Back To The Track

[Kevin_Mc]

I'm curious to know how you do picture an RC race? Have you been racing yourself?

I've never been RC racing myself, no but i know roughly what it's like.

I just pictured the venue/hall to be different from reading Mad Ax's blog, obviously my interpretation of it differed from most. It's a lot narrower than i expected and as you say it's very twisty. I pictured it as having a bit more flow but obviously with space limited there's not much you can do.

Not a criticism in any way at all, i was just a little surprised at how my imagination got carried away

[Mad Ax]

Mad Ax - do they ever include a straight at that club? It seems a bit of a chore to be constantly cornering - I live quite close to that club but not sure I would want to go there if the layout is always that twisty! At Chippenham we always have a straight, it helps to space out the cars and make traffic easier to deal with.

Sometimes we have a straight - the track layout really depends on what mood the organiser is in when we start building. I don't really know how the plans occur - it seems like everyone independently starts picking up bits of guttering and twenty minutes later we have a track. It's like track building by committee!!

I must admit I prefer tracks with a long straight in them. As you say, it's easier to deal with traffic and also gives extra options for setup strategy - good straightline speed, or good cornering punch. That said, WWMCC runs a 27T brushed / 13.5T brushless limit with no advanced timing allowed on brushless motors, so we're not racing super-fast cars anyway.

Most weeks are fairly twisty. Sometimes we'll get the entire length of the carpet as a straight, although usually it'll have a chicane or hairpin at the top to keep us concentrating. If we're really lucky then the bottom of the carpet (closest to the stage) will have no chicanes and will feed directly into a full-length straight, and that's a real treat for those who run faster gearing. Before I'd got the handling of my chassis sorted I was running fairly tall gears, and was often the fastest car of the night in a straight line despite running an ancient brushed motor that's never been rebuilt.

[HunterZero]

So it looks like you noticed no real difference between the IFS and standard setup?

- James

[Mad Ax]

So it looks like you noticed no real difference between the IFS and standard setup?

- James

When I first went from IFS to conventional, I found the car handled terribly - I think because the car wasn't properly set up when in IFS configuration, and changing the front end threw it even further out. Having said that, going from that terrible opening round to the rather stable, predictable car I've got now has been much quicker - perhaps because I've had help from an old TA05 racer, perhaps because I know more about setup now than I did before, but I think mainly because the conventional front suspension configuration is that much more intuitive and easier to find a balance with.

That said, making a spoiler out of battery tape has made the biggest change I've noticed in several weeks!

[TenzoR]

So it looks like you noticed no real difference between the IFS and standard setup?

- James

There shouldn't be any difference between the IFS and standard setup. But I find the standard setup much easier to adjust and make changes. For the IFS to work properly, you need to ensure the push-rod are equal, the lever are shimmed properly, there's no binding, the ball cups are good, etc.

[Mad Ax]

Quick update:

I stripped the car yesterday afternoon, but forgot to get hold of some compressed air to give it a good clean. I'll borrow some from the office if possible so I can clean it up for tonight.

The motor came apart easy enough but was filthy inside. The endbell has also taken a serious beating and the solder points are bent, which might be causing the intermittent power problem if they're shorting out on the can from time to time. The soldered joints weren't too good either, so I desoldered the entire thing and stripped it down to its component parts for a good clean.

The commutator isn't in brilliant condition - it looks like it needs a spin on a lathe. The brushes have got a bit of life left yet, tho. I was going to rebuild the comm and endbell into a 19T can, as I was told by someone at the club that the magnets in 19T motors are stronger, but I could only find non-rebuildable 19T motors in my collection, so I reassembled into the original Trinity can. I'm just about to pop out to dry to get something to lube the bushings, as they're dry after yesterday's cleaning.

I didn't get time to strip the Tx to find the source of the steering problem. It's quite a big job, because if I can't get a replacement potentiometer then the Tx is junk, and it's my only 2.4GHz handset, which means big expense to replace it I don't want to go back to 27MHz or even 40MHz because our club is getting really busy for free frequencies and I like the freedom of being able to test and set up the radio in between races (as well as not having to worry any more about others sharing my frequency who decide to turn on their radio while I'm racing )

Right, off over the local motor factors now, need to get some 3-in-1 oil

[Mad Ax]

Monday 15th August - Race Night!

I arrived much later than usual, as work has been very busy recently, but still with plenty of time to help get the last of the track set up while the LiPos had a quick charge. I probably should get in the habit of charging them at home, so they only need to be topped off at the start of the night - a late start with two flat batteries might not leave me enough time to get them charged before the race starts.

Once the track was configured I gave the car a good blast with an air duster and gave it a once-over. I'd bought some 3-in-1 oil to lubricate the motor bearings, since it had been disassembled and cleaned at the weekend. The tyres got a good clean with stain remover, and I was even wise enough to wash my pit towel last week and bring a second towel for greasy work, so I had something clean to rest the car on and something else to wipe my hands on. My pit area is turning into a little cove of luxury

I opted to run a short practice stint, but I was happy with the car and the track, so I didn't make any changes before the race.

Race 1

The club was busier than it has been recently - still not busy enough to go back to 5 heats, but two of our younger drivers were promoted to the senior touring heat to make space in the junior touring class. This put six cars on the track, and made for an eventful race.

I was given the number two slot behind Robin, and ahead of Roy and Kevin. The race got underway and, for the most part, I stayed out of trouble and tried not to lose sight of the back of Robin's car. I couldn't keep on track forever, and a few tangles with the junior cars put me out of contention for the win. Also the steering lock-out problem kept recurring, almost every time I caught the side of the track, which cost me lots of time. In the end I was quite surprised to finish in 2nd place, two laps down on Robin but with the fastest laptime of the race of 9.639 seconds.

Race 2

I opted not to change the car between races - just went for another clean and another drop of oil, as the motor had been squeaking in the first race. I got off to a good start, but again it was an interesting race. I tried to stay out of trouble and not get involved in everyone else's race, but the junior members proved tricky to pass. Their cars didn't have the same straight-line speed as the senior racers, which should have made them easy to pass on the straight, but it wasn't a particularly open track and despite my best efforts there were more than a few incidents, some of which I came out of worse. At one point my car launched over the barrier and ended up on the start-finish straight again, but I wasn't sure if it had crossed the finish line, so I had to swallow a big time deficit and make up time on the lap. The steering locked out a few more times, costing me even more time.

So imagine my surprise when I crossed the line in first place. I still hadn't matched Robin's time from race one, but I matched his earlier lap count of 27 and scored another fastest lap of the race with 9.39 seconds. Robin finished one lap behind, with Roy and Kevin coming in 3 laps down.

Race 3

I decided to investigate the steering setup. It looked like the servo pushrod could be lengthened, perhaps enough to prevent lockout completely, without affecting steering speed, so I pulled out the servo and made the adjustments. Everything went back together smoothly with plenty of time for the final race. Foolishly, I decided to keep the battery fresh and didn't do any warm-up laps.

I started in 2nd place, but my car was positioned close to the barrier. In a moment's lack of concentration, the car went up onto the barrier and almost flipped, losing me two places before the race even started. Half a lap later the car veered left again, causing another tangle. I'd reset the steering trim by eye before the race, but I hadn't tested it on the track - so I had to slow up while I tried to adjust the trim on the move. Realising I'd lost my chance to beat Robin's race one time for my first genuine event win, I settled in to putting in some good laps and not getting into any tangles.

With the pressure off, the race went smoothly. I did end up upside-down after getting caught up in someone else's accident - I'd actually stopped to let some crashed cars get back underway instead of smashing through them, but was still stationary when another car tried just that and flipped me upside down. Otherwise it was a clean race, and I finished in 2nd place with 27 laps, improving on my previous time by a second and a half and knocking .07 off my fastest laptime to bring it down to 9.383. Robin managed a stunning 29 laps and beat my fastest time by just .04 of a second, although fastest lap of the night honours went to Roy with a 9.372. That's three cars all with a fastest laptime within .11 of a second!

FTD results put Robin in 1st place with 29 laps at 5m07.558, with me in second with 27 laps and 5m07.579. Kevin and Roy both managed 26 laps on their fastest race, with the two juniors managing a respactable 24 and 22 laps each.

Summary

I still had problems with steering lockout in the last race, so I might need to investigate further. Perhaps a longer servo horn would prevent it. That might even speed up steering enough that I can revert the steering arm balljoints to their stock position and reduce the chattering from the front driveshafts under full lock and compression (I noticed the front wheel jumping around a lot at one point). Failing that, maybe fitting the alloy steering set will reduce the flex enough to prevent the servo horn from inverting at all.

I was also invited by a fellow racer and chairman of the Chippenham club to come along to his winter championship, which is run nearby. The rules are more restrictive but my car should qualify once fitted with the Protoform shell. There are six one-day events in the championship, so it's more of a mission than the two-hour WWMCC events, but that might provide another intersting challenge to get involved in later this year.

Stay tuned for next week's episode!

[Percymon]

Woohoo, a much better week, if not incident free. Seems the home made wing is proving its weight in sticky tape , as is a little bit of cleaning and prep beforehand.

A week to rectify the steering, charge the lipo's and get back to the track - hopefully for more wins

[Kevin_Mc]

i haven't posted here for a while, just been reading every few weeks. Glad to hear you're getting quicker and potentially winning races now, it just goes to show with some practice and the right set-up (trial and error) you can keep advancing

[Ben Jackson]

I'm curious to know how you do picture an RC race? Have you been racing yourself?

Mad Ax - do they ever include a straight at that club? It seems a bit of a chore to be constantly cornering - I live quite close to that club but not sure I would want to go there if the layout is always that twisty! At Chippenham we always have a straight, it helps to space out the cars and make traffic easier to deal with.

I miss racing at this place, it's a good club, however reading this thread to catch up on what's going on is great :-)

They do have full length straight sometimes, but the West Wilts club do like their tight & twisty infields !

I raced here (& Chippenham) a lot during 2010 & a little during 2011 & have attached a few pictures I had of some of the layouts they had in Melksham.

PS. Mr. Sosidge I have enjoyed your blog in the past, especially around the time you had some RC10 B4 stuff in there. It coincided with me getting into offroad & contained some good tips :-)

[sosidge]

I miss racing at this place, it's a good club, however reading this thread to catch up on what's going on is great :-)

They do have full length straight sometimes, but the West Wilts club do like their tight & twisty infields !

I raced here (& Chippenham) a lot during 2010 & a little during 2011 & have attached a few pictures I had of some of the layouts they had in Melksham.

PS. Mr. Sosidge I have enjoyed your blog in the past, especially around the time you had some RC10 B4 stuff in there. It coincided with me getting into offroad & contained some good tips :-)

Well if you have been racing at Chippenham in 2010/11 we have probably raced at the same meetings (although I'm afraid I don't recognise your name!). I go by the name David Allen in real life.

[HunterZero]

I like it when there's a fast sweeper on the circuit. It makes it more challenging to find a setup that works the best, you have to balance the car's lower speed cornering with high speed stability, and setup the gearing of the car to compromise acceleration and top end (although high end brushless these days have so much power, it basically comes down to choosing a pinion that won't overheat the motor). Plus you have to pick a braking point from top speed at the end of the high speed section. The straight also gives your brain a (relative) break from the concentration in the twisties.

- James

[Mad Ax]

Very short update this week: I got out of work on time despite having lots to do, which meant I had plenty of time to set up the tables before everyone else arrived and make sure the LiPos were fully charged.

While cleaning this week I found a little washer that must have come from my motor, which might explain why it sounded a bit off last week, so I stripped the motor again, thoroughly cleaned the insides and reassembled with the washer fitted. I thought all woud be well, but it wouldn't run. Even with some encouragement, I could barely get a few RPM out of it. The brushes were giving off nasty yellow sparks.

Another strip and re-clean of commutator and brush tips didn't make much difference, and finally reassembling the motor with the washer at the opposite end didn't help either. I eventually got some RPM out of it, but it took a long time to get there. The brushes were giving a constant and painful blue arc. I reassembled the car and got out onto the track at the earliest opportunity, but it was clear the motor wasn't performing at its best. The car took the entire length of the straight just to get up to something approaching sensible speed.

In the absense of a better idea, I packed up and headed home. Fortunately I hadn't paid my entry fee, nor bought any crisps or drinks, so at least it wasn't a hugely costly excursion, but I'll have to replace or rebuild the motor with new parts.

Eyes peeled please for my "which motor" thread

[Ben Jackson]

West Wilts is a great fun club. I did my second ever RC race here in late 2009 with a Tamiya TT01 & 27 turn brushless & NIMH batteries.

I kept coming back throughout 2010, gradually getting into LIPO's for my TT01 & various hop up's then I bought an Associated TC5 in May 2010 & went brushless.

I still kept coming back to West Wilts club in early 2011 & miss racing at the place now.

I've tried to attach a few shots of the track layouts here, they usually like a tight & narrow infield !

[Mad Ax]

Update: It's been a while, but this time last week I was sunning it up in Marbella, and the week before was a bank holiday, so no racing. I'm back in good old blightly now (well, some of me is - most of me is still flapping around in mosquitos somewhere along the Costa Del Sol).

Anyway, this morning I hurriedly ripped an ageing Sport Tuned motor out of my FF01 basher, which I'll be fitting into the racer as soon as I get to the club. I don't know how well it'll perform, but it's better than nothing.

I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing next. I've just had to spend a load of cash on my 1:1 motorbike so I don't have anything spare for a brushless setup, and the 2.4GHz tranny is still playing up too.

Watch this space for updates - maybe I'll do well tonight with such an underpowered car!

[Percymon]

Have you tried new brushes in the motor? Sounds similar to my experiences of arcing and short brushes.

[Mad Ax]

Another quick update - I didn't get to racing last night, health problems got in the way just as I was loading up the car after work, but no worries - will be back next week!

Have you tried new brushes in the motor? Sounds similar to my experiences of arcing and short brushes.

Having trouble finding replacement brushes and have been told by everyone I've asked that they're not out there any more.

I would try new brushes if I could get some cheaply. The comm is also in a bad way but nobody I know has a comm lathe any more - all that sort of kit has been offloaded to raise money for brushless equipment!

[TenzoR]

Another quick update - I didn't get to racing last night, health problems got in the way just as I was loading up the car after work, but no worries - will be back next week!

Having trouble finding replacement brushes and have been told by everyone I've asked that they're not out there any more.

I would try new brushes if I could get some cheaply. The comm is also in a bad way but nobody I know has a comm lathe any more - all that sort of kit has been offloaded to raise money for brushless equipment!

I don't know what your class allows you to run but a speedpassion cirtrix sports man combo 17.5 is very well priced

[Percymon]

Another quick update - I didn't get to racing last night, health problems got in the way just as I was loading up the car after work, but no worries - will be back next week!

Having trouble finding replacement brushes and have been told by everyone I've asked that they're not out there any more.

I would try new brushes if I could get some cheaply. The comm is also in a bad way but nobody I know has a comm lathe any more - all that sort of kit has been offloaded to raise money for brushless equipment!

I have a set of universal stand up brushes somewhere, and i can probably lay my hands on some lay down ones on Thursday at my LHS if they are of any use to you to try ?

[Mad Ax]

I have a set of universal stand up brushes somewhere, and i can probably lay my hands on some lay down ones on Thursday at my LHS if they are of any use to you to try ?

Anything's worth a try, the Monster uses stand-up brushes I believe. Drop me a PM if you have some for sale

[Percymon]

Anything's worth a try, the Monster uses stand-up brushes I believe. Drop me a PM if you have some for sale

PM sent

[Mad Ax]

PM sent

PM replied

[Mad Ax]

Monday 19th September

Full update this week! And what a week it's been. First of all, top TCer Percymon posted me a set of new stand-up brushes to try to get the Trinity motor back on form (or at least turning over at all!). Then I happened to mention to local friend Bag of Badgers that my Losi 2.4GHz transmitter was giving me problems, and he said he had an identical spare in the loft - and then, while hunting through boxes, he found an unopened Peak Racing 27x2 motor, both of which were donated to my racing cause in exhange for having a look at an old 19T competition motor.

So Sunday evening, me and the Badger charged up the soldering iron and swapped in the Peak Racing motor into the TA05. On a quick test-run up and down the landing it seemed OK, but it didn't "sound" very fast when being raced with the wheels off the ground.

Monday dawned with Percymon's brushes arriving on my desk and the Trinity carcass in my pit box just in case the Peak Racing motor was unusable.

Practice

I was eager to get out early in the practice to make sure the Peak Racing motor was up to scratch. Sadly, it wasn't. Top speed felt woefully slow and there wasn't much punch either. I'm not quite sure what market the 27x2 was aimed at, but it certainly wasn't any good for carpet racing.

Back in the pits I briefly investigated trying the Peak Racing rotor and endbell in the Trinity housing, but gave up fairly quickly when I realised the Trinity wasn't fully rebuildable. Instead I rapidly threw the new brushes from Percymon into the Trinity to see if it would work - and it did! It was noisy and sounded off-balance, really vibrating my hand quite strongly, but it sure had some RPM advantage over the Peak Racing can. A rapid resoldering mission ensued and the Trinity motor found itself in my car just a few minutes before the start of the race.

Race 1

It was a fairly busy night, with some members returning to the touring car class in anticipation of the upcoming championship. The top heat comprised of fellow TCer Louis in car 1, myself in car 2, Geoff in car 3 and Kevin in car 4.

With only 4 of us in the top heat, and all now being fast and considerate racers, it was a fairly clean race without major incident. I quickly found a rhythm and a good consistent pace in the middle of the pack. A few fluffed overtakes set me back a little, but I had what looked like the fastest car through the very tight section at the bottom of the track, and I always found good control and traction leading into the full-length straight, so I was generally able to pull away if I overtook at the right part of the track. The worst part of the track for me was the 180 at the end of the main straight, where I had to back off early to avoid grip-rolling off the track. I could never find a good line around the next two corners after backing off.

Race 1 finished with 30 laps on Louis' timesheet with a total time of 5m03.587, and me coming in second with 28 laps at 5m02.230. Geoff came in one lap behind and Kevin finished with 25 laps on the sheet. Fastest lap belonged to Louis with a 9.091.

Race 2

I made no changes to the car for the second race, I just made sure the tyres were well cleaned and the LiPo was charged. The race went as well as the first, although Kevin failed to make the start with technical difficulties. With only 3 cars on the track for half the race, it was a good clean run. I managed to improve on my previous time, finishing with 30 laps over 5m08.203, although Louis also improved with a 5m01.205 for 31 laps. Louis also improved his fastest laptime to 8.775, although mine remained almost identical to the Race 1 time.

Race 3

The race start was delayed with Louis' brushless speedo wouldn't respond, but after a few minutes we couldn't get it going, so we hit the track again with only 3 cars running. Realising that this was my one chance to get in a seriously fast time to top the FTD sheet, I decided to push as hard as I could. The race began well, with a number of fast, consistent laps giving ever-improving confidence. There were no major incidents in the race, but I made a slight misjudgement in a corner which flipped my car over the barrier onto the start-finish straight. I wasn't sure if I'd passed the timing loop in mid-air, so I had no choice but to turn around and redo three quarters of a lap.

I was worried that this one mistake had cost me the race, but it appears the laptime was captured as legal (7.5 seconds) so I probably gained a couple of seconds with that shortcut rather than losing 7 in repeating part of the track (that said, it probably took more than a few seconds to turn the car around and reset my brain). I don't have a photo of the final race timesheet so I can't see how that affected my race or what my corrected fastest laptime was, but in the end I failed to improve and came in first with 29 laps at 5m02.668, which wasn't sufficient to knock Louis off the top spot.

Results

FTD results put Loius in 1st place with 31 laps, me second with 30 and Geoff in third with 28.

Drift special next week!!

Next week is a drift night. We'll run slick tyres on a polished wood surface, which makes for awesome drifting. Attendees will probably be fairly slim because Minis don't make much sense on a drift track, but we're hoping to run two heats to determine who wins on fastest time, and then give each racer a solo race to show off their drifting skills and earn style points as voted for by the rest of the racers. There's also going to be a "best drift-style car" show'n'shine competition.

I don't have a good video recorder but I'll try to drag along my DSLR and get some good photos of the drifting and of the show'n'shine shells.

[Percymon]

Glad to be able to help out Alex - those brushes should be bedded in by now, so hopefully the motors a bit smoother too.

[Mad Ax]

Yo all, sorry for the delay in replyage. There was some time out of racing for holidays and things, plus a Drift Night - yours truly won on number of laps, but sadly I fluffed up on my style laps and failed to score top place in the drift freestyle shootout. I really enjoyed the drifting, so I've built myself a proper drifter out of my old Corally RDX racer and will be getting more drifts in as and when I can.

The last couple of weeks have been successful but frustrating on the track. For the last two weeks I've finished second in the first heat, but have failed to improve in the next two heats when everyone else did, and finished both days in 3rd place.

Monday 17th was the first night of the new championship, and I managed to improve my performance to finish 2nd overall, and fastest of the brushed cars. I'm now wondering if I should stay brushed and fight to be fastest of the brushed cars (although it isn't strictly a seperate category at my club) or if I should go brushless before the championship gets too far underway and take the fight to last year's winner. Mondays performance showed that the car is capable of beating the rest of the brushed cars when I have a good night and the others don't, but there's no way I can keep up with the leading brushless car.

I've been invited to take part in the Thrashnalls winter championship, but it takes place over a series of Sundays and requires a 44-mile round trip to compete. I need to attend on at least 4 sundays to qualify.

The car is going reasonably well, although it doesn't look as solid through the corners as some of the other cars. Comparing my car to the Schumachers and Xrays of my racing colleagues shows that mine has a huge amount of slop in the suspension in comparison. Mine is also one of the newest cars in the club, so it can't be down to wear and tear - it must just be that the more race-committed hardware is made to better tolerances. I don't know if switching to TRF bottom arms and steering hubs would improve matters, I'm not too hot on the hop-up options for the TA-05. Maybe it would be better to go down that route than to spend money on a brushless power system if the car still isn't handling right.

I'm hoping my new Mazda 6 shell will be painted in time for next week's round, so I can see how much difference it makes having good downforce from a proper spoiler.

I've also been asked by the club to set up a facebook page for my race photos, so it's possible I'll be changing the way I do this blog and making it more about the club in general.

Watch this space for updates!