Lane Changer Help (3-Lane)

Perfect thanks!

From JT's video, it doesn't look too difficult, just a little time consuming.

 

Hey Celt,

Having just spent some quality time on the 3-Lane , Lane changer this past high speed tuned race. I learned a few things that might help you guys over there with the lane change.

Here is the Italian setup that worked really well for me (Thanks to @Z3N Bluster for showing me the setup). My twist is I added a 2nd roller under the top one which is part of the normal italian setup. This works by adding downforce on the right side, while the left side is engaged. So when you put this car into the dimension box, when the left side is touching the dimension box wall, so is the added roller on the right side (The front and rear rollers on the right side do not touch) I hope I'm explaining it well.

So when the car enters the lane change at high speed, the angle and the height of the right added roller plays a big part in helping to keep the car down when passing through. I didn't take a vid, but if you just hand push the car through, the rollers on the left and the added roller on the right will engage at the same time, imagine both your hands touching both walls as you run through the lane change.

You only need this kind of setup, if you are ramping a crap ton of speed into the lane change, I think we had like 14 straights, and 4 turns back to back. For the tracks with less speed, like the one you posted (where you covered the top) all you need is more roller angle and non-plastic ringed rollers in the front for maximum friction. Also, lower the rollers the better, the closer they are to the ground the less "track" play there is. The track is plastic so it bends, but it's the strongest at the bottom where it connects to the bottom piece( the bottom of the U , |__| ) as the track wall moves up away from the bottom, it is able to flex more and more, with the max flex at the top (furthest away from the bottom ) Lowering the rollers will help stimulate the downforce quicker, with a better response then mounting them too high. when you mount them higher, when the roller hits the wall, it has to wait for the track to bend and return to get that feedback it needs to engage downforce. lol I hope I'm making sense. I know i'm doing a terrible job.

Our rules being limited to no cutting/trimming made it really hard

With a regular setup and a ton of front angle, my car did 18.18 lap time. Just 4 rollers.

With the italian setup, and light angle, my car did 17.75 lap time.

 

Got Rollers?

 

Beautiful Chris! Your explanation is spot on...makes perfect sense. And because I'm a parts whore, I actually have all those odd parts, believe it or not. I think racers here are getting more comfortable with tuning to the point where we need to race the track, i.e. pull the covers off. Looks and feels kind of ghetto covering the lane changers. You guys have a killer program there.

 

Awesome, glad that worked out and I'm happy to hear your community is growing! Let me know if you guys need any other help with anything. Please keep us posted on your races!

 

Quick movie of the Italian setup in slow mo.

 

Wow, satisfying to see it actually work I bet?

 

Imho, these are the factor that might determine whether your car will pass the lane change or not:

1.Front angle.
This is the most common thing that people mention about when talking about 3lane-LC. The easiest way is to increase the angle of the front roller. But the downside of increasing the front roller angle is your car will slow down not just on the lane changer, but on every corner. For me, I only use the front angle from the MA chassis. It's quite sufficient to pass most of the lane change in a speed tech layout (with Hyper Dash Pro). If you feel that it's not enough, then try to increase it gradually.

2. Roller Stay
If you're using a rigid setup then I think it's better to make your roller stay strong enough to withstand the impact when entering the LC. If you're using 1.5mm roller stay, try to double it and see how it goes. Weak roller stay will bend a little when receiving strong impact from a high speed car and that might've caused the instability of the car.
On the other hand, you can consider to use more adaptable roller stay such as sliding damper, pivot bumper, AT bumper, etc. Due to their adaptibility to absorb the impact, the car can pass the LC smoother because the impact is absorbed by the roller stay mechanism.

3. Stabilizer
Stabilizer plays a big role in your car when facing an LC. When a Mini 4WD car enter the LC, it will tilt to the right side before it goes back to the left side and make contact with the left side of the track. By using a stabilizer it will prevent your car from flipping over when it got tilted to the side. Make sure not to mount it too high because there'll be a chance where the area between the roller and the stabilizer might hit the tip of the track wall.

4. Roller Position
I don't recommend mounting the front roller too low, because if the contact point too low then the car will have a bigger risk to get flipped over. I think it's better to mount the roller in the same height or slightly above the wheel shaft.
As for the rear roller, try not to mount the top roller too high to maintain more contact point with the track wall.

5. Type of roller
Plastic ring roller has less friction than HG ringless roller. It can gives your car a great cornering speed but the grip is less than the HG ringless roller. So be careful when choosing the roller combination for your car. Rember that roller with large contact surface will have more grip compared to roller with less contact surface.


You can see that I'm using a ringless roller on the right side and plastic ring on the left side. The aim is to gain more grip when entering the LC.

6. Ground clearance and Brake
Adjust your GC (Ground clearance) and brake and try to make it lower. The aim is to get a slight speed loss when entering the LC. But, don't forget that if you lower the GC then you might slow down on the bank section.

In this video, I'm using the angle from MA chassis without adding another angle plate.

I guess that's all I can say about passing the LC. It may not be the best answer, but I hope it can be useful for you bro.

Keep on running!

 

My setup was front Double Aluminum 13-12mm rollers for slow entry on CL.

And rear Double 19mm O-ring roller for quicker exit on CL.