More steer, less steer, leave it alone?

[Pacfanweb]

Pack race today. Never got to test the car, so we set it for 4" in 4'. Won easily. Car does not wiggle at all.

District is next week, so I'm not planning on setting up our track and playing with the steer, so......if I was going to do anything, what? Going to add some more graphite, since it went 10 runs today.

My question was really about the steering: Since it didn't wiggle, should I back the steering off a bit? We raced on a wood 32' track today, district is on a nice wood track, about 30'.

I'm thinking that making the steering a bit less aggressive would make it faster, as long as no wobble? Correct, or no?

 

[BulldogRacing]

From what I understand it's a fine line between being on the edge of wiggle and steer. You may want to dial back the steer but without a track it's a gamble. You know a wiggle will slow you down and you're not wiggling now, so on a wood track I'd be more conservative. If you have time you may want to re prep, clean your wheels well. If you can test on a track do it to dial in the steer.

 

[B_Regal Racing]

As a general rule, I know where my own personal edge is and can set my steer just using a tuning board. When testing, I'm only varying my steer no more than 1/2 inch either way. I believe most pros are doing the same thing, but there is always a car that is the exception.

That being said, the only way you will be able to answer your question is to build and race some unknown number of cars, and compile some data. Given the current circumstance, if your car ran well, I would leave your steer alone and reprep.

 

[Pacfanweb]

^That's what we did last year, and he won district, so I guess we'll do the same this year.

Reprep will essentially be clean/re-Pledge the axles, and add some more graphite. I don't think we need to re-do the Red Rocket, do we? It has 10 runs on it. Will run 6 times for the Webelos title, plus 3-4 more if he wins that and if they do the overall like last year. So probably another 10. Should we bother burnishing again?

Our pack doesn't have a timer, just an order of finish light, so no idea if it was speeding up or slowing down or the same. I know last year at district, after he won the Cub division (6 runs) and was running the other winners for the overall, it had not slowed down at all.

 

[BulldogRacing]

Great advice B-Reg

 

[Pacfanweb]

Car is in impound, passed with flying colors. I really need to get some tungsten putty. It's only like 4.95. The official scale only goes to tenths, so I guess you could be slightly over 5oz and it'd still read 5oz.

Son and I cleaned and re-Pledged the axles today. Re-burnished the wheel bores, and sprinkled some new graphite on it and let 'er rip.

I did set the steer slightly less. We'll see if it matters tomorrow.

 

[Obsessedderbydad]

Make sure if you add graphite you spin your wheels. Fresh unsound graphite will actually slow u down

 

[Pacfanweb]

^yep, knew that trick

District was today. He won the Webelos division.
He was happy.

In the overall, he was 2nd. I was puzzled, as I had been watching all the times and his car was the fastest there. Found out after the race: Right rear axle was loose and backed out. Slowed it down. It always was a bit loose, but putting some water in the hole tightend it up....guess it dried back out. Oh well, still a good day.

 

[Obsessedderbydad]

Sounds like a good day to me. Congrats