Hi Painter,
I have an RS Pro and have used Redline motors in the past (10.5) but not currently. Your kit is fine for TC racing!
As already stated, kit settings is an OK place to start and indeed I have found that with the ‘12 I have made very minor changes to the kit settings compared with previous XRAY cars. Which is not to say you cannot improve the car with changes for your driving style and/or track but as a starting point you will almost certainly find it will drive very well for you.
The powertrain is more problematical. The first thing you should do is make sure you have a temperature gun so that you can check the motor temp. Any significant change in settings or gearing could blow your motor, especially of you are already borderline on temperature. So if you do make a significant change, run the car for no more than say 1.5 mins then pull over and check the temp; repeat until you come of the track.
There are two schools of thought on gearing/timing setup. Gear high (low FDR no.) and use less timing; gear low and pile on the timing. As far as I can see there is no obvious clear answer; apart from seeing what other drivers at your circuit do.
I think you will find that the FDR for your 13.5 will fall somewhere between low 6s and low 7s.
I started my X12 13.5 at around 7.1 but surprisingly (to me) I have ended up with 6.28 seeming to be the optimum. Surprising because on the same track I run my X12 10.5 at between 8.9 and 9.1 depending… Conversely I tried a GM 13.5 motor earlier this year and started around 6.2(as recommended) but found that for me 6.9/7.0 was better.
You really do have to experiment and test!
Don’t forget that the basic principle of timing speedos is that you can use a lower gear ratio than you would have done with previous generations of speedos, to get good infield acceleration but then compensate for the lower ratio on the straightaways by adding on timing. Of course how you do that is where the art/science/experience comes in
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