I run zero ackerman knuckles on this truck to get every bit of steering I can. It doesn't make sense to me why people run correct ackerman, or reverse ackerman. I want BOTH of my wheels turning as sharp as possible. Most of the time the outside tire has all the weight on it during a turn, so the inside tire is the one that's scrubbing anyways.

TOM

How did you mount your drag link to the tie rod? I can see it mounts at 90 degrees to normal but cant make it out.

Thx

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g1...-16-22_333.jpg


You can kind of see it in this pic here. I took a Jato rod end on my tie rod and drilled a hole through it perpendicular to the knuckle mounting hole. I used a button head screw to attach the drag link. It ended up with the head towards the chassis and the nylock nut on the ouside because at full right turn it would hit the axle housing.

I've got some new parts waiting and should have time to put them on this Saturday. So keep an eye out for updates!

TOM

Is that bolt going through only the plastic on the jato end? If so that will wallow out really quick.

Cool idea with the shock rod end/c-clip mod! Now I need to find some c-clips..

Man that's some crazy caster your running! how many * do you estimate it at? Last I ran mine it was like 8* back and man it worked good on the rocks, now im tempted to really clock em back :mrgreen:

Thanks and makes sense now that I think about it. Really like what you did with the RR spool....always wondered why they didn't do that in the first place.

Yes it's going through the solid plastic part of the jato end. I kind of set it up that way as a temporary placement, but it's actually holding up really well. I dunno if it's because of the light truck & wheels or what...

I'll post up when it breaks for wears out for sure though. I'm probably going to jinx myself, but the only problems I have had with this truck so for during comps is the dirty old motor sticking or a wire coming un-soldered. I'll be sure to report any breakage!

TOM

It's between 20 and 25 degrees of caster, depends on the ride height. The pinion angle changes a little during suspension travel. Give it a try clocking em back and see how you like it. Worst case you would have to go back to the old set-up...

One downside I have noticed is when your belly is stuck on a ledge and your trying to get your front tires to grip. The sharper you turn, the more you belly hits... But that's pretty standard.

TOM

Thank you guys! I'm going to do some more work on this tomorrow and then comp it on Sunday. I want the girlfriend to drive it, but she works tomorrow from noon to 4 am Sunday. I'm going to assume she probably won't feel like getting up at 8 am to play with trucks...

TOM

Gotcha, thanks! Well hey what can i say, nothing is without a drawback right :ror:

I am assuming you didn't try the chassis in stock form? I have a spare set of axles and I've been debating doing the same mod with my beef tubes. I'm just wondering if anything else changed performance wise over an out of the box chassis.

What do ya mean exactly when you say stock form? The only mods I have done to the "kit" is lenghten the upper links a few milimeters, and mount the shocks different on the axles... I can't see any disadvantages to the mods I've done.

Comp tomorrow at SuperDave's house! Chris the Battery Guy is going to be taking video!

My Losi needs new CVD's, so I'm driving this truck, wish me luck!

TOM

I mean, did you run the truck at all built by kit instructions?

Out of the box this Gatekeeper rips! Best money I've spent on my crawler! "thumbsup"

X2 on not sure what's meant by stock form.

Luck on the comp yesterday! :mrgreen: How did you do?

schweet build! :mrgreen:

I know the GC3A works out of the box, I have one. Since you said "Out of the box this gatekeeper rips" then it should be easy to understand what I'm asking. If sourdojack had ever run this GC3a in stock (or as you call it "out of the box"), built by kit instructions ect... before the longer upper links and clocking of the beef tubes in the axles to gain back all of the castor he has. I know the GC3A chassis kit is set up as it is to gain the castor it provides and it works amazing like this, just wondering if changing the pinion angle (although getting the driveshaft out of the way) changes anything about the way the chassis reacts ect...

I blew out the pins in my CVD's today and some other carnage so I will be doing this mod anyways tonight and checking how it works out tomorrow.

I drove pretty well at the comp today. The GC3 performed great!

The one problem I had was after gate 5 on one of the courses. My motor screw had fallen out making the gear mesh go totally loose. So I had to do an off course repair costing me a 1 minute penalty and 10 points.

I got the truck back on the course and ran out of time after gate 8... I really needed to finish the course to beat DaveC today.

I'll know the results tomorrow! Hopefully Chris will have some video up this next week. He got some pretty cool angles!

TOM

Thanks!


Since I had my front axle already modified with the beef toobs before I bought this chassis kit, no I never ran it in stock form.

Cool, I'm trying out your inginuity tonight, gotta try and get it finished for some rocks tomorrow afternoon.