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Jonathon Gillham

Back to indoor onroad racing, after a 20 year absence

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Back in the 90s 3 of us who were school friends decided to race RC cars, so we went and bought 3 identical Kyosho Mantis EP kits with Volvo 850 BTCC bodies.  This was the entry level class BITD, I guess similar to the TT01/02 classes that many clubs run today.  We all had to save the $700 or so to buy the cars which was a big deal when earning $6 an hour pumping gas after school.  2 of us had part time jobs so could've stretched to run in stock touring (silver cans) but the other couldn't so we when with the cheapest.  In hindsight I wish we had as it would've been faster and more exciting racing, and I would now have a TA02 (I think) on my shelf behind me instead of the Kyosho, but anyway.

So after a winter of frustration at missing a lot of racing due to weather, I bit the bullet and talked to my wife about buying yet more cars (this means 9 in total, my son wants a Monster Beetle for Christmas which will round us out at 10, until he needs a M05 and TT02 to race indoors with me) and managed to stop talking as soon as she said yes.  Over the last 6 weeks I've had a TA07 Pro and TRF102 arrive, along with Speed Passion ESC and 21.5T motors, bodies, Trackstar servos etc to build 2 cars.  The TA07 is running but the TRF102 isn't yet because I got a faulty motor (replacement is on its way courtesy of RCMart) and also ordered the wrong gears (got 64p instead of 48p so the 48p ones are on their way now too) and the F103 wheels don't fit properly.  The first and unfortunately last race meet of the year was on Saturday night and was a great success for me, but would have been even better if I had the F1 running too.

Both cars run the same Speed Passion Reventon Pro 1.1 ESC and Competition MMM 21.5R motors.  The servos are Trackstar TS-D99X digital servos which have great specs and I think aren't far off what they claim to be.

The TA07 Pro is set up for stock touring according to the NZRCA rules, which means it runs 21.5T motor with endbell timing but the ESC must be in blinky mode.  We run on carpet and foam tyres are compulsory so I bought some that are the same as what everyone else runs to start with.  They are 35 shore Contact premounts and seem to do the job. I'm running 1m CST oil in the front diff and 7000 CST in the rear.  I picked up a Protoform R9-R body for it which does the trick.

The TRF102 is currently waiting on parts but since I have a lot of time before the first meet next year I think I will convert that to the wide front end and run the F103 wheels.  A guy at the club runs one and he went through a couple of options before settling on his current set up which I think I'll copy.  That has been built to meet the NZRCA rule as well for F1 so I can enter national competitions if I want to.  I went with a Tamiya F104 body set for this one and I really like how it turned out.

This wasn't like the first race meet this year with my 4wd buggy where I hadn't even run the car and it was going backwards.  I had taken the TA07 to the local school and given it a bit of a run to make sure it all worked as intended.  I couldn't tell whether the setup was any good as I was on cheap rubber tyres (added to the RCMart order as the kit comes with wheels but no tyres) and it was on asphalt courts.  It was quick and handled pretty well, so thats all I could hope for as a standard build.  A guy at the club who no longer races touring stock was selling some wheels so I grabbed those as he had 3 sets, 2 new in packet and the other barely used for half the new price, score.

I turned up with what I thought was plenty of time and it turns out I was one of the last there.  Everyone has their tables where they sit so I was in the dark corner on the mezzanine floor with a wobbly table and no chair, but hey I had power so could at least charge my batteries...I knew no one but managed to meet a few people there so next season I should have some people to sit with, most importantly the guy who runs the TRF102.

The guy with my tyres was really late, but luckily one of his friends was nice enough to lend me a set so I could go an practice.  I just did a few laps and worked out how to stop the car spinning as much and then practice was over, so all I could do was swap to the tyres I had bought and hope that it would go ok.  It was a big race night with 11 heats (Pro12 and Touring Stock each had 2 heats) and I was race 7.  If I had the F1 I would have been race 1 and 7 which would have been ideal, other than the nerves of having a difficult to drive class first up.

First race the car was all over the show, it was tail happy and grip rolled and I needed to adjust from offroad to onroad.  I had used the used tyres and he couldn't remember the shore rating, but I figured they would be ok and it turns out they weren't. They were actually 30mm so grip rolled at the slightest turn (I didn't realise until I opened another packet with 26mm tyres, its hard to know without having something to compare with).  The race was really disappointing and I was questioning whether spending all this money was worth it at all.  My fastest lap was 20.something seconds and the front runners were around 13.6sec, so I had a lot of work to do.

I had a lot of time between races so I swapped the tyres to the 35 shore 26mm ones and dropped the ride height by using the droop screws which I'm sure is wrong but it was all I could do.  This made a massive improvement and my fastest lap dropped to 16.8sec but more importantly I increased from 13 laps to 16 laps in the 5 minutes.  I was feeling a lot better after race 2 but know that there is a lot of improvement left still.  The car was about as fast on the straights as the other cars, so its down to my setup and also my driving style.  I need to rely less on drag brake and more on actual brakes for a start.

Come final time and I was 14th qualifier out of 15 which meant I was in the B final and pretty happy to be in B.  It was good that there were only 5 cars in it, as my heat had 8 cars and the track could get quite busy at times.  Having only 5 in the final meant a lot of clear track and I could focus on my driving without worrying about the others so much.  I ended up finishing 3rd in the final with 17 laps, 2 laps clear of 4th and 5th and no one broke down.

The motor was smelling pretty hot after the 2nd race but I didn't notice it after the first.  I have more gearing options but it meant swapping the spur so I fitted a heatsink to the motor instead.  It smelt hot again after the final race so I need to do something about that.  I have options though, I can remove some timing, increase the FDR and add a fan.  I have a couple of fans which came with the ESC's and I don't need for those so will try mounting one of those to blow air over the motor as I don't want to lose top end speed at this point.  The car accelerates well and is keeping up with the fast drivers so I can't really afford to lose too much.

Its a shame that there are no more meets this year and I think that the next will be in February which means a long break for me.  I will use that time to convert my F1 to the wide front track and work on the setup of the TA07 some more.

I'm really happy with the purchases though, the TA07 has exceeded expectations on the first night out and I think it has a lot of potential.  Whether it will be able to compete with all the carbon fibre cars remains to be seen, but it should be good enough for me for a season or 2, and if I find that it really is holding me back then hopefully the TRF420 will be out...

 

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A great read Jono, the night sounded like a lot of fun and nerves... just as I'd imagine it to be with such a properly organised event as that.

How many racers were there in total?

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Sounds fun! 

It' a learning curve with any new car, and you'll shave big chunks of time off getting a good, predictable set up. It' the last few seconds off a lap time that are the hardest, that's dependant on your thumbs 🖒🖒. I'm finding the hardest part is consistency, I ran a mid 9 sec best lap last time out, and the A final winner ran a mid 10 average, but my car laying belly side up kills the average! 

I'd fling some rubber boots on it and have a play in the off season. Have a play about with suspension settings, etc and find out what needs changed to dial out overseer etc. The car will be different on carpet, but at least you'll have an idea what to change to get the effect you want, once you've got confidence in the car, you can start altering steering curves on the transmitter etc and dial you into the car! 😎

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Quick tips.

never change ride height with down stop screws. Use your shock spring adjusters, then set your droop with the droop screws.

Try a different, more neautral body. The r9R is very aggressive and you will always have a rear that is more loose with that. Try a bittydesign M410 or a protoform Mazda speed 6 (not the GX version)

And the most important thing is to practice and have fun. 

I cover quite a lot of racing tips and set-ups etc on my site if you fancy a look Http://www.thercracer.com

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16 hours ago, Jason1145 said:

A great read Jono, the night sounded like a lot of fun and nerves... just as I'd imagine it to be with such a properly organised event as that.

How many racers were there in total?

It was great fun, in some ways more enjoyable than the offroad but more because its more straightforward - you only need to worry about 2 dimensions not 3.

Most people enter a couple of cars but I know of a few who only had 1 car there.  The heats were pretty full at around 8 - 10 per heat.  I would guess about 50 or 60 entrants, so a decent number of people.

13 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Sounds fun! 

It' a learning curve with any new car, and you'll shave big chunks of time off getting a good, predictable set up. It' the last few seconds off a lap time that are the hardest, that's dependant on your thumbs 🖒🖒. I'm finding the hardest part is consistency, I ran a mid 9 sec best lap last time out, and the A final winner ran a mid 10 average, but my car laying belly side up kills the average! 

I'd fling some rubber boots on it and have a play in the off season. Have a play about with suspension settings, etc and find out what needs changed to dial out overseer etc. The car will be different on carpet, but at least you'll have an idea what to change to get the effect you want, once you've got confidence in the car, you can start altering steering curves on the transmitter etc and dial you into the car! 😎

Yeah thats the great thing about starting so badly, its so easy to improve!  I will try a few things out as I luckily have a school nearby with a decent sized court so I can try a few things out.  Now I know what to expect on carpet (sort of) I can start working out what changes I can make to get the result I want.  I'm thinking that I probably need to sneak in another order with a few tuning parts, mostly springs so I have some options and the sway bar set too.  Consistency is the key, my fastest lap was faster than the winner of the B final but of course like you say, I needed marshalls to put me back on my wheels a few times.  The car is a bit like a cat though as it usually ended up the right way up after rolling.  I had to marshall the race after mine which was the A group of the same class so was watching how they take corners etc.  I managed to get to 3 different spots so I could watch the hair-pin at the end of the straight, slower corner and the sweeper mid straight and the top 3 cars were consistently good, the rest weren't much better than me. I think a lot of people spend heaps on the latest and greatest gear but then don't really bother with the final 10% (setup and practice) so I think I could do ok.

 

2 hours ago, qatmix said:

Quick tips.

never change ride height with down stop screws. Use your shock spring adjusters, then set your droop with the droop screws.

Try a different, more neautral body. The r9R is very aggressive and you will always have a rear that is more loose with that. Try a bittydesign M410 or a protoform Mazda speed 6 (not the GX version)

And the most important thing is to practice and have fun. 

I cover quite a lot of racing tips and set-ups etc on my site if you fancy a look Http://www.thercracer.com

Haha yeah I know that now!  I spent last night reading the Hudy setup manual which was really useful, its going to take a few more read throughs for it all to sink in though.

I had no idea the bodies make that much difference until this weekend (when it was too late!) and I was reading through a TA07 thread on another forum.  My body has some damage now so I will buy a new one to get ready for next season.  I was surprised how easy they are to damage, my buggy bodies are fine but the touring car got ripped in 1 race.

I'm not taking this too seriously, well, I'm trying to make the car competitive but not getting too upset when I'm not competitive.  I don't know if I will make the top of the 21.5T class as there are a lot of carbon chassis in there, but have heard of the TA07 beating the TRF419 in the right hands - I just don't know if that will ever be me!

Thanks I'll take a look at the site, I've just had a quick look and it looks familiar so I probably already have read a few things on it.  Always interested in reading stuff from people who know a lot more than I do, it all helps!

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9 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

I had to marshall the race after which was the A group of the same class so was watching how they take corners etc.  I managed to get to 3 different spots so I could watch the hair-pin at the end of the straight, slower corner and the sweeper mid straight and the top 3 cars were consistently good, the rest weren't much better than me.

Marshalling the next race is law the world over 🙄, I filmed the race (A final racers don't crash that often, so marshalling is a bit easier, giving a chance to film 😁) , so you can watch it back and see things you don't see at the time. (Plus post on here to tempt Jason onto a track). The racers who I filmed wanted me to upload to YouTube so they could see what lines others use, and how their car set up looked.

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7 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Marshalling the next race is law the world over 🙄, I filmed the race (A final racers don't crash that often, so marshalling is a bit easier, giving a chance to film 😁) , so you can watch it back and see things you don't see at the time. (Plus post on here to tempt Jason onto a track). The racers who I filmed wanted me to upload to YouTube so they could see what lines others use, and how their car set up looked.

What I find interesting is how fast they appear when they are at your feet but how slow they can appear when you're on the drivers stand, and given I was comparing how fast my car was to the others, I know it will look the same for any corner I successfully navigate. And these 21.5T cars aren't much slower than mod.

I don't think I would get away with filming the race, some of them look pretty serious and wouldn't take too kindly to that when I was supposed to be marshaling. There are so many people there thlugh they could easily film the whole event. My other club do to post on their facebook page, I don't mind as they never put pictures up that don't look good (like sliding on your roof).

How long do you give Jason til hes racing? The TA07 is a bargain as a stock touring car...

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56 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

What I find interesting is how fast they appear when they are at your feet but how slow they can appear when you're on the drivers stand

I find they seem slower when you're playing catch up and you're willing it down the straight! 🙄

58 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

I don't think I would get away with filming the race, some of them look pretty serious and wouldn't take too kindly to that when I was supposed to be marshaling.

You can always ask the question and film when your not marshalling? You could always ask someone to film you and cringe watching it back 🙄😂

1 hour ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

How long do you give Jason til hes racing? 

Depends if there's anyway close that does the racing you want, when you can go! One of the reasons I gave up racing in the early 90's was because it all went touring car, (and I passed my driving test, pubs, clubs and skirt! 🙄) 

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So I have sorted the base setup for now but obviously can't test it for a long time. I will muck around on asphalt to see what i can do before the next race meet.

I'm looking at some tuning parts as I will be buying a new body for the TA07 and the wide front end for the F1 so will add a few bits and pieces.

@qatmix would either 53440 or 49382 be ok for springs? They look to be the same but 49382 is white which matches the kit springs, the others are coloured. They say they are the hard set but come with soft, med, stiff and extra stiff - is that relative to the other springs in the kit or standard Tamiya rates so my kit med will be the same as these med?

Will I need 2 sets so I can have the same around or do you normally run softer at one end so I could just buy one set? They are cheap enough to buy 2 but no point if I will never use 4 the same. I can also buy the pairs separately which is marginally cheaper for 3 pairs than the 4 in the kit and I can mix and match. 

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On 15/11/2017 at 7:05 AM, Jonathon Gillham said:

So I have sorted the base setup for now but obviously can't test it for a long time. I will muck around on asphalt to see what i can do before the next race meet.

I'm looking at some tuning parts as I will be buying a new body for the TA07 and the wide front end for the F1 so will add a few bits and pieces.

@qatmix would either 53440 or 49382 be ok for springs? They look to be the same but 49382 is white which matches the kit springs, the others are coloured. They say they are the hard set but come with soft, med, stiff and extra stiff - is that relative to the other springs in the kit or standard Tamiya rates so my kit med will be the same as these med?

Will I need 2 sets so I can have the same around or do you normally run softer at one end so I could just buy one set? They are cheap enough to buy 2 but no point if I will never use 4 the same. I can also buy the pairs separately which is marginally cheaper for 3 pairs than the 4 in the kit and I can mix and match. 

Sorry for the late reply. 

Yep get the 49382 set. They are rated the same as the ones that come with the Ta07. So medium (yellow) in the kit is the same as the medium ones in that set. For Tarmac blue front and yellow rear is a good starting point. Carpet you want white (Xtra stiff) and blue rear as a starting point. You only really need one set as general rule of thumb is that the front will always have a stiffer spring than the rear. Look to fit 450 weight oil if running carpet, or 400 if on Tarmac.

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So the first race meet of the year was last night and it went really well.  It helped that only about half the normal numbers were there because the NZ nationals are next week in the Hawkes Bay so a lot of people were preparing for that.  We race on carpet at the club and the nationals are on tarmac so it wasn't like they would have a final practice either, so they just stayed away.

I made the changes that were suggested by people on here, so thats a Bittydesign M410 body (already cracked), spring set, F103 front end and then setup changes.

I got there with plenty of time to practice, and pretty much tried the TA07 and it was pretty well behaved, so put that to one side and ran the F1.  What a mission to drive.  It would spin on any hint of passing half way on the throttle.  Managed a few laps then went in and asked some questions.  Turns out I had the diff way too tight, so loosened that off half a turn.  It feels loose to me but comparing to another car which is apparently the tightest he's run it, its possibly a touch too tight still.  I also added some downforce to the rear wing, and will move it up to the highest setting, that was one of those jobs which was just too hard to do trackside.  Back out and the car was much better behaved.

What was pretty cool is the juniors race first up.  This was for real little kids (under 5) and they just drove all over the place and had a great time.  One even did a whole lap.  Anyway, I thought that was great as the young fellas will enjoy it and it will allow the mums and dads out since they can take the kids with them.

F1 was my first race and I didn't lose!  Funnily enough the guy who gave me setup tips was the guy I beat.  There were only 4 in the race, usually there are about 8, but 4 suited me.  I was pretty happy as there is a father/son team who have been racing for years, and the son is fast but I beat the father.  The main difference between top 2 and bottom 2 is that we both had a couple of crashes.  The second race didn't go well at all.  I clipped a corner (I was struggling to see the far corner, bright lights and my eyes apparently don't mix) and took it a bit too fine so managed a spectacular carthweel (it put my offroad cars to shame) into the net (indoor netball/cricket hall so has nets around it).  This ended my race on lap 3 as a ball joint pulled out of the upright.  Luckily (for me) the guy I beat in the first heat got caught in the net, had a 128second lap as they tried to free him.  This ruined his race too (mwuhahaha) so I started 3rd in the final.  I was coming second for 3 1/2 minutes of the final.  Weird I know, but I was actually improving.  Then I got caught halfway down the main straight and the marshall did their best but their running to free a car and mine are quite different.  I got passed by 3rd, but it turned out I had a lap on him, so was still 2nd.  Then crashed again and was back to 4th.  But then I got 3rd back.  So I made the podium right?  I was really pleased with my first time out and having no idea what to expect.  I find the F1 car is hard to drive, period, but once you get some rhythm it becomes easy to drive fast (well, my fast).  Its really cool when you do get it right though, making it around a corner, or even down a straight, feels like an accomplishment.

The TA07 is the opposite to the F1.  Its easy to drive (as in, really easy, it does what you tell it and is so forgiving) but is hard to be fast.  There is no learning to drive the car, its the easiest in my fleet, so you have to be really switched on with your lines, braking etc.  First up though, I was one of 3 TA07 Pro's at the track.  Funny thing is a guy at my offroad club was telling me about his friend who took a TA07 to the onroad club and won, and they accused him of cheating and pretty much took his car apart.  This was because they gave him so much grief about buying a Tamiya first that they couldn't accept it was fast, so thought he had cheated to have a laugh.  Anyway, he hadn't, its just a fast car (in the right hands).  Another lady bought one because of his recommendation, she also has the TB EVO 7 as well.  I know her from my other club and she seems to trade cars a lot and spend a heap of money, I hope she sticks to the Tamiyas.  Or sells the TB EVO 7 to me for cheap, which might happen.  2 other guys are in the TT02 class and want to move into Touring Stock as well, so will probably buy TA07's due to the price.  We are taking over the club.  Anyway, so the problems from the first meet were sorted with the new body and proper base setup.  No more tail happy corners (or straights!) or grip rolling.  Heat 1 was going ok and then someone managed to drive into the net, flip and get rebounded back across the track and land squarely on my bonnet.  So the shell has a crack in it now which has been taped up, and my car was making funny noises.  I pulled over and had a look and couldn't see anything wrong, did another lap and it made awful noises so stopped.  Then realised right at the end that it was actually just the rear of the body tucked behind a rear wheel.  Flicked that out (is it cheating to leave the drivers stand to try to fix your car?) and it was fine, just in time to do half a lap before the race ended.  Heat 2 was better because I finished it.  I wasn't that fast or anything, but managed to finish 4th out of 5.  One thing I noticed though is that my car was noticably slower down the straights, so I went up a pinion for the final.

A car had dropped out so the A & B heats of 6 and 5 cars were combined for the final so there were 10 cars in it.  I started 8th, which was a surprise.  It went sort of ok, in that I finished without major incident except for one grip roll.  I found that the ride height had crept up, no idea how that happened?  Hopefully user error and not some expensive fix.  The pinion change meant I was still slower than most cars but could keep up with a few, so thats heading in the right direction.  I asked someone to check temps for me and I can gear up a lot.  After the overheating problems last year I fitted a fan and went up a spur and down a pinion, so it looks like I have a lot of headroom for next race meet.  Yay for fans.

So overall a successful evening, with some progress made and some things to work on.

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