Carpet Wars Round 4

 

I've not run my 12th for a little while now, what with Christmas and New Year etc so Sunday would be interesting at least :)

The flooring at Maritime Raceway has been re-laid and new carpet laid over it resulting in a MUCH MUCH flatter track surface.  This is good news for 12th scale :)

The practice and first couple of qualifiers I found that I could drive the car on the throttle but the car didn't feel punchy at all, it felt like I was flat out everywhere with no real change in speed.  My times didn't reflect this however as I was 4th overall in the qualifying behind Terry (albeit with a quicker lap)

I made a change in the 4th qualifier which was one step too far.  The car felt quick finally, but I had traction roll issues, so I backed off a little for the rest of the run, therefore not improving.  I knew the car had the speed though so was looking forward to the final.

For the final I applied additive a little later and used a softer spring on the shock.  The car was as quick and I had made up a place by the first corner, passing Terry on the sweeper at the end of the straight on Lap 1.

I was comfortably in 3rd place for the rest of the race with no threat from anyone behind me, but also making no gains on the guys in front.  The "guys in front" were Mark Green and Luke Burley, both excellent drivers, so there was no shame in me being behind them !

About halfway through the final, disaster struck and my motor shifted in the mount so I lost the mesh between the pinion and the spur.  This was the end of my race :(

I have since found the problem with the mount was in fact a bent pod plate, so that has been replaced with a view to running at Plymouth this weekend in my first ever National.  Terry and Steve Fuller are both attending on the weekend so it should be an experience in how to move out of people's way if nothing else :)

12th Lipo a possibility ?

I'm just come home after my "testing" night at my local club... the results are very interesting.

I have the following electronics installed in the car:
Speed Passion GT LPF Speedo
Speed Passion 10.5 Motor
Futaba 603FS Receiver (2.4Ghz version)
Futaba 9650 Servo
MRT PTx transponder

Run 1: without an rx pack to see if
A) it would work
B) there would be any problems.
I ran the car for 6 and a half minutes before pulling it off but everything worked fine. There was a noticable lack of kick from the car, but I didn't have to let off as much for the corners.

Run 2: with an rx pack to see the differenceI ran the car for a few minutes (3 or so) before it cut out completely and wouldn't respond to any input. I believe this was because the car was trying to take power from the rx pack instead of the battery. This was the last time I ran the rx pack for the evening.

Heat 1: Lipo (no rx)
Gearing and Setup on the car were as I normally would have it when running 4-cell nimh packs.
Result: 30 laps in 305.442 (quick lap: 9.475, avg: 10.181)
Used Capacity: 1358 mah
Battery voltage: 3.9v (0.3 loss from fully charged)

Heat 2: Lipo (no rx)
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev). I had two screws come loose in the rear pod so didn't finish this run, but quick lap was 9.671, avg: 10.338
Used Capacity: N/A

Heat 3: 4-cell Nimh
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev)Motor moved in the mount meaning I didn't finish the run, but quick lap was 9.040 avg: 10.187

Final: 4-cell Nimh
Same gearing and setup (~57mm/rev)Result: 31 laps in 309.958 (quick lap: 9.264, avg: 9.999)

Overall the car felt like it had a lot less of a kick when running the Lipo, but there was no dumping sensation and the car was actually EASIER to drive around the track for me.

I will do some more testing, including the possibility of an 8 minute run, but things look encouraging so far !

Shocking result

I raced at Sidcup tonight for the first time after stripping down the BMI and rebuilding it from the ground up.

Changes to the car:

Electronics moved
Wires re-routed
New Associated lower front arms
Suspension shimmed up
Servo moved further back
Front brace installed

I ran the car in practice just to make sure it was tracking straight and turning left/right, nothing more than that.

During qualifying I found that the car had a little too much steering so I tried dialling it out by turning down the dual rate on my transmitter.  I also added some exp to steering in order to calm it down a bit.  Both of these helped, but not by enough...

After the 2nd qualifying heat I was 3 or 4 laps off the pace and was running out of ideas...

I decided I'd try a shock spring change, so popped the shock off the car to change the spring over.  It was at this point I found that the shock shaft newly installed before the last meeting, was bent AGAIN.  This is the second one I've done personally, and Terry has also done a couple of them as well.  As a result of bending shock pistons, I had ordered a Hot Bodies Cyclone 12 Shock as a replacement.

The original plan was to try it out at the next carpet wars meeting, but I installed it on the car quickly.  Nothing special done to it, just built it up using the oil it came with in the packet.

I had moved the batteries slightly forward to help calm the car down for this round as well.

Result: 4 extra laps (33) and TQ for the evening !

For the final, I moved the batteries back again as I had a bit more confidence in the car after seeing it perform in qualifying.

I went on to win the Final on 34 laps after this, but the way the car handled was the best thing, it's given me the confidence back that I had been lacking with the car over the past few weeks.