ASK Cubby, Version- Interesting Questions, Totally Made-up Answers
“RC chop shops/ ABT bash
Hello Cubby, I have been a long time reader of The Cub Report and I don’t think I ever read about your thoughts on rc chop shops. You the know ones that take rtr’s or kits and part them out. Over the years I have heard people at the local tracks dislike them fearing it takes money from the local hobby shops. I was wondering what your thoughts are on them.
Personally, I have no problem with them as the parts are much less money and i have had the chance to own and build many cars trucks. If it wasn’t for them, I have to admit, I would probably not own 75% of my collection!
I also went to Autism Abt bash (local superstore of all appliances, TV’s, etc) as BigSquid Rc was on the flier as a sponsor, but no one from the team was there. What happened?
Steve”
Cubby- Yo hey Steve, yours is THE Letter of the Month! Shoot us your snail mail and shirt size for the hook-up.
About guys that take a new RTR and part them out on eBay/CL/forums… I don’t have much to say other than I have no idea how they make any money. Only certain parts are ever going to sell, and when they do sell, they have to give them away. Then you have to take into consideration the time to disassemble a car, advertise the parts, ship the stuff, etc. All in all, nobody is putting their kids through college by chopping up an rc car, so it’s a true wonder to me why someone would do such a thing for essentially no pay (or more often to actually lose money).
About the ABT Electronics Charity RC Car Race for Autism in Glenview Illinois, I had to do a Google search to find out what it was about. And hey look, I was able to find the race flyer on FB. First off, I heard nothing about it, secondly, nobody else in the office has either. If I had actually heard about it, I would have loved to have attended, sadly, I (nor anyone else in the overly lavish BSRC offices) was not contacted. Yet again, someone posts a flyer on FB and thinks the whole world hears about it, when that just isn’t the case.
And while we love getting the BSRC logo out there (like it is on the ABT event flyer), it does cause people to show up expecting to hang out with the BSRC Bash Crew (and babes). When we aren’t there the finger is often times pointed at us for not showing, even when we had no idea the event was happening. The moral of the story is- if you are holding an event, shoot us an email, yes, we actually answer them. We have no problem promoting your bash, plus we would love to show up, cover it, and have a great time getting our big air on.
“Gpm shocks/savage xs
good day. I have the alu gpm Shocks for the Savage XS. the shocks are very soft. if I let the car of 20cm fall, he proposes to the chassis !!!! which is oil in the shocks? ?? so thin should I fill shockoil different? much WT / cps should I take?
Mirco Hefti”
And yes readers, “Hefti” is from overseas, so his English isn’t exactly dialed. In fact, a large percentage of BSRC readers are from across the big pond. They put up with trying to read our English, so I can certainly put up with them attempting to write in it.
Ok, so the best I could gather from the email was that Hefti got some GPM shocks for HPI Savage XS and they are too soft for his liking. He mentions putting in thicker oil, which would make both the compression and rebound damping heavier/slower. However, he fails to mention if the included springs were heavy enough to achieve a proper ride height or not. Just guessing here, but it sounds like Hefti needs both heavier springs and oil.
Just to throw some general info out there on shock tuning for bashing->
If you do a lot of “normal” driving, like not jumping off roofs or hitting big ramps, a fairly normal off-road set-up can be run. Meaning… running a ride height of bones/arms level on the springs, with 30-40 weight Associated shock oil. While a million companies sell shock oil, AE has been sort of the standard for decades, so when someone says “30 weight” they typically mean the AE equivalent.
If you do extreme bashing you’ll want to run a much heavier set-up on your shocks. For instance, you might want to run as heavy of shock oil as you can before it starts to really hydro lock. Yes, it is possible to install shock oil so heavy that during a big hit the shocks will simply lock up and not move, and you Really don’t want that (unless you like broken parts and REALLY rough landings). Roughly, that is around 50-60 weight on most common shocks. You’ll also want to run heavier springs and run a taller ride height. You’ll want the front arms slightly above level, and the same with the rear bones. This heavier/taller set-up will go a long ways towards soaking up huge landings, at the expense of cornering ability.
That’s it for this week ya bunch of lunatics. Whether you are a consumer or a member of the industry, feel free to start up a conversation with me at thecubreportrc at gmail dot com. If you are an industry type your letter won’t see the light of day, but if you are a consumer and your letter hits our front page, we’ll hook ya up with a BSRC sticker pack.
YOUR Cub Reporter
