Tamiya Mini Racing

[skip665]

stripped, cleaned and rebuilt my mini last night. Lightly greased gears, water dipped motor, stuck receiver and tamiya esc inside rear of chassis(lower CofG), re-filled shocks and increased firmness of front shocks. Need to loose the grip roll, need to beat Ian lol.

lol - I am in the middle of doing the same - but I am not cheating with oil shocks

What tyres are you using?

[subsea]

I aint got any original ones, they have vanished (i suppose i could cheat more and use Mini TRF shocks lol)

Not to sure which ones all i know is they are M Grips. I also have two sets of slicks and a set of original tread tyres.

[skip665]

I cant beleive they make much difference anyway to be honest. My car seemed better when I switched from alloy oil filled ones back to the kit ones

The rules say that treaded tyres only are to be used. I have S-Grips all round but I think they are on the edge of being too grippy - might fit them to the front of my other Mini and do lots of wheelspins outside to scrub them in more!

[subsea]

I cant beleive they make much difference anyway to be honest. My car seemed better when I switched from alloy oil filled ones back to the kit ones

The rules say that treaded tyres only are to be used. I have S-Grips all round but I think they are on the edge of being too grippy - might fit them to the front of my other Mini and do lots of wheelspins outside to scrub them in more!

Yeah i had a look at the rules before i went on wednesday. Will have to find another use for the slicks i got. Gonna have to order a load of treaded ones soon. Which ones are best for our track and cheapest place to get them?

[skip665]

Which ones are best for our track and cheapest place to get them?

lol - how long is a piece of string?!

Xpress XPA-118 seem quite popular and so do the Ansmann pre-glued ones - although the rims are made of really cheap brittle plastic.

I have been using S-grips all round as I said earlier - I did quite well with S-grips on the rear and M-grips on the front but wore through a front tyre in only two meetings so badly that the foam was showing Longevity is not their strong point! Hence I went with S-grips all round which seem to wear better but has introduced more grip roll Next week I will try less steering throw and will wear them down a little more.

[subsea]

i've just order two sets of ansmann wheels and tyres. Will try them next race and see what happens. Will aim to get there for about 7-7:15.

One more question, Why cant we run foams? It's not like they damage the carpet.

[skip665]

One more question, Why cant we run foams? It's not like they damage the carpet.

This is what I have picked up in the time I have been there. When they switched from Mardaves to the Tamiya Minis the whole idea was to keep the costs as low as possible as there were/are quite a few under 16 year old drivers who don't have the funds to buy all the best kit so the "rules" were more of a gentlemens agreement that the cars would be kept standard. Obviously as tyres wore out etc people swapped but I think thats where the treaded rule came in. If one person went for foams then we would all have to as the advantage would be significant.

Its all about cheap, fun racing - thats the No. 1 rule

[subsea]

Thats fair enough. I had a short stint racing Mardaves in Fordham. Will go back there soon and sell my stuff.

[RallyDude]

Does Tamiya still make blue aluminum screws? I cannot find them anywhere. Anybody have any leads??

[subsea]

Does Tamiya still make blue aluminum screws? I cannot find them anywhere. Anybody have any leads??

Might be worth putting a post in wanted section.

[subsea]

This is what I have picked up in the time I have been there. When they switched from Mardaves to the Tamiya Minis the whole idea was to keep the costs as low as possible as there were/are quite a few under 16 year old drivers who don't have the funds to buy all the best kit so the "rules" were more of a gentlemens agreement that the cars would be kept standard. Obviously as tyres wore out etc people swapped but I think thats where the treaded rule came in. If one person went for foams then we would all have to as the advantage would be significant.

Its all about cheap, fun racing - thats the No. 1 rule

Do you think they would mind if i bought myself a M05 to race at Weeting?

[skip665]

Do you think they would mind if i bought myself a M05 to race at Weeting?

Asking the wrong man! I guess that means you want to beat Ian so badly it hurts

[Blacque Jacque]

Its all about cheap, fun racing - thats the No. 1 rule

I think that rules out an M05, at this point it's still the "new thing".

If one person has one, the others are almost obliged to upgrade to remain competitive (given that the top drivers are fairly evenly matched).

Simon, if you're that serious about competing, have you looked at the Eurocup ?

[skip665]

I think that rules out an M05, at this point it's still the "new thing".

If one person has one, the others are almost obliged to upgrade to remain competitive (given that the top drivers are fairly evenly matched).

Simon, if you're that serious about competing, have you looked at the Eurocup ?

Agreed Russ - especially as according to www.rc-mini.net the M05 suffers a lot less grip-roll than the M03 which will probably mean it will instantly be faster at Weeting...

[subsea]

Agreed Russ - especially as according to www.rc-mini.net the M05 suffers a lot less grip-roll than the M03 which will probably mean it will instantly be faster at Weeting...

Yeah have read it grip rolls less. From what i have looked at it's the same layout as the M01 (low CofG) and has the exact same gears in the gear box as the M03 (been comparing part numbers). So in theory the gear ratio in the M05 is the same as the M03 (3.134:1)

Not to worried about beating Ian as if i hadn't of grip rolled i would of beat him, so thats just a tyre issue i got to sort(if they ever arrive).

I can't work out how some of the guys racing at Weeting are so fast with a car built the same as mine.

[skip665]

I can't work out how some of the guys racing at Weeting are so fast with a car built the same as mine.

Consistency is king - I have been 2nd or 3rd for quite a lot of an A final in the past - ONE slip up and I ended up 4th Barry is just awesome to watch - his car is box stock bar bearings and he doesn't even do any maintenance to it - just a quick brush over to get the fluff off - but he always wins! I have resigned myself to the fact that I am just not that good!

[subsea]

Consistency is king - I have been 2nd or 3rd for quite a lot of an A final in the past - ONE slip up and I ended up 4th Barry is just awesome to watch - his car is box stock bar bearings and he doesn't even do any maintenance to it - just a quick brush over to get the fluff off - but he always wins! I have resigned myself to the fact that I am just not that good!

I have tweaked mine even further back to box stock. Tamiya ESC and receiver now mounted inside rear of chassis. Tonight i'm putting the friction shocks back on but have added some pipe inside to lower them a little and put short springs on. Y lead on order for the transponder should arrive in tomorrow's post. Just hoping the ansmanns tyres turn up from goldstarstockists, if not i'll put the kit tyres on instead of the m-grips.

[subsea]

I think that rules out an M05, at this point it's still the "new thing".

If one person has one, the others are almost obliged to upgrade to remain competitive (given that the top drivers are fairly evenly matched).

Simon, if you're that serious about competing, have you looked at the Eurocup ?

Yeah i have looked into the Eurocup Russ, trouble is the tracks that are used are mainly up north and i can't afford to travel that distance.

[skip665]

Tonight i'm putting the friction shocks back on but have added some pipe inside to lower them a little and put short springs on.

Ooh there have been some arguments about ride height! Careful now!

[Blacque Jacque]

Ooh there have been some arguments about ride height! Careful now!

Have there ? Perhaps I better not mess with mine then

[skip665]

Have there ? Perhaps I better not mess with mine then

Luke got a lot of stick for lowering his! However when I first started going mine was seriously low - back to stock now though

[subsea]

oh ok. I have been setting mine up to BRCA/Eurocup regulations which i believe is no lower than 5mm. I'm not aiming to scrape the carpet just low enough to level the wishbones. Got a new silver can on order which should arrive before tomorrow night, the one that i'm using at the moment after i gave Ians back is one out of my stock car (so it's been water dipped and cleaned through with clutch&brake cleaner).

[Blacque Jacque]

Mine sits at about that height, maybe a little higher, but it's just built to the instructions with soft soggy springs. The suspension arms are roughly parallel to the ground.

[skip665]

lol - you both sound so serious! My shocks are just built as Mr Tamiya intended

I have 3 spare new silver cans - apart from Russ' "ear test" any ideas how to choose the best one?

[Blacque Jacque]

No easy way to do that, try each of them in the car under controlled conditions & see which is fastest ?

Find someone who has a motor dyno & measure it ?

For Weeting you need torque more than revs, the track is so short & twisty that acceleration out of the corners is probably the most important.