First up, driving impressions.

The most obvious thing I noticed the first time I drove the truck in Stage III form was the sound. The Viper VX4R.45 sounded like a circular saw. I thought something was wrong at first. I went online in search of others that have had this experience. It turns out it is absolutely normal. The sound you hear when you stab the throttle is Torque!

There is no question the Viper combo is stout enough to keep up, and even pull away. I was under-geared at 12/54 just to be safe. I came off the track after the 8 minute main at 122 degrees. I’ll be jumping up to a 14T pinion for my next track excursion. This will give me even more top end. I had plenty of punch on the low end, and I was at the same speed as the other trucks at the end of the long back straight.

On the handling front, I started with the shocks in the same positions as the stock Traxxas shocks were for the shootout. Up front this worked out fine. However the truck was very tail happy. If I tried to get into the throttle out of a corner, the truck would whip around on me. I made a few adjustments trackside to try to fix this. I tried laying the rear shocks down more, going from the third hole in on the arm to the last hole all the way out. That helped but didn’t fix it entirely. I then added some more camber on the rear tires, winding up with a -5 degree camber on both sides.

This got me closer still, but the truck is still a little loose in the rear. One thing I noticed is that while the shocks are doing a good job soaking up the bumps, it seems that they are not rebounding fast enough. I could go to a thinner oil, but I think it will hurt me on the compression side. Instead I’ll be looking for a way to increase rebound speed without affecting compression. There are two ways to do it, one is to bevel the holes in the stock pistons from the bottom. The other is to pick up the Losi piston pack which has various options to consider.

So, to the heart of the matter. Did my lap times go down? Here again are my times from Stage I and Stage II.

I dropped almost 4 tenths! While not stellar, I’m actually quite happy about it. This was done with the truck’s handling not quite there. I fought it the whole time. That being said, with some more suspension tuning I feel with no other changes this time will drop significantly.

So other than some more tuning, I’m done.

Ok, no I’m not. As you’ll see in the video below, the stock body has just about seen its last race. I’m going to keep patching it with duct tape until the Intergalactic Short Course Championships, where I will unveil a new body for this truck. Still haven’t figured out a paint scheme though for it.

Also, the extra speed the truck carries into the corner has made the stock servo the weak link. This can only mean one thing.

Stay Tuned For Stage IV!

Here is some video footage of the track time Sunday from CRC Raceway. My sons were the cameramen. I edited out the parts where they followed the wrong truck, or they started filming the ground, or my shoulder. There is plenty of good footage though. You’ll be able to see the handful I had with the handling.  I’ll be heading back to CRC to fine tune the suspension, in hopes of cutting even more time off of each lap. Enjoy the video, and stay tuned!