General RC ground vehicle CG

Derek

Derek

Well-Known Member
So...with planes, helicopters, multi-rotors and such, we all know the importance of center of gravity. Is there such an important concept with ground vehicles?
 
I believe the answer to this is, how serious do you want to take it?!
It is important not to have it fairly well balanced, but I don't think it is as important as a helicopter or plane. Not for general bashing around anyway. If you wanted to race, I'm sure that it is a totally different story!
 
It all depends on how you want the vehicle to handle. With what I'm doing, Racing, I try to get a 50/50 weight bias front and rear. All super cars that you see out there try for the same thing. If you can get a perfect 50/50, the car will handle great.

However, if you want to drift, you will want the weight a little more to the front. If you want to drag race, you want a little more to the rear. It's all on how you wand the vehicle to handle.

I will be getting into this if/when I do the setup videos on the SCT.
 
Ok i'm going to ask the question, which maybe you'll answer in the video if/when you get to it... how to you weight it to work out where your CoG is?
 
You do it all by weight. You don't really do "CoG", but bias. Quite honestly, I have never gotten into it that far to figure out what percentage worked best for what track. But, I might just do that this time.

I usually just take the vehicle out and figure out how it handles. If it pushes, then I know it needs more front bite. If it's too tight, then I know I need more rear bite. It's all about the setup and how you want to drive it and what the track conditions are.
 
Tony said:
It all depends on how you want the vehicle to handle. With what I'm doing, Racing, I try to get a 50/50 weight bias front and rear. All super cars that you see out there try for the same thing. If you can get a perfect 50/50, the car will handle great.

However, if you want to drift, you will want the weight a little more to the front. If you want to drag race, you want a little more to the rear. It's all on how you wand the vehicle to handle.

I will be getting into this if/when I do the setup videos on the SCT.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I thought you would say, Tony! Thank you for that. It makes sense to base the balance on the type of desired setup.
 
I did't even get into oval racing. Road course or bashing, it's front or rear. Pretty simple. If you are doing oval racing, now, you have 4 corners and 4 different weights. And it all depends on 4 parts of the track. The entrance to turns 1 and 3, the middle of the turn where you are transitioning from brake to throttle, the exit of turns 2 and 4, then the straights. And if 1&3 and 2&4 are different, you are in a whole new setup process.

I will tell you this, I spent a lot (let me get this straight, a LOT LOT LOT LOT) of time and money practicing. Back then I was using brushed motors and I spend hundreds on commutators, brushes, brush cutters (still have one brand new lol), what works best, serrated or cut and so on. Then there is the hours and hours of practice getting just the right setup on the vehicle. It takes a lot on these to get them just right.

Yup, that was a ramble lmao.
 
I don't mind the "ramble". Sometimes is takes a good "ramble" to get questions answered, lol. And since I know that you know more about car and truck setups than I do, I was certain that you would post on this thread.
 
It's more that me just liking and "knowing" cars and trucks. It's about the challenge. If you think flying a helicopter is challenging, just wait until you are on the track with 9 other people that are as determined if not more to win and have put in just as much if not more time and money to do the setup. Just the fact of knowing what a vehicle needs and being able to make that change is what keeps me into it.

Yes, I stopped racing quite a few years back. I stopped racing because it was me and two other guys that were in the front all the time. Every race for weeks it was just us 3. You know exactly what they are going to do in each turn, you know how they are going to block you, you know what their line is, and it just gets boring.

so now I'm hoping that getting down to the science of it all, the geometry of it all to keep me engaged. And you bet I will be documenting it all here on the forum. Lets others learn what has taken me years to learn.
 
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