Council / MA

Mar 18, 2013
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So the plan was to build two cars. One with 4 touching for council and one for MA open scout. Had the council car about done a realized that my monokote job warpped the car. Now the plan is to run the same car for both. I am going to bend the raised wheel to touch then change wheels and axles for MA.

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I wanted to get colored wheels. I just randomly picked orange. I asked my son how he wanted to decorate his car and he said he didn't he wanted it to just go fast. We recently had to buy ink and it came with some photo paper. It gave me the idea to cover the car with that instead of birchwood. I told him we could print whatever we want. He said he wanted to do pokemon. I asked him which was his favorite pokemon and he picked this one.
 
Simple way for your scout would be printing on label paper and cover with clear laminant like what is on 5kids site. I was thinking doing that but spray with high gloss clear coat instead of using the laminant.

I may try that water-slide decal paper for my next car. You'd have to seal the car before applying since it needs a wet surface to get in position. I wanted to color match the sides with the background color of the image I made though anyway.
 
resullivan said:
So the plan was to build two cars. One with 4 touching for council and one for MA open scout. Had the council car about done a realized that my monokote job warpped the car. Now the plan is to run the same car for both. I am going to bend the raised wheel to touch then change wheels and axles for MA.
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Hi Resullivan,

How bad was the car warped? As long as the rear axles did not change position, you should still be in business.

Best,
 
I was going to make fenders for the council car and use the GEE fenders for mid america. I put mock wheels on the car to size up the front fenders. I noticed they seemed to have significant cant. I looked at the car from the back and realized the entire car was bowed in the middle. I was afraid this could happen with monokote, but have not had a problem in the past with it. I removed the monokote hoping the car would fix itself. I put the car on the block and saw there was nothing that could be done.
 
Well, got the car put together and tuned. The rule says all 4 must touch and ride flat. As you can see all 4 touch, but dont ride flat. Not sure how they expect all 4 to touch amd you cant bend the axles.

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resullivan said:
Well, got the car put together and tuned. The rule says all 4 must touch and ride flat. As you can see all 4 touch, but dont ride flat. Not sure how they expect all 4 to touch amd you cant bend the axles.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is not that unusual of a rule. Saw it in Northern Illinois all the time. Racers had to go for small cant, just enough to stay within the slop of the axle in the bore. If I recall this was in the 1.25 degree territory. (Made the good racers get more creative for an advantage.) Will they enforce that - who the heck knows ? Is there someone you know with experience at this council race ?
 
Well, we did not do as well as I would have hoped at council. Came in 4th, and lost to 3rd place by .011 over 4 races. The top two finishers had "razor" type wheels. The rules state that as long as all of the original markings are on the wheel, you can do anything you want. The top two cars cut the tread surface completely off and were running on a small surface just above the fluting (their wheels may have been out of the box, but a lathe was certainly involved). The wheels I have are out of the box and they have been trued, but with the wheel weight difference, we never had a chance.

It looked like they were running oil as well; we were graphite (another rule change for this year)

We also had a slight wiggle (I wish I could have added a bit more steer). We had a 2" inch steer over 4' with 3"4 COG (rear wheels at 5/8" from the rear). On the test track (besttrack), it runs true, but on a 4 lane freedom track, the wiggle appears (add I was just reading a thread about dirty air - good grief).

We averaged 3.04 seconds on a 40' freedom track (I believe it is 37', pin to gate). Not bad too bad, but I was hoping for better based on my testing at home. Good thing is that the time I need to improve is well within my ability. Not complaining, just laying down a challenge we have to overcome.

Lessons learned:
Add a bit more steer (maybe an extra 1") for racing on a multi-lane track
Take full advantage of the rules (lightened wheels and run oil).