Setup for 21.5?

[skurtreynolds]

Noob here, going to build my first 2wd buggy to race at my local track. I’m having a very hard time finding an answer to a basic question.

Should my initial setup be anything but default if I’m racing 21.5 2wd buggy? Should I even bother with any of the setup sheets I see posted on so-dialed?

Most of the setups I see posted on so-dialed are for open/mod class low turn motors. Are the setups the same for the slower 21.5/spec builds? Sorry if I’m using the wrong terminology!

 

[bill_delong]

You definitely want to find a stock setup which will be slightly different because a slower car will need a more aggressive setup to carry more corner speed. A Mod setup needs to be more stable to handle the extra power.

Any 17.5T setup would be fine to start with, even better to get a setup from a local team driver who's already put the work into tuning for your current track conditions.

 

[skurtreynolds]

You definitely want to find a stock setup which will be slightly different because a slower car will need a more aggressive setup to carry more corner speed. A Mod setup needs to be more stable to handle the extra power.

Any 17.5T setup would be fine to start with, even better to get a setup from a local team driver who's already put the work into tuning for your current track conditions.

Thanks, Bill. I’m glad I asked. I think what I’ll do is build with basic 21.5 electronics on the default setup and head down to the track and meet some people down there and see what they’ve got going on. I’m sure that no matter what I do I’ll probably need a lot of reps before I can realize any changes I need from stock? Or would they be obvious even for a racer?

 

[bill_delong]

I would contact the manufacturer to find out what track condition they intend for the base setup and confirm that is the same track condition for your local track.

I would prefer to build the car with the proper setup the first time, it can be very time consuming to have to make many tuning adjustments. I see many drivers try to rush to get their car on the track and end up being disappointed with a poor handling car. Regardless I would get with a local team driver and ask him to test drive your car to make sure it's handling properly before you begin to clock some laps.

 

[skurtreynolds]

I would contact the manufacturer to find out what track condition they intend for the base setup and confirm that is the same track condition for your local track.

I would prefer to build the car with the proper setup the first time, it can be very time consuming to have to make many tuning adjustments. I see many drivers try to rush to get their car on the track and end up being disappointed with a poor handling car. Regardless I would get with a local team driver and ask him to test drive your car to make sure it's handling properly before you begin to clock some laps.

It’s an associated rc10b6.4. Maybe I’ll poke around their site some more. I’ll definitely follow that advice and have a local give her a spin too! Might save me some headaches if I mess up the build also!

 

[lambdapriest]

First things first: do what @bill_delong recommends! Have somebody else put a few laps into your car.

But I'd definitely run the kit setup for a few track days. I'm about a month ahead of you with my B6.4, also running 21.5, and that's what I've done. The kit setup isn't perfect, but it's a great starting point; if you're running on carpet - it may not be The Fastest And Most Dialed Setup Ever, but the car should be very driveable.

Run the kit setup until you're running consistently enough to have a baseline. If you're crashing a lot, turn down the throttle endpoint until you can make it a few minutes without crashing, and then dial it up by a few percent, and try again. This will help you get comfortable with your car much, much more quickly than literally anything else. I just did this - I swallowed my pride and turned my throttle EPA down to 85%, and forced myself to get a clean no-marshal 5-minute run in practice before turning it up. In a week and a half, I have increased my own driving skill by like 300%, and I'm not exaggerating.

Once you can get good, clean, consistent, repeatable runs in - then, and only then, should you start changing things. You're not going to be able to drive fast at the track overnight; and the more times you wreck, the more maintenance you're going to have to do, which takes time away from driving, which will make it take longer for you to improve your driving.

Enjoy the car. Don't get too ahead of yourself; it doesn't matter how dialed your setup is at your local track if you can't make it more than a lap or two without climbing down from the stand to put it back on its tires.

 

[skurtreynolds]

First things first: do what @bill_delong recommends! Have somebody else put a few laps into your car.

But I'd definitely run the kit setup for a few track days. I'm about a month ahead of you with my B6.4, also running 21.5, and that's what I've done. The kit setup isn't perfect, but it's a great starting point; if you're running on carpet - it may not be The Fastest And Most Dialed Setup Ever, but the car should be very driveable.

Run the kit setup until you're running consistently enough to have a baseline. If you're crashing a lot, turn down the throttle endpoint until you can make it a few minutes without crashing, and then dial it up by a few percent, and try again. This will help you get comfortable with your car much, much more quickly than literally anything else. I just did this - I swallowed my pride and turned my throttle EPA down to 85%, and forced myself to get a clean no-marshal 5-minute run in practice before turning it up. In a week and a half, I have increased my own driving skill by like 300%, and I'm not exaggerating.

Once you can get good, clean, consistent, repeatable runs in - then, and only then, should you start changing things. You're not going to be able to drive fast at the track overnight; and the more times you wreck, the more maintenance you're going to have to do, which takes time away from driving, which will make it take longer for you to improve your driving.

Enjoy the car. Don't get too ahead of yourself; it doesn't matter how dialed your setup is at your local track if you can't make it more than a lap or two without climbing down from the stand to put it back on its tires.

This sounds like great advice. Thanks to you both!

 

[bill_delong]

There's a good selection of setup sheets here for carpet and dirt, find a stock setup for your track condition and use that as your baseline. Make sure to bring that setup with you to the track so whoever is helping you with your setup will know which changes to make:

https://site.petitrc.com/setup/associated/SetupSheetsAssociatedRC10B6.html


If you don't have anyone knowledgeable present, then this guide here from Hudy will help get you in the right direction, it's designed for on-road cars but there are enough options there to work for majority of the off-road options as well making it fairly universal:

 

[skurtreynolds]

There's a good selection of setup sheets here for carpet and dirt, find a stock setup for your track condition and use that as your baseline. Make sure to bring that setup with you to the track so whoever is helping you with your setup will know which changes to make:

https://site.petitrc.com/setup/associated/SetupSheetsAssociatedRC10B6.html


If you don't have anyone knowledgeable present, then this guide here from Hudy will help get you in the right direction, it's designed for on-road cars but there are enough options there to work for majority of the off-road options as well making it fairly universal:

View attachment 172599

Wow thanks this is excellent. I’m even more stoked for this build now. And even more stoked to go run it!

 

[lambdapriest]

Always happy to help!

Oh, I almost forgot - tires are KEY.

Go to your club and ask around - run whatever everybody else is running, no questions asked. If your club is a hobby shop, they will definitely stock whatever the people like to run, since tires are consumables with these cars. I just put new tires on today - I had about 26 5-minute runs in my old tires, and they were definitely past their prime for some of those runs.

Make sure you cut the body out to fit your fan. Run the front wing mount, even if you don't run the front wing - it'll protect the front of the car. Get an aluminum bulkhead - apparently, the kit bulkhead breaks pretty frequently - and the Exotek aluminum wing mounts - for the same reason. I've been running both of those since day one, and they're both still in great shape.

One last tip - somebody faster and smarter than I am might tell you not to do this, so listen to them instead of me if somebody comes along and corrects me - but I turned my steering endpoints down so that "full lock" was just enough to make the tightest hairpin on my layout. If your radio lets you slow the steering rate down, do that too. That has really helped me to make the car easier to drive.

If I could go back to June, when I started driving RC, and make myself understand one thing, it would be this:

If the car is easier to drive, you will be able to be consistent. If you can be consistent, you will be able to get better at driving. When you get better at driving, you can make the car faster - which will make it harder to drive - but you will have the base skills to learn to manage the additional performance. Make the car as easy to drive as possible, and don't feel bad about doing it.

I can't think of anything else, but if I do, I'll post it in here later.

 

[bill_delong]

+1 on tires which are generally the highest priority on the sheet I referenced above, don't skip the sway bar tuning, invest in a full set of sway bars if necessary, I often change these first when track conditions change along with ride height, then roll center where most people make the mistake of tuning roll center first which makes their car easier to drive, but also make makes it too slow, been there done that, ha!