Feanor
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Posts posted by Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by terry.sc
id="quote">id="quote">The problem with the F103 cars is that they are difficult to drive for novices, especially on unprepared surfaces. Remember the majority of RC cars are not bought for racing. The F201 looks good (and more scale) on the shelf, and will sell because of that, followed by the fact that novices can drive it anywhere flat. If their friends see them running an F1 car fast they will be interested in buying one. If they had a go of an F103 without any experience they would spinout everywhere and would quickly lose interest. Tamiya make a 4wd car as it will sell more, simple economics.
If Tamiya kept on making the old 2wd F1s the only people running them would be in Tamiyas own race series. Clubs do still run F1 classes, but to be competitive you are better off running a Corally or Keil/Associated F1 chassis as they grip so much better.
Personally I still run my F102 on carpet (handles better indoors than an F103) in the pan car class at my club, in its modified form it still manages to keep up.
Point taken Terry, and from that viewpoint I can see the logic... From Tamiya's point of view it might be a losing proposition, which would impact all of us in the hobby to a degree... I suppose my main point of contention is that many keep saying "The 4wd F201 handles more like the real car" and this is patently untrue, just from the point of simple logic...
Maybe what they are actually trying to imply is that because people who drive the 4WD F201s might not wreck as often, as anyone but the most expert F103 drivers then the overall "experience" is more like a real F1 race and more fun for the general public... That would be logical...
I still might end up getting one eventually
but after pulling the old 107B and 412T1 out of storage and having a blast, I just may seek to spend some time with these and get them up to snuff before laying out some cash for the F201 I guess I'm just vintage at heart
have a good one!
Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by Gonze
id="quote">id="quote">Hi,
i have just finished making my latest TT-01 skyline. i fitted a ACOMS techniplus receiver and servo ect. same as i did for a freind but his car can go a long way from the controller with no trouble 12+ houses. As soon as my car gets past 2 houses away from were i am standing. the car goes up to full power and just goes off out of controll. it only stops when it hits sumthing.
I am reali frustrated by this just carnt work out whats wrong.[
!]cheers Gonze
So many things it could be! You've removed the variables of reciever and speed control, but as others have mentioned, location of leads, motor capacitors installed, antenna condition etc are all critical...
In addition things to consider are;
-The frequency you are on (perhaps the freq you are using is more susceptible to a form of emission where you are both running your cars...
-How "noisy" is your motor? what shape is your motor commutator in (a bad commutator will bounce the brushes and cause excessive arcing, a bad source of radio interference...
-What was your battery condition in your transmitter at the time?
-His transmitter and Reciever could be in very good tune, whereas yours may need recalibration... This is often overlooked/ignored especially in surface RC (its much more of an issue with aircraft)
-bad crystals... contrary to popular belief, crystals don't just either "work" or "not" I've had three sets that went marginal causing all kind of radio trouble wherein replacing them completely eliminated the problem even without retuning with the new crystals
-Check your internal leads inside your transmitter to make sure your connection for your transmitter antenna is sound (have seen a bad solder joint on a transmitter once)
-Does the problem occur while you're driving your car with your buddy in comparision? or do you see this trouble ocurring at other times... Perhaps there is someone with a Amateur radio that just happened to be operating while you were driving and he was not driving.
Good luck to you!
Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by Shodog
id="quote">id="quote">speaking of dust plumes, My favorite thing was when I made some pieces of fiberglass that would hold lighter flints. I bolted them to the chassis. Eveytime the suspension compressed the flints would contact the pavement sending out a few sparks, just like real racers do on the track.
Jim
*laughing* That's awsome Shodog! And the interesting thing about it is that it is truly "vintage" if you did that to your cars today, since the contact points haven't been that way for years and years
That is a perfect example also of how sometimes, an abundance of engineering knowledge and effort (F103 vs F201) can work against you... When looking for a replacement material for the skid strips on the bottom of the chassis, the F1 teams went thru literally hundreds of different materials both engineered and natural to try and find one with the proper resilience, deformability, and wear characteristics... Since cost was not an issue, they went wild with some of the most exotic solutions possible, from carbon fibre, to titanium, to alloys of all kinds. I think they were operating under the reasoning that the more effort they put into the research and the more money they threw at it, the better the solution would be...
In the end, they discovered the best material to use, and all F1 teams used it for quite a long time... that miracle material that had teh perfect combination of wear, resilience, dampening effect and hardness?
plywood
(that happened to be parts of an old packing crate next to the Williams pit)
I think the 4wd sedans are alot like my RC helicopters... I refer to the Heli's as "techno" pinata's when they explode apart all kinds of cool pieces come flying out!
Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by Shodog
id="quote">id="quote">Just take the front drive line out and Voila you have a 2wd F-1. The thing I hate about the F-103 is the foam tires. Anything other than aprepared surface and they light up and spin donuts.
Jim
I was thinking about doing something like that, but in the end, you still have a 4wd F1 car with the front wheels disabled... There will still be a significant number of parts and a significant amount of material weight that would make a dedicated RWD 2wd car a much better and different solution (if they decide to ever make one... Plus you would have to convince all your buddies to similarly "hack" their cars, and they might not wish to do that
Knowing some of my old friends, they would probably find a way to disable the rear wheels and make a FWD F1 car just to bug me *laughing*
Oh and about the prepared surface thing... I have foams on my Lotus 107B, and running it full bore on the street in front of the house (I live in a court) with all the dust, leaves and bumps and it does unnaturally well... I think I might have just gotten close to a good suspension setup by coincidence, but the steering is neutral and I just loosen the diff to the point where power delivery is appropriate for the traction surface (just like anyone would for any rc car 2wd, 4wd, or otherwise) There is so much "dusting" on my street that as the car rockets by in the afternoon sun it looks like its leaving an exhaust trail and it leaves little tiny tire tracks behind Very Cool! *laughing* I think all the dust is coming from my neighbors snd floor home construction project...
Feanor
Have a good one!
Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by stulec52
id="quote">id="quote">good to see this topic brought up again.
It was a fun debate.
Heh
I'm still brand new on the boards so it might take me quite a bit of time before I get all caught up on the more controversial threads
It isn't so much a matter of having been behind the wheel of a full-sized F1 car as it is simply observing the observable. I've been following the Formula 1 World Championships since even many years before Michael Schumacher was anyone
and having seen the way the F201 4wd F1 cars are driven compared to how the real F1 cars are driven, I would have to say that I am absolutely convinced that no real life F1 driver cooks it into a corner, brakes with express purpose of hanging the tail out a bit... Lighting it up again before the apex and then exiting the corner with the back end wagging a bit as the front end pulls it through But having watched many of the F103 F1 rc races and watching the cars spin in the corners and how the expert drivers avoid that by using the brakes intelligently and liberally, use all the track, drive smoothly into the corners and apex out under the smooth application of power, and seeing the way that that Helo view of a Real F1 race looks amazingly similar to the driving lines of the F103 F1 rc races, I would have to conclude that it really isn;t a question of which class is more like the real thing
I have absolutely no argument about the fact that for the vast majority of the rc driving public, the 4wd rc F1 cars are more fun to drive, and probably to watch, but I would find it hard to believe that there isn't still a very significant population of F1 "purists" who still like the idea of a car that is extremely difficult, but not impossible, to drive fast AND well.
For those that do, the icing on the cake is that the cars are also, simple, inexpensive, reliable and durable. I leave the drifting to the drift cars and the rally sedans (which are a blast in themselves!)
I would consider the F103s to be a specific skillset within the general rc car driving community, and not an obsolete or deficient class as it sounds like many are arguing...
I have NOTHING against 4wd cars at all, I just think they belong on 4wd type vehicles like sedans and the like... F1 cars are 2 wheel rwd vehicles; giving them 4wd is a compromise to realism in favor of "fun" not the other way around
Oh, and I have to agree 100% that the F201s definitely look much nicer than the F103s!!!
Why couldn't they have made a rwd full independent suspension F1 car for the "rest of us"
Have a good one!
Feanor
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quote:Originally posted by snollan
id="quote">id="quote">This is how it was told to me...
The problem facing the F10x series is that they don't handle and run like a true F-1 car. That's not to say that you can't make it handle -but- the 4wd f201 chassis is a more scale running car. I'm having trouble finding the right words.
? F103 Chassis cars handle more like Real F1 cars then an F201... Since when can a Real F1 car drift around a corner pulling with its front wheels to yank the nose back into line?
When an F103 overcooks it into a corner and swaps ends, THAT is true F1
I'm not saying that there is some defeciency in the way the F201 represents F1 RC car racing, I think easier to drive F1 rc cars are a definite bonus to the hobby, but by saying that F103s do not handle dynamically like their full size counterparts is untrue, though suspension design-wise the F201's are mechanically more like Full sized F1 cars, the handling dynamics of the F103 are are closer to the way the real F1 cars drive, and thus demand the greater level of skill and provide a commensurate level of satisfaction to those who can do it well (and its AWESOME to see someone who can do it well)
Don't discount the 2wd F103 cars just because the F201's are easier to drive, because that would be like limiting the weight in a weight lifting competition because you can't lift a certain number of pounds
Why couldn't they have made a 2wd F1 car with dedicated rear wheel drive... that would have been excellent!
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Hi All!
Alot of people seem to be pressing home the point that the F103 has had its "Day in the Sun" and should now be superseded by what are regarded as "superior" designs...
But I would argue this point wholeheartedly! Don't ever use the rationalization that because Tamiya World Cup So-and-So race only races F201's so they are superior and all other classes "should" be extinct in competition... Because if you do you are not truly promoting the spriti of competition but instead the spirit of Capitalism
Not that there is anything wrong with that, but its obvious that Tamiya will only promote the latest and greatest because that is what they want to sell Racing takes on many forms and many many different styles of mechanicals, but the core of racing is, well, racing! Which means that you could have 10 bodybuilders riding identical bigwheels and by golly, its still a race! the one who preforms the best will win!
If its all a matter of what can get the lowest laptimes on horrible tracks, then why do they have the drift cars with almost zero traction, and lots of people finding them a blast? No one will doubt that if a real world F1 car went head to head with a NASCAR on a road track, that the F1 car would always win... so why then do they still race NASCAR? Because its a competition between people, not a competition between classes, with a single primary sponsor pushing one kind of car.
They put forward the argument that F201 4wd F1 cars are easier to drive and thus better for beginners, this is definitely true, but what happened to the other side; that an F103 F1 chassis (or one based on that reference design) will be 10 times easier to repair when the beginner demolishes it? Again, we hear Tamiya the company talking
Not the pure voice of reason...I think both cars are simply smashing! but please don't say that because the F103 is "old" and 2wd is supplanted by 4wd, that the F103 should be abandoned in its entirety from widespread use and class racing...
People have said that the RC12i pan cars are still very popular and still racing, why can't the F103's as a class be that way as well? unlike the 12i carpet rockets, the f1 classes have recognizeable branding which at least for me, was a reason I got into them in the first place...
F103 F1 cars won't do well on bumpy surfaces? Well, that's why they don;t race Real world F1 cars on bumpy surfaces either! *laughing*
Admit it... if 20 of your friends had F103s and raced every weekend... wouldn't you get one?!
Have a good one all!
Complexity is not always the right answer...
Simplicity most often works best...
Feanor
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Thank you CarKing!
I'll have a gander at that thread right now
Feanor
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Greetings all!
This is my first post here and I'd like to first off say that I am extremely glad to find such a great site for info on Tamiya products particularly the R/C cars.
I've been in RC since the Jerobee .049 powered cars (anyone remember those?)
and from there I've gone off and on in RC cars all the way up to racing the 1/8th scale Serpent Nitro on roads, but of ALL the cars I have raced and bashed about with, and there are ALOT, Nothing has that fun/skill/enthusiasm/bang-for-the-buck ratio like the Tamiya F103 F1 cars had I've just recently broken out my F1 collection from mothballs (anyone else as anal as I am and do things like make sure that when cars go into cold storage they are in perfect running order?
) and Its still as fun as it was years ago!My nephews have every current whiz bang 4wd sedan, with mods up the whazoo and the latest in electronic cutting edge, but when I pounced all over them on a nice clean surface with the F1 cars (lotus 107b and Ferrari 312T1) they could not believe it! Not only that, but with my lowly 1200 scr packs and endurance gearing I was getting longer runtimes then they were with their 75 dollar 3300mah NiMh packs *laughing* and they were not so thrilled about that...
I actually did get the Airtronics M8 radio and receivers in the cars and the speed controls, which were hot stuff at the time, still seemed to do very well. Also I reconditioned the packs I used after years of disuse with both my Triton charger and Litco Alpha 4 that I use for my flight packs and electric heli's...
As the day wore on, they did actually develop some driving style changes that let them overmatch me particularly in the corners, and it was odd to see my Lotus 107B and all the other sedans on completely different lines of the track, and yet still all crossing the start finish at the same moment lap after lap after lap
The Ferrari is almost straight stock except for the motor and front suspension, but the 107B is heavily modified with suspension, motor and aluminum and graphite bits and pieces all around. That makes it pretty to look at, but not significantly higher performance than the Ferrari.
In fact, the rear pod of the Lotus is almost entirely blue anodized aluminum, and I haven't seen much said about that particular mod in the forums so I'm wondering if I was the only one that went the all metal route on the rear pod...
When they examined the F1 Cars closely, all they could say was ' "Is that it?! there's nothing to it!" As if complex designs were always going to win against a straightforward, simple design
They instantly recognized why my run times were so exceptional with the straight pinion spur drive and live axle, and couldn't believe that the cars hooked up so well with the live axle rear, t-bar and single shock. In truth, they would have been all over me if the playground we were driving on hadn't been recently resurfaced (hadn't even painted the lines on it yet), but I left that little bit out...I told them that there is a new 4wd version of the f1 cars that superseded my cars, but they were all disappointed that the f103 design was no longer in production.
So am I...
Have a good one all!
Feanor
but after pulling the old 107B and 412T1 out of storage and having a blast, I just may seek to spend some time with these and get them up to snuff before laying out some cash for the F201 
!]
Yokomo vs Tamiya
in General discussions
Posted
id="quote">id="quote">
I have a Yokomo YR-4 and have to admit that even though it wasn't top top of the line at the time, it still felt far more "solid" as well as far more "rigid" in the frame than the Tamiya sedans of the time.
The design was different, but that is not to say it was superior, but the build quality and the fit and finish of the pieces/parts was definitely superior... I think that the HPI cars RS4 were more along the lines of the same quality "feel" as the Tamiya sedans.
But don't get hung up on the car too much though, Eric Clapton on a Ukelele still sounds better than me on a 15,000 guitar
Get the driving thing down first and foremost 
Feanor