cooleo_cool

Is bottoming out a good or a bad thing? To me, it seems like it wouldn't be a bad thing because you lose speed and scrape up your chassis. So I have always set my vehicles up so that they do not bottom out. What do you racers out there do?

Thanks.

mattnin

You dont want it to bottom out because you lose traction on you wheels. If you bottom out, the car becomes unpredictable due to the loss in traction.

cooleo_cool

Thanks! What I am hearing is that if the vehicle is allowed to bottom out, then it takes some of the shock away from the... well the shocks! Someone is telling me that this should prevent me from blowing shock caps (which I don't have a problem with in the first place...). Now he's also saying that there are a lot of racers who set their trucks up to purposely bottom out. Can that be right or is he just blowing smoke?

Rs43EVOman

No you dont want ur car to bottom out, but some racers arew willing to sacrifice bottoming out a few times during the race if the car handles better. Just make sure your not over doing it. Don't base your tuning off of the car bottoming out. If it does it every tme, then its set-up wrong, and probably isnt handling weel either, if youve got the car dialed in chances are it will rarely bottom out.

mattnin

Definitely do not set the truck up to purposely bottom out. That makes for a very inconsistent handling truck. I doubt the shock caps will blow out, that would take a very hard landing. I have never blown shock caps.

I race weekly and I know of no one who sets their truck up to bottom out. As matter of fact, we tune 'pack' at the lowest setting for jumps.

Although, a truck set up with minimal pack will handle the best. Pack should be *just enough* to not bottom out. Too much pack will cause the truck to lose traction.

Do you know how to tune for pack? You have to use shock pistons. If you are Associated, they are numbered from 1-3 and Losi uses from 54-60. I can tune pack just by looking at a picture from a track, but what you can do is try them all out and see which works the best. In my experience, Associated 1 and Losi 54 are for very smooth tracks with very small jumps. Associated 2 and Losi 55 and 56 are for most tracks and Associated 3 and Losi 57 are for poorly built tracks with no landings. You can also try drilling out losi 60 for very smooth tracks.

Another thing that affects shock absorption is droop. Don't run too much droop if there are big jumps because they shock travel length just won't be enough.

The perfect shock setup which isn't very hard to tune for is to adjust shock movement to where the truck lands, then bounces up to just about the ride height. If it takes too long for the truck to rebound but the pack is just right for the jump, then go up one in spring weight. If the truck bounces too much but the pack is just right, then go lower in spring.