Protoform F1.....WHOA

The long and the short of it.

Watch this video, but skip to about 2:50 in to see the interview, and at about 5:50 TRUTH SON!!:

It's probably heresy to a lot of people running a short pack, but when Masami says "More traction, more power", I tend to listen.

I saw this video about a year ago and I went out and tried the short pack versus the full sized pack on a weekend, and the full sized pack was better.  Every time I have tried it, with one exception, it was better.  I'm sure that on a hot lap, on a perfect track, the short pack may come up on top, but over a run the big pack has always been better for me.  We are racing 2wd pan cars on rubber tires, in many cases on asphalt, so traction is at a premium.  Any time you can get grip into the car is usually helpful, as then you can then dial in more steering, instead of trying to tame a car that wants to do donuts.

It's not like I am against light cars at all.  When F1 foam was more popular, and 540 brush motors were the norm, I ran mini revo 1800 mAh packs, which weighed about 100g less than any other normal lipo.  It worked with the lower amp draw motors and the high grip of foams.  Now, not so much..
In my experience, the full size pack is easier to drive, and sticks the car a lot more. You can leverage the traction into a car that steers more, and leaves the corner faster since you don't have to baby the throttle. Mistakes are not as costly..I know, I make enough of them....

The one situation where the short pack was better was on the infamous Pardus tires.  The break away characteristics of the rears was such that with the big lipo, the car wanted to keep turning , over rotating.  The added weight toward the rear of the car was swinging the back of the car around.  As soon as I went to a short lipo mounted closer to the front of the car, this tendency went away and the car was just the way I wanted it.  On other tires, like Pits, this is not a problem.

Maybe you don't agree with me, but just try the two different packs back to back, and see what you think.  Pretty soon, you may be trying a steel axle, too, but that's another post.

The V2 Thing

The V2 Thing...I ran the F104V2  or almost a year.  There was always a bit of dissatisfaction with how it worked.  I wanted it to have more stability getting on the power, in fact a little more stability overall.  Going to different races, I saw some really great V2 cars.  Some made a bunch of traction, or at least looked that way.  Personally, I didn't seem to be able to find the compromise that I was looking for, so I sold one of the cars I had but I hung onto the other for whatever reason.

Along the way I looked at a lot of oval pan cars.  The link cars all had a similar rear end setup.

 I tried a SpeedPassion SP-1 with the links toed all the way in, as that happened to be an option.  The car had a ton of stability and was much better on the parking lot surface than my Tamiya car was.

That experience, along with seeing the SpeedMerchant Rev8 gave me an idea.

The SpeedMerchant car has very long side links and a lot of the comments about the car related to the amount of traction it had.  So with a lot of ideas floating around in my head, I decided to carve up my F104V2.  

The side links wind up being about 4" long (100mm).  I used some captured ball ends meant for 4-40 screws that I was able to tap to 3mm so I could bolt them down to the chassis.  The pod plate came from the RM-01 1/12 car.  It moves the links much further out, but also requires the side spring be moved out further to accommodate the new pod plate . I used the V2's mount for side spring as a template to make a new mount which moved the side spring further out.  The chassis had to be cut down to allow for the articulation of the links.  I added a 1mm spacer under each ball end as well.

The car has to use a short pack since the only room for electronics is inline with the battery.   Not a problem as that setup is pretty popular anyway. 

I ran the car a few times on carpet, and one race which I was able to win.  It ran extremely well in my opinion. It seemed to have the traction I was looking for.  Since that time, I have not had a chance to run the car but I do want to try it outdoors just to see how it will wok on asphalt.  Mostly, I need more time...too many cars and not enough time!

Tuning Haus Party @ The Gate

I went out to the Tuning Haus Party at The Gate outside Cleveland Ohio.  Most of the summer I'm racing outdoors, but it was an opportunity to race F1 at a great facility in the UF1 format with  a good crowd of cars.  The race called for TCS spec tires (Pit 571 and 572) on Tuning Haus rims which is perfect for carpet.

Normally, I have been running my Tamiya F104 WGP outdoors in preparation for TCS events, but I brought out the Speed Passion SP-1 which I had been running on carpet on Pardus ties for some of the UF1 MIDWEST events.  The setup is definitely different for Pardus tires vs. the Pits.  I always felt you wanted to try to keep the rears happy with the Pardus tires, so rear traction was paramount. The Pit tires balance the cars a lot better and don't have such a big sidewall.

I ran my car at the local carpet track the week before to see what changes would be good for the Pit TCS tires.  Mostly I added some more droop front and  rear, and changed around the ball stud heights on the front end.

When I got out to the track the car was pretty good to start.  The layout was new at The Gate, so traction was just building up.  My home track tends to be lower traction in the summer, so I'm sure that worked in my favor at the beginning of the day.  As traction came up, my car was still good, and I didn't change too much going into the 3 minute qualifying period.  Mostly I was trying to figure out how much dope I could use on the front tires.  2/3 to 3/4 appeared to be what I could cover on the tire.

Anyway, I was able to qualify 3rd for the race.  I felt like my car had a little push during the qualifier, which I think may have been either traction  improving or my tire prep.  I might have wiped off the tires a little early, but I can't say 100%..  I think my best lap was an 8.5, but TQ and Tuning Haus proprietor Bill Jeric went 8.4 and I believe Mike Wise in the CRC rent-a-ride went 8.3.

The race was for me, a total FAIL.... In the first leg my transponder stopped working on the starting line, and though I was able to get it working at least momentarily, it only counted 5 laps in the 15 minute race.  Unfortunately, the format counts every race's results, so I was toast more or less. The bad part was that I was probably in 3rd place or so by my own reckoning.

Figuring I didn't have much to lose , I tried to put some more steering into the car by adding some camber and changing the arm angle on the front.  I lowered the front ball stud and raised the rear.  This was a bit of a mixed bag.  I also went farther with the front dope and wound up with a car that wanted to traction roll at the start of the race, and pretty severely at that.  I tried to manage the car, but it wanted to flip a lot for the first half of the race.  As the race progressed into the second half, and the dope burned off the tires, my car actually came in really well.  With all the flipping, I was was off the pace, but my car could run good lap times.

I went back to the pits and changed the front end around again.  I wanted to raise up the front of the arms to get the car to roll a little more so the car would get through the sweeper, and not have as much camber change.  I did keep some of the height on the rear ball stud.  On the SP-1 suspension, the rear ball stud height seems to control a lot of the overall amount of steering.  The car got onto the nose more as I raised the rear ball stud, but did seem more prone to traction roll.  One thing I did not do is glue the sidewalls of the front tire.  Normally that is a first step and I did not do it here.  With the Pardus tires I glued both sides of the tire so that I could get enough steering  without traction rolling.  With the Pit TCS tires, I think that I should have glued them as well, so the front end was a little less sensitive to traction roll.  I felt like it was hard to find the right setup for the front end - it was too much or too little.  I think I could get more steering out of the car if it didn't want to flip.  The only thing the car seemed to lack was a little steering and corner speed along with it.

For the third race I actually had a small bit of luck, at least enough to finish the race.  Traction must have come up even more, as on the first lap or so both the 1st and 2nd place cars traction rolled, allowing me into first place for a little while.  I was doing well until the first stop, when I caught a dot a little after I came out of the pit and rolled the car.  Mike Wise got into first, and I was in second, with Bill Jeric in tow.  I tried to hold off Bill as long as I could, but his car was definitely faster.  After a couple attempts, he was able to get by me.  By now Mike had a good lead, but near the end of the race, he had a side link go loose and he could only limp the car around, letting both Bill and myself by.  Bill Jeric wound up first in the final leg and I was able to get second.

Podium:
F1:
1. Bill Jeric
2. Mike Wise
3. Ron Mick

Overall, it was a really fun race with an excellent layout by The Gate dudes.  VTA and USGT were also well represented.  For an indoor carpet race in the middle of summer, it was a big success and it sounds like it will be on the calendar again next year.

Exotek 2013??

During my usual snooping about the intarwebs, I noticed a photo from the recent RCF1GP race in California at TQ Raceway.  It appears that Exotek may have something new for the Tamiya F104V2

Looks like a new upper plate for the motor pod, as well as a new cross brace for the side springs and damper.  Interesting.....

What's this?  Is that a damper from the shock mount to the servo, or a brace?  What about the front end, those look like damper tubes there....Hmmmmmm

F1 displays at IIC - pictures by RC50

Tuning Haus

F1 Paintlab

Pictures by RC50.com

New CRC F1 car @ IIC - pictures by RC50

Note dual damper tubes on pod!!

 

Pictures by RC50.com

Tuning Haus Accessories Line

Tuning Haus, a new brand under long time racer/rc industry big wig Bill Jeric has introduced a bunch of F1 related parts for the F104 and VBC cars.  They also have quite a few more universal products like spacers, shims, fluids and tools.  Check it out!!

FGX belt conversion by TQ Raceway

http://www.tqrcracing.com/forum/view.asp?doc_no=21&bbs_no=8

TQ shows you how to convert to belt drive with 3Racing parts!!!

TCS Finals

Jusr finished Friday practice for TCS finals...F1 looks super competitive with a ton of fast cars on the track.   Several times a big freight train formed on the track during practice.  I have no idea what is going to happen in qualifying.