Car Update

Hi all,

Been a while since I posted stuff about my car. It has been running really well the past few meetings, problem seems to be the guy behind the sticks at the minute!!

Recent upgrades are 12th kingpins and springs to the front:




This has helped make the car smoother.

I have been trying to get the weight of the car down to the 930gms limit (or as close as I can) but have been struggling. One problem I always suffered with is the size of the futaba receiver. I love futaba radio gear, bought an original 3VC with my life saving when I was 16 and used it for 10 years (its still being used by the guy that bought it off me as far as I am aware) and the only reason I upgraded was I got a bargin 3VCS 2.4ghz off ebay. The Futaba FASST system is brilliant and I never suffer from interferance problems with it. The only gripe I have is the size of the receiver for the stick handsets. Now I know there is a smaller R614 receiver but that doesn't work with the 3VC line of handsets.  I thought I was stuck with the rather large R603FS receivers but I happened to come across an article that mentioned another manufacturer that makes FASST compatible receivers. A quick bit of googling and I found a receiver that should work in a glider model shop! Next day it turns up and I have to say it is tiny! Its made by a manufacturer called FrSky and the its the TR4 model:

Granted it has two ariels coming out rather than 1 external and 1 internal but look at the size of it! Now this is the main thing which made me buy it........... IT WEIGHS BUGGER ALL!!

That is a 8.2gms weight saving, happy days! Dead easy to set up and I must say I was a bit dubious about using it because I hate interference problems but I used it Chesterfield club night and it was fine. It was a complete bargain as well. The normal Futaba R603FS is about £90 to buy. The FrSky TR4 was £24 plus shipping! Many thanks to Richard from http://www.t9hobbysport.com/ who got this to me next day! They have a great website with live stock levels, nice guys to deal with an quick shipping!

The BRCA AGM was held on Sunday, low turn out but I think things got changed for the better, GT10wise 2s cars need to be 1150gms minimum which should hopefully even things out. There is hopefully going to be 4 nationals next year as well. 

Well I won't be racing for a couple of weeks now :( but will post any changes I make to the car. 

Cheers

Brca AGM reminder

Just a little reminder that the brca agm is on this Sunday and there will be a fair amount of discussion surrounding the gt10 series.
It's in Stoke on Trent, details on the brca website

Www.brca.org

Ardent Pan Car Winter Series Round 1

Last Sunday saw the first round of the Ardent Pan Car Winter Series.Very good turn out for both F1s and GTs. Unfortunately the day got off to a bad start when I dismissed my alarm rather than snoozed it!! Woke up 1hour late!! Got to the track quite late which mean we had to pit along the side of the track which turned out to be great, sat and watched the racing while I was working on the car

Managed to get out for a few sighting laps just to check the car was ok and that the new bodyshell I was using didn't catch on anything. I got put in the second heat for qualifying, this meant a bit of traffic dodging but not too bad. 1st round of qualifying got under way and I got a fairly good time in but the car felt unstable and I wasn't able to get a rhythm going round the track. I did a slow 24 lap but the top guys were doing fast 25 laps. I was running magentas all round so swapped to magenta rear purple fronts for the next round. Car felt much better, quite a bit calmed but allowed me to do faster laps. Unfortunately didn't get a clean run but still managed to improve my time slightly. Top guys were hitting 26 lappers now but they were using 2s lipo 17.5t motors which has a major advantage round this track especially. 3rd Round of qualifying and I wanted to get a 25 lapper in to guarantee a spot in the A final. This run was fairly clean and I stayed out of trouble. This allowed me to get a solid 25 lapper in and left me 5th in the A final. 

Finals Time!

I really need to work on my starts as I almost got mobbed on the start by the quick reactions of Vince Formosa (not bad for an old bloke!) I almost managed to gain a place but the door was rather firmly shut and I ended up last. People ahead of me had a bit of a scrappy race but managed to fight my way back for a 5th place finish. 

Second final and I got a much better start, the first lap was amazing! Everyone drove a clean first race and the couldn't have been  more than a couple of millimetres between the cars going round corner. A couple of time it was 3 abreast! I managed to grab third place by the end of the first lap and the car felt great. Unfortunately about 6 laps later I hit one of the yellow kirbs at speed and it left me facing the other way in 7th place. I manged to fight back to 5th and was having a fantastic battle with Mark Simpson. Managed to get past him going onto the straight. I thought I was going to have some trouble keeping him behind me until he was took out by a back marker which ended his race (shame as it was a fantastic battle). I managed to cruise round to take 4th place. This allowed me to take 4th place overall or 1st of the 1s lipo cars :) 

Many thanks to John and team for a fantastic event and I can't wait for the next one. 

Here are few pics from the event, thanks to Vince Formosa for the taking them. There are fair few more over on www.rccircuitcars.com so head over and have a look. 

A Final Grid

Fantastic Shell by Tony Cooke:

Repairing Foam RC Tyres

Thought I best put up a small piece on how I repair my tyres. Had a couple of deep chunks in the middle of tyres and I am such a tight git I didn't want to throw them away. So out I found a old spare magenta front 1/12th tyre and broke out the truer!


Step one
Take one chunked tyre






Step Two
Cut out the chunk, I find it easier to cut out a square around the chunk. Makes it easier to chuck out a replacement bit of phone.



Step Three
Find a replacement tyre. Preferable the make and compound as the tyre you are repairing. I didn't have any RC4less donors so but I found this GRP Magenta, so close enough!



Step Four
Trim the donor part and glue into place. I use Evostick as it is flexible when it dries. Leave to dry for a couple of hours






Step Five
One it is has dried put it on the truer and take VERY small cuts until you get a smooth finish