adamge

iTrader: (1)

What apparatus is that, a mill?

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Adam- Yes. I am using the milling machine vise to hold one end of the chassis stationary. The shock tower of the other end is rested on a round rod so that the chassis can twist. You can also see the spindle flange of a lathe on the left side of the pic. I do rifle work with the machine.

Since you are handy. I am sad to report that my Astroflight charger killed the thunderpower battery the other day. It is hard to remember the state of charge of the batts in 3 cars after a 2 week holiday for track work. the charger misread the pack as a 3 cell (instead of mostly charged) and overcharged it for a bit before I caught the error. I plan to quit using this type of charger that auto senses the number of cells. It would be better to get a 2 cell only like my Scorpion charger or have to manually put in the number of cells.

The battery had 30 cycles on it and it was in great shape. It ran the coolest of the batteries I have used which was a benefit here in Houston. Performance was good at 30 cycles.
John

highwayman

iTrader: (2)

are you using the stock TC5 chassis for your asphalt tests or the ITF?

tcfree

Hi again, Ok i have changed the placing for the power cap! and the balance of the car is not far out.

The results are.

batt side= 355g 5cell
motor/esc side = 330g

so not much diffrence @ all from left 2 right, putting the handout transponder in the left hand side of the front window shud bring the weight spot on!

This is the pic after rewiring the car!


Thanks.
ste e.

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Highwayman-I am using the stock TC5 chassis for asphalt but I put a couple of new holes on the left side to add some flex. Possibly someone can elighten me on the ITF chassis. It is advertized as 2.5 mm thick (.0984 inch) my stock chassis measures .099 inch with a dial caliper or 2.5 mm as well. The hole pattern looks the same. What is the difference between the two if any. Now the top plate is way different. You can tell from the photo.

TCfree thanks for the pic and the weights. Looks like your are in good shape.
John

thunderbt3

iTrader: (14)

tcfree,

Im in the process of doing the same wiring on my car but the cap wires you can weave thru the motor plate and have it exit going towards the esc. I tested it out last night and theres just enough wire on the cap to reach the esc (black wire). The red wire, you will probalby have to cut.

Also, to make your battery wires stay a little flatter, i usually tin the wire and then when its cool, bend the tinned portion at a 90* angle and then solder it to the esc. Works pretty well.

I'll post pics tonight when I'm finished. Im pretty anal about wiring on my cars hehe.

thunderbt3

iTrader: (14)

John,

I believe the stock chassis is 3mm. I have the ITF chassis and it does feel thinner/more flexible.

-Dave

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

thunderbt-My chassis is 2.5 mm, but it came with the car.
John

yyhayyim

iTrader: (26)

The car comes stock w/ 2.5mm chassis and upper deck, like John stated...

Difuser

iTrader: (2)

Boomer good to see someone else taking the lessons of RC to full-size. We got alot of laughs when 3-4 of us went over to Rally. The "old guard" all asked our background and told us "these aint toy cars" There was not much said when the guys who played with toy cars won the NorPac region in '02 with a Stock RS against all the guys who had the WRX's and alot more $$$ in their cars.
We even had Dave Clark from DMS suspension walk up and ask me WTF I was doing with his suspension. I said "just made some changes based on the roads". That was good fo a big laugh in service.....

Dan Garber
Car #263, and Car #255
NorPac

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Here is a link to a pic of the new Associated Spool kit for the TC5. Seems to be in stock here, but I did not go all the way through the order process. Looks like a one piece aluminum unit. Pin pilllows would be desirable. I don't know if the pillows will fit. I think the TIR unit with replaceable outdrives makes more sense from a durability aspect.

diffuser-Thanks for the post. I think that goes both ways too. There are not two sets of the laws of Physics. The big car set and then the RC car set. There are some differences in setup, but more similarities than differences.


John

Difuser

iTrader: (2)

Honestly Big cars are alot easier......
You are actually in the car and have seat of the pants feel, not seat of the fingers.
We have more adjustments in an RC car than even an F1 designer could ever hope to have.
I found that I really had 4-5 areas that I could focus on. Tires pressures, Damping, weight balance, camber, toe and ride height.

As in Nascar or anything else 1-3lbs on the tires was a huge change in grip.

Damping rates with the DMS we only had 7 compression and 4 rebound settings, we could change spring rates but it took way too much time. It was really a event by event change we ended up not bothering.

Weight balance- I missed an event and I let my wrench take over engineer on the car. He is very conservative in nature. He loaded the car up with huge fuel loads, multiple spares and about the whole tool box. After the event we debriefed and the driver always came back to missing the setting as the car would push and felt lazy with snap oversteer in places......hmmmm

Camber and toe also could make a car go from lively to a dog.

Ride height had some clearance aspects but also was critical in weight transfer and loading the tires better. Since we don't have grip in the surface it is how you drive the tires into the gravel and dirt to create the traction.

Sorry for the long post but it was fun taking it to the established racers as a bunch of RC guys. Also not coming from the pre-coneived notions of how to setup a car as we could change so much you learn what a drastic change can do. When we funneled all that info to 4-5 parameters it was a piece of cake.

Boomer one final thing. I owe those damn water bars a piece too. We lost our entire front wiring harness on of those things. Came off a huge bar and compressed the front so hard it bit into the wiring and ripped it out. There was a R&T photog there though who caught the entire sequence on film. Made for a killer series and we gave it to the entire team for X-mas that year.......

Sorry for the intrusion John. I have been a fan of both of your threads here. You have some great info. I have heard comments of "what a geek' Too anal" etc. But really your setup ideas and engineering are pretty solid ideas and how you arrive at them are great. Keep it up.

Dan Garber

Verndog

iTrader: (16)

Stock chassis= 2.5 mm = .0984
ITF chassis = 2.0 mm = .0787

I'm thinking of going to the ITF but now carpet season is near...so I'll likely hold off till spring.

Great thread BTW John...I've been reading most all your reports. Keep up the excellent work.

yyhayyim

iTrader: (26)

Its interesting that the AE did not go with the split rear bulk head design very common in BD cars, like the HB Cyclone, Kyosho Stallion, Xray T2'007, Corally PHI, etc. Its been reported that those running the rear split bulk heads have found that it allows the car to flex a bit more and thus improve asphalt traction, supposedly. AE could have easily incorporated that into their design, and it would be nice to know why they chose not to go that route?

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Dan-Thanks.
Verndog-Thanks and thanks for clearing up the chassis thicknesses. The ITF chassis must be misadvertized at several retailers as a 2.5 mm chassis.


YYhayim-Every degree of flex you desire is at hand with the TC5. With the top plate removed, it is quite flexible. I estimated my custom top plate leaves the car a little stiffer than the Associated ITF top plate as it retains a long X brace. Two thicknesses of chassis are available. There is no design superiority in the split bulkheads as far as chassis flex goes. That chassis can be made stiff or soft as well.

I have noticed mostly in my pan car that I get better cornering with a narrow chassis run at 235 mm because it has more flex. There is no top stiffening plate either. In the touring car this effect is less noticeable as the car is very narrow to start with and relatively stiff as hell these days. The TC chassis is flexing less. I would put this chassis flex adjustment pretty far down on my list of things to spend more money on. A good spool would be higher up the list. I don't mind chopping on the car a little for free, but I do wear a respirator when doing so. You really need to treat this Carbon Fibre more like asbestos as a health problem than like fiberglass when you are sanding or shaping it.
John