Wraith (VP) Knuckle Weights

[DartmoorTrails]

Just put together a set of AR60s using Vanquish Stage 1 kit and now want to consider weighting the front knuckles some.

I like the idea of the tungsten hangars but open to any suggestions as most of my seaching returns bluemonkey, who ceased trading years ago; Vanquish's own weights, which were discontinued a while ago and Dlux which would probably set me back a small fortune!

I'm taking the rig out tonight hopefully to test on the rocks properly but as they've only got tubes in the axles, and some overdrive, i think i'm quite sure some weight is going to be required.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions please guys?

Thanks for looking

[Oh How Original]

I wouldn't say adding weight is really needed, it's about balancing the weight you have right.

You could make your own, it's only a chunk of brass with a hole drilled.

Or go all out with machined ones of course, but they look a bit naff IMO and don't add a huge amount.

For the cost and looks, I'd go without.

[stimpy]

My experience is that weighting definitely helps with crawling - but not so with trailing. I believe these AR60s are for a sporty?.

 

I currently have a few methods of weighting;

 

1. Some RCbros brackets that then support vanquish type weights. ( though need to check as Hellhorn may have had them...)

2. Slug weighted systems; a whole combined knuckle unit and a holder unit - both these are Psychopat units from Shapeways and are on AR60s

3. I randomly purchased some AR60 Chinese Dlux hub copy units. Not tried them yet..

 

So just depends upon what you want to do, how much to spend, and how long you can wait!... With regards to;

 

1. you could make your own brackets then hang regular wheel disc weights off them to start with.. And or order some weights.

2. will take an order then slug weights Pat keeps (In France) or you could make your own lead ones.

3. Get em ordered....

 

I'll take a look and see if I have anything spare though I am aware I need to keep some for future stuff!

 

In the garage later tonight so will try get some pics up, if not pm me an email / mobile number....

[DartmoorTrails]

Thanks guys, appreciate the thoughts.

Managed to get out on the rocks last night and sure enough, some weight is needed! You're right @stimpy it's for the sporty. I don't think I need much at all, probably sub 50g per side up front but it could make the difference from good to really good.

I've been looking at psycho pat's stuff for a while so have run that through the grey matter for some time now! Oddly my google image skills were working yesterday evening and I found someone on thingiverse had uploaded all his STL files for his sporty, I can post a link if anyone wants it?

Basically; I have STLs for the hangar, which is made for the VP knuckle:), and then two types of slug hangar which bolts onto the knuckle hangar. If my mate can print them up for me I could've saved a ton! well, not quite but any saving is welcome;)

We'll see how that goes.

 

One thing I did notice on steep climbs was a tendency for the front left (I think) wheel to start waving at me which I find infuriating! A smidge of torque twist I spose.

I'll need to put on some softer springs up front  as well as there were quite a few times I was waiting for a wheel to come back to earth!

 

Gonna spam pictures in the sticky now:)

[stimpy]

Sweet man. Yes there are some things on thingyverse!.. Saw them a while back, just be careful in diameter for the holders as some wheels don't lend themselves to this method.

 

Some of the chassis on thingy would be ok for AR60s but none ive seen would be portal suitable just so you know...

[stimpy]

Just looked at your pics... Great as usual!. Would be useful if you did a build thread or perhaps pics of it as now / previous.... (not sure if you did something previously or just smashed a few pics up?)Then we could discuss different aspects of it etc... Be good to then see it with body off and links placement , transmission etc....

[Stormbringer]

Just admit it Stimpy you want to see it naked you bad man 

[DartmoorTrails]

18 hours ago, stimpy said:

Just looked at your pics... Great as usual!. Would be useful if you did a build thread or perhaps pics of it as now / previous.... (not sure if you did something previously or just smashed a few pics up?)Then we could discuss different aspects of it etc... Be good to then see it with body off and links placement , transmission etc....

 

There's one somewere; i'll find it and post in to bump it up at some point today.

 

Found it; unfortunately it's in the picture section!

I'll do another now it's moved on a fair amount and i'd value your input mate;)

 

Edited September 10, 2020 by DartmoorTrails
stuff

[Oh How Original]

If the front is lifting, you don't need weight for this, you need to lower the ride height slightly and look at the geo of the links.

The flatter the links, the better, and if the front and rear match, even better.

Adding weight won't counteract this.

[stimpy]

On 10/09/2020 at 08:28, DartmoorTrails said:

 

There's one somewere; i'll find it and post in to bump it up at some point today.

 

Found it; unfortunately it's in the picture section!

I'll do another now it's moved on a fair amount and i'd value your input mate;)

 

 

No worries mate, be good to see 👍

[stimpy]

On 11/09/2020 at 13:45, Oh How Original said:

If the front is lifting, you don't need weight for this, you need to lower the ride height slightly and look at the geo of the links.

The flatter the links, the better, and if the front and rear match, even better.

Adding weight won't counteract this.

 

Morning... Sound advice on the links and definitely where folks need to start.

 

However, and please bare in mind I'm not wishing to sound cheeky here at all buddy, but have you actually driven a full 2.2 competition crawler in the steeps or over significant ledges?. I only say this as they really are a different breed - think of a regular truck, then half or quarter the weight, then set the geo and shocks for optimal ascending, overdrive the front for increased front end bite and steering, then further tune with weight for other benefits. Please bare in mind these are not rigs DESIGNED FOR TRAILING they are DESIGNED SPECIFICALLY FOR CRAWLING.

 

Every single comp crawler I have ever seen has some front weighting, or most front and rear infact - admittedly folk are prone to overweighting rigs mind! ( Don't start me on some of the US Scale rigs!). The weighting is not only used for stability on off camber sections (by lowering our C.O.G) but also for a number of other reasons. One of the main ones is to help with ledge ascending - in this scenario we need our front links to drop out to get the front tyres in contact over the ledge to then be able to drag the rear up, here a combination of caster and weighting really help - and bent links with a good amount of dropout. Another reason is that we are nearly always trying to drive the front end and drag the back (MOA rigs are slightly different in that we have individual control of front and rear and can mix this to a certain degree). 

 

These pure competition crawler rigs are definitely biased towards ascending which lets be honest is the trickier path as one can nearly always fall down something!🤣. But here again, dependant upon what balance you set your rig to one can normally make a decent job of decsending or if your rig is more than most front biased then here again you can add a wee bit of weight to the rear to give more stability....

 

Whilst on the subject of balance, the general formula for comp crawlers is 60/40 ratio front to rear. 

 

Now, all that said, Yes 100% if you don't have your links right to start with then you are wasting your time with weighting or certainly just masking an inherent geo issue. In this particular case I know what Dartmoor is trying to achieve and he will benefit from some weighting to get there without a doubt - I do however also think he could benefit from some link tuning - hence I asked for more pics / build thread - though we all want pics right!!!!??? 😀👍

[stimpy]

On 09/09/2020 at 21:43, Stormbringer said:

Just admit it Stimpy you want to see it naked you bad man 

 

Hubba Hubba!!!! 😍

[DartmoorTrails]

@Oh How Original and @stimpy.

Some pics for you to ponder over.

I'm taking her out again tonight now i've changed the front shocks; more of a droop set up for the front now and softer springs. Will see if that improves the handling.

Not the greatest pics but I cba to take the wheels off as well - that can be done later!

 

[stimpy]

Got lots of tips! But first, what is your belly height at full compression and full drop out? And what is your wheelbase?.

[Oh How Original]

I must apologise, when you said AR60s and Wraith weights, to me that made it seem like it was on a Wraith.

I've never had a full on competition crawler, but in my humble opinion, they are MOA, so I didn't put the two together, AR60 on a full blown competition crawler.

Hence the confusion and misleading advice lol.

[DartmoorTrails]

12 hours ago, stimpy said:

Got lots of tips! But first, what is your belly height at full compression and full drop out? And what is your wheelbase?.

 

Right; last night was a blast, the softer springs up front gave me new lines I couldn't manage before; really molds itself to the rock contours now.

 

As requested sir:

13.5" / 344mm wb

80mm @ front of skid / 85mm at the rear

Both ends compress down to 35mm

 

Personally I think the skid is a tad poop; it's a 'generic' chinesium made to mimic te old Bender SW3 chassis but it has it's failing; like it's really long so tends to get hung up if I don't concentrate.

 

Anyway, welcome your thoughts mate.

[stimpy]

On 14/09/2020 at 21:24, Oh How Original said:

I must apologise, when you said AR60s and Wraith weights, to me that made it seem like it was on a Wraith.

I've never had a full on competition crawler, but in my humble opinion, they are MOA, so I didn't put the two together, AR60 on a full blown competition crawler.

Hence the confusion and misleading advice lol.

 

No worries at all mate! So this is what may be classed as a Sporty or Shafty technically.... These days you will also find that these new generation low cog scale rigs get very close to the sporty so it can be a bit misleading!..

 

MOA is top dog but not for everyone for sure..

[stimpy]

12 hours ago, DartmoorTrails said:

 

Right; last night was a blast, the softer springs up front gave me new lines I couldn't manage before; really molds itself to the rock contours now.

 

As requested sir:

13.5" / 344mm wb

80mm @ front of skid / 85mm at the rear

Both ends compress down to 35mm

 

Personally I think the skid is a tad poop; it's a 'generic' chinesium made to mimic te old Bender SW3 chassis but it has it's failing; like it's really long so tends to get hung up if I don't concentrate.

 

Anyway, welcome your thoughts mate.

 

Yeah mate, bottom line it is just an older design of chassis where the skid is long and you cannot lay the shocks enough to soften it up for suck down.... 35mm suck down on the skid is really good! What length are the shocks?.

 

So, like I've said before, I'm not an absolute expert on suspension but it does interest me and I've learnt an awful lot recently - mostly from a pal Al who does comp stuff mostly - though he has now built not just 1 scaler but 2!!haha..

 

With regards your current rig set up:

 

1. Lower links and shocks - put them back to the outer positions if you can.

2. Front - what we want to achieve here is that as the axle drops out it will rotate forward some or is at least neutral - this gives us extra bite when it drops out on a climb.. The best you can do without major mods is drop the upper chassis links to their lowest setting then mess with the lengths to set the driveline and best rotation.

3. Rear - here we want to do the opposite! Were want to create squat so when the front rears up on the steeps the back doesn't flip us. To do this, create the most separation at the chassis ( links in top or just below setting) then set the length / driveline . Where the axle is sat slightly behind perpendicular to the ground is when we will see the most upper link growth...

4. Shocks - generally set these with no preload and super soft springs - the hope is that we sit mid travel but soft enough that when we drive forwards the OD differential front to rear will actually extend the chassis and suck it down for super ninja low COG grip - it also creates tensions between the front and rear tyres - almost like its clasping on!

 

Anyway, that's the basics for now - then lots of playing!  

[darkangelv24]

Am I right it thinking extending the height of the rear upper links at the axle will also help by creating more separation  between upper and lowers. done this on My XR10 and its made a noticeable difference. 

[stimpy]

18 minutes ago, darkangelv24 said:

Am I right it thinking extending the height of the rear upper links at the axle will also help by creating more separation  between upper and lowers. done this on My XR10 and its made a noticeable difference. 

 

Hey up Tim,

 

MOA is slightly different because we can mix the front to rear. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the rear yet - best ask Al!... I would assume that on an MOA we could run a fairly neutral rear so we still have hoppability - then just mix it for the ascents to stop any rodeo sizzle going on... What did you notice the results as when you made the change on your XR?.

[darkangelv24]

Its something I noticed on most of the built Sporty and MOA  rigs  and things like the super shafty  link riser for the capra. 

As you know iv had the XR10 since about the death of the comp crawling scene 8ish years ago. went from a very well setup ax10 sporty with DNA SSS torsion chassis to the XR10, to be honest iv never been happy with it, It sucked quite badly at steep climbs before, tendency to roll backwards too much when  it shouldn't have,  never felt like it was working to its full potential.  since designing and fitting the link riser its been much better, like at black rocks  it made climbs iv never made before. 

 

here is the blurb supershafty say about the capra one and the same logic seems to have done the job on the XR10.:

 

"This piece is designed to Move those Rear upper links up above the truss.
Help your "Goat" climb like a real Billygoat. This piece will allow for additional anti-squat adjustment.Which if you are not familiar with the terminology will help keep the front end more planted on a upwards climb, instead of the rear end squatting and allowing the front end to pick up"

[stimpy]

5 hours ago, darkangelv24 said:

Its something I noticed on most of the built Sporty and MOA  rigs  and things like the super shafty  link riser for the capra. 

As you know iv had the XR10 since about the death of the comp crawling scene 8ish years ago. went from a very well setup ax10 sporty with DNA SSS torsion chassis to the XR10, to be honest iv never been happy with it, It sucked quite badly at steep climbs before, tendency to roll backwards too much when  it shouldn't have,  never felt like it was working to its full potential.  since designing and fitting the link riser its been much better, like at black rocks  it made climbs iv never made before. 

 

here is the blurb supershafty say about the capra one and the same logic seems to have done the job on the XR10.:

 

"This piece is designed to Move those Rear upper links up above the truss.
Help your "Goat" climb like a real Billygoat. This piece will allow for additional anti-squat adjustment.Which if you are not familiar with the terminology will help keep the front end more planted on a upwards climb, instead of the rear end squatting and allowing the front end to pick up"

 

IMO The Capra unit doesn't do much. I 100% see the benefit of being able to mount the links further above / behind the diff centre line as it will give you a longer top link which then in relation to the lower is a better ratio regardless of what you then do with it.

 

I'll have to take a better look at your XR10 next time. I really want to understand an MOA set upon better... But Sportys and comp crawlers I feel on top of now...

[DartmoorTrails]

Think I might take a look at raising the rear upper links up above the axle; there's lots of 3D stuff available so will venture that way shortly as it should be inexpensive.

Can't do a great deal at the front as the uppers would rub on the drive shaft. Going to have to see about flipping the axle; might help but will probably try the rears first given it's going to be way easier!

 

Thanks for your input Gents, appreciated.