sps3172

iTrader: (1)

Dan,
Let me know when you plan on running that 12 turn....I'll make sure I'm NOT on the track .

Nick,
I think your a sharp guy and usually, your theories are based in more practical data than just about anyone.....However (you had to know there was a 'however' right?) I feel you couldn't be further off base than what you suggested about mod vs. stock. The fact remains that currently, there are some fairly fast guys running TC at our track. They tend to run tight lines, bring good equipment, etc. Merely switching to a mod class won't make things more 'level' for anyone and I promise that more parts will get broken.

You suggest that in stock, you 'have to' run a tight line as if to say it's not that way in modified. I can promise you that I would attempt to run just as tight a line in modified as I do in stock. I'm fairly sure that Larry and Drew (and others) wouldn't suddenly decide to start missing corners intentionally just because we've switched to modified. With that thought in mind, what makes you think it would be any easier to catch back up after a mistake in modified versus stock? Don't you think we're already putting down as much power as we can and couldn't really up the pace at will? That might be the case in offroad, but trust me, it's not the case on carpet.

Onto your suggestion that modified motors are easier to deal with from a maintenance standpoint.....again, maybe true in offroad but not the case on carpet. When it comes to V2 based mods, the enduro brush isn't the hot setup for onroad....and when using the 'sprint brush' you end up cutting the com just as often as you do with other sorts of modified teardowns and maybe MORE often than you do with a stock motor.

Lastly, in modified, batteries STILL MATTER. They will always matter...regardless of the class. Now, in addition to concerns over voltage, mod adds the dimension of runtime. You can now be down on BOTH voltage AND runtime. Secondly, the gap you witness when comparing the fastest folks at Roxanna will get even larger if you switched to modified. The fact is that most people won't go even 1 second faster over the course of a 5 minute run with a modified motor (maybe their car broke, maybe they get so excited at the shoot speed that the don't get off the gas earlier enough for any of the corners....etc, etc.) If a few guys can go faster with mod, and the rest don't.....viola, the gap (now about 1-2 laps) gets even wider.

The bottom line is this. Myself, Drew, Chris (insert your favorite seasoned onroad veteran) have been around carpet racing for a while. We've heard all these theories before and have seen that it just doesn't seem to prove true in practice. Stock racing seems be the best way to have close competition and offer the minimum expense. Modified is fun, and I've run it a few times and hope to do so again. But to switch to mod thinking the playing field would be more level or that the expense would be less.....not a smart move.

Now onto the important stuff. Listen to what Greg says. Get a TC and come race with us on foams (Steve K has a tire machine that EVERYONE uses). I've seen you drive and you'll have this figured out in no time. As a side benefit, there's plenty of room under a TC body for your beloved Deans plugs.

smac

iTrader: (1)

Add me to the Friday list (Scott McDonald)

DRKWNG

iTrader: (7)

Steve Smith
Larry Stone
Andrew Ellis
Tony Muhammad
Greg Schmidt
Dan Walter
Chris Hensley
Scott Macdonald

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Steve.

chensleyrc1

iTrader: (38)

Well said Steve, and sorry Evo, i didn't mean to upset anyone, it is just that this tire issue comes up about every 2 years. There is pros and cons to both. And I am right there with you when it comes to chunking a tire, it just burns me up, and what really upsets me is it is my fault for chunking them!!!

kenshu

iTrader: (1)

Rubber is for asphalt
Foam is for carpet
Bottom line. IMO

rollover

Thanks for listening but still sticking to your plans Chris. One person in charge is the best way to keep a track like this open! Consistant rules and descision making will keep people coming back.

Will there be racing Saturday night? It seems like the Burp boys are going to play in the dirt Saturday.

evostyle

iTrader: (103)

No apology needed Chris. I was just looking for a way to make the racing more user friendly. Sometimes ideas work for some and not for others.

Laterilus

Very true. I am brilliant.

Sweet. I was hoping all day for the Steve S. reply! We all knew it was coming didn't we? Steve, everything you've stated makes complete sense and is filled with a few points that I haven't even thought of yet. Most of your counter points are the typical ones I always hear. I guess my thought process only works in a perfect world where everyone is a a good intermediate driver all the way up to a pro level racer. I didn't really have time today at work to write up a novel here, but I did leave out a few points. First and foremost, I am completely working off my experience with off-road. I've only run on-road nitro, not on-road electric. I know that it's a whole new beast when putting batteries and motors into an on-road car. I'm glad you pointed out the areas that I personally was unsure of when it comes to how the car will respond with the different equipment.

With that said, I assume right off the bat that everyone knows their limits. Mod is the ultimate equalizer if you don't push yourself past your own personal limit. If someone can't handle a motor that you, Larry, or Drew can run, then don't run it. No reason to crash if you can just run a slower motor and stay in the race. However, YOU get to decide how fast you go... not the battery or the motor. You can always change your motor, or go the cheap route like me and use the speed control to slow down the unecessarily fast motor. I will agree with you 100% that your, Larry's, and Drew's line will not change with mod, but most everyone elses will. You know that's true. Most people will start pushing in the corners but then at other times will cut the corner well. All of a sudden, you get some variance to the race! Isn't that nice? That gives others a chance to catch up! No, they won't catch the top 3, but who cares? That's for another day when everyone elses skill level gets to that point. For right now, everyone else can actually race with each other and have the opportunity to recover from a mistake since others in front of them will not be 'perfect' for the rest of the race. I guess like you said, it is different for on-road, but this holds true in my opinion for off-road. Case and point: We all had to run stock in 2WD buggy last week in Marion since not enough folks brought mod. It was an Uber Un-Fun time. Why? Because we were all attempting to race going roughly 7 MPH. It becomes too easy and mistakes become few and far between. I ended up winning, but it felt more like a 'fake' win. I beat Ken, but I consider Ken to be twice the 2WD buggy driver than I am. If it were mod, he would have destroyed me by 1 1/2 laps like he always does. Instead, I got out in front of him. I was going 7 MPH. Pretty smooth sailing. There is a slim chance I'm going to screw up a corner. We are going entirely too slow for that to happen. Ken is also going roughly 7 MPH trying to catch me. He now has to cut every corner that much closer to catch up. In turn, he crashes even more than what he would have if we were running mod since he cuts the pipes too close. Its quite frustrating really. Had he got out in front of me, I would have been doing the same thing. How is it fun having the throttle pegged the entire race?

Now we were both running about the same speed since he was using his 2 year old matched packs and I was using my new un-matched packs. However, had he been running new matched packs, his car would have been going 7.5 MPH. I ABSOLUTELY HATE THAT!!!!!!!!!! I don't want to be beaten by a battery! I want a driver to beat me, not equipment.

Ok, on to the last point: Batteries DON'T MATTER in mod! If they are super old, then fine, even I can feel the difference. I have new un-matched packs. I go just as fast as the others in mod who have matched packs. No difference... even in 4WD. Maybe it is a noticable difference in on-road. I don't know. You would, so if you say it is so, then I'd believe you.... however, that still won't get me to buy a matched pack. I'm not paying twice to three times the amount for my packs that are running the same damn cells in my un-matched packs. That's ridiculous what matchers will do to people.

This area leads right into the cost of motors. I have one mod motor per car. I don't change the brushes. When I do change them after succumbing to peer pressure, do you know what happens? Nothing. I don't go any faster, or any slower. I don't know why that is, it just is. I do close to no motor maintenance at all to my two V2 motors. Every so often I pull the armature from the can and spin it on my lathe (I don't know why I own one of these things either... peer pressure I guess). I brush a comm stick onto the comm because I like the shiny finish it leaves. Does it help? Who knows. Do my motors need to be cut? I have no idea. What I do know is that my lap times NEVER SUFFER do to my lack of maintenance. I have the same brushes on my 9x2 I've been using in my 4WD since I got it. I'm going to say easily I have 40 runs on them. Lap times stay the same. So you see, I don't see where the maintenance for a V2 is more than a stock. I'm totally getting my money's worth at 60$ where as I'd pay a lot more to get my stock motor sprinkled with fast fairy dust from some good motor builder so that I can also go 7.5MPH as opposed to 7MPH.

Once again, maybe on-road is just that more taxing on equipment than off-road... but that just scares me away more than what I was before! I'm a cheap skate, I like to compete with spending as little money as I possibly can. I appreciate the offer to come out and run carpet. I've considered it more than once for sure. It looked like a lot of fun last time I was there watching, but it still is pretty expensive. As of right now, the only shot there is for me to run on-road is if the turnouts at marion begin to suffer and I have no one to run off-road with. Then I'll sell my off-road stuff and become super poor running on-road. I would agree though, there is plenty of room under those bodies for my beloved dean's plugs. They'd look super trick on a TC!

DRKWNG

iTrader: (7)

Nick, Do you know where I can get some stock motor fairy dust?

You can buy Xray FK05's pretty cheap now, the are five for sale within the first twenty lines on the for sale thread.

BiggAlz

lets start a class with one of these bodies on the touring cars


http://www.prolineracing.com/proline...207/3207-3.jpg


http://www.prolineracing.com/proline...199/3199-3.jpg

sps3172

iTrader: (1)

I'm glad you didn't have time for a novel, Nick. Also, I think it's a real shame that we (you and I) only get credit for each individual post....not each word .

I hear everything you're saying....and it's completely valid....in offroad. I think the 'mistake free' stock TC run is a little harder to come by than in stock 2WD buggy. To think that you would allow Shu to be 1.5 laps faster than you in anything.....*shakes head*.

Here's something about onroad that might actually attract you. I can promise you that you're car can work well without having to hunt down parts from a 3 year old model to graft into the setup. I can promise you that you will use the camber link holes already drilled in the shock tower as apposed to the fiasco that I witness in electric offroad where it seems that you want every hole 'except' the ones that the car came with. I can promise you that you won't have to guess on the correct tire insert or just how much to shave down the carcass......radius it for a tacky track or leave the edges for a dry track?

Wait...did you melt the lead into a perfect shape to hide it inside the front bulkhead, then cut it in half and re glue it with shoo goo. Dip it twice in buggy grip then hit it with a hairdryer....when you finish that leave it in your tool box exactly 2 inches from that rear hub carrier that you spent 3 hours modifying with a dremel tool. Having those parts sitting in that position in your pit box will give your car more 'low speed steering'. Oh..sorry... you wanted high speed steering....that requires a different sort of lead as well as staggering the tire compounds (R3 on the right and Losi pink on the left). Now that's just with the stock tire inserts .... if you get the trinity bomb stuff, you run the R3 on the left and switch to Losi silver on the right. Onto the shock pistons....you did drill them with an old #56 bit right? A new one makes the holes too cleanly and doesn't really 'settle' the car as well through the rough stuff....... I think you get my point. Bear in mind, everything I mentioned above will be completely different next week....even though the dirt is the same. What a giant PITA! No wonder you hate spending time working on the motor......

So far this year, I've purchased exactly 1 stock motor. I had one left from racing 12th scale 4 years ago so I have 2 in my arsenal. I've purchased 4 sets of brushes (14 bucks) and one set of motor springs (3 bucks). That's my entire motor budget for the year....wait, I paid 4 dollars for a bottle of oil for the bushings too. Granted, things would be different if we ran modified...

Laterilus

Steve, I was dying of laughter after reading your post on modifications to the off-road vehicles. The sad part is, it is so true. I guess you've been reading on the Grid as of late? I decided to hit electric pretty hard this winter (not hard enough yet to get rid of my dean's plugs) but I never thought I'd have this much trouble with chasing a setup. One of the greatest attractions to off-road (but at the same time could be less of an attraction to some people) would be that you DONT have to spend so much time finding the right set up. Apparently, that isn't the case in 2WD.... if you run a Losi (well, I still see Rod constantly screwing with his setup too, but not to the crazy Losi extent). I will agree that I'm getting sick and tired of it. I'll more than likely be running a B4 by January if Paul G's mods don't work this weekend. Anywho, I always like that my setup could just be in the ballpark and my driving could take care of the rest. I NEVER found that to be true in on-road when I used to run nitro. It was either dialed, or the car ran like crap. That annoys me. Some accept the challenge, but I can go only so long chasing setups.... let alone hand modifying parts to get the car to work. I guess if it doesn't take long to setup an on-road carpet car and you seasoned vets are always around for help, I could see myself maybe running later on this winter.... we'll see.

I have a hard time believing that you only have four sets of brushes and 2 sets of springs for that stock motor of yours. If that is true, then you are running my type of cheap-ass racing. Most of the on-road carpet guys I see (or serious off-road stock racers) have an enormous array of brushes, springs, oils, bushings, yada yada yada... let alone the lathe and dyno.

Lastly, I will agree that stock on-road is much faster than stock off-road. I can see crashes much more regularly in on-road with stock. Fine. you win. Still, I'm super biased and hate stock motors. No doubt about it, I'd need brand new matched cells if I wanted to race with you guys though. un-matched cheapos that run won't cut it. I've witnessed that first hand.

DRKWNG

iTrader: (7)

Nick, You don't like your ZX-5?

kenshu

iTrader: (1)

everyone LOVES their ZX-5!!!!

Laterilus

What? How did you get that out of my posts? Dan, the ZX-5 is quite possibly my favorite car to drive. Yeah, its a brand new car and it is in a class I've never run, but I still think I could look through those exciting points and still say it is my favorite car to run. It is easy to set up, it runs smooth, the suspension is awesome, It is very fast, and I can run just as fast of laps as anyone else. As long as 4WD sticks around, I'll be running it.