Hi i would like to ask a question on reprep we are using all of johns parts and polishes and did the pledge on axles with zero friction and my boy won districts in the bears and not only that had the fastest car all day out of all the scouts racing the car only ran 3 times would u recommend just adding more graphite in and spinning the wheels or would u recommend pulling the axles and wheels and wipe down the axles are re apply the axle prep process again we are set to run at council on saturday this makes our 3rd hear getting to council but by far this is his fastest car ever just seems like we get our doors blown off at council any suggestions thanks
Reprep Question
- Thread starter nwo racing
- Start date
I would re-test how it does on your tuning board if it isn't a pre-tuned block from John just to make sure nothing got bumped out of line. I would leave everything on if it was running the way you wanted it to on the track, ie no wiggles in the flat. Just re-graphite like you did the first time on race day.
how many runs will the car race a council?
Also do you have a way to judge this cars potential against last years winner at council?
Also do you have a way to judge this cars potential against last years winner at council?
I think his car will run 3 or 6 runs at most and the track we are using this year is the same track he won on at districts last year track was a disaster track only a 28ft wooden track that council had slapped together at the last minute running off in a bath towel at the end of the finish line alot of people werent happy about last years track this year track is a 42 ft best track
If you are confident you could repeat your prep process. I would do it if you are running graphite. If it were oil I would say let it ride. That is just my humble opinion.
I think your times will start to drop around run 3 at council on the old graphite prep.
I think your times will start to drop around run 3 at council on the old graphite prep.
It had no wiggles down the straight away it ran a 3.08 on the 3 run average the next car in second was at a 3.10 and third at a 3.11 kinda limited since running with graphite and we did use the silver bullet
If you burnished the bore with graphite I doubt that you even wore any of it off with only 3 runs down the track. Even the loose graphite usually doesn't all fall out with only that many runs. Your times were around the same as my son's car on the same type of track. His times didn't start to fall off until after about the 10th heat. The 1st place car that beat ours was running 3.03-3.04 the whole race which was over 20 runs by the end of the finals without any re-lube. I don't know if he was really running graphite or not, didn't want to come off as being negative for asking. Can't really compare too much since track setup can change the times quite a bit even with the same track. If you're trying to gain more speed I don't know if re-prepping would have much of an effect. Leaving well enough alone I don't see why it wouldn't maintain the same times. With graphite many cars can get better times after being broken in. I have even read on here about taking time after burnishing on the days leading up to the race to re-graphite and spin the wheels multiple times to get good break.
You can also catch any possible wheel issues that could be improved by how the graphite from the track collected on your wheel tread, making sure it was riding on the edges that it should have been. If you had a bad running wheel you may see a graphite wear pattern line that moves as you turn the wheel.
You can also catch any possible wheel issues that could be improved by how the graphite from the track collected on your wheel tread, making sure it was riding on the edges that it should have been. If you had a bad running wheel you may see a graphite wear pattern line that moves as you turn the wheel.
I know for our upcoming race at districts we are going to pull off the wheels and axels, clean the axels only, blow out any debris in the wheel bore, and then respray the pledge on the axels then redo the graphite prep and reinstall. I was NOT planning on cleaning out the bores and redoing the wax and graphite burnishing....
I think the wax in the bore with the graphite in is fine and should last pretty well, but ive read in these forums that the pledge likely doesn't last as long...
but im sure everyone has a slightly different opinion...
WK
I think the wax in the bore with the graphite in is fine and should last pretty well, but ive read in these forums that the pledge likely doesn't last as long...
but im sure everyone has a slightly different opinion...
WK
For what it's worth, here is what we do. If the car ran well I put a mark on the axle head with a perm. marker. (makes it easier to re-tune) Check bores for wear. Pledge the axle again, burnish in a little more graphite and re-assemble and tune. We also use a magnifying glass and jewelers loupe to look for lint and dust. I have no idea how many times I thought the wheels were clean only to find a little something in the wheel bore.
NWO, historically, we never did anything else to the car after the Pack race save for adding more graphite before districts. If the car was quick before, we didn't want to mess with it. We won the District here twice in a row like that.
(It worked out okay, my son won it all anyway. My car, not as much...)
We had our Trail Life Pinewood Grand Prix race last weekend. Our cars weren't yet painted on the test-n-tune night. So, we dialed in the best alignment, and marked the axles w/ a Sharpie. After painting, I did final prep on the wheels and axles. Set up the axles, sprayed Jig on them, and immediately saw my Sharpie marks disappear.hatfam said:
(It worked out okay, my son won it all anyway. My car, not as much...)
My boys car was fast at the pack level race won his den and had the fastest qualifier of the day then we had a month break then raced at the district level and won districts and had the fastest car out of all the kids from tigers through web 2 we did the pledge and burnished with the graphite with all of johns stuff he sure makes some fast stuff lol since doing the pledge and graphite with johns stuff the car only has 3 runs on it would the pledge still be good and just add graphite in and spin the wheels hes had a goal to finish in the top 3 at council by far this is his fastest car and the times are consistent this makes our third year making it to council i hope third time is a charm
I helped a Scout this year and got to experiment on his graphite lubed car some. Historically I never like going more than 10 runs without relubing the graphite, but I went further with this car and actually spent one night (thanks Zeebs !!) running it dry, re-lubing and repeating this several times. The interesting thing was that the car would consistently be fastest in runs 7 through 9 and then was pretty good for about 12 runs total. Furthermore, it got faster on successive repeats of this process. I never had time to do this when I had to help four of my own kids get their cars built !
I wouldn't recommend this 'process' but I think that the most important point is I was able to learn which heats would be fastest after a full graphite lube. So for his races, we just ran it right up to the point before packing it up. I don't ever remembering a car being fastest in its first few runs with graphite lube, unless you did a pretty modest lube. After three heats I would think you were just getting warmed up !
Whenever, wherever you can though, drop the graphite and switch to oil !!!
I wouldn't recommend this 'process' but I think that the most important point is I was able to learn which heats would be fastest after a full graphite lube. So for his races, we just ran it right up to the point before packing it up. I don't ever remembering a car being fastest in its first few runs with graphite lube, unless you did a pretty modest lube. After three heats I would think you were just getting warmed up !
Whenever, wherever you can though, drop the graphite and switch to oil !!!
Go look at the times for Mid America Graphite ... There are some pretty incredible times... One car runs consistent 2.995 took first place... Thats a process to learn... After prelims they went over and re lubed... It is a big deal to do this and I should have gone over to the re lube table to see this process....
Talked to one grandfather who gave me a bit of advise and I will look into this and try it out on our cars with the boys... I know it works well with oilers but it didn't for one of our cars... Love the Pit chat we had...
Talked to one grandfather who gave me a bit of advise and I will look into this and try it out on our cars with the boys... I know it works well with oilers but it didn't for one of our cars... Love the Pit chat we had...
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