First run: Suspension tuning

I pride myself on being a suspension freak. It's just a subject matter that really interests me, and it has done so for many years. In R/C, basically all I've dealt with in the past have been the same -- horizontal parallel link setups with upright shocks. You'll find this setup on buggies, stadium trucks, and 'Maxxes alike. It's a very efficient setup that leaves a fairly minimal amount of weight "unsprung" (not supported by the shocks), thus suspension action is maximized. With the Mad Force's setup, the exact opposite is true!

A significant portion of the MF's weight is concentrated in its axle tubes and tires -- it has a lot of unsprung weight. The sprung weight is minimal, thus to get the suspension to work well, you have to use light springs and minimal dampening. Kyosho came out with a new "ultra soft" spring set, but these aren't exactly easy to come by. Back on Step 3 of the Mad Jedi buildup, I already used short "super soft" springs (versus the stock long s.s.'s) to eliminate suspension preload and allow me to lower the truck a bit. This was not good enough. I found that Losi springs fit over the stock shock bodies, but needed to be shoehorned over the lower spring retainers. Nevertheless, switching to 2.5" Losi red springs on the rear, yellow up front, helped the handling of the beast tremendously. Now it was able to soak up the small bumps without bouncing uncontrollably. More work remains to be done.

With a proper suspension setup on the Mad Force, it will feel rather "mushy" if you try to push down on the body or chassis. However, the traditional push-test to check shock rebound and dampening is completely useless on this truck. Hold both wheels of one axle in opposite hands, and shake them around and up & down as actually happens when your truck is on the dirt. See how much (or how little) the chassis moves -- the less movement, the better the shock absorption and the more efficiently the suspension is working.

I have some Traxxas Big Bore shocks left over from the cancelled Valkyrie project dual-BL E-Maxx and will install these soon for more tuning options.