update on experimental bars

I have found these bars work really well in my Eliminator but not so well in my BASX or FWU cars. My BASX and FWU cars wiggle really badly, but with 1/4" cubes in them I have no wiggles. Just my 2 cents.

Steve - Mr.B.

Weight distribution in the chassis is only one piece of a large puzzle, but it's one more thing that needs to be tuned for max performance IMHO.

If you don't try each and every key in the lock you'll never know which one works for you.

Yes, I noticed that with the solid bars there was much more weight on the rear wheels, lighter on the DFW than I was use to seeing and with 2 solid bars I was limited in how I can move weight around while tuning, basically just forward and backwards in front of the axles. With the cubes there is almost limitless combinations of weight placement options. I'm with Zeebzob on this one, I have so many cubes that's all I use now.

I showed the two bar design as a way to simply get you thinking. The typical racer may not do well with just two bars. But after you get the cubes where you want, many discover that they come up with about the same layout when making the same car class. Then you simply can try to replace where you put your alloy cubes with the 99.95% material. The goal is to end up with the same DFW weight you like to run with better balance and faster times. The bar that weighs the same as 12 cubes, but volume is only 11 cubes allows for more experimentation with weight distribution. So if 12 cubes behind the back axle is your best design, I would say try the same weight shorter bar and if you offset it to the DFW side, you should be able to get the DFW weight where you want it and have a smaller moment of inertia around the back axle. The most common layout for a 13 cube weight behind the axle I see is:

and a very small bit of putty.

I will venture a guess of all 24 nickels in the back six holes?

The "both ways" came about when one boy said he got more speed when he moved the last pile of nickles from the row on the right and put it on the left to make a row of 4 and a row of 2. As other boys copied that, some got speed and others went slower so the slow result boys said the idea didn't work and went back to the back 6 pockets. We then got out the scale and found that the NDFW was up in the air a bit and was usually random which side it was on. So you got 3 different speeds and if 4 on the right made you slower, moving it to 4 on the left usually found the speed.
4 on the left is the 4 blue and two green piles, and the COG is the green star. The blue star with white border is all 6 back pockets. The 4 blue and two yellow COG is the yellow star.

Moving the last pile to one side, if you picked the correct side, gave much better balance, and did not move the COG much forward.
Here are the wheel weights in grams for the different loads.