F104V2 carpet days.........

I had a chance to get up to the carpet track for the first time in a while. Lately, I had been racing sedans in preparation for the ROAR nationals at my local asphalt track, so F1 has been a bit on the back burner. I wanted to try the V2 car on carpet with the Pit 0571/0572 combination. The first run was too soft on the roll springs and too stiff on the center (pitch) shock and spring. The car also didn't get onto the front end too much getting into the corner. I went from 50wt Losi/2 hole pistons on the large sedan shock, to 50 wt Losi/3 hole pistons, and from a blue spring to a yellow spring, both from the short black spring set (standard with the F104X1). Shock length was also increased to 59mm from just under 58mm. Now the car was able to keep up with the contours of the track a bit better. The bigger problem was the fact that the car was too soft side to side and was a bit wander-y getting onto the straight. I went from the pink spring to the silver spring and that was about perfect to keep the car a little more stable. The car also felt a little sharper on center. I also went to 58.5mm from 59mm on the shock length a little later. I put about 4.5mm inside the shock and just let the shock end out to get the longer lengths. 4.5mm inside will get you just under 58mm total length with the shock end run all the way up. Having tried a couple different lengths, it seems that just like the sedans, more droop gets the car on the nose more off power, but it can also give a weird floaty feeling under transition if you have too much droop. I think the shock length will be an adjustment to quickly dial in the steering feel. The front I ran with around 1mm droop. I left this alone all day as the car was pretty good on power. I want to try a little less front droop to see if I can get a little more on power steering without throwing the setup off too much. On the whole, I was super pleased with how easy it is to quickly tune the car with simple adjustments. The older car had limitations not only because of the t bar design, but that there was no real tweak adjustment either. Setting tweak on this car is pretty easy, and gives more control than having to replace a t bar if you feel inconsistencies in handling. There were not really any breakage issues either. I have read some reports that the links are fragile and pop off, but I have not had this problem. I also had some pretty good crashes as well, but everything is holding up. One thing I will advise is a small amount of threadlock on the screws and balls of the links. I had them start to loosen up a bit over the course of the day, so keep an eye on this.

Droop explained!

A video on setting the droop on the F104V2, and what it does.......

Another sweet F1 video from Speedtech RC

i stumbled across another good video from the Speedtech boys at a recent UF1 race. They have some nice interviews and lots of video of new conversions and parts....

First Look Tamiya F104V2

A video overview...

Set the links on your F104V2

New video on setting the rear end of the new Tamiya F104V2

New Tamiya F1 tires

Tamiya USA has announced a new F1 tire that fits the foam tire rim for the F104 series cars.

Tamiya USA:
"New Tamiya F1 tires for the F-104 chassis!
We are proud to announce the introduction of two new rubber tire compounds for the vastly popular Tamiya F104 Formula One chassis car kits. The front tire is a soft compound designed to offer excellent steering performance and the rear tire is a hard compound, which offers high traction with excellent longevity and durability. The new tire compounds fit the following Tamiya wheel sets: items 51378 and 54400.....

...The new item numbers for the tires are: 1031 RC F1 Tire Front (Soft) and 1032 RC F1 Tire Rear (Hard) The new tires will be available through hobby shops in early August."

Full article:
http://www.tamiyausa.com/tcs/tcs.php?article-id=556

Herbert Weber ETS F1 Champ!

Congratulations to Herbert Weber  ETS Series F1 champ and rc.F1.blog reader!!!

Beautiful belt drive FGX

This is out of control, a totally sano belt drive FGX with fully independent suspension...

From Charles Lightfoot of UF1:
" Thank you Calvin Lee for all the hard work that went into building this car...."

More pictures: http://uf1series.com/_gallery/Cars_3.html

Very Nice Setting Guide by http://www.rcformula1.com.au

Have a look at this nice setting write up by http://www.rcformula1.com.au ,  very useful...


http://www.rcformula1.com.au/images/docs/F1_Setup_Workshop.pdf

Narrow Serpent F1

Could this be a narrow Serpent F1???  Or just a one off with 1/12 front arms???