tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69012065171518103282024-03-08T05:32:39.633-06:00rc.F1.blogF104-F103-TCS-F109-Exotek-F'n F1....rc.f1.blog@gmail.comrobkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.comBlogger229125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-83153197763889740012022-02-11T20:33:00.002-06:002022-02-11T20:33:19.546-06:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s3300" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;">Midwest F1 / Gt series 2022</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s3300" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;">We're racing long mains with pit stops! Join us!</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s3300" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;">https://www.facebook.com/groups/916839475635289</a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s3300" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s3300" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="3300" data-original-width="2550" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiyp9AGEWztLC-BYHFS6DsTut27fetwj-2hefQ5YMr0cUuzRMBc4lG0WKrLad9HJ27jErPEcaTwhJ2_mirahDEqk7LAczK8jlSL5GTneIbHlmWfXOnQFEusdQw9IJJkySxvPGvVWDCPNmWuWs_ZXtYDjmJwKrXu5avSECcFIPVSMHtt284DCfy2j22Xw=s400" /></a></div>robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-64190952786052998832020-08-08T17:21:00.000-05:002020-08-08T17:21:08.108-05:00Exotek F1Ultra front endI was changing my car over to the long wheelbase setting, and it just occurred to me there are some interesting aspects of the front end which might not be readily apparent.<br />
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Owing to the fact that there are two positions for the steering arm post, you can actually get quite a bit of adjustment in the Ackermann for the front end. Setting the car to the long wheelbase and leaving the post in the short wheelbase position will make the steering rods much straighter. This should promote more corner speed, but be less aggressive entering the corner. Likewise, the short wheelbase with the post forward would put quite a bit of angle into the rods, which would be pretty aggressive on corner entry.<br />
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One other aspect to think about is the caster link on the upper arm. This is something that may or may not make a hug difference. Theoretically, a shorter link would have more change in caster as it moves through it's travel than a long link. This really only comes into play if there is a big difference in the heights of the inside of the camber link and the height of the caster link at it's rear - essentially the dynamic caster effect.</div>
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These are just a few things to think about or try on your car. If I have time I'm going to see what they do myself next time at the track. </div>
robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-18778604477715033842020-08-02T17:00:00.000-05:002020-08-02T17:15:04.072-05:00Exotek F1Ultra Performance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After getting the car together, I brought it out to the club parking lot race not far from my house. The lot the race is held at is pretty bumpy, though traction is good due to a generous application of grape soda pop. This is actually a perfect test for the car. The rear suspension is designed for exactly this sort of less than perfect surface.<br />
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My thinking was to take the tires directly off my TRF 103, as it has been fantastic everwhere I take it. The last race I used it at was at a very small but smooth track in central Illinois. Traction was excellent, and we raced a night, so conditions were relatively cool.<br />
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We did not have enough cars for an F1 class, so I was running the car in practice and between rounds. Time was a little limited to get too much done as far as setting the car.<br />
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I had Pit Shimizu 575 rears and 571 fronts on the TRF car. As it turns out, the 575 rears may have been a little too soft for the hot conditions on the day, though not horrible. 571 was too aggressive in hindsight. The car would sort of wander on the straight, and was really sensitive to corrections. I had the same problem with the TRF 103 when I visited the small track downstate, and reduced droop via shortening the center shock. Figuring that might help here, I shortened the shock on the F1Ultra.<br />
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That change seemed to help some, but now the car was getting on the nose going into the corner. That was a little strange considering shortening the shock tends to take away entry steering in my experience. The other problem was now the car occasionally wanted to snap the rear end in the middle of the sweeper if I got overly aggressive with the wheel. At this point, I changed the fronts to F104 kit fronts, which are less aggressive. The F104 front is reliable for most parking lot situations to balance the car to stability.<br />
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Unfortunately, there really didn't seem to be much difference between the two tires. I was having virtually the same problems. At this point, I just put a bunch of droop back into the car, not knowing exactly what to do, and running out of track time. That did make things better, but not by a huge margin.<br />
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The whole experience made me think I had done something wrong setting the droop on the car. It's a little different that the cars I have run in the past, so I thought my normal tricks might not be what were needed. I contacted Mike from Exotek to get some advice.<br />
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Mike recommended that I run the droop as noted in the manual, and ensure that the ride heights were correct. He also suggested that I look to tire selection, as he felt I was on the wrong rear and had too aggressive of a front tire. I took Mike's suggestions and went over the chassis to ensure everything was correct (this is also where I developed my alternative micro shock droop check).<br />
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As an aside, here are Mike's tire recommendations for asphalt:<br />
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"<span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">Personally I'm really liking the Volante</span><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><b style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit;">front</b><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;"> </span><span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">tires due to the different compound choices. I tend to have the softest spring settings all around and just tune the balance of the car by changing the front tire;</span><br />
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Medium Soft for more steering</div>
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Medium for medium steering</div>
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Medium Hard if the car/track is loose</div>
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For rear tires I use;</div>
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Volante white dots if the track is fast or grippy</div>
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Shimizu 72 if the track is small or low grip</div>
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Yokomo Soft rears (looks like Shimizu) if it's a bit cold outside.<span style="color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit;">"</span></div>
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The next time at the track we had a group of 10 F1 cars (!). This worked out great, since I was just able to concentrate on working on the F1 car all day. After getting the info from Mike, and also consulting his setup sheet for asphalt I made a few changes. Foremost was putting Pardus fronts and Pit Shimizu 572 rears on the car. I wasn't able to find the recommended Volantes quick enough, but I knew that the Pardus tires were a hard compound. I also know that 3x UF1 champ Lee Passehl used them extensively in the past, so I thought it would be a good choice.</div>
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Beyond that, I also noted in the setup sheet that the shorter of the two camber link positions was used. I had initially built the car with the link long, so that was changed as well. I also widened the rear end at the axle. The wheelbase remained the same, short.</div>
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The changes were apparently the right ones, as the car was now excellent straight off the setup board. The only things I really looked at changing were the front tires and the upper links on the front end.</div>
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I did try a pair of Pit 573 fronts in a practice run, just to see what they might do. They are a harder compound, but even so, they were a little to much in the steering department. The Pardus tires were actually perfect for the track. This car develops a lot of steering in the short wheelbase setting, and the Pardus fronts were fine. In case you are wondering, Pardus tires are discontinued. You might be able to find them somewhere online new, or even used since they last forever. Tamiya F104 option hard fronts (54198) would be the closest thing that is available. Otherwise, I would just follow Mike's suggestions and buy some Volantes.</div>
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Changing the upper link did give me some insight to why my car was hard to drive the week before. While the tire was a big part of my troubles, the long upper link did not help anything. Once I changed from a short link to a long link, the car began stepping the rear end out in the sweeper again. The car rolls the front end so hard it whips the rear out when it bites. So, that was at least a good bit of information even if it was a bad change.</div>
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I had changed the upper link looking for just a bit more steering in the center of the corner. Plan B was to dial in some more caster, which was the correct option. I made the caster link's gap about 0.75 mm smaller, winding up with a 7.5 mm gap. Since the last time I raced, Mike has published a <a href="https://app.box.com/s/cjmg9n83f5n4m1vhfe4gh5xsqs4x5jvw" target="_blank">new asphalt setup</a> recommending 12* caster (I think his link gap was 6.6 mm!). I have the car short right now, but I think for the next race I'll take a stab at the long wheelbase to see what that is like.</div>
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In closing, I think the main points are correct tire selection is critical (duh), and you may have to look at how you tune an F1 in a new light since this car is a little different. Once I got things straightened out, the car did the fast lap of the day, TQ and I won the first main. We had a second main, but my battery connector pulled out in an incident, so I lost too much time, but I was leading at that point. The car works. One guy said it looked like a slot car, so it can't be all bad. You can drive it easy, and it will do super fast laps. It was pretty composed in most of the rough parts of the track as well. Not bad, since it helped me get on the throttle a little earlier than most. </div>
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-62376390687424601582020-07-31T17:20:00.002-05:002020-08-22T13:17:43.648-05:00Exotek F1Ultra Build<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The new Exotek F1 car has been a source of intrigue for a few months now, having secured the ROAR national championship at the carpet nats. The car was kept under wraps for quite some time actually. It has been developed over several years' time. I saw an early prototype at a race in California a few summers ago, and I have heard about multiple iterations being tested out there.<br />
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One of the main design departures from typical F1 cars is the 3 shock pod arrangement, controlled by a panhard rod similar to a NASCAR or sprint car rear axle. This allows massive travel in comparison to a t-bar or link car with a center pivot. The entire pod can move up and down, without restraint from the center pivot. I like this concentration on maximizing travel, as I have felt that most pan car based designs don't have enough travel in the car. Rubber tires are heavier, and larger than foams. Greater travel, and also rear traction, should be a strength for a rubber tired F1 car. Counterintuitive to what you might think, this should be a huge asset for carpet racing. The dreaded traction roll, and it's little brother, the light inner rear tire, rear their heads when the car runs out of travel. Once the car can no longer roll in the suspension travel, it will hinge over and flip or at least pick up an inside tire.</div>
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The chassis is also different from almost every other car in that the main chassis is a 2 piece hybrid of carbon and aluminum. Different, but I can understand why this was chosen. I have had an aluminum chassis before, which I felt was <u>too</u> stiff. It seemed to kill the mid corner steering. Here the front of the car is allowed some flex without sacrificing too much rigidity in the rear.</div>
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The packaging of the kit has tremendous appeal visually, and everything fits nicely in the medium sized box. Beyond the chassis parts, a front and rear wing are included, leaving only the choice of a body, tires and electronics to the builder. Note that wing mounting is the standard Tamiya hole pattern, so nearly anything will fit. Bodies may be a little more restrictive as the links require some clearance. Most bodies introduced in the last few years should fit, and I think most Tamiya bodies could even work, though the "cut and fit" realistic side pods would probably have to be omitted in most cases. I chose a Bitty Design body, which fit just fine.</div>
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Assembly starts with the front end. As with any F1 kit, remember thread lock is essential, as the rubber tires will vibrate all the screws loose eventually. A sparing dab is all that's needed.<br />
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I included a picture of my trusty CRC pivot ball tool, which is a must have for any pan car owner. There are several different brands out there, but this prevents damage to the pivots during assembly. Using a pliers pretty much guarantees you will smush something eventually.<br />
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The pivots are secured in the arms with a large plastic C clip. It's recommended to add a dab of shoe goo to secure them, and that's wise. I also much prefer this arrangement to the o-ring securement which seems to be popular with other manufacturers. I've had the o-rings pop off before which at a minimum makes the suspension get sloppy during the run, if not fail. This seems very robust.<br />
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You may have to hold the grub screw in the bulkhead with a 1.5 mm driver while you spin the ball end down, as pictured. The grub screw wanted to rotate with the ball end unless I held it in place like this. You can snug it with a nut driver once it's in place.<br />
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Once you have the bulkhead and arms set up, the assembly is mounted to the chassis. You have the option here of two wheelbases. Long is recommended for large and high speed tracks. Short for smaller tracks and indoor. I went with a shorter car.<br />
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Just a tip, you can use a hex driver to hold the rear suspension mount as you tighten it...that's what the hole is for...<br />
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After you get all the suspension mounts and post for the steering on, the rear link mounts and chassis connections go on. It did seem like a lot of parts for this part of the car. </div>
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With the chassis bolted together, everything does seem solid. I was a little concerned there might be some tolerance once everything was built up, but the two parts came together nicely, matching up flush. Also pictured are the turnbuckles and ball cups, including a molded version of the now famous Exotek front end for full adjustability of caster and camber. </div>
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Again, the pivot ball tool comes in handy for the upper arm. It turns out the good old Tamiya cross wrench has the perfect size drive for the hex adjusters on the turnbuckles, making threading the ball cups a snap.</div>
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When securing the knuckle on the kingpin, be sure to squeeze the assembly together as you tighten the set screw. This will ensure even ride height and minimal slop.</div>
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Both Tuning Haus and Tamiya sell the same style of circlip which I prefer to e-clips for the kingpin. There is just more surface area and it's easier to pop them off for spring changes and maintenance.</div>
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I added some Tamiya hard grease on the kingpins for some dampening. Adding the grease above and below the arm, then working it in seems to be the best way to ensure it covers the whole area of travel on the kingpin. You can use any number of silicone lubes for gear diffs, greases, Tamiya Anti Wear grease (THICK) to slow down the action on the front end. This stuff has been working pretty well for me lately. Just remember, it has to be redone fairly regularly to be effective. Once a race day is the minimum in my book. </div>
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This is the front end finished with bellcrank steering. I found over time that leaving the screw in the upper arm connecting the caster control turnbuckle loose enough that it will still pivot ensures there's no binding. It's not hanging loose, but it's not locked down.</div>
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The rear pod is a little different from most cars, in that the lower plate is a single machined piece of aluminum. To me, it appears to serve to purposes. One, the rigidity is much better than most cars, and I hope this means there will be less bent left side pod plates. Two, it adds weight down low on the rear end, for an increase in traction. This is a rubber tire car, and it's never bad too have too much rear traction. "You can't fire a cannon from a canoe..."</div>
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This is the assembled pod, sans axle. 51.9 g, which is certainly heftier than the typical carbon lower type pod. Again, the weight is down low, so I feel it will be beneficial.</div>
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You can see the huge amount of travel afforded by the panhard rod arrangement when the shocks are off the car. Obviously, the car will have much less movement when the shocks limit things, but this is far more than anything I am aware of that out right now. You could go rock crawling with this setup...</div>
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Here's the center shock, which includes an internal limiting spring. I have never tried anything like this before, but the manual states using a softer spring improves rear traction. I can only assume that as the shock extends, it keeps an abrupt stop from disrupting the rear end of the car, versus solid shims more typically used to limit shock length. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRn8aUJT-9sCfos5-e-v2A1XXE901F0W2WaoEogBTsxVlq-tSI-XDQYTSCdMrkYmG6KVDhaGNXen4NSbR8nHBIKQ9Dv2aYXqUFgHQLAhwQx8GjKO1NOrnQdMpo3QFzvuh7pLqDAYTYteVy/s1600/20200710_161318.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRn8aUJT-9sCfos5-e-v2A1XXE901F0W2WaoEogBTsxVlq-tSI-XDQYTSCdMrkYmG6KVDhaGNXen4NSbR8nHBIKQ9Dv2aYXqUFgHQLAhwQx8GjKO1NOrnQdMpo3QFzvuh7pLqDAYTYteVy/s320/20200710_161318.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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The shock goes together pretty easily, and is designed in the Tamiya style. One thing I did do was to slightly sand the non shouldered guide, as it seemed to be overly compressing the o-ring once the bottom of the shock was assembled. The guide sands easily with something like 1200 grit paper, and you don't need to take much off. You might need to test it a couple times, but it's better to go slow and not remove too much material.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGI6advpQxtxQJ31S-pJh5NkQoZq2lTbZmB6kcbkuOMM-xE5GoJe4oaxh4aQtwYaGPtRu08Iszc3DrqXcnXvF-dRQplNx6ocvugG3jxKJICK729IJj3yKVXwsJdqThEsEC334NXCgMI4Xl/s1600/20200710_162716.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGI6advpQxtxQJ31S-pJh5NkQoZq2lTbZmB6kcbkuOMM-xE5GoJe4oaxh4aQtwYaGPtRu08Iszc3DrqXcnXvF-dRQplNx6ocvugG3jxKJICK729IJj3yKVXwsJdqThEsEC334NXCgMI4Xl/s320/20200710_162716.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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I punched a small hole in the top of the shock with a tiny drill bit. I have run a "dead" shock on my F1 cars for a long time, with almost no rebound. I think it makes the car more stable.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih9cuhhuM7stuUDNWbNTrNqvbwti62FRlTwYi4yyV03_Vm3n7gDgvhk3SBpN3VeLugIoPEq7pkdIEDs9TGXGc1PDCaSyKIqlueh4c2NN5SblclkM0LUGCkybB1L2SpdUkMIq_j0xXa6R2P/s1600/20200710_165011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih9cuhhuM7stuUDNWbNTrNqvbwti62FRlTwYi4yyV03_Vm3n7gDgvhk3SBpN3VeLugIoPEq7pkdIEDs9TGXGc1PDCaSyKIqlueh4c2NN5SblclkM0LUGCkybB1L2SpdUkMIq_j0xXa6R2P/s320/20200710_165011.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The rear end has a lot of well thought out features. The oversize bearings are nice to prevent wall shots from destroying the typical thin 1/4" I.D. bearings used in pan cars. Some might want an axle carrier that uses shims to set ride height instead of the cam adjusters on this car. I personally like shim adjustment, but I see the value in an easy to set and strong axle carrier. With rubber tires it's not as critical to have super fine adjustment, but I do like being able to dial in ride height more precisely when switching brands of tires. </div>
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The wing mount is the best out there in my opinion. The over the motor design is much better than the perimeter style mounts in that the parts count is vastly reduced, resulting in less weight. It also allows the body to rest on top, ensuring the body will never interfere with the pod.</div>
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A fan can be attached to the left side pod plate, again moving weight down on the pod since most other cars wind up with the fan above the motor.</div>
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One thing you may want to do is replace the upper ball studs for the micro shocks with something like Tamiya 42231 Damper Ball Connectors (that's what I used). There is an internal hex, making it easy to remove the shock without having to pop the top off the ball stud. This will be important when you set the droop on the micro shocks, which must be adjusted by shaft length.</div>
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Tamiya 42231</div>
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That's the main part of assembly. I chose to use an Xray gear diff in my car instead of the ball diff. I have not put my ball diff together, but I'm not worried about how it will build, having used Exotek diff parts on Tamiya cars in the past. </div>
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I just wanted to add a tip on wings. The car does come with what appears to be a Montech front wing, and a rear wing that is a copy of the old Ferrari wing that Tamiya first made, then copied by HPI for the old Super F1, and many others followed suit. I personally don't like how the Montech looks, but I know a lot of people use it. One reason it is a good wing is that it is far enough off the ground that it has far less "touch downs" where it contacts the track and disrupts the suspension. </div>
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The Tamiya 2017 wing set looks great and can be made to have a much better ride height very simply. With a lighter or butane torch, you can carefully heat the inner portion of the wing and make a Z bend with a needle nose pliers. Once allowed to cool while bent to shape, the wing will hold its form. The touch down problem is greatly reduced or eliminated.</div>
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Here's the car with electronics mounted. Admittedly, space is tight for the receiver and speed control. I used a Tekin RS Pro and a Futaba receiver. Tekin has one of the smaller ESCs out there, and you do need to stick with a small footprint to fit everything in. The servo is a low profile 9551 Futaba. Something full size might fit, but low profile is really what the car was designed for.</div>
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Setting Caster: I have found the easiest way to measure caster is just to keep track of the gap on the caster turnbuckle from side to side. So if your calipers measures 7.5 mm between the plastic rod ends, and both sides are the same, the caster is even. If you want a rough idea of the amount in degrees, you can line up a camber gauge next to the kingpin to estimate caster, and note it corresponding to the gap measurement. I just prefer the gap number, since it is much more accurate to track adjustments than eyeballing a camber gauge, and requires no special tools or setup gear. Caster and camber work together on this car, since adjusting either can change the other adjustment, especially if you make a big change. Generally, looking at the turnbuckle gap will keep you in the ballpark.</div>
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I wanted to show how I measured the micro shock droop on the car. The manual shows the use of a ride height gauge on the bottom of the chassis to check micro shock droop. This does work. I just felt that it was awkward to do the measurement in that way. I initially set it in that fashion and to ensure the shocks were drooping out, I was holding the car above me. I guess I could have simply flipped the car over, but I wasn't sure if that would correctly estimate the droop, especially seeing it should be 0.5 - 1 mm total. </div>
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I used a set of sedan droop gauge and droop blocks. The blocks can be set transverse across the main chassis. As you can see, the droop gauge can enter under the pod from the side, right where the link attaches. I repeated the measurement process many times once I found the best spot to ensure it corresponded with the measurement I got using the method recommended in the manual. This produces the same measurement, but I feel it's much easier to do, and it is consistent. </div>
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I think it's important as just setting the micro shock droop via shock length may cause a different setting side to side if you make both shocks the same length. I noticed I needed to be 0.3 mm different side to side on length to make droop even. That may sound miniscule, but the car has no center pivot, so droop imbalance side to side is exaggerated. Without the difference in shock length, droop was close to 1 mm off side to side. This is also where the Tamiya ball studs come in on the upper end of the shock. It's super easy to remove the upper ball still attached to the shock, and just pop the bottom off the pod. A ball end wrench is the easiest way to get the top off.</div>
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Pod droop as most refer to it is separate from the micro shocks. The center shock length sets the angle of the pod plate as seen from the side of the car as it unweights. Since there is no pivot, this acts different than a center pivot car (link or t-bar). To be honest, I'm not sure how all this interacts, as the microshock droop sets how far the pod can move down vertically. Hmmm....</div>
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That's the build up on the car. I'm going to do <a href="http://rcf1blog.blogspot.com/2020/08/exotek-f1ultra-performance.html" target="_blank">another post on the car's performance.</a> This has been pretty long and I'd like to address what happened the track on it's own.<br />
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<span style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">Part 2:<a href="http://rcf1blog.blogspot.com/2020/08/exotek-f1ultra-performance.html" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">Exotek F1Ultra Performance</a></span></h3>
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robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-12497695159365400852020-03-03T16:32:00.004-06:002020-03-03T16:32:42.249-06:00Toe in for tiresRecently I was racing at a series race on carpet where we had to use the Gravity RC F1 tire. Normally, with the Pit Shimizu tire (CRC, TCS) I keep front toe out at about 2*. I have run much more in the past, but I discovered on carpet, the Pit tire can overheat with a large amount of front toe out. That being the case, I have become a little more conservative with toe out on carpet.<br />
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As the day went on, I was getting a bit frustrated with the lack of steering on my car. There was not a good amount of turn in, among the many bad habits my car displayed. I went to local CRC driver Mark Sweeney, who mentioned he had been running quite a bit of front toe out on his car. He gave me several tips which were excellent in getting my car competitive on the Gravity tire, but the toe out was interesting in that he felt that the extra heat generated by the toe out was a plus. I think he is probably correct, seeing that the Gravity tire is harder than the Pit. There is not the same amount of steering with the Gravity tire. <br />
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Adding extra toe out to the front of the car worked out. I suppose the lesson is to consider the trade offs of the front end set up overall (less vs. more toe), but also to realize you can manipulate tire temps with toe. robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-81077324775037827982020-01-15T16:31:00.001-06:002020-01-20T15:52:57.033-06:00Simplicity in a chassis mounted wingSo in the last year a bunch of companies have come up with a way to directly mount the rear wing to the chassis. This is something the paved oval racing crowd did like 20 years ago, although they mounted directly to the body. The same effect was achieved.<br />
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Some cars, like the Tamiya TRF103, have not had a commercial solution for this style of wing mounting. I have seen on RcTech a few people re purpose Xray mounts to the Tamiya car.<br />
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Last week, I had a sudden revelation while watching tv - why not mount the wing the way the oval guys did? Piano wire and some wing buttons had to be much lighter than the extra fasteners, carbon, and aluminum bits that made up the typical ready made setup. Wire wire is also cheap and universal.<br />
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This was the first try:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0zrKghyphenhyphenHGemxdJbxE3O2q_UCPjXL6Lm8VGzVM7sixMpg_5QvevjhoAdiZB3tZkKPGEiwkWKdKfn-AXEuOlXajsdVUbCHIq7-xF4uxXDIgSAoBV2B-1WM7MDRiEsvd-AgZD9lulgFgxZn/s1600/20200112_111105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1600" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW0zrKghyphenhyphenHGemxdJbxE3O2q_UCPjXL6Lm8VGzVM7sixMpg_5QvevjhoAdiZB3tZkKPGEiwkWKdKfn-AXEuOlXajsdVUbCHIq7-xF4uxXDIgSAoBV2B-1WM7MDRiEsvd-AgZD9lulgFgxZn/s400/20200112_111105.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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So the wing mounted straight to the body, but that was less than solid. After a day or two of thinking and looking, it turned out I could use a wing mount post on the cross brace of the chassis. There was already a hole there. All I needed to do was grind a flat onto the wing post to fit into the area allowed by the hole placement.<br />
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The wing is mounted to the wire by wing buttons in the side of the wing. It's very snug, but I may drill a small hole in the plane of the wing to allow the wire to just engage and ensure the wing alignment is good during crashes and other hijinx.<br />
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This style mount could be adapted to most cars if you can find a spot for the wing mounting posts. The posts and buttons should be less than $20 at any hobby retailer who deals with the oval crowd, and .063" piano wire is like $1.50 for 3 feet.<br />
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Example of parts for around $12:<br />
<a href="http://www.lefthander-rc.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=443">http://www.lefthander-rc.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=443</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.lefthander-rc.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=100">http://www.lefthander-rc.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=21&products_id=100</a><br />
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Good luck and happy wire bending.<br />
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EDIT:<br />
Ran this yesterday at the track, and it worked without a problem. A more refined solution to the mounting of the wing to the wire would be nice, but it does the job as is.<br />
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-72072444940371013542019-06-15T20:40:00.000-05:002019-06-15T20:41:19.739-05:00Access Hobbies 2019 TCS Race<a href="https://www.facebook.com/vondrell.perry/videos/2520572734643266/?t=282" target="_blank">Finals video</a><br />
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So the thing about Access Hobbies this year was the tight, 1/12 style layout they presented the Tamiya TCS racers with. Before the closing of my local track, I was running my TRF103 with a peg diff tightened into a spool, and the battery lengthwise in the chassis. This worked really well at home.<br />
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Despite the number of cars on the track, traction was not overwhelming. The spool was hard to drive, especially off the corner. Reverting to a slowed down ball diff was the way back to stability. I am beginning to find that the spool must have a massive amount of traction to really be effective. When the condition is correct, it is unbelievable, but I would say that most track conditions favor a combination peg/ball diff, or even a slightly loose peg only diff (non-TCS races you could use a gear diff as well).<br />
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The lengthwise battery did not work as well as a transverse battery, period. I have always favored the transverse battery in almost all situations, but the TRF103 really seems to like the battery lengthwise most of the time. Not here, the car seemed a bit more planted and rotated better with a transverse set up. I have to say it was just the tight nature of the layout.<br />
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The other factor was the track surface itself. The traction peaked off on Saturday evening. Leading up to this, I had shortened the wheelbase on the car, and steering was plentiful. The last qualifier on Saturday was the fastest for me, and my car did the fast lap of the weekend as far as I know. Unfortunately, I had an accident that zipped off most of the spur gear, so the best time to qualify was wasted. Sunday morning, the track had reverted to a state where the short wheelbase hurt more than it helped, and I returned to the long wheelbase. I lost some steering, and to be honest, I think that the link setup might have been better at this point, as the link 103 cars looked to have a bit more steering in the lower traction. Odd, in that most times T bar setups have more traction, and would be better when traction is down. It may just be that the T bar in high traction allows the short wheelbase to work, and the improvement in corner speed is only available with the T bar's superior traction. In any case, the car worked well enough on Sunday. I feel like the other cars might have been a little better in the main, but I had a very good start and built up enough of a lead that I didn't have to push too much.<br />
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Other than those big changes, I was able to raise the upper arms at the kingpin, which tells me traction was not too great. Normally, I run the upper arm pretty flat to avoid traction roll, but I was able to get away with maxing out the spacers under the arm. I also ran 0.5 or 1 mm under the rear ballstud of the upper arm, just to take away any chance of lifting a tire. Sometimes in the tight turns, if I had to get on the brakes, it could be hairy without the spacer.<br />
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-72556038988535702252019-05-03T17:26:00.001-05:002019-05-03T17:26:28.084-05:00TRF 103 short shock vs. long shockJust a quick post on the shock length option on the TRF 103. The local track was closing up shop for good, unfortunately, and they had one last race day. I brought out the Tamiya as this would be my last chance to race there, and to try a few things out for the up coming May TCS race in Ohio.<br />
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I had changed the car around a bit to use the Gravity RC tires for a Motiv RC series race. I tried the longer shock as part of the package, as the Gravity tires don't produce as much traction as the TCS/Pit Shimizu tire. The longer shock tends to help rear bite.<br />
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Anyway, I was more or less changing everything back to the previous setup for TCS tires as the day went on. I changed the shock back to a short set up. It took a run or two to figure out what was going on, but the light bulb went on, and I changed the shock back to the extended configuration. With the short shock, the car had sort of an abrupt steering feel. Going back to the longer shock smoothed the car out, and seemed to make it rotate better. Most of the time I have felt a longer shock plants the car too much, but this was a perfect feel, and on high traction, too. <br /><br />Again, this car surprises me. It does a lot of things I don't expect, and behaves much differently than most of the other cars I have tried. The long shock working even in high traction makes some sense in light of the car's abundance of steering. There seems to be as much front bite as you need, even with a totally planted car. Locking the rear down just makes the car better to drive. Worth a try!!robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-53923954451214589122019-02-24T19:41:00.000-06:002019-02-26T17:00:51.289-06:00TRF 103 First Weekend on Carpet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This weekend I had the chance to go racing for the first time in a long time. My local track was having a leg of the USVTA Series traveling around the middle of the country. They are also going to have a Tamiya TCS regional in about a month, so I figured this would be the perfect time to get the TRF 103 set up for carpet.<br />
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Not really having too much of an idea beyond a "typical" carpet set up, I initially had the car in a transverse battery configuration. I was also using the T bar instead of the links, and the short wheelbase, which are both not typical, but worked very well on asphalt. This is not to say it would be right for high traction carpet as well, but I wanted to give it a go.<br />
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Right off the bat, the car got around fairly well. The main problem became lifting of tires, and a tendency to over rotate out of the corner on power. The over rotation stems from the tires getting light, since I had pegs in the diff to lock it into a spool. As a tire comes up, it just rotates the car off the outside wheel.<br />
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The car was driveable, but touchy in areas and not stable enough to attack. I tried changing side dampening and t bar settings at first. 5000, 7000, and 10,000 in the damper tubes provided enough feed back to see that lighter would be better, and really the T bar needed to be tightened. I settled on 5K in the tubes and moved on to the t plate.<br />
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There are a few ways to change the t plate characteristics even without changing the t plate. I started with an orange o-ring, which is fairly soft. Going to a stiffer black o-ring, and then even the outer o-ring in combination with the black o-ring, as was used on the F104 T bar cars still was not quite enough. The t bar needed less tension so it could pivot, but the overall travel was a bit too much. In this case, I replaced the smaller black o-ring with a similar thickness nylon washer. The larger o-ring was retained. Now the t bar could be set with less tension, but the washer reduced the overall travel as it pivoted. This made the car feel more stable and reduced the tire lifting.<br />
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The first qualifying run I made was not bad, but as the race wore on and the tires heated up, the tire lifting came back into play. There was some time to practice, so I was able to try a longer wheelbase on the car. Surprisingly, the car did not lose much steering at all, and the tires stayed in contact with the carpet much more consistently. I tried a few other things, including raising the rear ball stud on the upper arms of the front end. This usually helps to quell a bit of the tendency to traction roll while taking a little steering away, and indeed, it did help. This car seems to have plenty of steering, so it was a worthwhile trade off.<br />
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By this time, the track was about to close for the night, so any more experimentation would have to wait until morning. Reflecting on the car's main problems, it seemed an overabundance of weight transfer was happening at the pivot point of the t bar. There is really no forward/aft movement of the battery in a transverse setup on this car. This left me with an inline setup as the only alternative to change the weight bias. I have not been a big fan of the inline battery over the transverse on carpet, though there has been quite a few racers using an inline battery on high traction very successfully over a range of different cars. On day 2, I decided to test it out.<br />
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Arriving at the track the next morning, I ran through a couple quick changes before reconfiguring the battery. Mostly front and rear width, which was maxed out close to 190mm at the end.<br />
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After fighting the wiring and electronics onto into a suitable configuration, I dropped the battery into the car inline and went out onto the track to test. In the past, I have found inline cars to be overly aggressive off center, even a bit jittery, so I was apprehensive. Imagine my surprise as the car was very docile and had to be thrown around to make it want to pick up a tire. The over rotation problem was gone as well, and I could drive it hard through the chicane leading onto the straight with fear of having to make a correction and upsetting the car. A miscue was met with a smooth response instead of a jerky reaction when corrected. My car was now a good .3 seconds a lap better, being able to drive it confidently at all points on the track.<br />
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For the final qualifier, I was able to move into P2 for the mains, and lap times were much closer to the TQ driver. The car handled in traffic very well.<br />
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What really capped off all the progress I made was a small change to my tire dope strategy. I began applying more tire sauce, but wiping it off about 5-6 minutes before the race, as opposed immediately before setting the car down. The front tires were more or less dry, though they had been sauced for about 10 minutes wet time. This really settled the car, but still provided enough steering throughout the race. Starting second in the main, I was also able to be ready to fight and apply pressure immediately, and twice I made a pass on the first or second lap to get into first place at the start of a race. I had one first place and two seconds, for a second place final position. In the second main, I actually had first place for a bit, but I crashed when a marshall screened my view of a chicane. I probably should have gave myself a little more room there, but I was going for the win. For the third race, I did not have quite as good of a start, and made a mistake on the left side of the track, costing a little time. Ultimately, I was able to close down on the lead car, but never get close enough to try to pass. The winning car and driver were very good, so congratulations are in order.<br />
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Overall, I was really happy with how quickly the car setup came together, and even more, how easy it was to drive the car at race pace. It's also encouraging as this was outside of the body, a TCS legal setup. For typical races, you could use an aftermarket spool or gear diff, and also front end pieces that could offer more caster and camber settings than the stock parts. There are more tenths to be had out of the car, but this was a good weekend. I plan to also try the link setup as well for comparison, but I have always liked the solid feel of a t bar car. Don't be afraid to try it if you own the TRF 103.<br />
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EDIT: Turns out I also managed hot lap of the weekend!! Not bad.<br />
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Inline car</div>
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Please excuse the somewhat disheveled wiring...lol</div>
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Note the short shock configuration. Also, 42 g of lead was added to the car to make weight with a standard short pack. Lead was distributed close to midship.</div>
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Electronics were directly in front of the battery. The lead was tried at more forward positions (on the side of the servo, under the lower arms). No bueno, mucho oversteer.robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-31165536965366109162019-01-24T17:24:00.001-06:002019-01-24T17:24:51.977-06:00Tamiya track..the last nationals pictures<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMNf98dbRgO-Np1XisxfN1p7diQjZY569CcJ9lhNxel8KkojE8LGfeWIkVJbpX3h6H66XTYf7w-rSMCXhe9QNCRIflEdqN79W_Wbjmwb0tize451kv4mDrVfu2C7KfQzn__jEIZyBA1eAr/s1600/IMG_0171.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1196" data-original-width="1600" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMNf98dbRgO-Np1XisxfN1p7diQjZY569CcJ9lhNxel8KkojE8LGfeWIkVJbpX3h6H66XTYf7w-rSMCXhe9QNCRIflEdqN79W_Wbjmwb0tize451kv4mDrVfu2C7KfQzn__jEIZyBA1eAr/s320/IMG_0171.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-46828447408610932462019-01-20T21:51:00.000-06:002019-01-20T21:53:45.076-06:00Some stuff I have been working onIt's been a long time since I have posted. I bought a house, so my rc time has been much limited. Lately, i have had a bit more time, so here's a few new things I'm goofing around with.<br />
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TRF 103</div>
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I got the new TRF 103 last summer. At the final TCS Nationals at the Aliso track, I was able to qualify 3rd. I didn't get the car really good until the main, when, in the warmup, I could tell it was fantastic. The start didn't go very well for me. I had some racing contact that put me down to last, though I was able to make a small comeback. The car I had in the main was excellent, and if I had it working like that in qualifying, I think I might have had a chance to maybe started one place higher. The two guys in front of me are excellent drivers, so I would have needed a lot of luck to have started any better than I did. </div>
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The second car will be a carpet only setup. If it's as good as the asphalt car, good things will happen.</div>
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Mutant V2</div>
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Once again the F104V2 pops up, this time with an IRS axle turned into a spool, and a couple CRC left side hubs for good measure. This is possible with the Exotek 1/4" axle conversion. It's a great idea, allowing the use of 1/4" axle parts like the many spools available and the Xray gear diff.</div>
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I also have the Tamiya carbon front end lower, with an Exotek upper arm setup for adjustable camber and caster. I tried some other setups, but this works really well. All that it needs is a small piece of carbon to mount the upper arms to the bulkhead. It's fairly simple.</div>
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"Speed Jam"</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCZp2GAinpJ74GO4tuCu58O5jEqr5T0vNNHn6J8B6cqxQounNwbpwMwfJyWffETI6kEG57W6z0ccM5q89N8jAXaELAYCVMArWqmYhtqIKYwgdb5JIe7rIuywJWWMx9QS5DU3QmQdQyk-yN/s1600/streetjam1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="956" data-original-width="1280" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCZp2GAinpJ74GO4tuCu58O5jEqr5T0vNNHn6J8B6cqxQounNwbpwMwfJyWffETI6kEG57W6z0ccM5q89N8jAXaELAYCVMArWqmYhtqIKYwgdb5JIe7rIuywJWWMx9QS5DU3QmQdQyk-yN/s320/streetjam1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So I bought some random parts online from a Japanese hobby shop to make my Speed Passion SP-1 into a Street Jam SJF01. The rear end of the car has always intrigued me due to the amount of travel it has. I mocked up some changes to see if the would work. The upper links and top plate are too close to the rear of the car to transversely mount the battery, so I was able to bolt them to the SP-1 upper deck to allow a short pack sideways on the car. At some point, I need to make a one piece top deck to mount the links, as this setup is flimsy. The suspension does move well but I'm not familiar enough with this style suspension to know how lengthening the links affects handling. </div>
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Eventually, this will get the same front end as the Mutant V2. It worked well when the car was 100% Speed Passion.</div>
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That's it, just a fun update of what I'm keeping myself entertained with when I have some non-remodeling time.....</div>
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-49955080232919053072018-03-19T22:35:00.000-05:002018-03-19T22:35:00.153-05:00http://www.tamiya.de/CommonFiles/Dickie-Tamiya/PDM_Products/Tamiya/300042318/300042318_TRF-103.pdf<br />
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TRF 103 Manual!!robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-72124101606969360632017-03-16T22:04:00.000-05:002017-03-16T22:04:12.708-05:00What about your tires?I haven't posted in a while, no reason other than laziness..... Anyway, this came up at a race recently. My car just seemed to be a pile of junk. Nothing I did seemed to make any difference or change to how it worked. Looking back, it reminds me of how an F103 would get when the T bar went bad. Hind sight is 20/20 as they say.<br />
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Luckily, one of the other locals, Mark, happened to be sitting nearby and asked how old my tires were. I hadn't thought too much of it, but I had put them on the car for the Hudy race in St. Louis, in January. I had run the car for countless packs since that point in time. Mark is pretty sharp, and has a lot of ideas on tires, including the idea of rotating between two sets during the day to keep the tires from getting too soft. In any case, he got me to change tires on the car.<br />
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On a car that would barely crack a 9.8 second lap, a newer set of tires got the hot lap down to a 9.5 in the first minute of practice. On the older tires, it was on skis, pushing all over the track. The new set got back all the steering the car was missing.<br />
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This is not to say that your car needs to be fed a constant diet of new tires. Far from it, new tires take 3-4 runs to get broken in, and they will last quite a long time. They last so long, that the deterioration can be hard to notice. 2+ months of running is a long time to get out of any set of tires.<br />
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The lesson is that when nothing seems to help the car, it might be the tires. Just like when nothing seemed to help an F103, it was usually the t bar. Or when a new set of front and side springs brings a link car back to life.<br />
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Just keep an eye on your tires.robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-40175778627991076122016-11-20T17:24:00.002-06:002016-11-20T17:24:48.642-06:00V2.V2 pt.3I probably should have posted this a long time ago, but I did finally run the V2.V2 after a Gravity RC Midwest All Star Series race. I ran it with a 21.5 motor, as it was all I had available at the time. The track was the new CRC black carpet, and after a day of racing, had a nice groove. <br />
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There was really only time to run one battery, but I was very surprised. The car was actually really good for something that had a guess at the setup based on what I thought should work. It was a bit twitchy, but generally got around well, and didn't traction roll. I wasn't sure how it would react in the high traction, but it was fine. Even more interesting was that it was very easy to get on the power, even with the 21.5 motor. UF1 MIDWEST past champion/engineering genius Rick Vessel even gave it the thumbs up when he was passed the controller. The long links do seem to be doing their job of getting the car some traction. <br />
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At some point I'll continue to work with this car. Luckily, the new local track has now opened. There hasn't been an opportunity to practice locally in the past several months. I may not get to this right away, as the front end has migrated to another project, a very interesting prototype development...robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-25750354460242853582016-09-07T19:15:00.003-05:002016-09-07T19:15:51.966-05:00V2.V2 complete<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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V2.V2 is complete, this time with the Tamiya carbon front end/Exotek combination. As it turns out, the Exotek upper arms can be used if you make a plate to mount the camber links. Now you have a front end similar to the other high end cars, carbon fiber, and the ability to adjust ride height at the lower arms. I found the slightly shorter CRC front springs are a little better for this front end as the lower ball does not have a recess for the spring. <br />
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I have not had a chance to run the car........ yet. robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-82416385692853162832016-07-01T18:43:00.002-05:002016-07-01T18:43:49.820-05:00Basic geometrySo I have been thinking about a few things after a conversation at the track. Lately, I have been feeling like the biggest things on an F1 car outside of the tire selection are the car track widths, and the steering setup. I was talking to someone about what really gets F1 cars working. The steering is gigantic, but not everybody thinks much about it. <br />
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A few years ago a friend who was a long time 1/12 guy, and national level A main racer, among other things, really clued me into how steering geometry works on pan type cars. Working with the concepts he explained to me really opened up possibilities I did not know existed. Sometimes, there were things I wanted to change on the car that I didn't know how to get without big compromises, or even how to change at all. The steering on your car can actually affect almost all areas of set up, things that would be counter intuitive in some cases.<br />
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The big one is the bump steer settings. Generally, in a typical servo set up with the output shaft pointing up, you will use maybe 5mm of shims on the bottom of the servo saver. That will generally get the tie rods somewhat level. What is this really doing?<br />
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In general, the less shims you use on the bottom of the servo saver, the more the car will want to steer on exit, from mid corner on. I have actually seen a car do pirouettes because the driver had NO shims under the servo saver, and an extreme angle upward toward the saver. (CAUTION: bad paint program diagrams ahead!)<br />
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A more typical setup has some spacers underneath the servo saver to get the arms sort of level. A level tie rod will have a minimal amount of bump steer and make the car feel pretty much the same in all phases of the corner. Usually, this is the best approach to take at first. It's fairly easy to add or remove spacers in small increments like 0.5 or 1mm to tune things in. Big changes are good to familiarize yourself to the extremes, but remember to look at the tie rod length to maintain toe as close as possible!<br />
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Adding spacers to the servo saver making the tie rods run down towards the inside of the car will make the car steer more in the beginning of the turn. Additionally, spacers on the knuckle tend to make the car more reactive at first turn in as well. This does increase the angle of the rods as the spacers on the servo saver does, but I think that the difference in height from the axle is a little different from just adjusting the rod's angle in general.</div>
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The other factor in the steering is Ackermann. The difference in the steering radius of the two front tires generally affects overall steering and aggressiveness. Generally, moving the servo saver ball studs forward, whether by servo position or length of the servo saver/steering arm, will increase aggressiveness and steering. This will also kill some mid corner roll speed, especially on carpet. On asphalt, this can actually be a benefit, since it's almost like drag brake.</div>
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Making a straighter tie rod will promote roll speed in high bite conditions (note most 1/12 cars are fairly straight), and be less aggressive. Rubber tires do seem to like a bit of angle to make the tires work.</div>
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The other part of the equation is the actual servo saver. The width of the space between the ball studs makes a difference. Narrower spacing tends to be more aggressive. Wider less so.</div>
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The other part of the equation is the track width on both ends of the car. </div>
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At the front, I like a wider car in general. It promotes more on power steering, and helps the car be more stable under the brakes or on corner entry. Narrowing the front will make the car a bit more nervous, and help turn in. There is usually less overall steering, however. Having on power steering is key in my estimation since the car's corner speed is important to lap time since they do not have the acceleration of a 4wd car. I try to get the car as wide as rules allow, and the track conditions will permit.</div>
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As far as the rear I generally try to make the car narrow as conditions will permit, to gain rotation mid corner. It will also feel like there is more side bite as well. In high bite, like carpet, this can work very well. On asphalt, it pays to try to run as wide as you can while maintaining rotation. A wider rear will be more stable out of the corner (launch), and will keep the tires from overheating during the run. The overheating is less of a concern on carpet. In the past, the 190mm width limit led some option part manufacturers to make widening kits for cars. Enjoying some initial popularity, a lot of drivers wound up removing the kits and going back to stock width, looking for steering. As it turns out, just removing the rear end parts and leaving the front 190mm would have been even faster. Widening the rear of the car will lock it down and kill corner speed on a tight track, especially high traction carpet. I like to use 0.5 mm spacers on the axle to widen 1mm at a time. It's a change that you can feel but it's not too drastic.</div>
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To me, these are the basic settings after tires that will establish the overall feel and balance of the car, along with ride height. Most of the rest like springs, oil, camber are finer, but still important, adjustments. It's just that the things I have described about are more "macro" and will change the character of the car immediately. I hope this will help get more guys into the ballpark a little faster. Don't take my word for it, try it out!</div>
robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-10122677238574298992016-06-03T16:57:00.001-05:002016-06-03T16:57:42.738-05:00TRF102 front end asphalt throw down show down!!!The <a href="https://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=42286" target="_blank">TRF101 180mm carbon front end parts</a> are becoming somewhat popular among Tamiya TCS racers with the various F1 models due to the simplicity and less aggressive nature of it's geometry. I personally like it on the TRF102 for carpet. On pretty much any other model, for carpet racing, I prefer the standard F104 front end. My familiarity with it, and the amount of grip it produces in a higher traction setting has been an overall plus for me. <br />
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On asphalt, things are more of a toss up. Most of the Tamiya F104 models have a little mid corner/on power push when the front to rear balance is right, unless traction is very high. One of the most popular tire setups is the kit front, TCS (pit shimizu) rear combination. The reason for this is the more forgiving nature of the kit front tire vs. a very grippy TCS front. <br />
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The TRF102 changed this a bit, since the more flexible 2.5mm chassis gives the front end of the car more bite, and a lot more steering throughout the corner. This is my personal weakness, since more steering has always translated to speed for my driving style with the Tamiya cars. The problem is that this also makes the TRF102 a hard beast to tame if the rear end of the car is not locked in. Even if so, inconsistency and the dreaded traction roll can bite you...<br />
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I built and ran a TRF102 for the TCS nationals last year, which in hindsight may have not been the best decision. The car was great, and I think is an excellent design, but the amount of time between its release and the nationals was not really enough to fully dial in the car in relation to how familiar and comfortable I was with my F104WGP on asphalt. The temptation of the awesome steering feel was too much to overcome. The problem was a lack of spares in the thin T bar department, due to how new the car was, and the somewhat unpredictable nature of the car for me. Last year's champ Tyree Phillips certainly had no problem, winning with the 102, but he is also about 1500 miles closer to the Tamiya track than I am for testing sessions.<br />
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In any event, I was able to return to the Tamiya facility for the spring TCS regional race in a attempt to get some more testing there with the 102 car. While racing was not particularly successful with a 7th place finish, I got a lot of good feedback and testing in. I had decent pace very quickly, more so than any other visit to the Tamiya track. Even more important, I had a good car to bring back home and make comparisons at my home track. <br />
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While at Tamiya, I was able to check out past TCS champion Craig 'CUDA Hammond's TRF102, which he claimed to eclipse even his venerable championship winning F104 in "monkey car" ease of driving and crazy speed. His biggest departure from the norm was the carbon front end. I had a TRF101, but I was never overly impressed with the front end. That version of the carbon front end, a bit of a half measure featuring the plastic lower arms of the F104, never gave me the steering feel I was looking for. I had talked to some racers about the carbon front end, but nobody else seemed to have many conclusions either. Craig, however, was a believer... A believer who regularly hands out beatings, so I figured it would be worth a try. I got a second car, and I also happened to win a front end setup at a carpet TCS regional, to it all came together like it was meant to be.<br />
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In the opening weeks of the outdoor season at the local track, I brought out multiple cars to compare to the track tested stock TRF102 to get a baseline on performance. The 102 tuned for the Tamiya track was certainly the best car of the lot, with the carbon front end car (CFE) close, but definitely lacking some of the steering of the standard car.<br />
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Several weeks of testing between the two TRF cars resulted in the standard car remaining top dog. I did not change the standard 102 except tire prep to have a good idea of what a car that worked at the nationals's track would perform and feel like while I worked on the CFE car.<br />
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The only thing I did not like about the CFE TRF102 was that it didn't produce the lap times of standard car. It was quite a bit easier to get the car around, and got into the corner better under the brakes. It was also really consistent over a run. The standard 102 shined best when the traction was up; it lost out if the traction was lower, becoming inconsistent.<br />
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I built the CFE car to the instructions with the spacers included resulting in a ride height close to 6 mm. That may sound a bit crazy, but I wanted to run the front end the way the instructions said at first, and a little "motor boat" reverse rake will make a stable car. Besides, Craig's car was set up like that, so it's all good! However, I decided to try a little change to see if I could get some more speed and steering. I had a gut feeling that if I could get the car to roll through the corner a little better, it would be at least as fast as the standard car, but more docile. That would be especially important in varying traction.<br />
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I dropped the car down to 4.5 mm ride height, changing the lower arm spacers to 5 mm. I didn't change anything else. That may have also been part of what would come later. <br />
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The first run with the lowered car was after racing ended, at a time when the track usually loses a little bite. My best lap during racing with the standard car was a 19.0, and after the races it would not match that lap as the track went away. The CFE car was able to hit an 18.7 right away, better than anything I did all day. Even more impressive, I assumed that car would be slow based on feel. Easy to drive, but checking the lap counter after the run, the results were there. I immediately prepared the standard car again, thinking possibly the track had gotten better somehow. It would not break the 19 second barrier that run. The second run on the CFE car I lowered the rear axle one position as well, thinking it might help add just a touch of rear bite. That change resulted in a ridiculous 18.4 hot lap, 0.6 better than the standard car's best lap. That was totally exciting, to the point of concern that somehow the speed might not translate to the Tamiya America track later in the summer. I have been bitten in the past by the differences in track characteristics, but the more docile nature of the CFE car tends to bode well from my experiences at the nationals. Usually, my problems come form a more aggressive, but faster-at-home car.<br />
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What made the car so much faster?....I'm not 100% sure. The increased steering certainly was helped by lowering the car about 1.5 mm. The other factor may have been in the bump steer and ackermann. Raising the suspension arms did also raise the steering knuckle in relation to the servo saver. This usually biases the steering more toward corner entry. A car with the links much higher at the servo saver than the knuckle will bias toward corner exit steering, so much so that extreme settings can make the car pirouette on the nose. That change must have been fairly subtle anyway, since the car drove almost the same as it did before the changes.<br />
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It is of interest to note that lowering the car brought enough steering that I was able to reduce or eliminate doping the front tire. Typically I had sauced the entire front, but now 1/4 or no dope was plenty of steering. Reducing steering should not be a problem, and adding should simply be a matter of more sauce on the front end. That's also a positive sign, as a car that is good and can be tuned with small tweaks like tire sauce application will be consistent run over run during the day. The driver will be able to concentrate on learning to drive the car at 10/10 and really find the subtleties to wring out the best lap times.<br />
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In any event, the testing will continue, but the carbon front end is winning right now. robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-42151696257116900822016-06-03T15:26:00.001-05:002016-06-03T15:29:21.200-05:00V2 thing...V2!!I still have the <a href="http://rcf1blog.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-v2-thing.html" target="_blank">V2Thing</a> that I wrote about some time ago. I have run it a bit, but never put a ton of time into it. It has had ups and downs in the small amount of time I have run it, but mostly it has been about trying some new ideas.<br />
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Anyway, I have been thinking of a way to get a transverse pack into the car. Wider links would be needed. I did want to preserve the long, angled link premise I was working with. </div>
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Lately, a new 1/12 aluminum chassis conversion has popped up, utilizing the hanging link carriers from the Roche f1 car. The makers are claiming a great increase in corner speed due to reduced touch down/scrub in the corner.</div>
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<a href="http://www.rctech.net/forum/attachments/electric-road/1368790d1464870682-mcfactory-motorsports-image3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.rctech.net/forum/attachments/electric-road/1368790d1464870682-mcfactory-motorsports-image3.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.rctech.net/forum/attachments/electric-road/1368790d1464870682-mcfactory-motorsports-image3.jpg" target="_blank">McFactory 1/12</a></div>
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So in that vein, I decided to make a little change in the V2 Thing that would kill two birds with one stone....</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQK59Nnw_UxyoCkz0iuhXNV4modr1f4rVGyEYv5zxZxcwxQgr0PG2VjqOHzMIoWiQDPe4p2dkl6uKG2q_yydl5vMZe9pHydFJ2GslkB5COt7ZNWNse8W481Ii0srptolvpt_47rA_HYRT/s1600/20160602_170727.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJQK59Nnw_UxyoCkz0iuhXNV4modr1f4rVGyEYv5zxZxcwxQgr0PG2VjqOHzMIoWiQDPe4p2dkl6uKG2q_yydl5vMZe9pHydFJ2GslkB5COt7ZNWNse8W481Ii0srptolvpt_47rA_HYRT/s320/20160602_170727.jpg" width="179" /></a></div>
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I had a scrap chassis that was perfect for making some hanging link mounts, along with some F201 shock crank posts that made nice standoffs. The F201 parts I had laying there, but Tuning Haus makes nice threaded standoffs in a variety of colors and sizes.</div>
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Now I have a super narrow chassis that will fit a transverse shorty pack, and approximately 8mm forward and aft movement for battery placement. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhC62z2Z0KWL9NzpkKegj7WRynV-zFxIBH6BWu0-kN8z874mFgFtwbjvJxvcycD7YRqMvnlnQl9AUw8Lsg4gJqCo9_kA5XTpNG1yDWGut-HbejCBEb9AVP7_DnvWQKHbfVhzAxo_inJdYw/s1600/20160602_171418.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhC62z2Z0KWL9NzpkKegj7WRynV-zFxIBH6BWu0-kN8z874mFgFtwbjvJxvcycD7YRqMvnlnQl9AUw8Lsg4gJqCo9_kA5XTpNG1yDWGut-HbejCBEb9AVP7_DnvWQKHbfVhzAxo_inJdYw/s320/20160602_171418.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Not shown in the picture is the 3mm spacer used to bring the link back down to a level orientation with the pod end of the link<br />
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Once I get the whole car together, it should be fun to get a little track time and see what I can do with the revamped V2-V2! </div>
robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-38956955141964411842016-05-17T17:32:00.000-05:002016-05-17T17:32:03.179-05:00Not 1/10, but pretty cool<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wsq5t1fka3U/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wsq5t1fka3U?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-29098252103874402212016-05-17T17:30:00.003-05:002016-05-17T17:30:55.352-05:00Not F1, but pretty cool<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sVKu4hur4NM/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sVKu4hur4NM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-60663590143915317152016-04-23T10:44:00.002-05:002016-04-27T11:11:18.898-05:00Associated prototypesFrom Facebook<br />
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<a href="https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/13095912_10207840972794623_4825306568111466561_n.jpg?oh=92832e4dca8a1183bdecabb16e7a3fc0&oe=57786A9C" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/13095912_10207840972794623_4825306568111466561_n.jpg?oh=92832e4dca8a1183bdecabb16e7a3fc0&oe=57786A9C" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-69152803743076679102016-04-20T21:21:00.001-05:002016-04-20T21:21:05.108-05:00The Tamiya Carbon Front End and the TRF102Ahh yes, the TRF102. Pretty dang good on asphalt. On carpet, hit or miss. The thing is, the chassis is thin compared to the rest of the Tamya line up, at 2.5mm. If the traction is up on carpet, it can get hard to drive. <br />
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I had brought the 102 with me to the TCS race at Access Hobbies in Springfield, Ohio in addition to the ever reliable F104WGP. I bounced back and forth between the cars during practice the day before the race. Towards the middle of the afternoon, temperature and humidity increased in the building and traction began to rise quickly. This brought out the wild nature of the TRF102, which can be a handful in these sorts of conditions. The car became very sensitive on the straight, and it did not put the power down very well out of the corners. The temptation of this car is, of course, the easy steering feel it has. If it can be tamed, the car should be faster than just about any of the other cars in the Tamiya line up as it steers far better throughout the corner. The problem is that much of this steering comes from the flex in the front of the chassis, which is a headache in high traction.<br />
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This is where the carbon front end comes in. Without the camber gain from the moving upper arm on the standard front end, and being made of much stiffer materials, the bite should be reduced overall. <br />
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I ran one pack with the standard front end. Traction was good on the track, and the car was a bit ill mannered. I switched out front ends, and started with silver springs not knowing what kind of bite I would get. I also went to the higher of the 2 camber settings, which I think is 2*. <br />
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The car was pretty good, but would lift the inside rear going into high speed turns. The front springs were too soft, so I went to the black spring, the heaviest. This made a big difference, and I also added a shim under the front knuckle to take a little droop out.<br />
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Both changes helped to flatten the car out. The car was much better, but it required a lot of steering throw to get around. I had an Xray servo saver on the car, so I added an Exotek ackermann extension to it. This part usually adds more bite to the front end, especially mid corner. I tried both settings available, and the most forward was a bit too much. The rear setting seemed a little better, not as hard to drive. Both the rear setting and the stock Xray servo saver produced similar lap times, and the plain Xray part may have actually been a little more consistent. It's the sort of thing that may take a little more testing to sort out, but I think ackermann changes will probably be an important part of the tuning arsenal for this front end.<br />
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On a carpet track, the front end made the car a lot better to drive, and got the lap times to a competitive level. On asphalt, I'm not sure if it would better subjectively, or just as a matter of taste in driving feel. I'm definitely going to find out, as I have seen the combination be on point outdoors. In any case, it's probably the front end to run for carpet if you want to use the TRF102.robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-64707224077614314562016-04-19T23:49:00.000-05:002016-04-20T22:19:10.903-05:00Revisiting the TRF101The TRF101 has been languishing on the shelf for a while now. I did have an initial good impression of the car, but it became apparent that the car just did not steer enough on carpet to be really fast. One thing I did notice was that it seemed to have better acceleration than most of the other Tamiya cars I had. That seems like a crazy thing to say, but maybe there is something to it.<br />
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One thing I noticed from Fred Medel's quote in an early post about the car was the mention in passing of the rear end and the car's stability: <span style="background-color: #cccccc; font-family: inherit;">"<span style="line-height: 28px;">With the TRF101 the car enters the turn with immense stability and there is no sign of the car wanting to continue to turn after applying throttle after the 180. It's just that stable. I believe this is the case because you now have a solid front end like the F103 <b><i>on top of having the side links further apart."</i></b></span></span><br />
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That may be the key here - the width of the side links. The Xray style setup does have the battery sideways, but also ultra wide links compared to most of the Tamiya cars. Even more intriguing to me is the similarity to the SpeedPassion Sp-1. The rear end is almost identical, and I can say that the SP-1 made a lot of traction. The first time I ran it on asphalt, I was able to run the exact same laps and time I did as I did with the F104WGP I had been working on for quite some time. It was also very good on the not so good Pardus tires.<br />
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So maybe that stability helps the car put the power down. I was never a huge fan of the way the Version II F104 cars accelerated, but the 101 was good. Looking back, the thing that held the car back for me was the lack of steering . A simple change of the upper arms makes the front end the standard F104 spec, so it was worth a little investment of time to see if the TFR101 could be brought to life.<br />
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At the track, I first ran my F104WGP to baseline things, since I had just run it at the Access Hobbies TCS race. It was good there, so I figured the comparison would be good, especially since I planned to simply transfer the tires to the TRF car. <br />
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I was able to do a 9.7 hotlap, but that was sort of a freak lap. The rest of the laps were closer to a 10.0 average. <br />
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Putting the TRF car down, what I noticed right away was that it was really consistent. While I was a couple tenths off of the WGP car on average, I could knock out the same lap over and over. What the car was missing was quick transitioning in a couple S sections on the track. At first I had the car set up with the #2 plastic camber adjuster (.5* camber) and copper side springs, the softest. I had good success with the WGP car set to 2.5 camber, so I changed the TRF to 2.5 as well, and changed the side spring to gold, the second stiffest. <br />
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Now the car had the ability to transition quickly in the S sections. I was able to consistently do 9.9 and 10.0 second laps, and it still retained it's stability. I added a bit more front and rear droop as well which helped the car get a little more into the track. The best part was that I could stand on the brakes, which was important for the short chute in front of the driver's stand, and the end of the sweeper. I really enjoyed driving the car, as it was a dragster point to point. <br />
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In the next few runs, I tried some slight adjustments to the droop settings, to fine tune things. I also tried some of the other side springs, but settled again on gold. One thing that did make a difference was the center spring. I had tried a few, from the ultra heavy purple to a red sedan spring. What seemed to be best was a white sedan spring. The softer springs actually made the car a little unstable, and the really heavy one slowed it in the S turns.<br />
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One other option was the steel axle. For my style, I usually go a little faster with a steel axle, and it helped me as the car was now completely locked yet turned hard. Overall, I was surprised at how good this car was with a little time tuning it.<br />
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In the end, I feel like the results were unexpectedly good. The car was so enjoyable and worked so well, I just wanted to keep putting runs on it. My WGP car was really good at the TCS race I had attended, but I think my results might have been even better if I had run the TRF101. The consistency and corner speed were excellent. Really, this car just needed the standard F104 front end to come to life. I had been considering selling this car, but I think I may just hold onto it a bit longer....robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-38631041140421998502016-04-12T20:47:00.000-05:002016-04-12T20:47:06.417-05:00Xray Aluminum Chassis FeedbackSo after several races with the aluminum chassis on the new black CRC carpet, it's time for some thoughts...<br />
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Oddly enough, I sort of felt better about how the car set up with this chassis on the older gray CRC carpet. The first time it put it down, it was awesome. On the black carpet, it was a bit harder to nail the setup. However, this could also be partly due to the high bite at both the races I attended, especially the ROAR nationals in St. Louis.<br />
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Part of the problem at the ROAR race was a lack of mid corner steering. Going too aggressive with the front end would only result in a traction roll anyway, so my mistake may have been going with the least flexible front end parts on the aluminum chassis. I used the cross brace for the lower arms, and a pair of Xtreme racing lower arms which have extra bracing. I feel like that may have been what was limiting the car in the middle of the corner. Upon returning to my home track, which has the gray carpet, I went back to the standard lower arms and removed the brace. I felt like the car was a little more forgiving to get around the track. It was hard to tell how much this affected the mid corner steering, since the grip level was different, but at my track mid corner was good. I will return to the Ft. Wayne track in the next few weeks, so it will give a chance for me to revisit that issue.<br />
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I would like to point out that the eventual champion at the ROAR race and the rest of the local racers ran the graphite chassis on the car, and did not seem to have a big problem with traction roll. Sometimes the cars looked edgy at the start but they were able to manage that for the most part. Part of this may also have been the tire dope strategy. I noticed some guys doping their tires 15-20 minutes early, so that the compound would dry on the tires. I tried this as well and the car finished the race better. It also didn't seem to make the car any harder to drive. Letting the compound dry might have helped alleviate some of the initial oversteer/tire lifting that occurs when the tires are wiped just before the race.<br />
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In general, I think that the aluminum chassis makes the car very consistent, and reduces a lot of the tendency to traction roll. I probably went a little overboard on the stiffer components for the front end. I would imagine that the cross brace for the front end is not necessary in most cases with the aluminum chassis. The stiffer lower arms might be helpful depending on the level of traction. Being aware of how these parts affect the car, I'd like to test again on the black carpet. I should have a little more knowledge in a few weeks.<br />
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<br />robkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00113470154524876751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6901206517151810328.post-37323608915296938612016-01-31T22:48:00.002-06:002016-01-31T22:49:00.706-06:00The Aluminum Xray...and a note on the Serpent wing <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After some races with the Xray X1 on the new CRC black carpet, I was interested in possibilities of stiffening the car overall. The X1 has shown it capabilities on various surfaces from asphalt to carpet. This versatility is great since the car will be competitive almost anywhere, but sometimes there are areas where specialized parts help.<br />
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<a href="http://ets.redrc.net/wp-content/gallery/ets-1516-round-1-hrotovice-czech-republic/f1rat_CF9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ets.redrc.net/wp-content/gallery/ets-1516-round-1-hrotovice-czech-republic/f1rat_CF9.jpg" height="240" width="400" /></a></div>
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Jan Rathiesky showed up at the first ETS race of the season - on carpet- with the aluminum chassis on his Xray. (<a href="http://www.redrc.net/" target="_blank">photo - RedRC</a>)<br />
This is probably a hint. <br />
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Anyway, what stood out to me after a couple of these events on the high traction CRC black carpet was that the new CRC F1 with the transverse battery looked awesome...and it was also very flat on the track. It rarely seemed to pick up a tire or traction roll. CRC's website does make mention of the high stiffness weave of their chassis. The car also has a solid lower arm, which I assume is stiffer than the Xray lower arm.<br />
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<a href="https://www.teamcrc.com/crc/images/stories/PR8-14-F1/front_end3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://www.teamcrc.com/crc/images/stories/PR8-14-F1/front_end3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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In any event, I wondered if trying to remove some of the flex in the Xray car could help in high traction. </div>
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I was able to get an Xray aluminum chassis as well as front lower arms by <a href="http://www.ebay.com/itm/261977040177?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT" target="_blank">Xtreme Racing</a>. They sell a lower arm with additional bracing for some more stiffness. I added both these parts to my car, keeping the setup close to see what, if any, difference could be found. Note that the aluminum chassis is 2mm vs. 2.5, so the links and the "football" pivot need a 0.5mm shim to maintain the proper orientation to the stock pod plate.</div>
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At the track, I prepared the tires as I did with the original equipment. Putting the car on the track, I noticed the car did not have quite as much mid corner steering as it had before, but it was very flat as it went around the track. This was good as there was recently a well attended series race at the track on the same layout and traction remained very good, though not as high as the CRC black carpet. I also felt like the car was smoother and more predictable all the way around the track. I could drive in a more on power style as well, which I prefer. Adding 0.5mm to the rear of the upper arm for a total of 2.5mm of dynamic caster spacing added the mid corner steering I wanted. It seemed like the car held better corner speed, as I could roll down in throttle and the car didn't seem to bog or "stop" in the corner as it did occasionally before.</div>
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Overall, the car gained a more composed feel on carpet. As good as the Xray car is, there have been times where getting the amount of steering into the car to be competitive could make it a little unpredictable. During on of the races, a marshall commented on how good the car looked, and how easy to drive it looked as well. It was really good for how little I had to change in setup. In a couple weeks I'll be attending another race on the new CRC carpet so a real shake down will occur then. I'm sure I'll have some more thoughts about the new chassis.</div>
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Serpent wing update:</div>
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I mounted the wing to the graphite tongue I made with aluminum screws. PLEASE USE ALUMINUM SCREWS HERE! I had a harsh crash in practice at full speed, and one screw sheared off. Nothing else was damaged. The aluminum screws are like a fuse that will pop off in a very bad accident and save the wing and/or the graphite parts on your car! I also wound up using 5mm spacers to keep the wing off the track....</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-V1MxySMsCA2DxEqCFG0yJPTD6Bk9R_diByAYwDWIc19ggcCjZhui-17bhtkxwfuZAEwNv6o2KiOfhCudwjiG7xtEHaVtNU8X2pV-3yWTMtwUkkyHCdLKQh9g2jdvWoCdIeQ6hhpMSCkC/w538-h957-no/" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-V1MxySMsCA2DxEqCFG0yJPTD6Bk9R_diByAYwDWIc19ggcCjZhui-17bhtkxwfuZAEwNv6o2KiOfhCudwjiG7xtEHaVtNU8X2pV-3yWTMtwUkkyHCdLKQh9g2jdvWoCdIeQ6hhpMSCkC/w538-h957-no/" width="358" /></a></div>
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