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!