Mardave set up.

Tyres
The tyres are one of, if not THE most important things to get right if you want your car to handle well. For carpet racing, I would recommend UFRA SE medium or UFRA Pink Soft rears and UFRA pink medium or UFRA Jap Medium fronts. The fronts work better when they are trued to about 49mm, and used until they're worn almost to the rim. Also let them wear in, so they are coned (smaller diameter on outside than inside). You can also tune them with super glue. To do this, put super glue on the outside wall of the front tyres, making the tyre wall go hard. This gives the tyres less flex, and therefore less grip. Apply more superglue for more under steer. You can also put a small blob of glue on the outside edge of the contact surface of the tyre if gluing the walls doesn't give you enough under steer. For the rear tyres, I find these tend to work better when they are about 53mm in diameter. (although I true them to 56 and use them 'till they're about 49!). You can put grooves in the rear tyres using a hacksaw blade. This enables them to flex more, and thus gives more grip. Doing this also reduces some of your front end grip. The multispoke wheel rims used to be slightly larger than the six-spoke ones, but they're the same size now, so there's no real advantage in using them (other than the fact they look better!)

Front Suspension
Firstly, turn your wishbones upside down, in order to lower the front of the chassis. You should aim to get the chassis as level as possible. If the back is higher than the front, the car will tend to under steer. If the front is higher, the car is more likely to over steer (spin out). Next, put washers/spacers of some sort under the front of the wishbones, so the kingpins are angled backwards slightly. Raise the front of the wishbones by around 2-3 mm. This gives the front end negative castor, which will reduce the chances of the car spinning out on corner exits.

Rear Suspension
You should have your rear springs relatively soft/loose. Adjust the nuts so that the chassis 'sags' about 1mm below the rear edge of the motor pod when the car is at rest. If, when you pull away the car pulls to one side, but later straightens up, you can cure the problem using the rear suspension. If the car pulls to the right, tighten the right hand nut, and loosen the left one a little (looking from back of car). Do this in 1/4 turn increments until the car pulls away straight. If the problem persists, consider replacing the spur gear, as they wear out. Fit ball races to the rear axle; they make your car a little faster, as there is less rolling resistance!

Drive
Use a smaller pinion gear for more acceleration, and a larger one for more top end speed. A 14T is a good size to start on, as I find it works well on most track sizes and shapes. Bear in mind that you may wish to increase pinion size as your rear tyres wear out. Smaller tyres will give you more acceleration than large ones. However, I wouldn't recommend going up/down by more than 1 tooth in this situation. There should be a little play between the spur and pinion, in order to get a smooth drive. If the mesh is too tight, it will ultimately slow your car down and make the motor hot. Do not have too much play or else the spur will strip easily. If you find the pinion/spur makes a lot of noise, boil some water, and leave your spur gear in it for 5 mins. This softens the plastic, making your car sound smoother!

Body shell
You will be surprised at how much difference the body shell will make to the handling of your car. I would recommend any of the following, as they seem to make the car fairly well balanced;

ABS: Peugeot 205, ford fiesta, any of the ABS versions of the shells listed below

Lexan: Clio mk1 (my favourite), wide body 205, Toyota starlet, BMW mini, Peugeot 206

Extra Tips
Fit a front bumper made from GRP or carbon fibre to protect you king pins and stub axles. A bent pin/axle will dramatically affect your cars handling.

Try replacing your body mounts with front and rear associated tc3 posts. This way, your body will never come off during a race.

If you have an electronic speedo, remove the top plate and place the speedo where the receiver should be. Put the receiver on top of the steering servo, and use a tube for the aerial. Use fibreglass tape to hold you batteries in, or alternatively the Mardave cobra battery mounts do the job well.

Paint your shell bright colours. I find this helps me drive because the car doesn't blend in with the carpet/scenery, so you can see it and other drivers can see you more easily too.

Hope this helps.

Mark Stiles

I have copyed this from mardaves website.

Right my set up for tamworth

Tyres Front jap med's 47mm inside half covered with addative
Rear pink meds 53mm full covered with addative

Cells Energ 4600 Team Almighty matched charged at 5.5amp and fully equalised before charge.

Motor was on its 2nd meeting all what i do to it was spray 3 in 1 oil into it before the run.

Gearing was on 16/50 i think i ended on.

Shell was a calibra with the wing mounted flush on the boot.

Std springs all round with a kamtec front kingpin brace fixed to the baseplate with a post.

Speedo was a Lrp sphere tc spec.

Any more info needed just ask.

hi stox, what set up do you use for rugby club racing. do you suffer from too much front end grip??

top-timm wrote:hi stox, what set up do you use for rugby club racing. do you suffer from too much front end grip??

Well my 1st dave i was running for round one last meeting was on pink med's all round around 51mm rear and around 46mm front geared on 14,13/50 running on epower 4500's

2nd dave i used for round's 2,3 + final was set round pink meds rear (Freash) round 53/4mm + Jap med 48,7mm fronts
geared 14/50 running a hunter-systems 27t silver can motor on epower 4500mah

Half addative front and full rear (Addative used was wd40)

hope thats any use to you?
I can offer advise on the day

hi
you mention the additive used for your tyres was wd40 ???? is that a new breakthrough or am i thinking of the wrong wd40

Nope normal Wd40 is used as additive for me (only i use it) It seems to work well. And is cheep and dont damage the carpet.