The end of the line for the Kawada... 0-3 for July

Well, last week marked the final race for the Kawada - at least for now. It wasn't a great week either, falling prey to stripping the rear belt and not having any power in the main. I still almost managed to finish third, but for a single boarding incident near the end of the race.

It's kind of sad too - I just put together the best handling version of the car too - I reverted to the Kawada steering after the servo debacle of the previous week, and reinstated the center support and ran my battery in the typical saddle pack fashion. Oh, and that new technology I poo-poohed in post #1 or #2... ya, I added droop screws to the arms!

I think the car can still be competitive at a lower level, but I race with some of the best, and I'm hoping to take a step up. I bit the bullet and purchased a BRAND NEW TOP Photon. Two nights ago was it's maiden voyage, and I feel the car performs much more consistantly, and I alread beat last weeks fast lap time already (by .2 seconds).

I'm going to keep on blogging the exploits of VTA - just at a different URL

http://vtaphoton.blogspot.com

Did I answer the question of being able to compete with old tech?

Vintage Trans Am : 0 for 2 in July!

Well, last night was just a typical Wednesday night racing VTA at MSI. Well, typical, if by typical I mean a new/fu$#@ed up track layout, and typical if last week and this week are the start of a new trend.

To start, the track layout was unlike anything I've had the pleasure/displeasure of running on. The "straight" was actually directly below the drivers stand, and had enough obstacles to make a Ninja Warrior flinch. However, if you were brave, you could go full blast through there - John said it best "clenching [your a$$ cheeks] was worth 3 tenths".
I've drawn up how I remember the track layout - it's not exact, but the pattern and corners are all there :


The first qualifier for me has often been my quickest, and tonight it didn't disappoint as I managed a 24/5:12 right behind Kevin's 24/5:10 and both of us 2 laps down to James (why does he torture us so?). I knew avoiding marshaling was going to be key especially with how far from the marshals most of the action was, and managed to make it through this qualifier marshal-free. I used last weeks gearing of 4.5 FDR, and came off a little hotter than I prefer while lacking pull out of the corners. This run was with the Tamiya spool, and I could visibly see the car struggling in the front end on the track, but managed a fast lap of 11.9. Kevin had a fast lap of 11.5 and James was probably in the high 10's (surprise!)

Before the second qualifier, I swapped out the spool for a differential to see if the car would be any better behaved. I love running the one way, but didn't see how it would do well on this track. I also changed the gearing a bit and ran a 4.75 and drove a bit conservatively. Sometime on the 20th lap or so, the car went straight when I wanted it to go left, and I was on that stand thinking about how much threadlock I used when fixing the lost screw problem from last week as it hopped a board. I got it off the board and it drove fine back around the track to the exact same spot where again it wouldn't turn left. I left it against the board and would check it out after the race to find that I had stripped a gear inside the servo. I don't recall hitting anything of any significance, and people laughed when I told them it was the servo and showed them the Futaba S3003 from 1996 I was running. Hey, if it's not broke, don't fix it!

I spent the $14 to buy a Futaba S3004 as I didn't have any spare servo's with me. The car felt just like it did before, but I moved the end points in a bit as the Ackerman provided by the TC5 steering is a bit more than the Kawada stock unit.

I managed to qualify in third overall with my first qualifier, right behind Kevin (by about 10 seconds) and James added to the beating by turning a 27 lap run. Matt qualified fourth overall for the night and made the A-main for the second week in a row, and was the first time we met in a main!

I geared up a bit more as my fast lap time dipped down to a 12.2 (maybe I forgot to clench?), and was ready for the main. The tone went off, and somehow James had trouble with the first corner, and I was a turn or so behind Kevin when he stuffed the car in the infield as I easily went around for the lead! I had smooth sailing for a couple laps until James finally caught up and ran on my bumper for an entire lap as I was very meticulous about not opening the inside door on any turn. He finally thought he would try something going into turn 7, but I left no room, and he wound up spinning me out to which I said very loudly "Fu$#@!ng hacker - oh sorry!" to the crowds amusement as he was pulling over to let me by once I got pointed the right direction. We battled for another half a lap and then I started having steering issues again which put me all over the track before I realized what it was. I somehow managed to jump a board and land smack dab in the middle of the front straight facing exactly 180 degrees from the racing direction. I pulled the trigger, but heard nothing but the sound of a shredded spur gear as I then proceeded to watch James come through there and through my car at full speed. I was already planning on moving everything to a new chassis so I haven't had the heart to actually look to see what all was broken, but I'm sure I'll find a few things. What I did find immediately after the race that the gears inside this brand new servo were completely stripped along 90 degrees of the mating surface (right where it had been mated). One servo lasts 13 years, its replacement lasted about 4 minutes! Luckily I have a couple of metal geared Airtronics servos that I'm not currently using!

Wednesday points series starts next week, so I've got some work ahead of me to have a reliable car again. July has not been my month and I already know I'm going to have one drop when I go to Indy for GenCon, which only leaves me with one!

Vintage Trans Am for July starts really rough!

So, I have these shiny new Tamiya parts in my car, and I'm trying out a real spool in the car. The track hasn't changed since last week - it's the third week for this layout, which should give me a good comparison since I've only changed the one way out for a spool and tamiya CVD's up front (saving about 18g of rotating mass along the way).

First qualifier starts out, and I'm hearing that I'm setting the second fastest time after about 10 laps! The car was definitely different - I don't think it was faster than usual, I just think other folks were having more problems. So, on lap twelve, my car is a little wide going down the straight, and I go to cut in for the sweeper and the car follows one of Newtons laws of motion - something about a body in motion staying in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Well, that force was not the steering as it should have been - The steering did absolutely nothing when I turned the wheel. The force that did act on it was the outside wall of the track. It acted loudly and mercilessly on the front of the car.

When I assessed the damage, I found that the lower M3x5 screw holding the TC5 steering post in place was missing and the whole steering assembly was flapping in the wind. Also, the front body posts were both broken off at the shock tower. I searched and searched my spares box, but only had one body post spare with me. It took up until my second qualifier was about to start to get another solution rigged in place since I had to figure out what might work, and Ryan was really busy up front with working on ordering parts for someone and fixing someone else's nitro car.

I dropped the car on the track just as the second qualifier was about to start, only to hear that I lost a tooth or two on the spur in the crash as well. I didn't want to hold everyone to to take the time to change it, so I was going to just give it the old college try, and managed to get a whole lap in before it stopped completely. I pulled it off and changed the spur and got back on track to turn another 3 laps before time ran out.

I qualified dead last that night, and was in the B Main for the first time ever in VTA. Ironically, Matt snagged the final spot in the A due to this, so I still haven't raced against him in a main!

The B main was boring and uneventful. I stayed put when the tone went off and waited until everyone was almost to turn one to take off - it may have looked like a dick move, but it wasn't arrogance so much as expecting a pile up in turn one. Sure enough, by the time I got to turn one, two of the cars had wrecked and I slid right past them, and was on Bob's tail for the lead. I stayed behind him for the remainder of the lap as I couldn't make it around without risking wrecking us both. I passed him on the inside on lap two and never looked back. I even managed to avoid Tom's green 'Cuda the entire race, regardless of his best efforts, and turned an okay time of 24/5:09 being that I was over-geared. The spur I threw on was 5 teeth less than I was running in qualifier #1 and I didn't have the gears I wanted, so I left them on the car for the main.

My fast lap for the night was only an 11.7, which is down .2 from last week, but I also didn't have a chance to get in the zone like I did last week. This coming week will be a new layout, which should bring the traction down and require different gearing, so we'll see if I can put it in the top three or not.

Tamiya parts go/no-go?

Well, I got the Tamiya parts in the mail!


The bad news? I pretty much struck out on what I ordered.

The Tamiya axles (53939) for the 415 turned out to be the wrong ones - the drive pin was inside the hub when fully seated.

The rear belt, even with the rear tensioner all the way engaged, was still too loose to propel the car without slipping.

The 44mm swingshafts (54077) were too short to mate with the Kawada differential or one-way.

I did manage to make some trades and acquire axles for a 416, which were the proper fit (with 2 shims). Then, I did a lot of clearancing, and was able to get the 416 Spool with the TAO5 wide pitch pulley on the front of the car without binding. This configuration allowed the use of the 44mm swingshafts. The front belt was a fit (if a bit loose) so I was able to use the whole front end assembly eventually!

The rear end is still all Kawada, and I have two choices : I can order 46mm swingshafts as the 44's are just a bit too short, or I can put a 416 differential in the rear. The rear diff in the Kawada is a delrin diff and is really smooth with the ceramic nitride balls in it, so I'm hesitant to spend $50 or so on a diff that may or may not improve the car. I can get the swingshafts online for between $30 and $40 after shipping, which doesn't thrill me either, so I'm currently not doing either as the rear CVD's are in decent shape (for now).

VTA for fun (and profit? not!) - Tamiya parts arrive!

So, the points series is on hiatus for a couple weeks to give folks a breather, and it's back to racing for glory (only)!

I wound up racing Friday and again this past wednesday - The track layout hasn't changed from the last week of the points, so I don't really touch the car. Friday was good, we were racing while massive storms raged outside. MSI has these really high warehouse windows, and the lightning flashing across the black sky through wthose windows looked very evil-scientist-movie-esque! I managed to drop my fast lap time down to an 11.58 or so, and wound up handing the radio to Dave to drive the main. It looked a little loose - I may have put the traction compound on a bit too soon (as I was going to get dinner), and he wound up finishing just ahead of Marc, but managed only an 11.7.

Anyway, Wednesday was more of the same - I made some small corrections to the droop on the suspension arms, but otherwise changed nothing. It was a low turnout night, only 8 guys, 5 of whom were going to be in the A. I hit 25 laps on my first qualifier, and then 24 in the second and 24 again in the main *hmmmm*. In the main, I got some intense racing with Kevin and his TC5, and dropped my fast lap down to 11.504 - Kevin hit 11.496 for a fast lap. The car may be a handful to drive, but I feel really in tune with it now.

Today, the Tamiya parts I've ordered have arrived - I'm like a kid at Christmas waiting to get home and work on the car. In my posession, I have a 416WE spool to mate to a low friction 36T one-way pulley from a TA05 to create a spool with the same number of teetch as the Kawada diffs have. I have a 416WE low friction front belt, a 416 (normal) rear belt which is 1 tooth/3mm longer than the Kawada belt. I have four 44mm lightweight swing shafts with matching lightweight axles and all the crossjoints needed to build them. Essentially, the entire driveline from a 416WE is going into my car. I will do some weight comparisons of the components for grins as this was not just to replace wearing parts, it was to reduce rotating mass and free up the drivetrain!

Yes, it looks like a Tamiya store exploded at my desk!

VTA points week #8 - the final week!

Week #8, the final week and I'm sitting in fourth, but Jeff in third has been seen nowhere, and may wind up having a third goose-egg which would essentially eliminate him from contention.

I got there early so I could work on the car using the setup board I had made. It's 7 layer 1/2" birch-veneered plywood, and was the platform of the first cross-cut sled I made for my table saw. It's pretty flat and stable, but I forsee 1/2" or 3/4" melamine in my future. Last week I had added massive negative camber to over-compensate for the traction rolling I had been doing. I took that out and set a nice 2 degrees at each corner. I then re-glued the outside lip of every tire AGAIN as one of them had apparently peeled in the main last week. I had plenty of time and took it out for a few laps on the new track layout and it was sliding just a bit, but showed no signs of wanting to go over! I chose a taller gear (4.5 FDR) and just relaxed and chatting with Dave, Matt and Kevin until qualifying.

The first qualifier was mediocre and I had a few issues on the track and the car started to feel awkward to me after that, like it was slowing or rubbing or something just wasn't right. I turned 24 laps, which was still fifth fastest, but a ways off the pace. My fast lap time was a 12.0.

In the pit after the qualifier, I spotted the problem - the same tire had broken the bead again. Since I had nearly an hour, I glued it once on the inside, once just under the lip 15 minutes later, and finally a ring all the way around. Sadly the tire had a bit of a "lump" to it, but I flattened it out best I could. I geared up as I was being run down in the straight still but didn't change a thing otherwise.

The second qualifier was damn good for me and was incident free! I slotted up to a 25/5:06, which was good enough to qualify fourth in a TOUGH field. With James, John & Mike ahead of me, but Kevin, Greg & Jeff behind me for the main.

I touched nothing for the main even though I felt I was slightly overgeared. It was a VERY rough start, and was the exact opposite of last week. The pile up happend in turn three again, but as Mike was being Mike and pulling out of the pile up, he punted my car through the turn and halfway over the board leading to the straight. I was able to drive off of it and rejoin the race in dead last. From there it was just a matter of driving down folks, and I had worked my up a few positions thanks to other folks having mishaps and keeping my own race just as clean as could be. I battled with Jeff for a while to maintain fifth, and eventually pulled away and past a rolled-over Kevin to take fourth. It was smooth sailing until about 30 second to go, I've got a 2.5 second lead on Kevin and James comes up to lap me. I let him by in the second to last turn of the lap, and just as he gets by, he bobbles and hits the board , and I hit him, which of course, sends my car upside down (remind me to use lighter paint next time), letting Kevin past me. I finish in fifth, a bit dejected from that and the fact that trophys and prizes are only for 1st through 3rd.

I don't forsee a new car in my future anytime soon due to the $400+ price tag for any new machine I would consider. I may pick up a used one though - John's Tamiya 415 MSXX is a tempting bit of kit, but I still enjoy giving people a run for their money with an eleven year old car.

Sidenote - Why am I being passed in the straight by Greg, who is using the same speedo, motor, battery and using a taller FDR than me? I think that's a function of the driveline having too much drag in it. I checked out his car a couple weeks ago and you spin the rear wheels together and the drivetrain continues to spin for a while - mine comes to a pretty quick halt. I tore the car apart to work on the bearings and individually, the rear diff, center layshaft, and front one-way all spin very freely, but as soon as I throw the belts on, it comes to a grinding halt - mostly it's the rear axle/belt. I believe I will be ordering a set of low friction belts for a Tamiya 416 WE soon. The front belt is the exact same length, and the rear belt is one tooth longer, which should free it up a bit - and if the belt is too loose, I do have a rear tensioner I can use. I think I will also be ordering Tamiya 44mm lightweight CVD's and outdrives at the same time to reduce the rotating mass by a bit, not to mention the front driveshafts are starting to wear a bit. A 416WE spool with a TA05 18 tooth low friction pulley should also drop right into my car to further reduce the rotating mass.

I'm still tempted to get the BOCA bearing ceramic bearing kit for the car, but that's $120 I'll wait to spend...

Next week : Non-points series racing. I do hope people still show up!

VTA points week #7

Week #7 was the penultimate week for the current points series and going into it, I was tied for fourth with Bob running his XRay 007 Mustang.

Having raced the previous Friday with freshly cleaned off tires, I was still worried about traction rolling. I moved the lead weight that was outboard of the motor to the center of the chassis directly below the antenna to get it more centered as I tipped the car going both right AND left. I also added crazy camber to the car to try and get a bit more slide in the corners.

I banged out a pretty good qualifier in round #1. I had just one incident, but was it a doozy - I flipped in the middle of the track, and watched as the marshall waddled over to the car, bent as little as he good, and flipped the car over byt he end of the body (ya, it was the big guy) - for a stunning lap of ~20 seconds. My lap times for most of my laps were high 10's to low 11's, so that was nearly a full ap lost, and I still finished with a 27/5:05 if I remember correctly, still not making the 28 laps, but damn close. Fast lap for me - 10.5.

The Second qualifier was really strange, the car was back to traction rolling! I did that once or twice and the car started to feel strange to me. I heard Mark tell me to pull my car off the track as it had ripped the new carpet - DOH! Sure enough, right in the middle of the sweeper, the carpet had a small square standing straight up. He said something about my body posts, but they were rounded on the top (thanks to Kevin breaking both of them when hitting me in qualifier #2 the Friday before), and to this day I don't recall rolling the car in that turn when he called it, and have no idea how it happened, or if it was even me. Regardless, I felt bad about it.

In the pits before the main, I went over everything on my car - the body posts, the chassis screws, and the lower part of the body and couldn't find any answers. I did find just a bit of rubber on the left side of the chassis, so I gave all the shock collars a tweak to stiffen them up a bit. I cranked in additional negative camber on all the wheels and superglued the outside bead of every tire.

I made the A-main based on my 1st round qualifier and was even starting fifth. Both Bob's made the A this week, first time Bob Z. made the A ever in VTA. It was an interesting race - the tone went off and we all went through turn one and two and a giant pile up in turn three found everyone in front of me on their lid or against a board or facing the wrong way as I drove through them all! I lead that lap and the next and was over-adrenalized and tapped an inside board, sending the car onto its lid (god I hate that about these bodies) letting three by me in the process. Running in fourth is a much easier experience and the rest of my race was uneventful. I think John won just ahead of either Mike or Greg and I finished fourth, ahead of Bob, which broke our tie for fourth in the points.

VTA LiPo/21.5 Pics

So, I guess I'm not necessarily running old-tech anymore except for the chassis itself. I am now outpacing a couple of drivers I noted were really giving me a run for my money when I ran 4cell/27t by a couple laps!

Got the pics of the unusual layout I came up with for the Kawada to run in VTA. The car is perfectly balanced left to right without adding any weight (when counting a 15g transponder), however the lead on the chasis is to try and help that side stay down on the high speed sweeper at our track. I need to get the car to stay rubber side down when I'm really pushing it.





Ran on Friday last week too. Cleaned the rubber off the tires and got the car turning quite a bit better - too well in fact as it's going lid-over when I push it hard... I did improve from Wednesday though and was on a 28/5:08 pace in qualifier #3 before boarding it with about 20 seconds to go - would have been good for third fastest. In the main I was pushing hard battling to stay ahead of Kevin and heard a 10.5 called out - sadly the printer was out of toner for me to verify this. May add more weight just to keep the car off its lid.

VTA points week #6

I got a chance to run my "new" setup for the first time, so I got there as early as I could to get a few laps of practice in and make any tuning changes. The car pushed quite a bit and I upped the Dual Rate up to 94 so it would make it around turns. Sadly, I don't actually know what my D/R was at last week as I inadvertantly left my radio on, killing 8 NiMH's and in the process it adjusted my steering trim 75R and my DR down to 0. It was odd, turn the car on and the wheels go to the right and don't turn - I thought the servo had been toasted or something.

I chose not to change the setup for the first qualifier as I thought I could just sauce the whole front tire, instead of just half, and slow down a bit before the turns. Qualifier #1 was horrible. The car pushed in one turn and was loose in the next - it just wasn't handling in a manner I was comfortable with. After that qualifier I swapped the B's in the Rear for D's and the C's in the front for E's and re-adjusted my ride height and droop. After a bit of testing, I was very happy with this change, and I've geared down just a touch from a 4.28 to a 4.35 FDR.

Qualifier two started out great! I caught a few guys, and was on a 27 lap pace until I made three stupid driving errors trying to put the car on a tight line and going too tight. I finished with a 25/5.01 but the A-main cutoff was 25 laps luckily, and I was started last - my favorite place to start! I had turned a 10.7 in this qualifier and was running individual lap times well - the fastest lap was turned by James at a 10.1. Bob, who I have been having good times with racing and on the stand and I was tied with in the points series, crashed out of his second qualifier and really only had his 24 lap qualifier to count, did not make the A.

I geared back up for the main, there were seven of us, starting in the sideways grid pattern, odds on the outside wall, evens on the inside wall. The tone goes off, and the TQ (James) is just sitting there, as am I. I take off, blow by him still sitting there and through the first and second turns, going around Al who was tangled in something. James took off just behind me and spun my car going into turn three - thanks bud! After dropping back to dead last, I was left to run my own race, only getting back past Al due to him flipping. He came back and was able to get back around me - cleanly, thank you! I was getting lapped by James, who went from dead last to leading in fairly short order, and he came up behind me going into turn one. I decided I was going to hold my lines and, in turn, him for a while to see if he would choose to drive through me. My faith in humanity was restored when I finally let him by six turns later without him getting impatient or trying a move that was doomed to failure. The whole rest of the race was rather un-interesting - in a good way. Other than Al flipping, I don't think anyone, myself included, needed any marshalling. I didn't board the car, I didn't hit anything, and the traction rolling of last week was a distant memory! I placed poorly, finishing sixth out of seven (only because Mark broke something in the Tamiya), but I finished with a 27/5.08 or so, almost two laps faster than my qualifying time! I felt awesome after that race though! I did find out after the race that my lap times were down from the second qualifier, and talking to Greg, who finished second running the same ESC and similar batteries (just on a newer car), he was geared at a 4.45. I went up and now I think I should have gone down a bit more.

I might be racing Friday this week too - could be fun as I know the track layout well and where to gear! I have to be careful though, the last time I felt this good about a result, the next time I raced I crashed and nearly literlly burned - In the main, the battery shifted, one cell shorted out against the motor and got really hot and expanded and was no longer usable, making the whole pack useless until I found a use for a 4-cell pack.

Kawada VTA car 1.5

So, this continued traction rolling of the Kawada with a LiPo in it has me scrambling to come up with a solution. I've shelved the 13.5 car - which had some unique hop-up parts on it - and stolen the Yokomo shocks, the rear toe adjustment piece, the lightweight aluminum locking nuts for the wheels, and the rear belt tensioner and installed them all on the VTA car. I've gone to softer springs now as there is absolutely no rubber on the bottom of the chassis, telling me it's probably grabbing the side of the tire and rolling as opposed to using up the suspension first. I've revised the ride height downward to be 5.35mm rear and 5.25mm front, and have taken out front caster by flattening the mounting position of the lower arm. Lastly, I have added my own upper link holes in the front and rear shock towers so the upper links are as long as physically possible (quite a bit longer than possible with the stock mounting locations) and also made them parallel to the lower arms at the current ride height.

(Pics forthcoming...)

That may not completely solve it, but I think the car has gone under weight by a bit which means I will be adding some lead weights onto the lower deck of the chassis which will lower the CG a bit and may stabilize the car.

VTA points week #5

I know it's almost time for VTA points week #6, but having been traveling a lot lately has gotten me behind on a lot of things that need to be done, and updating this was way down the list of things to do.

Week #5 was the first week the car was running the LiPo with the Novak 21.5 BL motor. I keep it on the down-low too, keeping the car covered and talking about the 27t running strong for the first qualifier :) I smoked the first qualifier and was on a 26/5:08 pace (which was only about 6 seconds behind the TQ pace for that qualifier) until I was passing John who unintentionally boarded me and I lost about 3/4 of a lap due to being boarded in the corner with the slowest marshal at the track. It's not that he wasn't doing his job or wasn't paying attention, he's just larger, older, and moves a little slow (but damn can he drive a 12th scale!). Wound up with a low 25 lapper, not bad, but not great.

Second qualifier is what I'll call karma coming back as I rapidly came up to pass John in this qualifier, and just like qualifier #1 we tagged, but this time it was he that wound up on the losing end. It was a great qualifier, but I somehow traction rolled the car in the sweeper (shades of every test with a lipo in the Kawada), which threw me off for a few laps, but I wound up with a 26/5:10 or so and was the third fastest qualifier for the class.

I had some balance issues in the main due to fiddling with my radio - I moved the EPA for the throttle and brake up to 120% because I can't get the thing to stop even with full brakes applied. Well, that change really altered how the drag brake got applied and I lifted to avoid the back of someones car going into turn #1 and the car locked up the rears and spun sideways, getting me tagged. Three traction rolls through the race later and I'm still challenging Bob's Mustang for third when he makes an unforced error and I take home third, which puts Bob and I into a tie in the points series.

VTA points week #4

Another week in and out! Not much has changed in VTA, but my longtime friend Matt has now joined the sport, and I believe we are the only two guys left in the class running the 4 cell 27T combo. Both Bob's have switched (one from a 1s 13.5, one from a 4 cell 27T), Mark's dad looks to have switched. Allan might be on 4cell, I haven't asked. I still managed to qualify 6th for the A main behind John, Mark, Jeff, Bob & Doug, but ahead of Allan and another John. The race went well, Mark and John were battling for the lead but Mark's car sounded god-awful and he was laughing about losing his spur gear, but was still battling with John for almost 3 minutes before the noise became a brain-numbing screeching and the car came to a stop. I was running in third behind John & Jeff (one lap down) up until about 30 seconds to go when Bob came up behind me and ran through the back of my car to get around instead of actually trying to pass and then just kept on driving. I closed back on him, but the half lap he took from me was too much to make up in the final half minute.

John with his Team Magic Camaro took the day followed by Jeff in his fat XXX-S Cuda and Bob in the Tamiya Mustang.

In the B-Main, Matt, on his first night out, with the coolest looking VTA car on the track (see my post from 2 days ago :D ) took home the win! He had to beat Bob driving a new car that looked pretty racy, and had to navigate around the Camaro-hating Tom in his bright green Cuda - The same Tom who seemed to always drive right into me when I was in the same qualifier as him. I actually got to watch Tom in the main and he seems to do a decent job driving his car when there are no other cars around, but as soon as there's another car in the vicinity, he went off line and steered right into the other car almost every time.

Airbrush Work

I finished my first "airbrushed" body tonight for Matt.

Lots of work and many coats of paint... Having done a complex paintjob now, it seems to me that masking is the biggest consideration when deciding the order in which colors get applied. For instance, the number circles on Matt's body were white, ringed in black. Typical RC body painting says you paint the darkest colors first, but the black rings were the second to last things I painted - the last being the white circle itself. In theory, I guess I could have cut a negative circle mask, put the smaller circle inside that and started there, but it felt a lot more convenient to just lay down a circle mask, and paint around it, and then let the paint be my mask... The same holds true for the stripe on the car - the stripe is actually the same blue used for the main body of the car, it's just backed in black instead to white. I would have had to lay down the blue over the entire car, then mask off the stripe, laying tape over fresh paint (which worries me), then do my backing in white, then back the stripe in black... My way took a little extra time due to the number of color changes I did (9 "layers").

I look forward to painting the next body and improving

Week #3 addendum...

I had mentioned my "wounded" 13.5 car in the last post... Well, tonight I figured out what was truly wrong with it... The comm had a better hourglass figure than any of my ex-girlfriends - check this out!


While it's not as easy to see in the picture as it is in person, that spot right in front is devoid of all copper whatsoever... Ya, I think that one is DONE!

Oh, and about that milling action...


She lasted long enough to get me home!

Oh, and picked up some colors to do some painting with... Red, Blue, White, Silver, Fluorescent Yellow, Fascent Blue... all I need is a sucker volunteer to let me do some painting on their body :)

VTA points week #3

Finally, we get a new layout! It's a long sweeping track with just two switchbacks before leading onto the entry to the straight. Mark has added a little obstacle coming off the last switchback though - so while you want to go out to the edge of the track, you can't, because there's a board there! Learned very early on that you want your drivers side mirror to get taken off by that board for the fastest way through there - thank goodness I left those off my car :)

During practice, Dave took my car for a few laps and turned an 11.2 or so - I was still working on the gearing though. James, ah James! His first week in VTA running 2s/21.5 in a TC5 turned 9.7's...

I improved to 10.9's by the second qualifier, but thought I was slightly over-geared at a 5.09, the next lowest ratio I had available to me was a 5.2, so that's what I ran in the main. It just involved dropping a tooth on the pinion - I swapped it out just before I went out for the main as I had been working on my wounded 13.5 car.

As a side note, Mark was teching the fastest qualifier in each VTA round, which was me in both my qualifiers as Bob came unglued in both qualifiers at about the 4:40 mark - the car with no weight added comes in at 1458g and no worries on final drive ratio - no problemo!

I ran okay in the main - I was touching boards where I shouldn't have been, and lost time to silly mistakes. I heard the scoring for one of my laps at a 10.7, which made me very happy until, shortly after that, it sounded like my front belt had started slipping a bit - I had corrected that before practice. I get to the last lap, and my car is slowing like it's dumping, which should be next to impossible, I manage to pull the car across the finish line and park it. I go to move it closer to me after coming off the stand and it won't move! I get to it, and can hear the motor spinning on throttle, but no movement. I peel open the body and it looked like someone had been milling my spur gear into something a little more round, but without teeth, and there is a perfect line of white plastic along the back of the chassis- DOH! I finished fifth in the A, and was the fastest guy running something other than 2s/21.5

I look forward to trying to improve my lap times on this fast, sweeping track layout - a type of layout which I've always felt suited my car best.

Pondering the airbrush...

I decided to drag out my airbrush this past week - I used to be pretty decent with my Aztek, but killed it painting an 8 foot tall penguin in epoxy on the bottom of a friends pool - believe it!

I bought a Paasche VL to replace it, but never felt real comfortable with it. I figured out why this past week.

When I used the Aztek, which was a side feed brush, I always used the gravity feed cups, and the Paasche VL is strictly a siphon feed brush. My compressor wouldn't put out enough pressure for the VL to work properly, maxing out at 22 psi! I decided to try my air tool compressor hooked into the water trap/regulator for the airbrush and dialed up the regulator to 35 PSI, and when the compressor stopped running I could actually hear my airbrush hose hissing unbelievably from both ends! It was the one that came with the brush, but it was a piece of junk that didn't seal at either end. A new hose and new Teflon tape later, and a tightening of the plug on the water trap, and I can hear nooooo air leaks! At a very steady 35 PSI, the brush works really well spraying the acrylics. I've done a bit of test painting, and so far so good. From fine lines, to large clouds of paint, I'm getting a good feel for how to control it. I sprayed a test piece on a cut up plastic bottle, and while it needs some work on the colors, the line work was pretty good.

More to come...

VTA points week #2

This class is growing, with eleven entries this week! I ran a couple good qualifiers, fairly clean and managed to make the A main in fifth. John was running his 21.5 and Mark had his car working as good as his main last week. Mike switched from a 4 cell 17.5 combo to a 2s 21.5 and was running obscenely fast on the straight and I think turned the fastest lap of the night, turning in a 12.9! My fast lap for the night was a paltry 13.8 :( The A-main was lined up like the TA races of old, every car was on an angle facing away from the outside wall along the straight. I thought we were still being lined up when the tone went off, being left behind by all five of the other cars on the track - doh! I had my revenge as there was a major tangle up in the second turn and I passed three of them right back. I ran in third for a couple laps until I tapped an inside board and the car went rolling down the track landing on its lid - I haven't figured out if it is the body or the bumper that seems to always cause the car to roll over upon tapping a board. From there, it was an uneventful race for me until about the last two laps. I saw Allan slow up and stop on the track ahead of me (even though he was running behind me), and then take off like a bat out of hell just as soon as I got near him, and aimed his car right at me for the next three turns until I was a fair distance away from him. I didn't think too much of it, but as the tone went off, ending the race about two laps later, I came up on him again going into the final sweeper where he ran me into the boards sideways. I'll keep an eye out to see if this remains a trend.

I finished in fifth, I thought I did well other than my rollover. I turned a bunch of 13.8's & 13.9's and just felt my car was slow. Dave wanted to show me otherwise as he had been watching me, so after all the races were done, he took the time to drive my car. My car, my battery, my radio, no changes at all, in someone elses hands - and on his 4th timed lap turned a 13.1

I am truly humbled.

I know what I need to do now.. Practice, practice, practice...

Scales are here - hmmmm

So, I bought 4 mini digital scales of rctech.net on Monday afternoon. They showed up Wednesday, and I finally got to play with them tonight. I'm going to have to get some help on balancing my car using this technique - so far it looks like adjusting pre-load on a spring plants the opposite shock at the other end of the car... makes sense... sorta...

Also, holy cow batman! I put my NiMH packs on the scale - OMG - 443 grams! If the IB 4200 saddle pack is truly 265 grams, that would be a massive weight savings, and bring the car closer in line with what the class minimum is. Hopefully there is money in the budget for one or two of those little girls :)

VTA Point series week #1

VTA points series started at MSI last night! There were 11 official entries and 1 unoffical (John with his 2s, 17.5 car not counting towards points) entry in the class last night. Seemed to be good times - I kept my third position in the A-Main because Doug, whom was running right behind me and even ahead of me for a short period of time got into a battle with Mike and was laughing too hard on the stand to drive fast enough to catch up (take em how you can get em - thanks Mike!
1st place was Jeff's Cuda, Losi XXX-s running a 2s/21.5
2rd place was Bob's Mustang, XRay 007 running a 4cell/27turn (the car he won on sunday with)
3rd place was my Camaro running a 4cell/27turn

I don't know the order below me, but the contenders were
Mike's Cuda, XRay 009 4cell/17.5
Doug's Mustang, Tamiya TA05 2s/21.5
Rick's Cuda, XRay 007 4cell/27t

Mark, who didn't really have a qualifier to speak of having just finished his car while at the track, dominated the B main in his Tamiya running 2s/21.5, followed by Allan, who is the brave soul running the only 1970 Boss Mustang I have seen to date!

The track on sunday didn't have a huge straight, but the new layout, where nearly half your laptime was spent on the straight in this class, it was painfully obvious that the 21.5 guys were head and shoulders faster. I joked with Doug that I dreaded the day he could keep the car off the boards, because we wouldn't be catching him if he did... In the main, he would come out of the infield a turn behind me, and could easily have driven through me before the end of the straight - Mark even called it good bump drafting - I called it holding the tight line.

Fun time. contemplating a 21.5 already though as a very clean run was almost a full lap off the pace... Have to check my drivetrain though as a 5.47 came off @ 200 degrees in my car and a 5.4 in a friends came off around half that.

Fast Forward!

So, here it is, the end of April. What happened in February, March and April?

Well, I did race nearly every week up through the end of March (which is when Larry's Friday nights died off). A quick summation in Billy Joel-esque sequence : I tested a LiPo and continuously traction-rolled, I won a B main, I crashed and burned the week after (almost literally), I built a new version of my Kawada, I qualified for the A main twice where I proceeded to go out on the first lap each time, Larry's dumpster literally DID burn, I built a third Kawada for street racing, I found a new track, and I rebuilt the first Kawada as a VTA car... That actually brings me current, but I want to describe the updated cars.

At the beginning of February, I acquired nearly two cars worth of parts, including some of the performance hop-ups I didn't even know existed. I set out building this new racer alongside the car I was still competing with. It would utilize the narrow Kawada chasis, All new stainless fasteners, lightened bulkheads, Yokomo ys-1sss-7 shocks, aluminum C-carriers and rear hubs, and aluminum VOLT uprights. I did some theorizing on set-up, reading as much as I could about roll center & suspension setup as I could find. I slightly over-compensated initially when I built this car, but the setup has been adjusted and settled into a groove with only very minor changes happening now. This car is pretty much the slowest car at the new track, but it's also the only car that is running either NiMH or a brushed motor - everyone is Lipo with brushless. This puts my car at a pretty hefty weight of 1,640 grams, 140 over the minimum for the class, and as such is a lot harder to handle in the turns than it could be if I switched to LiPo. The IB 4200 saddle pack comes in at 256 grams, my NiMH pack comes in at 402, for a difference of 146 - almost exactly the amount I'm overweight by. It's a fun car still, and I'm now pretty much an expert at moving over for people. I'm running a donated body that is a little closer to what the fast bodies are these days - I'm not a huge fan of green on a race car, but it gets the job done.





The other car is for my new favorite class - Vintage Trans Am! I took the original car I started running back in january with the wide chasis, and rebuilt everything using the tuning I learned for chasis #2. Ceramic diff balls, rebuilt shocks (shorter & softer, but still the Kawada shocks), all new stainless hardware, a new 27 turn motor, one of my new NiMh's that fried a cell had another cell removed to become a great 4-cell pack, with a couple of NiCd 2000 packs to round out the power options. Oh, and all new gears - the final drive ratio for this class is insane!

I also experimented with this chasis - I wanted to see if I could move the steering servo to the left side of the chasis, opening up the right side to allow a stick lipo to be fitted a-la every new TC car that's out there. Scouring through car manuals and pictures, it seemed like the TC5 steering centerpost would be the easiest implementation, and I'll be damned if it wasn't! I put one shim under the post, and one above it, and it fit in perfect - what's even better is that all the linkage to control the steering is pretty damn close to level at the proper ride height. This car wasn't originally going to be a VTA car, so I'm running with just the 4 cell packs, and the handling is outstanding. I haven't done an official comparison running the same gear in both chasis' yet, but after the first day of racing with it, I feel really good about how it works. The one downside as I see it now is that the balance is slightly left on the chasis now while running 4 cell saddle packs - the receiver could be moved to the speed control side, but that's a bit too close to all that voltage IMO, and the slight balance gain could be negated by a glitching car... I have scales coming soon to see how off it really is. A couple pics to show off this mean fighting machine!


I love the stance of this car - it just looks mean and fast coming at you and showing it's taillights to the competition

Note the location and direction of the steering servo - it is NOT in the stock location!

Level arms is good! If I've down my drawings right, the Roll Center is just about the top of the CF lower deck.

This car did OUTSTANDING its first time out this past Sunday, taking the fight to the guys running 2s/21.5 and turning the fastest lap in the main and backing it up by being within .1 of that lap a number of times! I only finished second, about 4 seconds (less than half a lap) back from the leader - to say I had trouble with traffic is an understatement. The weight without transponder is 1445 grams, so it should be legal when running with a transponder (forgot to weigh it with it in).

Post week #2

I received the 3 4200 mAh batteries I bought off the rctech.net forums on Saturday - they were certainly very used, hence the $10 each price tag! I set out to reconfigured the packs to be saddle packs and get them cycled to see how they rate. They were exactly as pictured, and I ranked and labelled them on appearance alone before charging them : A, B & C.

As I had guessed, B was better than C, but A acted extemely unusual. It peak charged at 9.75v with an average discharge voltage of 6.67v - other than runtime of 574, this was worse than my 2000 mAh's. I spent an evening cycling each cell individually and found cell #5 to be bad - it would charge up completely showing a peak voltage pretty high, but would then on the discharge side would drop out after a few seconds. I'll probably pick up a cell or two just so I can make a decent practice pack out of it.

I didn't get much else done during the week - I had planned to cut the motor and put new brushes in it, but that never happened. Luckily I did find out that the battery hold down was broken, and got the holders out of there so I could run tape through to hold the batteries down instead.

I also spent a bit of time with a set of calipers measuring the rear arms of the car to see what could be a match - the TC5 rear arms look pretty similar and have about the same length, so I'm hoping they'll be a match.

Race week #2!

The next friday I went racing - it was the start of a points series, and I fretted making five minutes with my packs as I hadn't received the 4200's I ordered yet. When the drivers meeting starts, they announce that races will be six minutes!

I charge up the 4200's for the first qualifier and get out there on a new layout and run a fairly good qualifier, holding back on the throttle being worried about run time. The car is oversteering pretty fiercly with the new tire and spring combination with the TC pattern applied. The 4200 still has full power and plenty of runtime left at the end of th race.

I swap out the rear springs for a softer Kawada spring and get my best 2000 mAh pack ready to go. I run a good qualifier for the first 4.5 minutes when I finally board the car and need marshalling - I lost a good 10-15 seconds, which is a full lap and then some on this track. It didn't really matter, I completely dumped on the last lap and had worse overall numbers than the first qualifier, but my lap times were improved and the car felt better.

I get the 4200 charged for qualifier three, and disable the current limiter on the speed controller when I'm offered someone's spare LiPo battery to run! I get the wiring redone with some help from Terry, get the pack taped down (it's a standard stick type 2s LiPo), and make sure the car runs with it, which is seems to do. I don't get a chance to get any test laps until my qualifier starts... Unfortunately, switching from NiMH saddle pack to LiPo stick pack causes three changes that in combination spell disaster:
1. The car is lighter
2. The car has a higher center of gravity
3. The weight is now on the outside of the chassis

Needless to say, I was flipping the car coming out of any high speed corners unless I drove slowly. I drove slowly, and the lap times showed it, and I also had a weird steering glitch - that blue wire = FET servo = Powered directly off the battery. The servo was getting too much voltage and freaking out under high current draw (i.e. full throttle). I wound up flipping the car four or five times, one time right off the track, breaking a rear body post in the process, using my last spare to fix it.

The main came, and the 4200 was charged and ready to go. I qualified third for the B main based on my first qualifier. The race was fairly uneventful, I finished where I started, but improved on my qualifiying time by almost a full lap. I won't find out until late next week that I've broken the battery hold down piece on the left side of the car...

What to do between races?

Having four days til the next race day gives me an opportunity to spend some time fiddling with my car and gear...

During the week from Monday through thursday, I cycle my four "best" 2000 mAh packs and cycle individual cells on a few weaker packs, and swap out a couple bad cells for cells that more closely match the rest of the cells in the pack just to improve my chances of making a 5 minute race. I document all the stats of every pack every time I cycle one to see which ones I should be using.

On Wednesday, I stop by the hobby shop to pick up an 87 tooth spur gear to help fill in the slight gap in gear ratios I have due to not owning a 23T pinion. No 87 to be had. Just a 78 and an off brand 86 tooth I'm told may not fit. The guy at the hobby shop is an off road racer, sponsored by Orion, so we get to talking, and I tell him what I'm racing and what gear I've got and my battery/charger dilemma. He shows me a charger, it's a tiny thing, DC only, but it will charge anything - NiCad, NiMH, LiPo, LiFE, etc... It would fit neatly in my pit box but for the huge power supply I would still have to lug around - until I mention that and he shows me a DuraTraxk Onyx 230, which is barely any bigger, and has an AC input already. I decide to bring it home to be my new charger to take to races because it eliminates the HPI box from what I have to carry! Hopefully the Turbo 30 TF won't be jealous.

At home that night, I play with the charger a bit, make some leads to be able to charge packs, and then I take the plunge. I still have my Tekin G9 speed controller, but I didn't use it in the TC because I didn't have the urge to desolder the G12c III and set up the G9. I take the plunge and swap out the speed controller and get it set up, remembering what the blue wire leading to my steering servo was for and making sure that's re-connected. I dial down the current limiter to about half and set the brake at about three quarters. While I'm in there, I clean the motor comm, and the brushes, and run some comm drops through the motor.

On Thursday, I get a small little padded envelope in the mail from Competition Electronics and get that little chip installed, and verify that I'm now on version 4.6 on my Turbo 30 TF, and proceed to cycle my only 4200. The numbers on it are vastly improved and I'm liking my chances of making five minutes with it.

The Plan For Friday : New Charger, New Tires, Tekin G9, 22/81 gearing, HPI Black springs in the rear (down from HP Purple)

Parts ordered

The Monday after the race I start trying to figure out what I want to do about batteries as the 2000's are a dicey proposition, and running one 4200 NiMH four times in one night just didn't sound like a good idea... Oh, and there is that little problem of the Turbo 30 TF as my charger.

Monday morning, I make the call to Competition Electronics and spend the $25 to get the firmware update to let the Turbo 30 TF charge hi capacity NiMH's. In my mind, it's a worthwhile purchase regardless of what I wind up doing.

I shop ebay, I shop the rectech.net for sale forums, I'm rather undecided about what I want to do - there's cheap LiPo's on ebay straight from Hong Kong, there's cheap balance chargers too... I make up my mind when I find an ad on rctech.net selling 3 4200 NiMH side-by-side packs for $10 each plus shipping. I commit to buying those and running NiMH for now.

My first raceday in eight years!

The day finally came, I was prepared for it - I made my way into the building the scope out pit spaces ahead of lugging my gear around - I spotted one right in the first row all the way against the wall, then brought the Crafts man-o-saur, HPI box and car to the pit spot. After getting set down, I realized I was pitted next to Barry - someone I knew! Then after talking to the guy across from me, Terry, I knew him by name from back in the day as well, and behind him was John, someone I knew really well from back in the day. All told, there were four people I knew there that night and all of them within shouting distance!

The night was going well after getting registered and finding out that I was one of maybe five people in the building not using a spektrum radio, I got a few laps of practice in. The car handled about how I remembered, it couldn't carry much speed into and through the corner, but it squirted out of the corner like no other. I chose not to change anything for the first qualifier and ran the new 4200 mAh NiMH battery with a 26/84 gear ratio.

The first qualifier and I'm on the stand waiting for the start, getting jokes about "going fishing" and the anouncer comes on and asks me if I even remember what tires I have on the car. Apparently noone runs Kawada 20 or 25's with blue inserts anymore - go figure! The run was fairly uneventful, I was able to keep it clean and avoid needing marshalling - however, at about the 4 minute mark, my car starts slowing down big time! Here I am, with a brand new 4200 NiMH pack and dumping after 4 minutes! I thought my Turbo 30 was partially to blame as it doesn't have the NiMH update - I was thinking it wasn't providing a full charge. Barry says that NiMH's need a few cycles on them to "wake them up".

The second qualifier, I gear down a tooth to 25/84 to try and increase runtime on older batteries as I've got 2000's in, trying to make five minutes. I'm off like a herd of flying turtles and manage to keep it clean again, avoiding needing marshalling a second time, and trying to conserve the 2000's. I do manage to keep full power for about 4:45 and squeek out the last lap on a flattening pack! I turned a 24/5:01 or something along those lines and felt good for qualifier #3.

For Qualifier #3, I've asked Terry to charge my NiMH after running it on the discharge board until it was even, and he was happy to do it. On top of that, he had been rummaging through his pitbox and placed a well used set of Sorex 28's on my pit stall. I get them doped up and out for qualifier #3 and turn a couple laps on them when a familiar sound is heard. The sound of tires squeeling around turns as they gripped was like a little bit of music to my ears. The car doesn't slide through the corners like it did previously, and can carry a little more speed into the turns! I'm scheduled to start third this qualifier, so I park the car about halfway down the straight, waiting for the other drivers to get set to start. I'm watching a car zip around the track - I realize he's trying to turn a flying lap as he barrels down the straight away - straight through the back of my car, which goes flying down the track sideways and backwards. When it stops, facing the wrong direction, I can see from where I am that the rear-wheel steering option has been added to the car! Reflexively, I give the driver who did it a really natsy look and storm off the stand to go take a look. Oh yes, the left rear arm of the car is in three pieces. I throw the car into the pit box, take the transponder out and return it, and when I get back to my pit, Terry has taken the body off and is asking if I have any spares so we can get me back out to get a couple laps in! Long story short since I hadn't working on the car in so long, I had thought the arms were reversible, which they are, with the exception that the shock mouting hole is only on the wrong side, which was of course on the wrong side the first time! I do get back out, but with only 15 seconds left in the race - I turn a couple laps to get a better feel for the car. The driver who hit me came over afterward, and profusely apologized for what had happened and told me he was embarassed to have done that. That's class my friends, and I told him I truly appreciated that level of sportmasnship. That still left me without a really good qualifying run and I'm in 8th out of 10 cars, 5 in the A main, and 5 in the B main, with me right in the middle of the B...

For the main, I had Terry top off the NiMH and went back up to 26/84 because the 2000 made 5 minutes on 25/84 and I've got a good charge on the NiMH now! I've out-qualified two people in my class, my friend John, and my other friend Mark! Okay, neither of them completed a qualifier.... I'm qualified right behind Jeff, the driver who hit my car in qualified #3, so I have a goal to finish ahead of him :) The race goes well, and for the third time in the night I'm running clean and avoiding marshalling. John never made the race, and about halfway through Mark drops out of the race with some sort of problem. I'm running in second, ahead of Jeff and running well. At about the 4:15 point, the battery really starts dumping again! I keep it running around the track, and get passed back by Jeff, but I thought I had lapped him, so just keep trucking on and make 24/5:15 finishing in third. Coming off the track, Terry stops me with an infrared thermometer in hand and checks my motor temperature - 227 degrees I guess is a bit too high - whoops! I guess I was about 3 teeth too high on the pinion which testing after all the mains were completed showed.

All in all, not a bad night - I got a good feel for what was needed, where I was lacking, and I got wheel time.

$40 later, I now own my own set of unused Sorex 28's - which means I'll be back next week!

Take a trip through the museum

So, let's get moving and stop and check out the relics from the past.

What a great picture! Captured on film here, we have several items found in few pits there days. In the far back right corner, we have the ubiquitous 12v power supply - not just any power supply, a HUGE power supply capable of 20 amps of output, and heavy! Up close in the bottom left corner of the picture, we have a battery, composed of six cells (6s!!!) putting out a hefty 7.2V for an incredible 2000 mAh... but wait, it's being balance discharged! Those LiPo guys aren't the only ones who get to have fun. Lastly we come to the feature attraction in this corner of the museum - an in-use Competition Electronics Turbo 30 Turbo FLEX! Yes, this behemoth does it all still, exept charge big NiMH batterys or any LiPo batteries, but it still outputs 5v to test your motor with... wait, does that work with brushless? Seen here, this Turbo 30 is busy cycling a NiCad 2000 mAh pack after it's cells have been re-"matched". Let's leave the old girl to her business, shall we?



What you see here is an FM transmitter, which uses an extendable "fishing pole" style metal antenna to deliver its signal on a frequency specified by insertable "crystals" that you put in the radio and the receiver. If we check our history books, we'll see that this is a Futaba T3PDF with a whopping 3 model memory. Also visible in this picture is the big red Crafts Man-o-saur tool chest - she's been my faithful pit box for thirteen years now. she's old, she's red, and she's HEAVY, but she can't hold the power supply and the Turbo 30, so those beasts get their own pit box, seen below trying to camoflague itself on top of the Crafts Man-o-saur...

It's not working terribly well is it? Hey, look who just pulled into the pits!


It's the Kawada SV-10 Alcyon himself! Look at that fine Honda Accord body and those super special chrome racing wheels! He must get all the girls! Does anyone recognize the paint scheme from anywhere? It may have been a world champion or something, but it was in a magazine in 1997 or 1998 on a buggy. This driver asked one of the local airbrush-masters to adapt it to a touring car body - he did an outstanding job, and this is actually the third iteration of that body, - the second and third being done by another airbrush-master who added his own touches of originality to the paint scheme. This is the last known survivor of the trio. If this brash little kid didn't wake the Turbo 30 beast, perhaps we can get under his shell for a closer look at what passed for a touring car over ten years ago!


It's almost too easy to get this top off - I didn't even need beads! So whatcha got kid? Carbon Fiber chasis? check! Aluminum? check! Two-Belt driven? check! Stiff upper deck? check! CVD's? check! Super Front one-way diff? check! So, what's it missing? Droop stops. droop stops? ...so what? Ten years and the only thing you're missing is droop stops?


And here he is, proudly showing off his super-quiet 48 pitch gears along with those super grippy eight year-old Kawada tires, which have the writing "20 blue" on the inside of the rear wheels.



And now we move to the front of the chasis, where we can spot some more antique electronics. On the right, is a Tekin G12 III speed controller, for when you want to go fast with no limits (disclaimer : "no limits" does not include the use of LiPo batteries or brushless motors). On the left, we have a double stack of barely-out-of-the-tube-era electronics - a KO-Propo 2000 FET servo, which I guess, explains what the blue wire leading off from the speed controller is. On top of that, the always popular Futaba FM receiver, with a factory tuned antenna of the right length for channel.... 68 dude! Also pictured are the matching Kawada tires - these specimans containing the text "25 blue" on the inside!

That's all the time we have today for this trip around the museum! We're hoping to add a wing dedicated to NiMH in the near future!

How much could have changed? ...really?

I knew going into this that a few things had changed, and being the technical-minded persion I am, did a bit of digging to reacquaint myself with the sport - what had changed, what hadn't changed, what changed-and-then-changed-back?

what hadn't changed - was a pleasant surprise

• there were still familiar faces present!
• The smooth drivers are still the fastest
• Everything is carbon-fibre and aluminum with a hint of titanium
• The good guys are still out there - the ones who will lend you a hand or even a set of tires (how's that for foreshadowing?)

what had changed - technology at its finest

• Brushless motors and speed controllers - more effecient motors and speed controls with fans on them!
• LiPo batteries and small chargers - when is 3200 mAh not 3200 mAh? When it's a LiPo battery that runs 30% longer than a NiMH of the same mAh rating... someone explain that one to me?
• 2.4 GHz Spektrum radios - I really love this! No! Really! I think I'm one of five guys there who uses a pair of crystals and the only one in the building on my frequency! No interference!
• personal transponders - I guess everything gets smaller/faster/lighter or more personal eventually!
• Car layouts - all the cars now are designed with the batteries on one side (a-la the TC3) either for single brick LiPo's or straight built packs.

What-had-changed-and-then-changed-back - everything old is new again

• 2-belt touring cars! When I stopped racing, the TC3 "revolutionalized" touring cars by introducing a center shaft driven car. I guess there were too many problems with torsion from the motor affecting the roll of the car - the TC5 is a 2-belt design again! The XRay is a 2-belt design. The Tamiya is a 3-belt design (why?).
• rubber tires - When Larry opened his new track he had gone to all foam racing because in the "tire-war" days, we had the-tire-of-the-week with the-insert-of-the-week and even the-rim-of-the-week... ya... Foam tires were to fix all that! Now, it seems there are spec tires that you buy pre-mounted on a common rim with a common insert - oh, and they last a while too! I never had the desire to use a lathe on tires, so kudos to the re-coming of the rubber tire.

Back in the Game?

I don't know where it came from.
I don't know where it will lead.
Some will say I don't know what I'm thinking.

but, what the hell, right?

Somehow, after being out of racing RC Touring Cars for quite some time, the urge struck me to do it again. I found my car, my radio, my power supply and Turbo 30 in multiple boxes - the car still with carpet fuzz from a track that no longer exists wrapped around its axle shafts, the 2000 MAH NiCad batteries still heavy in their cases, the bronzish colored Trinity P2k motor the only evidence of when it was last used.

Hello, my old friend! Hello Mr. Kawada!

I stopped at the track I used to race at on a Thursday night knowing that races used to be on Fridays. Larry's Performance RC's - they moved to a new facility shortly after I stopped racing, and it appears they've taken over the entire building, expanding the hobby shop - good for Larry! It turns out they still have a touring car class on rubber! brushless 13.5 or a 19 turn motor. After talking for a bit, it's an easy call - $20 for a 19 turn, oh and throw in one of those high capacity 4200 NiMHs - those should shame my 2000's!

At home that night it was like opening a time capsule of RC! Everything on the car was still set from the last race it ran, finishing 3rd in an A-Main just ahead of a brand new Associated TC3 - the RC Car Action Magazine Car of the Year... for 2001! The only changes I made were to put the new battery together, solder in the new motor, remove the carpet fibers from the last race and fix a mysteriously broken rear body post - only two of those left!