Preds & jumps?

[showtime]

well i seem to keep hearing the Preds can't jump and was wondering a couple of things

can they actually jump & more importantly land OK?

and what do you need to do to the car to help you in this situation?

i recently got an X10 as i fancied something different & was captured by the awesome looks etc but am planning on running it at Newbury over their winter series! plus as many meetings at Pidges as the calendar allows!
the latest jump section @ Newbury that worked rerally well was also a bit unforgiving if you came up short & claimed a fair few victims!

am i mad even attempting to run a Pred here & should get something else? or should i just stock up on parts & expect to do some major repairs?
people keep telling me its a weak car but i wont kow about that til i run it

what do i need to do to my shocks/setup to help me?

[RogerM]

When I last ran my P8 (I ran preds from the XT to the P8) it didn't seem to have any more problems jumping or landing than anything else at that time.

Some of the preds before that did suffer a little as the nose cone would hit the ramp first and kick the chassis rather than the car driving up the ramp. The P8 (and thus assuming the X10 / X11) had a shorter steeper nose cone to avoid this problem.

There was a weak point on the rear of the chassis. On the older cars if you'd come up short on the landing ramp of something like the cross-over there was a very real chance that the chassis would snap in two (taking the prop and gears with it) at the front edge of the rear wishbones.
Whether that is the case or not with the current cars I am not sure.

As for helping it on the jumps it was always a matter of looking at the front rather than the rear ..... running the single hole piston and thinner oil than the usual 2 hole 40wt standard set-up helped by giving the front more pack which would work well at somewhere like Newbury, not so good on rutty tracks with jumps.

The Pred was always a slightly more difficult car to jump than anything else but it was worth it as it was so much faster than anything else around the rest of the track you could afford to loose a 1/10th on the big jump ...... as back then most tracks didn't really have much in the way of big jumps, even less with landing ramps etc.

That was my experience of the car but it's not exactly up to date.

If I'd seen better support for the car when I returned to 1/10th off-road I'd have probably gone that way and in fact I have nearly bought 4 X10s since I've been back but each time I've convinced myself I have to run something else and keep the Pred as a fall back position.

[super__dan]

The problem as I see it is the fact that you almost 'have' to use the chassis bottoming out as part of the way you get the car to land at all. You'll never hear chassis slap as much as on a pred.

[Southwell]

Nothing wrong with preds on jumps and bumps, mine was always really good at flying, but as Dan said the chassis, especially the front take a beating. I ran one for 2 years and broke one chassis, but that was landing from 6 feet up onto concrete slabs for most of those two years lol. Indoors though im not so sure, i wouldn't run one indoors personally.

[MattW]

The rear does seem "slap" as little as the others have said. I'm sure you can stop it, but i think it would compromise it around the rest of the track.

It certainly isn't a week car. I ran my x10 in 06, and my xx4 in 07, and i can assure you that i used far less spares in 06 than i did in 07!!!

[Richard Lowe]

IMO looking at the roll centre's ect you have to run a pred really soft to generate any kind of grip, which gives the lovely Pred landing bellyflop

If the car had lower RC's they would be able to run the shocks properly...

[Spencer Mulcahy]

The pred that I ran at the F3s was absolutley fantastic. The straight was very bumpy and I felt it ran the straight at full speed very flat. As for jumping and landing it jumps very well and lands well. Chassi slap is all part of owning one.

[showtime]

chassis slap doesn't do us any harm in 8th Rallycross so i suppose as long as it doesn't actually break i should be ok
there's loadsa grip on the carpet anyway so stiffening up shouldn't cause any major grip problems

[MattW]

Rich, on normal UK tracks you can run the car stiff - i ran the rear virtually as stiff as i could when i ran my car - even at Tiverton and never had any grip issues.

[burgie]

oroginal post, made by tom yardy in specific relation to coventry, can be found here, but the synopsis of that post is:-


1/ never let the car float in the air, you must stay in control, never loose the stick during a race, stay in control.
2/ if the nose is too high, dab the brakes or just back off depending on the size of your landing zone
3/ if the car is about to nose dive get on the throttle as fast as you can and bring it back up.
4/ Never land with no throttle on, hav at least some power on to avoid a squat.
5/ RIDE HEIGHT plays a crucial role when jumpin the car. If the nose is too low, it will hit the face and take off will be distorted, often the car will fly with its nose up in the air. If its too low at the back, it will nose dive. Never run the front lower than 16mm or the rear lower than 22

I hope this helps.

[showtime]

thanks guys

so basically i need to stiffen up a bit & be prepared to hear some major slap on landing! and of course be prepared to replace the chasis if & when the rear end snaps off

[alrg500]

pred chassis's aren't weak, the rear end will normally only break if the screws are missing holding the motor mount to the rear end of the car. I have cracked a chassis at the front but only after carrying on using it with a broken gearbox top otherwise I don't think it would have happened.

Normally you just break suspension ball joints and the occasional arm and generally they are a strong car.

[Nick Goodall]

At the Euro's in 2001 we were launching this jump in front of the Rostrum and didn't have any problems with the Pred's breaking! They made up 4 of the Top 5 and won the meeting so the car can't be that bad on jumps ;-) This track had doubles, rythm sections and big jumps and all was fine!

I can't for the life of me remember what set-up we ran though but i'm sure we'll get it working ok mate

[RogerM]

As I said my comments are based on an older version and only if it comes down tail first onto something hard!!!

I remember Rich Savage doing 3 chassis in one meeting at a Tiverton national.

I am sure they are much more robust now though and as I said, never a problem with my P8

[Northy]

I missed 95% of this thread due to being away for a couple of days, and then my router going bang

I have always found that I liked the rear of the Pred (and of them) softer than most people, and have had to live with a little chassis slap because of it.

I have NEVER broken a chassis landing from a jump though, infact I have only broken about 3 in 9 years of racing, and all these were from hitting some sort of un-moveable object very hard (flat out).

But as mentioned, do not forget to fit the screw into the rear motor brace tube, or the rear will come off the chassis in a big impact. That is the single most import screw in the car, Mr Chapman himself would have been very proud of it!

G

[showtime]

the best thing is nobody has said the car is p1$$ weak which is encouraging as i do hit things pretty hard from time to time

SBD looks like you just volunteered to be my pit buddy at Newbury in a couple of weeks

as long as the chassis stays in 1 piece i'm not too worried about a bit of slap



thanks for everyones input so far

[xx4-nutter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaYCo2Aq1mM

listen to the predator in this race

not diggin at the predator but just as an example the charictisitics

[Northy]

That's my car.

Did it all day, didn't break a thing.

G

[mole2k]

I've driven a friends pred x10 occasionally and have never really noticed any problem with it. He had quite a number of heavy collisions and never broke anything other than the odd wishbone on some collisions with immovable objects.

[xx4-nutter]

Originally Posted by Northy

That's my car.

Did it all day, didn't break a thing.

G

yup that is g

that was going sooo well that all day. they are ace cars but i just found in some parts of the track for me it was ace ! .. but some was a bit dissapointing.

has to be the best looking car out there