Mini-Z, Kyosho Mini-Z Racer, MR-03, MR-02, MA-010, Forums, News, Pictures, Parts, and Shop - Mini-ZRacer.com
Forums, Mini-Z, MiniZ, Kyosho Mini-Z, Kyosho MiniZ, Kyosho Mini-Z Racer
Mini-Z Hop-Ups, Mini-Z Parts, MiniZ Hop-Ups, MiniZ Parts, Kyosho Mini-Z Hop-Ups, Kyosho Mini-Z Parts, Kyosho MiniZ Hop-Ups, Kyosho MiniZ Parts, Kyosho Mini-Z Racer Hop-Ups, Racer Kyosho Mini-Z Parts
Old 2002.07.23, 10:44 PM   #1
West.F1
San Marino GP- 4/25/04
 
West.F1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: south of columbus
Posts: 1,637
Rookie Review: spring rate and packers

alright gang. i've done yet another experiment on the front end springs. an offshoot to my prior rookie review on the subject of springs.

As you know the front end to the F1s don't have much ride height to begin with (approx. 1/16th of an inch with bumper). Obviously when cornering at some reasonable speed, the bumper attachment will tend to drag. you can imagine that any amount of drag is never a good thing as it will hinder your max attainable speed to some degree especially during cornering techniques.

on my previous article on spring compression, the hardest springs (yellows) were found to be about double the strength of the stock springs. On track, using these yellows still results in some drag to the front bumper. It would be unrealistic to think we can stop bumper drag from ever happening, but there are additional measures we can learn from real race cars to help minimize or decrease this amount of drag. One way is to increase the spring rate of the front springs with some form of packers. For those unfamilar with packers, in full size vehicles the spring rate can be increased (or stiffened) by using very hard rubber pieces that are placed on the shock/spring sets to help stiffen the suspension. keeping things simple, the idea is to improve handling by stiffening the spring rate when it is felt to be too 'soft'.

For our application, one idea i've found that acts as packers are 3/32 AXLE WHEEL RETAINERS. Retainers are actually for slot cars and are small cylindrical pieces with a flange on one end and are used to help hold the rim to the axle. They not only fit perfectly in the cup of the F1s knuckle arm, but the spring rests comfortably on it's flange and even allows the kingpin to slide through it's center with ease. Once all is in place, the amount of pressure to lower the bumper is noticeable but not severely dramatic.

Stiffening the spring rate to some degree beyond what the yellow springs offers can only aid to minimize bumper drag. On track, i've found it doesn't affect the cars handling in a negative way. i originally thought of using small washers but found it would take too many (maybe 5-6 at least) to get the same effect. I suppose i could still use washers for additional stiffness but i'm currently satisfied with the retainers at this point.

The cost for the retainers was $2.00 for 4 of them at the LHS. Another good thing is that they won't fit in the slots which hold the rear springs. I say good to this because any attempts to stiffen the rear springs only causes the Suspension Plate to droop. You're better off to use the rear shock set for suspension set up as it has more effect than the rear springs. but that's a different article in itself.

anyway, just thought i'd share another find to my fellow F1 fanatics. i'm open to any suggestions, other ideas you've tried, and critiques.

thanks for your time.

Last edited by West.F1; 2002.07.24 at 11:18 AM.
West.F1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 2002.07.24, 12:55 AM   #2
mini-z
Administrator
 
mini-z's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 8,497
Cool, that's a great tip! Can you post a pic of this part, I'm not quite clear on what it looks like. OT: Got that MZR motor installed yet!?
mini-z is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 2002.07.24, 07:55 AM   #3
West.F1
San Marino GP- 4/25/04
 
West.F1's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: south of columbus
Posts: 1,637
I don’t have any pictures available on my own F1 however here are examples from ncphobbies:

Note they’re made of brass and as mentioned are cylindrical with a flange on one end. Unfortunately this first example is a little blurry.


http://www.ncphobbies.com/cgi-bin/vc...isplayNumber=1


This second example are drawn retainers but at least give a much clearer idea. These however are much longer than what I’m talking about.

http://www.ncphobbies.com/cgi-bin/vc...isplayNumber=1

what i did with the brass retainers is set it so the flanged end is facing up where the spring sits directly on it. With the rest facing down it provides less of a pocket in the knuckle arm for the spring or simply less room. With this the spring rate is increased.

Hope this helps. And just for the record, i'm not into slot cars. Just so happens these parts fit. Whatever it takes...



[as for the MZR motor, I did get it this past Saturday and it’s definitely faster than my xspeed + turbo. I did some initial straight line timing runs at the local tennis court using a stop watch and a trusted assistant. the results however were not to my liking and what I expected. the times were too questionable. A few factors hindered an ideal situation namely a rough texture to the court surface, using only a single set of batteries and of course human error is always an issue. I plan on going to the LHS and repeat these straight line tests again but on carpet. Just haven’t had the chance yet. I should have some numbers put together by this weekend. i'll do times tests without my eagle turbo and do a seperate study with the turbo since soldering is involved]

Last edited by West.F1; 2002.07.24 at 02:09 PM.
West.F1 is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes Rate This Thread
Rate This Thread:

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 02:50 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.3
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2011 Mini-ZRacer.com
Mini Inferno Sale - Up to $85 Instant Savings!
Micro-T Hop-Ups
RC18R, M18, Micro RS4, Mini-LST, TamTech-Gear, Minizilla, RC18T, RC18B, RC18MT
shop.tinyrc.com Products

more»
Tiny RC Community News
[03/22/17] MZR was on vacation, didn't... : All kidding aside, the host experienced a bit of a server meltdown last week and efforts to restore the site to a new server took longer than anticipated. The current server is temporary until - more»
[11/25/15] Did You Hear? Our Black... : Hey Racers,
We're getting started a bit early with our Black Friday sale this year.  Generally we're not supporters of retailers opening early on Thanksgiving, but in our case, we're - more»
[06/30/15] shop.tinyrc.com: Have You... : Hey All! Just a quick reminder to everyone that we post all of our shop.tinyrc.com Newletters here on the MZR Forum. If for some reason you miss them in your email inbox, you can always see the - more»
Mini-Z, Mini-Z Racer, MR-02, MA-010
M18, M18T, RC18T, Mini-LST, Mini-T, Micro RS4, XRay, 1/18, 18th scale
XMODS, XMOD, Micro Flight, ZipZaps, ZipZaps SE, Bit Char-G, MicroSizers, TTTT, Plantraco Desktop Rover, SuperSlicks, Digi Q
Mini Inferno, Mini Inferno ST, half EIGHT, 1/16, 16th scale
Epoch, Indoor Racer, 1/43, 43rd scale
E-Savage, eSavage, eZilla, e-Zilla, HPI
Robots, Bots, Bipeds, Wheeled, Manoi, Roomba, NXT, Lego, Hacking
Crawling, Crawlers, Micro, RC, Losi Mini-Rock Crawler, Duratrax Cliff Climber
Kyosho Minium, Caliber 120, Minium Forums
Mini-Z Hop-Ups, Mini-Z Parts, Mini Inferno Hop-Ups, Mini Inferno Parts, M18 Hop-Ups, M18 Parts