Vintage Trans Am

Scottrik · 07-16-2007, 10:30 PM

After talking about it a couple years a few of our club members got together this past Saturday to try out our proposed Vintage Trans Am class. We had a BLAST!!

The idea was to create a semi-spec class that uses obsolete touring car chassis everybody has laying around in their basements, garages, etc. I ran a TC3 that I converted to 200mm and a TC4 "tub" chassis I picked up specifically for this event. A couple guys had Losi XXXS's, one fellow had a HPI RS4(?) and one fellow is setting up an old Yokomo.

THe bodies that HPI are making now look incredibly hot out on the track together. We had three of the '66 Shelby GT350 Mustangs and a couple '68 Camaros. A couple of us are waiting patiently for Stormer (our LHS) to get the '70 'Cuda bodies in. One could also use the older Parma '69 Camaro or '70 Mustang, or any other bodies from that era.

The "spec" part?

We specify the cars MUST use the HPI Vintage-series tires on the HPI Vintage wheels. These are HPI's 'D' compound rubber and they gave a lot more traction than any of us expected.

NO WINGS!! The Camaro spoiler is appropriate. Again, the cars hooked up a LOT better than we expected on rubber tires with no wing. You DO need to drive them though.

We spent Saturday trying out several motor and battery combinations. Stock motor with 6-cells is a handful. More experienced racers could definitely race this combo but we're hoping to attract some new blood by demo-ing this class at some regional car shows, etc. I tried 6-cells with a 35-turn Integy lathe motor but it was too slow (though we later found my esc was either mis-adjusted or has some FET's out). Stock motor on 5-cells worked about right while Stock on 4-cells was maybe a bit too weak for experienced racers, though you still had to "drive" the car so it might be a good spec for new racers. I think the spec we'll go with, though, will be the 19-turn motor on 4-cells. Performance-wise very close to the stock/5-cell combo but our reasoning is everyone has 4-cell batteries for their 1/12 cars anyway and most of us locally have 19-T motors.

Another thought is to limit batteries to IB3800's or earlier. Again, a means to get more use out of obsolete equipment and keep it from becoming a battery war. Heck, old GP3300's I hadn't charged in a year and a half ran the car for 10 minutes so what the heck...

AND THE CARS LOOK ABSOLUTELY COOL OUT ON THE TRACK TOGETHER. Of course none of us thought to bring a camera

What are some thoughts on this?

SWTour · 07-16-2007, 10:58 PM

I've been wanting to re-vive a class like this for years.

We've done some 'vintage' type events in the past...using REAL paint schemes from the 60's and 70's, and registering under the original driver who's car was mimicked name...

k_bojar · 07-17-2007, 07:44 AM

NOw that would make running TC fun again

You gotta post some pics

I love the Vingtage Trans Am cars !!

Thoughts - spec the motors...but not the batteries..I understand the "getting usage from obsolete equipment" - but there might be some drivers that got rid of all those "old" batteries...

What about silver car tamiya motors?? those things can normally handle a pure beating with going *poof* and you get then gear them to make the newbie and experienced guy happy

Plus if you know how to tune them, it would be just like in the old days - they guys that knew their ways around the "spec'ed" engines make them for real fast

CypressMidWest · 07-17-2007, 09:20 AM

One of the most popular classes at the dirt oval in our area is the "bomber" class. They run old buggies with '65 or older bodies. They run regular stock motors. I don't know if they have a battery rule.

We used to have "claim rule" when we ran legends back in the day. If I remeber right it was $10 bucks a motor and $15 per pack. If you thought a guy was fast just because of his motor or battery, you could "claim" the motor or battery for the "claim" price. Nobody would run a decent pack or fresh motor for fear of losing them to the dreaded "claim rule". Worked out pretty well.

Scottrik · 07-18-2007, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by k_bojar

NOw that would make running TC fun again

You gotta post some pics

I love the Vingtage Trans Am cars !!

I'm surprised at how enthusiastic the locals are about this. It took a while (like I said, I've been talking about it for almost 2 years...) but now there seems to be a rush to adopt it as a regular class. We've even got an RC-retiree looking at building a car for this class.

Like an idiot I didn't bring either my digital still or video camera to our test session. I'll try to take some static pics of the cars and post 'em up. We're talking about doing another test-n-tune session in August or September to finalize standards prior to our mid-October start of season.

Scottrik

nc racer · 07-18-2007, 11:57 AM

thos vintage HPI tires with 31's in the back and 26's on front are the best handling rubber you can get for a parking lot imho.

vtl1180ny · 07-18-2007, 12:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nc racer

thos vintage HPI tires with 31's in the back and 26's on front are the best handling rubber you can get for a parking lot imho.

They are exactly what I have on my parking lot car....

Scottrik · 07-18-2007, 12:15 PM

I'm glad to hear they work well on pavement!! Our testing was on carpet and we were pleasantly surprised that the grip level was FAR higher than we'd expected. Also the handling was VERY forgiving given that my cars (and I know at least 1-2 others) were set up by eye rather than measuring alignment angles, etc.

Locally we only race onroad on carpet with foams, but if we're going to do these car shows, etc then our choice will be to run on paved streets or parking lots. The drive in my neighborhood is newer paving and was JUST re-sealed a couple weeks ago. It dead-ends in a "T" to turn around in and we were going to set out some cones or some-such to create a test track to see how they did on pavement.

So who else thinks this may be the next "hot" thing?

Scottrik · 07-25-2007, 03:24 PM

Here are a few pics of my cars. Please ignore the Camaro--tried to do the Smokey Yunick car but with a new masking product. Uh, never mind, it was at BEST an unsuccessful experiment.

The Mustang is on a TC4 tub chassis with 31mm HPI vintage tires all around. These wheels have 5mm offset and bring the 190mm chassis out to, effectively, 200mm and fills teh body out nicely.

The Camaro is on a Warpspeed Demon TC3 conversion chassis with 200mm arms and CVD's installed. Uses 26mm tires/wheels in front and 31's in the rear. This tire combo on 200mm suspension fills out the body which for the Camaros and 'Cudas is 200mm front and 210mm rear.

SWTour · 07-25-2007, 09:27 PM

I did a Smokey Yunick/Bobby Allison 69 Talladega body for a oval race a few years ago...LOOKED really cool w/ custom made TORINO decals and CI decals on the hood.

I also did a McAllister 70 Mustang body (actually did 2) one WHITE w/ Blue Shelby stripes and one Red w/ White Stripes and dark tinted windows.

The red one looks good cause it's ReD - but the White one came out a lot better (It's long gone now cause it got raced 2 full seasons..on OVAL and ROAD COURSES) but MAN was that a fun class.

I think I still have the 'Dega and the Red Mustang bodies stuck away someplace (It's been over 10 years since they were run)

Maybe I'll dig those out for a couple pics...

tallyrc · 07-26-2007, 06:32 AM

you guys running the 31's in the back.. just using the stock inserts?

Scottrik · 07-26-2007, 07:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tallyrc

you guys running the 31's in the back.. just using the stock inserts?

Yup--if what you mean by "stock" is the inserts that come with the HPI Vintage tires that's exactly what we run in both the 26's and 31's. The idea here is to keep things simple and comparatively inexpensive. Start messing with inserts, etc, and it becomes a tire war. As it is the cars run VERY close together and look cool as hell out on the track doin' it..

Scottrik · 08-20-2007, 09:54 AM

Just got the invite/confirmation that our club will be doing demo races at the big Regional car show Labor Day weekend (eek...only a week and a half to prepare!!). I'll have a few complete ready-to-race setups (including charger and a couple batteries) at different price levels so interested people can see how inexpensively they can join in the fun when our racing schedule kicks off in October. I'd even sell 'em. It's all stuff I picked up cheap off e-Bay and RC Tech and combined into race kits. I've got to get the bodies painted up and I'll post 'em.

This should be cool.

raffaelli · 08-20-2007, 10:41 AM

The winter carpet spec class we run is Tamyia TT-01 base kit, couple bearings allowed on the drive shaft, 3300 max packs, 540 can, 19t pinion, any rubber tire, any insert, any rim, any tire additive, $50 max speedo, 1972 or older body. I ran the 69 Mustang last year. I would like to find an old Vette or Cobra for this year.
This is the most fun class I have ever competed in. All of the cars are within a few seconds of each other. Low cost, high fun, the way racing should be.

Kregger · 08-20-2007, 02:28 PM

Quote:

I would like to find an old Vette or Cobra for this year.

Raffaelli,

Parma makes a Cobra body.