Small problem,

Raced the 12L3 the other day with decent success for a 1st timer. But about half way thru the heat, the car developed a push. I have basically the stock set-up, with 2.5mm height, 1deg camber, frt-purp., rr-grey. The car is razor sharp at start, but steering slowly goes away as race progresses. Using Trinity Zip for traction compound, applying it on half the front, and completely on the rear. I think that's all.

Any ideas?

Please?

Also, looking for a 100t, 64p spur gear. Is there a paticular kind that I should be looking for?

Thanks

stika, how long are you soaking your tires in traction compound, because it almots sounds like you just aren't soaking them long enough, especially if you are running Jaco tires, they seem to take a little bit longer to soak up the compound than the TRC tires.

try the trinity spur gears, they have worked well for me

Hey guys.
Trips try any of the following Hobby Shops:
1. RC Madnes at 8607416501
2. The Track at 3014179630
3. R&L Raceway at 6163233686
4. Aero-Tech Hobbies at 3304991300
5. G+C Hobbies at 5615473812
6. The Mushroom Bowl at 6104441850
These are all "Trinity Spotlight Dealers" and one of them should have the part for you. If not them then call Wind Tunnel Racing at 8775692403 and he should be able to get you one. Windtunnel makes a graphite kit of spare parts for the 12L3 and is in the process of doing one for our Trinity 02 car.

Petenis- Hey guy how's the drag car and your brother doing? First make sure the pivot ball setup is properly spaced up from the chassis plate and every thing is tight (I think there are two metal cone like washers per side plus some washers per the instructions).

Now make sure the pivot ball caps are snugly secure (check the pivot cap screws), you should be able to move the pivot ball freely without much free play. Now make sure that the screw that goes through the pivot ball comes all of the way up and through the pivot ball and that you have enough thread to put a front wheel nut on top to secure it (4-40).

Next take the rear axle, center shock and front tires off of your car. Lay the car on a flat surface and loosen the two 4-40 nuts (one on each side of the footbal) on the mini graphite plate. Press down on the chassis plate and rear pod to make sure everything is square and then tighten the two 4-40 nuts. You should now have a non binding rear suspension. The links limit the travel so that you shouldn't bottom out. With the Knife you should check the football/link alignment in this manner and reset it after every race day or whenever the car feels weird.

Stevie- It sounds like your car is "tweaked" which means that it turns more one way than the other. It would seem that either your tweak screws are touching the T-bar or that they are in but only come into contact with the t-bar when the pod is moved some. These would readily explain your problem and you can do the following tweak check method if either of these issues exist.

Take an X-Acto blade and on a flat table find the centerline of the car and at the back pod lower plate lift the car with the X-acto. If one side raises before the other than you have a tweak problem and you must tighten one of the screws on the t-bar (whichever side it is, play with it) to get both rear tires to lift at the same time.

Stika- I think Avink1 is steering you right. You should be letting the Zip Free sit on your tires for at least 20min (at club races) before you wipe it off with a rag. It also sounds like you may not be getting all of the Zip wiped off before you start your race and this could cause your tires to be a little "wet" which would sharpen handling. Once the tires "dried" off from then you would see what the real traction is like. If after you try the above you still don't have the steering you need but you notice that the car is more "tame" when you start the race then try treating 3/4 of the fronts working from the inside towards the outside of the tire. Paragon Ground Effects is probably the best stuff you can use and a non-wintergreen alternative to Zip is Racer's Choice TQ 8+ (red label). Zip is good stuff I hear so don't throw it away, just saying that you may want to try one of these other two with the same procedures and compare performance and then go from there.

Sounds good. I'll give it a try and let you know. Thanks guys.:)

thanks for the leads, I'll be making some calls today!

Trips

I contacted everyone on the list except the mushroom bowl and windtunnel, and so far I'm batting .000.

I'll keep trying the mushroom bowl and windtunnel today, but for now I've scanned the picture of the part in the manual and enlarged it to actual size in Photoshop, I'll see if I can't fabricate a piece from graphite or fiberglass today at work to hold me over until I can get the real one.

Thanks for the help dave...

Trips

!!!Thanks once again darnold,for the advice!!!!
(ill check the tweak in a bit)...
!!!!!!!!Thanks!!!!!!!

..SP12M/RC12L3..

I can see that Dave "Tigger" Arnold has yet to tell everyone about this weekends golf outing:lol: Lets see he got beat by Paul Lemuiex on Golden Tee and on the real chipping contest outside. Maybe it was the bad lie that Paul gave him or was it the hurt Sholder??????? Who knows but Tigger let us all down. Then at the resturant he was soo mad he stomped on some mayo packets and covered the place in the stuff....boy you guys better watch out for his temper.:eek:

Anyway Dave e-mail me and I will send you that Excel file that I have at [email protected]

Dave...

None of the shops you listed had the part, which isn't really surprising since it's probably not something that'll ever break.

I did get lucky today, I found an old Associated 12L chassis at work, and there's a big enough section of blank graphite in the middle of it that I can cut out and fabricate my own to use until I get the real one from Trinity. It'll probably be on the ugly side, but it should work for a temporary fix.

Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

David

Has anybody tried attaching the rear of the T-plate using the center hole at the rear pod on a 12L3? What were the results?

Thanks

I haven't done it with my 12L3, but I know what it does with the 10L2 - it stiffens up the rear end and doesn't allow it to flex as much, either fore and aft or side to side.

When we ran 6 cell mod (10x2 usually) we used that screw because the motors were overpowering the t-bar. . .but with stock it just makes it too stiff.

What performance gain or loss did you get?

The center screw in the T-bar on an AE car has only a nominal affect on the side-to-side motion of the T-bar and thus only a nominal effect on the side bite of the car. What it does is to remove some forward bite from the rear of the car thus loosening the car up under acceleration.

Quick summary: more power-on steering.

Just what I was lookin' for. Thanks Mark!

Kev- A last it is true.... Paul beat me in the chipping contest with my own club. Oh the hoorrrrorrrr... LOL! You've got mail bro. BTW, who put the mayo in my path, c'mon I know one of you set me up.LOL! Your car looked really good Sunday and you knnnoooowww you're holding back secret info to Rob. LOL!