Chassis weight theory
 

Hey folks,


I have been batting around the idea in my head for a month or 2 about chassis weight. So I figured I would post up to get some discussion on it.



My website creationfab.com will be launching soon, and one thing I want to offer is a nice affordable chassis, with room in the belly to mount weight. My idea is that the mass in the chassis will actually make the truck climb better on steep, high speed climbs. Seems that I cant get my truck from hopping, and with all the weight on the axles these days, there is not enough in the chassis to make the suspension work harder than just flex.


Has anyone tried this? What are your thoughts? It would be nice to get something in the works, that you good folks would like to use"thumbsup"


I plan on testing this sometime soon, and taking some video for comparison. More to come

The only thing I could see that would hinder performance is that adding weight to the chassis will raise ur cog. It would be cool to get some new innovations in the crawling world good luck.

This is true to an extent. Shafties preform great when setup well. And they have a motor/trans in the belly

Feels like a conversation when the Bergs first came out, and no one knew how to handle the extra heft of the axles at first. Chassis became lighter and lighter with less items on them ever since.

The issue I noticed, and with my Losi Comp Crawler with the heft in the chassis was the rear springs would bottom out on the bump stops, and thus all your "spring rate" came from the tire sidewall and foam tuning, and wheel weight tuning.

Good point especially if u could just keep the weight in the skid by hollowing it out on the top or something. I'm sure u thought about all that but not u got the wheels in my head turning.

I think its totally worth considering and exploring. After all, 1:1's have a good portion of sprung weight and they seem to do pretty damn well. I guess it comes down to finding the ideal overall weight of the rig before you hit the point of diminishing returns on performance.

Maybe 20 lb comp rigs will be the new thing. "thumbsup"

It will be interesting to see the test of your hypothesis. I suspect you will see many dinamic effects (desirable and others not) if you say swap from a 1/4 inch thick steel skid plate to a two crossbar and thin delrin skin skid like on the BJ and T1e chassis. You will certainly get the more planted feel like the now extict Team Losi trucks but at how much of a cost?

My plan is to make a plate that hangs off the back of the chassis like a battery tray would off the front. Then mount lead weight into it, and see how it works. One other thing I think might work, is really heavy lower links. Maybe some machined out of solid steel. Big ol fatties. Im sure there would be some kind of cool leverage effect.

I'm real interested in this as well keep us posted. I'd like to see what happens with heavy links I was thinking about making some our of solid rod myself.

Some 7mm or 8mm stainless lower links should do the trick "thumbsup"

Maybe Chaotic could hook you up

TOM

A heavy tray suspended off the back would definitely change things up.

Why not just grab some steel rod from lowes or HD? It'd be a good cheap test piece to try without spending a bunch on machined pieces.

Hanging weight off the rear of the chassis will negatively affect to balance point of the car, no?

I'm curious to see what you find, on my comp car there is less than 2 ounces of electronics weight in the chassis and I want to try it all on the front axle.

Interested to see your results...i have been toying with this idea for a bit myself, be it on a scaler. My train of thought is to increase chassis weight, but spread it out strategically. Tyring to achieve more realistic body roll for video.
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How about 8-10mm stainless tube with threaded screw caps to attach the rod ends ( Kinda like a shock cap mod ) and then fill the tube with lead, tungsten putty or even have them tunable by using small fishing weights and then cotton wool to fill the void and stop them rolling around.

Maybe some sort of slide weight on the front links so u can adjust where and how much weight are on them a little easier.

I like the idea. I dont like a light rig, I get the hop effect to. But also you have to have the grip to pull the weight up a ledge.

And a lighter truck makes more traction. Can't you dial the bounce out with more squat or different tires?

omg :lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao::l mao:thats funny :flipoff:

No a light truck makes less traction. A heavy makes a little more. What I was saying is if it gets too heavy it will not pull itself up because of lack of traction.

Yes you can dial some of the bounce out, with link set up and foams.

Im still not sold on heavier trucks working better than light trucks. Simply because gravity is always the same. So on a really steep climb, with low traction, your truck is being pushed down. A heavier truck will fall faster. Now this is just 1 place I know lighter trucks work better. But I have had much better luck with trucks in the 4.75lb range that I have been competing with for the last 3 years"thumbsup"


Now I am not planning on putting a pound in my chassis, just a few oz, to see how it does. I might throw in like 8oz at first, just to see what the effect is. But ideally, balancing it like a nice driving shafty is what I am going for. Got a new proto chassis on the way to test out this theory with."thumbsup"