-Exotek Carbon Fiber chassis conversion
-Exotek Carbon Fiber front and rear shock towers
-Exotek Aluminum Gear case
-Exotek Slipper clutch with 57t spur gear
-Exotek 0deg. Aluminum rear hinge pin mount
-Exotek Pro steering hubs
-Exotek 6 Degree castor blocks
-Novak Mongoose micro pro brushless sensored ESC
-Novak Three 80 6000kv brushless large can 1/8 shaft motor
-Novak 0.6 mod 19t aluminum pinion
-Carbon Fiber 4mm driveshaft custom made by The Cow
-Mip Heavy Duty one way spool front Differential
-Mip Heavy Duty super diff rear Differential
-The Toyz Steel differential gears
-Spektrum SR3500 2.4ghtz micro receiver
-Micro Lexan hide away Antenna custom made by The Cow
-Rpm front and rear suspension arms
-Rpm front bumper
-Max Amps custom made 1720mah 3cell 3s4p Lipo Saddle pack
-Dean’s connectors
-Team Associated Factory Team ball studs
-Team Associated Factory Team outdrive sleeves
-3racing oil filled shocks – one hole dampeners, 65wt shock oil, upper most tower holes and outer most arm hole utilized, 3/8” ride height! Super tight… Super aggressive….. Just on the edge! Running front shock struts in rear. Reversed suspension arms for an extra ½” wheelbase.
-Driven productions Delrin 1/10 wheel adapter
-Jaco Prism 1/10 purple shore ultra light Foams
-Proline Crowd Pleazer body Custom chopped and dropped by The Cow
-Zero Clip Pressure mount Body hold down Custom made by The Cow
Custom tuned... 50+ mph... 25 minute hard run time...
"Everything I wanted and more at the time"
RC18t,mt,b on road conversions, points to consider for real on road performance by " The Cow"
-Center of gravity
I can’t begin to explain how important this is for road use. We need to remember when driving on road our veh will experience traction levels that are simply impossible to come close to duplicating off road. This will completely change the driving characteristics of your veh. IT will amplify overlooked or normally unnoticeable tuning mistakes or lack there of. This will also make the car much more susceptible to breaks and damage obviously since there is no lack of traction to be forgiving and allow wheel slide when you push things to the edge especially in high speed turns. With this in mind it is easy to see how important it is to bring your center of gravity as low as possible. This can be done in many ways. The first is through a smart and educated placement of all electronics and running wear. You will want to have everything mounted as low and close to the chassis bottom as possible. Anything you can do to keep the weight low should be done... even small modifications to lower body height can make a pretty drastic difference in this situation. Remember the more weight you have sitting high in your setup the more likely and more susceptible you car will be to rolls and pavement rolls are extra bad for the wallet! If you have a quality pair of shocks that are leak free (stockers were leak free for me when I still ran them) especially when running heavier weight oil you can gain some small advantages by running them upside down as well. probably the single most effective way of lowering your cg is to physically lower your veh.... this can be done in many ways depending on the shocks and suspension arms you are running by utilizing different mounting holes on the towers and arms. This can also be done by running 4 front shocks (you can rebuild your rears with a front rebuild kit rather then buying a new set of fronts) all around as well. I have run as low as a .20" ride height but except for the cleanest, smoothest lots I have found this to be to low. I run a 3/8-1/2" ride height and nothing sits higher then my tires, actually everything is significantly lower. This height is still high enough to do plenty of pavement jumping as well and still have the suspension travel necessary not to bottom out on landings!!!!
-Shock tuning
You will want to run a much heavier weight oil too tightens the suspension and it’s dampening. 45weight is a good start and still forgiving enough to not make the car to twitchy. I would also run the 2 hole dampeners if your shocks have the option at first. I would not go to one hole dampeners as you will almost remove all dampening, if you run on tennis courts only this would be ideal but I am sure this is not the case so stick with the 2 and adjust further through your oil weights. I personally run a 65weight with the two hole dampeners but this is very unforgiving and I know my veh well. this would be considered very heavy by most but as you get accustomed to the tight and less forgiving suspension if you yearn for less roll and higher speed turns you will end up here as I have.... bottom line is start at 45 and as you grow accustomed work your way up other wise your wallet will suffer from broken part, lol you will also want to invest in a new set off springs... the gold AE springs worked great for me but I do like the 3racing better but they only come with the shocks I believe.
-Wheels and tires
I am sure you will get many different opinions here but in my opinion I would only run foams, period! Remember rubbers are not like our car tires.... RC rubber tires suffer from major roll and expansion!! 2 things that just don’t go with good on road handling. I have even tried the belted HPI tires and although a huge improvement over non belted they still destroy high speed handling. leave the rubbers for the dirt when looking for foams I would suggest you run nitro foams if you are a basher and Jacos for racing. Good foams are not cheap and generally you get what you pay for. in my experience the HPI or Kyosho nitro foams are by far the best bang for the buck for street bashing.... 18-28 per pair but they last me a good 50 bats before needing replacement at least! also make sure to pick up the highest (hardest compound) shore rating. while this will cause traction to suffer somewhat form the hard compound this will stop them from chunking quickly.
-slipper
while this was designed for off-road use I cant begin to explain how usable this is for on road....it should be considered must have for any rc18 no matter the amount of modification or lack there of. this will "tame" the veh especially when seriously tuned for on road use as these cars tend to be very "touchy" in this setup without it. while it does tame the car it will allow you to squeeze every last bit of performance out of it! I can explain the importance of this for durability, drivability, and handling!!!!
-Toe and camber adjustments
IF these are not set up correctly you sweet little ride will drive like a serious POS!! take the time to adjust these right and correctly and you will be rewarded with some insane handling and predictable manners. my recommendation would be to change to a zero degree rear hinge mount. remember on pavement even the slightest misaligned wheel will throw off the whole veh and cause all types of wearing issue on your nice new set of foams. I have also found just a hair of toe in the front is perfect in my opinion. just as the stock turnbuckles are made to induce into the system. As far as your camber adjustments I would recommend you use the stock suspension links (I will use nothing else on mine) as this allows for a slight amount of negative chamber. this is perfect for on road as you do not want the tires to bite or to suffer from push in high speed turns otherwise you will find when entering high speed turns the veh will roll over itself(this is another reason the low cg is so important)
IN general for on road use you are going to be looking for a much "tighter" setup with minimal "roll". Tuning an off road veh to run on road can net some impressive results when done correctly. depending on the type of road use your veh will see has allot to do with the fine tuning but I will try to give you a good general starting point with the rc 18 and you can fine tune for your specific goals from here.... you could also take a look at my tek18 pavement pounder thread for a reference as well. I would be hard pressed to believe that there is more then a few more impressively and well thought out set ups for rc18 on road use. I put allot of time and thought into that build and although I am partial to it since it is my creation I can honestly say the car is a straight up bad ass machine..... I achieved my goals and then some with that build
Build Your Own Betsey...
copyright © 2009 Cow Performance Company, Bayshore New York 11706.
All original logos, wording, and photographs used in this website or in any printed material are the property of Cow Performance Company
and may not be used in any form without written permission prior to use from Cow Performance Company