Hey everyone,

As many of you probably already know, I made a WIP topic a while back for a similar kind of buggy, but.....

I had not realized all the stuff that I had to do before beginning the buggy project, so finally the weather is getting nicer and I began the project once more.

This time, since I've decided to go for a light and durable kind of buggy, I am using 1 L motor directly driving a differential and a Servo motor for steering. Along with a Rechargeable battery box and V2 receiver for the power source.

It also has full independent suspension, which needs some modifications at the moment:

So that's what I have so far.....

The big problem I have is that the suspension is to hard for off road terrain (grass, dirt, small rocks). This needs to be fixed, especially because the chassis is pretty low.

Another problem is the tendency to understeer on dirt. I hate understeer so much!

Unfortunately I don't have any solution to this problem because I want to keep it as light as possible so adding some kind of weight in the front is out of the question. The only other thing in the front besides the servo, is the receiver which will actually be placed more in the middle of the chassis.

( Also the grey 15L liftarm that is placed over the front axle is just to keep the suspension from bottoming out since there are no shock absorbers at the moment for test driving)

what about central (or little bit closer to front) battery placement and grey (not yellow) type of suspensions (they get you more flexible suspensions)

too heavy :P

make it fully tubolar! it's gonna be light and strong !!!

I don't think I would want to move the battery box up more because I also want this to look as realistic as possible, so moving the box up would make it stick out more. Plus I don't think it would have a big enough difference. I will try the softer grey shocks as soon as possible.

I would like to have a tubular chassis, but I haven't had much experience with them, and what experience I have had wasn't very good.

However I do hope to keep the weight below 1 and 1/2 pounds, which shouldn't be to bad.

It looks like you could easily fit the battery box between the L and SV motors...

Nice build so far!

To fix the under-steer, you could move the steering rack back half a stud to create toe out setup, that should help.

Defiantly move the battery box to the center, that will help with the steering as well.

Nice build so far!

To fix the under-steer, you could move the steering rack back half a stud to create toe out setup, that should help.

Defiantly move the battery box to the center, that will help with the steering as well.

I thought in a rwd set up toe in was preferred because the wheels get pushed out anyway?

Nice build so far!

To fix the under-steer, you could move the steering rack back half a stud to create toe out setup, that should help.

Defiantly move the battery box to the center, that will help with the steering as well.

Thanks, but I don't see how it could be possible. I wanted to keep the chassis as sturdy and streamlined as possible and putting a battery box doesn't exactly work. There is a positive to the battery box placement though, this thing has literally NO wheel spin. I thought that was very surprising since the L motor has fast direction changes and lots of torque, while the tires have a very small contact patch on flat surfaces.

I thought in a rwd set up toe in was preferred because the wheels get pushed out anyway?

Yeah you can do that as well.

In general, use negative toe (toe out) on the front - it helps with turn in. Use positive toe (toe in) on the rear to help stabilize the car under braking and improve grip through the apex.

Excessive toe will hurt straight line speeds and may lessen tire life by increasing scrub.

http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/threads/toe-in-vs-toe-out.46234/

Best thing is to test these things out and see what happens.

Some more progress,

Here's what I've come up with the design yesterday:

Suspension setup on the front axle:

This is where the IR receiver is going to be placed, it might not even be connected to anything.

It is complete, I have already typed up the review of this buggy on my website if you would like to check out the end result.

Like how it looks, something very simple but agressive at the same time. How does it perform? And if there any problems controllin git with IR received hidden?

Thanks, it performs well. It has good torque and decent speed. The IR receiver has shown any big problem with being hidden, at most it might lose a bit of the responsiveness if your outside in the sun.

Just checked out your website, cool buggy man! I would love to see a video. :)

too heavy :P

make it fully tubolar! it's gonna be light and strong !!!

Totally tubular... :) Tubular really is your favorite, isn't it?

Just checked out your website, cool buggy man! I would love to see a video. :)

Thanks, I will work on a video as soon as possible. I still have to get a Vimeo account to put them on my website, just haven't found the time to do so.