Tuning board testing againist another car

[dan9592]

Hello, I have a question for you all. I don't have a test track or access to one. Last year my son won his districts pretty solidly. This year he did some more tweaking and after we were done tuning this years car he suggested to compare to last years. We have a 8 foot tuning board. We placed both cars side by side. After using a yard stick for a release gate and picking it up vertically both cars were very close but if a car was to actually "win" it was last years car. We also switched cars from side to side to make sure it wasn't in the board. Would over a 42 foot best track the results be different? This years cars has a better aero package, lighter wheels, and more weight farther back and more aggressive COM about 5/8 of a inch in front of back axles last years car was about 7/8. I have the steer set to 8inches over 8 foot about like last years rocket ship. Would all these things keep speed up longer down the track and actually beat last years car? The alignment has to be spot on because of how it was done. AKA CNC machine and carbide tooling. You guys are the best in the business so that why I am asking you. Thanks in advance

 

[B_Regal Racing]

I don't know if I would trust a tuning board to determine which car is faster (I'm assuming that at the end, they are fairly close). Some do a "bounce back" test with a tuning board, but I do not believe in that either. Here is what I would look for: sound. If your tuning board has a glass top, it will resonate the sound. Noisy cars are typically slow. Sound can be made from debris on the wheels, out of round wheels, nicks on the edges, etc. Even the fluting on the wheel will make sound, but that can be minimized with some sanding / polishing; but truly, you have to put it on a track to be sure.

Now if one car is routinely 2 - 3 cars ahead of the other on an 8ft tuning board, there could be something else wrong, but if it were me, I would start with what I mentioned above before doing too much trouble shooting.

 

[TRE]

Honestly the only way to know is put it on the track

 

[Reecedad]

Although it doesn't seem to work 100% of the time, I have had reasonable success by checking how far each car bounces back on my tuning board. Although it doesn't really tell me how fast a car will be, if I'm comparing two cars in most cases the one that bounces further is faster.

 

[Jimmy & his 2 Kids]

Also they may be even on the down hill but which has the better tune/prep to fight gravity more once on the level portion. There were cars that were faster then my daughters last year out of the gate but then her car blew by them after the level off and she won by a large margin. So just testing on the incline of the board is only telling half the story. Need to see how they roll on level ground also when pushed with the same force/energy.
Hope that helps.
Jimmy

 

[dan9592]

UPDATE Ok so I got both cars on the track and the new car is faster by .01 this is on a 35 foot best track. The new car time is 2.524 I am trying to figure out now how this holds up against the other cars across the country. I realize there are many factors to consider but my curiosity has me wondering. Thanks guys for suggesting the bounce test that also told me the new car was faster as well.

 

[Mojo Racing]

The only way to figure out how they stand up to other cars across the country is to race them on the same track. The differences in the track type, gate, and hill angle are just a few of the things that will cause each track to be different.

A 2.524 on your 35' track will rarely equate to the same time on another 35' track.