#3 Set the basics: toe, camber, ride height
OK, your truck is in decent order, you have the parts you want on it, it's time to actually do something.
Set your ride height so that arms are level. Better yet, get yourself a
ride height gauge and set the ride height front and rear. For the LCG
chassis with normal race tires, somewhere around 27-28mm is a good place
to start, but whatever you do, set it and stick with it. Each day you
drive your car, check it before you run out and make sure your ride
height is the same as before. 1mm makes a big difference believe it or
not. To set it, pick up the truck with body off and electronics on,
drop it from about a foot off a flat surface, and then measure the
height under each diff.
Set your camber to -1 degrees. You will need a camber gauge for this.
You can use various degrees of camber, but -1 is a good safe number that
will work in 95% of cases, so just go with it. Again, drop the car
from a foot, measure, and then roll the car back and forth and check
again. Tires are not totally round, so different spots on the tire will
measure differently. Just make sure the average of the different spots
is about -1 degrees (1 degree pointing inward on the top).
Set your toe-in to 0 degrees. This means your front tires should point
straight ahead. You never want the front tires pointing inward.
Pointing outward (toe-out) can sometimes be beneficial in some spots,
but zero degrees is a good, safe number that will work in 95% of cases.
I usually just eyeball toe, there are various ways to measure it, but
eyeballing seems to work fine for me.
Set your rear toe-in to 2.5 degrees. This means using the stock black
plastic rear hubs, and not the Traxxas aluminum carriers. The aluminum
ones only do 4 degrees or 1 degree which is way out of whack unless
you're doing speed runs or you're running on the loosest, lowest
traction track in the world. 2.5 degrees is pretty close to ideal in
95% of cases, so use that! If you have a Platinum or Ultimate, it came
with aluminum ones, but should have also come with the original plastic
parts in the box. Put those back on.
After all this, make sure your truck still drives straight (set your
steering trim) and it's not a bad idea to re-check your EPA/dual-rate on
your radio.
