XRAY - Model racing cars

Had quite a disastrous evening, started by running my new Trinity Monster horsepower stock in my FK'05 with 20/83 gearing, after 5 mins the car barely crawled over the line, temperature of motor was 255F.
tried gearing it up to 21/83 in next race, then motor was 280F at end of race.
Gave up on that motor, Stuck P2K back in for 3rd heat on 20/83 gearing, that went much better.

We run foam tyres with additive on an extremely tight track, see here >>http://wcrccc.v21hosting.co.uk/venues.htm

I run the standard fromt one way diff, do you think i would be better off with a ball diff on this track?

Also, Is it possible to have too much grip?
When cornering the car seems to scrub off all of it's speed.

Also, when cornering there is a chattering noise coming from the car, it seems that the inside front wheel, when turning is shaking backwards and forwards at high speed within the wheelarch.
Any ideas/suggestions would be appreciated!

I'd have to agree with Dave on the gearing. With the Monster on a tight carpet track with foam tires you will need a gearing combination that results in a rollout close to 23.5 with your tires current diameter. The P2K2 is normally 2 to 3 teeth higher on the pinion. If you're unfamiliar with rollout calculations, take a look at the in the Tech Articles thread.

For rear toe-in and a one-way, I'd suggest a hair more than usual at 1.5d to balance out the one-ways steering.

The chattering and scrubbing of speed is probably coming from too much steering EPA and/or ackerman angle. Take 5 minutes to enter in your entire setup in the so we can take a look. What type of transmitter are you using, and what is the EPA and/or dual rate set to?

I just need the following info in the setup sheet:

* front caster blocks
* all arm hinge pin suspension holder positions and type (standard or .75)
* wheelbase, if not minimum
* front and rear camber link positions and outer shims
* front and rear upper/lower shock positions
* inner and outer ackerman settings
* the correct shock piston settings. according to the setup sheet, you are running all holes open in the front shocks and all holes closed in the rear, which is impossible.

Is it correct that you are running your rear ride height lower than the front?

Are you not trueing down your foam tires? The setup sheet says that you are using them straight out of the box at 64mm correct?

A few more things.

What degree front caster blocks are you using?

Can you measure the front and rear droop with a ride height guage? You can do this by using a hex wrench under the bottom of each shock tower to lift up each end of the car until the wheels lift off the ground, while sliding the ride height gauge inwards. Take the measurement on the ride height guage at the moment the wheels lift off the ground and then subtract the ride height from that number. The result is the droop for that end of the car.

Everything looks ok, except for the following two things.

The first is your front & rear ride height. Is there a reason why you have the front lifted higher than the rear? This is unusual, and will take away front end grip by allowing air to lift up the chassis and negate the bodies downforce. I suspect that you are compensating for this by using too much steering rate in order to get the car to turn at full lock after its scrubbed enough speed. With too much steering lock, the front tires will cause the car to scrub speed rapidly until its slow enough for them to grip the surface and cause the car to turn. What is your transmitters EXP setting?

The second is your tires. For high grip foam/carpet racing, with stock motors, the tires you are using are probably too soft. You should try 40 shore all the way around, or 40/35 front/rear if the rear is too loose with 40's. Too soft of a tire will also cause the car to scrub speed in the corners, force your motor to work much harder and may have also helped to burn up the Monster (although the gearing was too high as well).