First ladder body scary!!

Jan 30, 2016
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Hi all,

I'm trying to build a fast scout dad car this year rather than focus all my energy into my son's as I want him to take more of a proactive role this year in doing so (he's 10yo this year).

So basic premise,

-DD4H block drilled for 5' wheelbase
-Txchemist full Monty
-carbon fiber skin
-I have an old set of 2.4g wheels lying around or I can use stock wheels. Not sure if I want to purchase another set of wheels for this...

Thoughts? Comments?

-Kyle

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Looks like you are well on your way to build a nice car. I love that you offset your rear weight. I do that myself to get the weight balanced on the rears the way I want. Some tidbits that I see (and it may not be perfect information; I'm not totally sure how the top racers build their cars):

1) My rails that go down each side are thinner. I believe they are approximately 1/8" wide. This is to save weight on the body. I think its a nice comprise between reducing the weight and keeping some rigidity in the body. Everyone will most like have a different answer, but I'm scrounging for every gram I can get.

2) I narrow both sides of my cars, so much so, the cars can be either left FDW or right FDW. The only thing that determines which side the FDW is on is the weighting. I do this to keep the car tight against the track. That is, when the FDW is riding the rail, I might have somewhere between a 1/16" to 1/8" between the other rail and the raised wheel. When narrowing, I'm considering two things: the bend in the FDW and the bend in the NDFW. We know the bend in the FDW is a positive cant and we know the cant alone keeps the rear wheels off the rail. But I want the car to be centered, so I narrow the FDW side of the car. I also know the NDFW will have a negative cant (e.g. canted so the bottom of the wheel is farther from the rail than the top) and turned slightly towards the rail to shield the wheel cavity. With this in mind, you can actually narrow the NDFW side as well. I'm sure this can be debated until the cows come home, but I have always found a tight car is a fast car.

3) Not sure if you can have washers or not in the Scout Class, but if you can not and there is no rule where it says the wheel must contact wood, get some PTFE film with an adhesive backing and stick it to both sides of the car. Its nothing more than a sticker (stickers are usually allowed), but it can be polished. I have found it to be VERY VERY VERY close to washers in terms or speed. Skip the nail polish, CA glue, and all of the other tricks you may see people using in lieu of washers. This is faster and easier.

This is what I readily see in the body alone, but don't try to incorporate every trick at one time. Build a car, test it, and write down what you can improve upon next time. In 5 years of league racing (I'm new more or less starting in 2014), I have yet to build a car I'm completely happy with. There was always something I could improve upon. There are times where I seemingly drop out for a while, but in reality, I'm downstairs making a pile a wood attempting to perfect my next build. I'm always downstairs racing myself, but now-a-days, I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find more speed. There is a plateau where it become a battle of wills. I can say that there have been a number of occasions where my cars actually tied each other in time, to the 1/10,000th of a second.

Lastly, just have fun. For me, it's a huge stress reliever (well, until I get that car that just will not run; then I want to back to my day job).
 
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LOL that's my RC car cleaning toothbrush! I use it to get the dirt out of hard to clean areas.

It's an "open" class but I want to make the dad's race a 5.0 oz max, unlimited wheelbase, not sure on wheels/axles yet..

B regal, where do you get the PTFE film? I did CA glue it already but I want to buy some and try it. Thanks!
 

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[QUOTE="3) Not sure if you can have washers or not in the Scout Class, but if you can not and there is no rule where it says the wheel must contact wood, get some PTFE film with an adhesive backing and stick it to both sides of the car. Its nothing more than a sticker (stickers are usually allowed), but it can be polished. I have found it to be VERY VERY VERY close to washers in terms or speed. Skip the nail polish, CA glue, and all of the other tricks you may see people using in lieu of washers. This is faster and easier.[/QUOTE]

Interesting, but how do you polish this PTFE film? Any danger of going through the PTFE layer? Also does this film work with graphite and oil? Thanks!
 
I know I am way off topic here, but here are mine. The Rustler is my knock around RC car. Runs anywhere between 35 to 50ish mph, but at higher speeds (more voltage), you can not really run it in a small area. Also have problems with the tires ballooning, blowing out the transmission gears, etc. Love the stock shell - a wolf in sheep's clothing. The 7.2 10,000mah battery (pictured) will run it for 20 to 30 minutes, but it is heavy. The 14v battery gets it moving at insane speeds. The E-Maxx is my Coffee Table Queen. Too pretty with too much aluminum to get dirty. She's special.

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PTFE film - you would polish like anything else, but do not start with 150 grit sandpaper. I'll use the #4 side on a nail file block (the finest side) and give it a quick polish. You can feel it with your fingers getting smoother. After I'm done, I'll wipe off the oils from my hands. The film itself is thicker than paper, so I would not worry about polishing through it, but even if you do, just peel it off and put more on. As far as oil vs graphite, I'm not much for graphite cars. In fact, I loathe them, but it is a necessary evil in PWD. It does run well with oil, nearly as fast as washers. Maybe even the same speed, but on my fastest cars, I never went back and pulled off the washers and replaced them with film. It's a tough comparison. I use washers mainly because it is the accepted method, but one day, when I have some time, I'll build a competitive league car with film and see how it does.
 
Thanks for the explanation. Last year we used clear packing tape on top of our printed decal on top of the car. We sanded the tape to make it more smoother. As last step we used steel wool 0000, since we felt that gave less scratches and a clearer finish than the sand paper. I will try out some different sanding materials including the nail file block to see which gives the best finish. I agree with you on the graphite, but even after explaining that oil works better, is easier and less messy to apply it still is not allowed in our Pack.

To get back to the ladder car, the side rails are indeed a little thick however with scout races you always have to factor in handling of the car, the stop section and overall track conditions. We normally run thinner side rails however we also run a full length cover on top which gives the car more strength. Without that I would also look for more strength by using wider side rails. This is something you will get a better feel for when you build more ladder cars. There is no use in building a fast car is it brakes during one of the runs. One question about your weights, the big bar in the back is that a 2.1 or 2.0 ounce? I am always debating if it's better to run a 2.1 or 2.0 in the back.
 
Damn that EMAXX Nice cars!

My son has a brushed Rustler and mine pictured is a brushless Stampede 4x4 brushless. We love to go out and tear up some tires!

Our track rules are the same, only graphite allowed. I'm concerned with the handling of the car(s) to and from the track to go much thinner. Scouts can be tough on fragile cars...
 
FDM, here is a picture of it on my scale. Almost looks like 2.1...

B regal we should get together and drive RCs too!
 

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I dig that carbon fiber!

Could be the pictures... but to me it looks like the FDW axle hole is too low and/or the rear holes are too high. This will make it impossible to get a good rear alignment. The front dominate hole needs to be higher than the rears by at least 0.020 and usually more to account for the bend in the FDW axle. This is assuming you have built it with canted rears and are planning to use a canted front so as to run on the edge of the wheels and ride or run the rail (depending on who's talking).

Scott