Vintage Set-up for Carpet Off Road

[matt1ptkn]

A few local RC clubs/businesses are putting on our 4th annual RC swap meet this weekend and for the first time, we are going to have a scale crawling expo and a carpet off road track set up for racing. I have raced carpet oval and I have raced off road. Never really at the same time. I'm thinking of racing in the 2wd open buggy with a Jrx2 or XXcr and open stadium truck with a JrxT-LXT hybrid or a XXT Sport. It will really boil down to which vehicles I feel more comfortable with on the track. I have my tire choices sorted, but my question is: what is a recommended setup for carpet off road? Is heavier shock oil necessary compared to dirt? How low should the ride height be? Should camber be set to 0? I know a lot of it will depend on the track and each vehicle will require its own tuning, but I need a starting point and I'm thinking heavier shock oil, lowered ride height and 0 camber. Also, I know I will need added weight up front. Thanks for any input, and here are a couple pics of the XXT Sport for attention.

For anyone interested in checking out the event, look up RCx213 RC Raceway or WFO Raceway R/C on Facebook.

[mytimac]

Not XXT but XXXT, might give you a start since they have some carpets setups posted.
http://site.petitrc.com/setup/losi/SetupSheetsLosiTripleXTCR.html
http://site.petitrc.com/setup/losi/SetupSheetsLosiTripleXT.html

[matt1ptkn]

Thank you! That looks like a great place to start.

[matt1ptkn]

So my XXT was superb on the carpet! Started 3rd in the A main but I was too anxious to drive clean and hold on to it. It was fun though. The XXCR was a bit of a different story. The car drove well and jumped great, but I just couldn't get enough front bite. Granted I didn't have the top choice for front tires, but I was hoping for a little more traction. How much front end weight is too much before you try something different? I may just have to set up a mid motored Jrx2 for next time. The Jrx2 ran surprisingly well. It just didn't have the speed with the brushed 27T motor. The JrxT also wouldn't get much front traction and I didn't have any other tires to try on it.

Now I'm starting to wonder how much it would cost to carpet my outdoor track. I like loose dirt, but man, carpet is soooo much cleaner.

[matt1ptkn]

So some friends and I have started a new race track. We will be running oval, on road and offroad. All on carpet. (Check us out at https://www.facebook.com/4thstreetrcraceway/). Anyway, we've had a couple practice sessions on the off road and I've found that with Proline's Wedge front tires on my XXCR, I can get all the front bite I want. So now, with all that front bite, I'm getting too much body/chassis roll causing the back end to slide around. I tried the stiffest springs I have in my stash, but it still dips like crazy when making tight turns. My XX4 is the same way. So my question now is, would sway bars help eliminate this enough that I should install some? I'll probably have to fabricate my own because I'm too thrifty (cheap) to buy the expensive ones on eBay.
My Jrx Pro mid did the best out of all my vehicles, but still needs some major suspension tuning. I forgot the crystals for my Jrx2, so I didn't get to try it.

[matt1ptkn]

So we had our opening race day this past Saturday with great success! We ran road course and off road. I did well, but not how I had hoped.

My Jrx-Pro mid had something happen in the LRM. I haven't pulled it apart yet to determine the trouble. Didn't even get to make a lap.

My XX-CR ran well, but I just can't get it dialed to run with modern buggies. The anti-sway bars helped a lot and stiffer springs helped, too. I also found that tire choice makes a huge difference. I'm not really sure what to try next with it. Has anyone ever made a XX mid motor???

The XXT also ran well. Probably my best performing vehicle. While still not able to hold a candle to some modern mid motor trucks, I don't think there is much more that I can get out of it. I choked in the feature and ended up snapping the end off the servo. Never did that before.

It amazes me how fast modern buggies get around on the carpet. Its like there were on rails. I don't think my reaction time could keep up even if I had a buggy that could perform like that.

[mytimac]

If you are doing oval and not real familiar with setting them up there are some great sources for general setup tips out there. I was never good at oval and I know tweaking the shock adjusters in different corners can change things a lot. In off road we tend to keep things symmetrical in the setup but for oval it is all asymmetrical. Nothing usually is identical left to right.

Around here dirt oval is king. They use to allow "cheater" setup back in the day but rules changed many years ago. They use to do truck arms on one side and buggy on the other. Then with the JRX models might even use the same side rear arm on both sides when using the buggy arms. Forget why we did that, but it would change the geometry of the tire placement. But pretty sure that was when running the JRXPro as a sprint car.

Murfdogg is dirt oval company, here is a good guide.
http://murfdogg.com/assets/images/Setup%20Sheets/Murfdogg_Chassis_Tuning_101.pdf