a pro thrust-bearing with four conical washers, but this time I have used the standard large bearings for the outdrives, rather than the smaller flanged ones. I have set it up much looser this time and hope to have enough time to make a simple tool to enable me to adjust the tightness without having to seperate the universal joint to gain access. (This was always possible on the older diff-shaft set-up, but not with the later long screw method).

5) I have some high-impact foam that I intend to cut into spacers to provide the bump stop function. These should enable me to tune the bump-stop level and minimise any damage to the shocks themselves. I'll need to get this sorted out tomorrow.

After this weekend I won't be able to race again until March, so I hope to make much more dramatic progress within those two months. Stay tuned!

[DerbyDan]

Liking your logical approach to each race meeting - highlighting problems and endeavoring to resolve them.

With regard to your car bottoming out... it sounds to me that your damping maybe too soft? The extra suspension travel that you describe is actually intentional, it allows the suspension to travel so that the bottom of the wheel is actually above the line of the chassis plate, this helps when hitting a particularly abrupt bump like a clipping a track marker/hosing

[Groomi]

Interesting. I'd have thought not bottoming out after a big jump was more important than smoothing out the occasional errant run over a track marker?

[Groomi]

All ready for my second race meeting on Sunday. As said, nothing drastic this time, just trying to improve set-up from previous effort.

Sticking with my methodical approach, I left the previous set of shocks I used as they are and rebuilt the spare set to the specification I wanted to try this weekend. Primarily I wanted to run AE springs, but I found these necessitated lighter damping to balance properly so shocks are now running with 3 holes in each piston but still with the same 30w oil in the rear and 35w in the front. I also fitted rubber o-rings for bump-stops.


Here is a comparison of the previous and current shock set-up. In order to set the rear bumpstop to the grounding out level (I acknowledge people have different views on this), I shortened the travel by adding a 5mm spacer internally. The same droop is maintained by moving the top mount out to the outer edge and onto the bottom row of the shockmount. The new springs for the front shocks are much shorter, so spacers are required to maintain compression. Again, for the bumpstops (this time set about 5mm above the grounding-out level) I used external spacers and left four threads unused at the bottom (covered by the spacer) to increase the overall length. This enables it ro reach more of the holes in the shock mount so I have some setup options without sacrificing ride height. A job on the to-do list is a custom front shock mount to suit the use of C1 wishbones.


I decided to double up on the o-rings for the rear bumpstop as a belt and braces approach to surviving those big jumps.


And finally a record of the setup for my second race meeting. This time I have a complete spare transmission as well as the standard C2 front end, so both are hot-swappable. Also a range of AE springs for the shocks on the car and the previous shocks with the Schumacher springs to suit. Also shown are the new silver mini-spikes and cut staggers, just needing mounting onto some wheels.


Fingers crossed, that is all of the issues resolved to some degree that were highlighted last time out. We'll find out on Sunday...

[DennisM]

I´d say that You´re well prepared and good to go.
Very cool picture.