Mine and my son's first car.
- Thread starter RhuntIII
- Start date
as the FDW is brought in 1/16 it allows you to ride the rail while keeping the rear wheels centered along the track.
I know shaving 1/16" is something that was often done in the past.
These days though, aren't most people skipping this step? I thought the cant of the DFW made it so the shaving was unnecessary.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I am building a car right now, and I did not shave my DFW because of the threads I read (and thought I understood).
These days though, aren't most people skipping this step? I thought the cant of the DFW made it so the shaving was unnecessary.
Please correct me if I am wrong. I am building a car right now, and I did not shave my DFW because of the threads I read (and thought I understood).
Mojo Racing said:
You are correct, you don't have to cut back the DFW side and the rears will still stay off the rail. This is because, like you said, the DFW cant and also the rear wheel cant.
I just posed ths question in another step.
Put some good test wheels and straight axles in your car (not a bent axle used for steer) and do a slow roll test forwards and back with ~3oz of weight sitting on top of the rear. The rear wheels should migrate to the axle heads. Every time you do this, you are checking the integrity of your car. Now install the DFW (bent) axle on either side, set the steer to 4" over 4', and do a slow roll forward with ~ 3oz placed on top of the rear of the car. Watch the rear and how it tracks reference the rail. Switch the side of the DFW, set the steer to 4" over 4', and again do a slow roll forward. Watch the rear. One side may be favored with the rear tracking more towards the center. At this time, you may or may not have to narrow the FDW, depending on how the rear is tracking, but you want to keep the rear centered to whatever extent possible. The cant of the FDW alone may be enough to keep it off the rail.
Put some good test wheels and straight axles in your car (not a bent axle used for steer) and do a slow roll test forwards and back with ~3oz of weight sitting on top of the rear. The rear wheels should migrate to the axle heads. Every time you do this, you are checking the integrity of your car. Now install the DFW (bent) axle on either side, set the steer to 4" over 4', and do a slow roll forward with ~ 3oz placed on top of the rear of the car. Watch the rear and how it tracks reference the rail. Switch the side of the DFW, set the steer to 4" over 4', and again do a slow roll forward. Watch the rear. One side may be favored with the rear tracking more towards the center. At this time, you may or may not have to narrow the FDW, depending on how the rear is tracking, but you want to keep the rear centered to whatever extent possible. The cant of the FDW alone may be enough to keep it off the rail.
I inset both sides and tilt my lifted wheel to set track width. This decreases frontal area slightly, brings front weight closer to centerline and helps correct instability due to a tighter lifted wheel clearance from the rail.
freaking engineers /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif I will say that blew my first car WAY out of the water. Very nice car. I will say, be careful watching every video out there on how to do things. There's some people out there that think they know what they're doing because they post a youtube video, but really dont. Most of them also would never race in the NPWDRL, would look bad for sales when they get smoked, but their excuse is always that John's a dick. Anything and everything you could ever want to know about scout racing or PWD in general can be found on this forum. I'm a perfect example as I found this site after our first year of scout racing where we took 6th at districts. A year on this site and a lot of work later he took 1st in districts. It can be done!
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