Reedy Race - Augsburg

WTCC: Randy, Rick and Keven we need you now!

And please be honest and include all the hardware changes you made.

I have a hard time to competetivly drive this car outdoor. The rear is just not planted and the front end not as strong as it should be! In comparison my Xray T4'15 is, after one day of training, as fast as my 6.2 after 6 months (but much much easier to drive). I ordered all Yokomo, TC5 and TC4 parts I recognized from the pictures of your cars to finally make this car fast and comfortable to drive.

Randy Caster: I'll be as honest as I can be for you, but can't really speak for things that haven't already been shown in pictures or answered in other interviews.

First off, measure your rear toe and make sure it is where it should be, I recommend using the same inserts on the rearward pivot block, but you may have to use different inserts, or shift the front pivot blocks around before tightening them to get the desired toe. Start with 3*. I like running the rear pivot blocks shimmed up .5mm and the front pivot blocks low. I prefer the car to have a lot of entry steering, at Reedy I ended up with 1mm anti-dive on my car and Cavalieri's car. Rick used my setup on one of his cars but I'm not sure if he was running .5 or 1mm of anti-dive. Some of the guys liked the front arms flat. This is a pretty big change and you basically just have to try different settings and see which feeling you like best.

Front arms use the inner hole with 2mm spacing in front of the arm, rear arms use the outer hole with 5mm spacing in front of the arm. Yokomo hubs will be the inner hole and just center those, 1.25mm on either side should do it, file the hub a hair if it's bound up.

My shock setup is AE 42.5wt oil, Yokomo 3x1.1 (drilled) pistons, AE X-Rings, HPI Silver springs (try the new HPI Green springs for lower grip tracks and drop the oil a bit until it feels right on the track) build the shocks with about 3-4mm of rebound and drill a 1mm hole to vent the shock caps. I have tried a few different bladders and keep going back to the stock bladders, they feel the best on every surface so far for me. I use Yokomo shock collars, shock bottoms and spring retainers, these fit the HPI springs better than the stock pieces. Some of the guys are using AE TC5 shock ends with the Yokomo or HPI retainers. I like running the 3 hole on the front and rear shock towers.

If the rear of your car isn't planted try using 1.5 front camber and 2 rear camber. If it's still not planted take the front camber down to 1*.

For weight bias I like the front of my car to be slightly heavier than the rear, I run 51/49 front to rear bias. Talking to Sean a while back he preferred 50/50. Side to side is close to 50/50 but don't sweat it if it's a little off, you can adjust this with spring preload.

There's some info to get you going, hope this helps!

Where u get the carbon upper bumper holder???

Randy Caster: A sheet of carbon fiber and a Dremel.

Randy, why are you running tc4 rear arms? I noticed that Rick is running them also. As well as tc5 hubs and caster blocks. Is this for durability or better handling. Thanks and good luck!

What is wrong with current tc6.2 suspension geo???

Jorge T: They (team associated) have been doing this since last year.

The C hub caster cause too much slop, and shock inserts in the a arm strip and the 6.2 rear arms are longer than the tc4 if I remember correctly.

Cristian Tabush: We at RSD came out with a different suspension geometry package a while back. The geometry on the TC6.2 is not quite right. If it were, the team guys would not be changing the parts over to what they are.

The AE mod is a little more complex as you have to re-drill the rear arms to mount a swaybar mount and I believe also to match hinge pin size. They are also using Yokomo rear hub carriers to match up with the TC4 rear arms.

Our conversion is a little more straight forward and more plug and play. Our geometry (click on the link to the left) mimics the Yokomo's more closely, especially in the front. The results are more predictable handling, better mid corner rotation and more overall bite. Additionally slop is drastically reduced and durability goes way up.

Many people will say "I'm not good enough for it to make a difference". This is not the correct train of though. An easier car to drive will make you a better driver.

The swaybars are changed because they are easier to set up and the feel is more consistent. Due to the threads on the rod holders, the swaybars on the TC6.1/.2 are always cocked to one side. An easy way to mitigate this is to put in one set screw from the top and one from the bottom on the swaybar tube. This makes sure that as the set screw drives into the wire, it spins it in the right direction.

WTCC: I did the 6.2 "Factory Team" conversion today. Thanks to Randy and the RedRC pictures it was really easy and went well.

The front suspension conversion is no problem at all as all parts drop in nicely. I also modified the servo mount and seperated the floating servo from the steering posts (as seen on Ricks car).

The rear conversion took more time, but wasn't difficult. Just open the pinholes and drill an extra hole for the Yokomo anti-roll-bar mount. Then drop all your shims on the inner pins and that is it basically. Depending on the type of roll-bar, the inner mounts of the TC5 need attention to prevent binding.

What was confusing from the pictures, was the front anti-roll-bar wire thickness. Did you team guys use the TC5 black wire or a 1.2mm or 1.3mm wire?

Here some picture of my conversion

Sean Cochran: The TC5 arms the guys are using on the front are not standard. They are made to match the TC6.2 arms and are run as they are lighter. The shock mounting position has been modified. Not a simple mod but possible with some care.

Most people are using yokomo front sway bars as they have more tuning options.

Randy Caster: There wasn't much for coverage of the open classes at the Reedy Race but the AE cars did extremely well! There were TC6.2's in the main of every class, but we shined in the modified class with 3 cars making the main. I was able to TQ with Eric Albano qualifying 2nd and Steve Weiss making the show as well.

A body tuck cost me the lead in A1, ran decent in A2 but lost the lead about halfway through and came in 2nd by about .4 of a second. The sun FINALLY came out for A3 and my car came to life. Got out to a very early 5-6 second lead and just drove smooth for the last 3 minutes of a very welcomed uneventful win. Overall I ended up 2nd, Albano in 4th, and having to stand at the far opposite end of the driver stand from where he was comfortable, Steve wasn't able to improve on his qualifying position and stayed in 10th. Bob Stellflue from AE made the main and finished 7th in 13.5 as well! (I know I'm missing a few privateer AE cars from the 17.5 and 13.5 mains, sorry about that!)

WTCC: Just want to give a feedback to the before shown conversion:

The weather in southern Germany was cold and cloudy, but allowed about 4-5 runs before the rain soaked the track.

After one initial run with my T4'15, I changed to the 6.2. It was a different experience to what the 6.2 was before! The rear is planted, even in fast direction changes, but follows the front nice. If it starts to get loose then in a soft and easy to control manner.

The front is better in corner entry and much better in the middle.

11.79s was my best lap so far this year in warmer, higher grip conditions. Today I drove a best lap of 11.6s and was consistent in the 11.7-11.8s range for the whole run. The conversion gave me an easy, consistent and fast car!

Let me say thank you to Randy and Sean for helping me to realize the conversion in every detail.

Do you or any of the team guys know if this setup works on carpet or is it strictly for asphalt? Also, is there any way you could give a parts breakdown as to what was used? I know TC4 rear arms and Yokomo sway bars...

WTCC: This suspension parts will work on carpet too. Of course you will have to adjust droop, camber, diff oil, or whatever for the specific track.

I used:

TC4 rear arms graphite

TC5 front arm hard

TC5 4* C-hub hard

TC5 inner sway bar mounts 1 dot x4

Yokomo BD7 rear hub

Yokomo BD7 rear swaybbar set

and

a lot of 3x6mm shims (you need 12 3x6x2.5mm for the shimming of the rear arms)

That is all.

The servo mount brace setup is different from Randy Caster and Ryan Cavalieri. They use a floating steering.