TRC

Brushless Radio Controlled Cars

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RC Handling & Tuning Guide

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A well set up car will out perform a mega quick car any day. Look at it this way - how many straights are there on your track and how many corners are there that you could make up time on? Below I am going to give a brief intro into car geometry, this is just an explanation about what the angles are and what they do, I will go into more depth later about what affects they have on car handling

Camber Angle

Camber angle is the angle of the wheel when viewed from the front or rear of the car. There are three possible angles, positive camber, neutral camber and negative camber. If the top of the wheel leans into the centre of the car you have negative camber. If the wheel is vertical you have neutral or no camber and if the wheel leans out you have positive.

Neutral or no Camber Negative camber.

Imagine you are driving your full size car round a fast right-hand corner, the body rolls to the left. The same happens to the wheel, If there is no camber on the wheel the top of the left wheels will lean out and you will end up running on the outside rim of the tyre. To counteract this we put negative camber on our wheels. This allows the wheel to tip over in corners but still maintains full tyre surface contact on the track giving maximum grip on corners.
The camber is adjusted by lengthening or shortening the top wishbone (usually the top but if it is at max adjustment then adjust the bottom).
A good starting point is 2 degrees negative on the rear and ½ to 1 degree negative on the front.

Torque RC .com 2011

Toe-in & Toe-out

These angles are the direction the wheels are pointing when looking at the car from above

Neutral Toe  Toe out Toe In

With the correct toe angle on the front you will have a stable car that has good front end grip.
The correct toe angle on the rear will give good rear end traction through corners.

The front end toe angle is adjusted on the steering links or track rods as they are called on a full size car. Shorten the links – more toe-out, lengthen the links –less toe-out.
There are different methods to adjust the rear toe angle depending on which make and model of car you drive, almost all adjust the rear lower wishbone to give desired angle.

To measure the toe angle is not easy, one method is to use the camber gauge. If you want 1 degree toe-in set your wheels up with one degree of negative camber. Take a measurement from the top centre of the inside rim on the left wheel to the top centre inside rim of the right wheel. Do the same for bottom centre inside rim on both wheels. Transfer these measurements so that the distance top centre is the same as front centre on the inside of the rim, this sounds complicated but when you try it it’s not that bad. Another way of putting it is measure at 12 o’ clock and 6 o’ clock and transfer to 3 o’clock and 9 o’ clock.

Start settings are 2 degrees toe in at the rear and 1 degree toe-out at the front.