howardcano

iTrader: (37)

Excellent! Does this mean that you will be the first Pan Car Poobah?

I'll offer one addition: No liquid-filled dampers (shock absorbers) allowed.

I don't know of any cars that use them, but if there happens to be an oldie that does, then make an exception for that car only, but no new ones.

hitcharide1

iTrader: (1)

[QUOTE=aarcobra;12673469]Yep, my bad, it's page 83, and still says pretty much what I said before. I don't think we're doing much assuming, since we've completed year two of the rebirth of pan without any significant issues as to what can and can't be run. Just because the rules don't explicitly ban a car powered by 10 million invisible gerbils doesn't mean someone will show up with such a thing....(hmm...how could I get them all to run on demand....)

And a thought....to my knowledge, no one has yet shown up with a locked out suspension car to test the theory. I'll convert one of mine over in the off season and test it next year just to see what it actually does.

Grenade10

iTrader: (40)

Well, I'm sorry .... Or maybe not ..... To have tossed out the idea of the 2wd suspension car. I have several old Serpent 6000 / 6010 Sprints that I ran in 2wd back in the late 70's early 80's after starting with a RC500. Plus enough parts to run for some time.

Car did not have adjustable camber until I modified the front blocks. Minimal caster adjustments, and shocks just a step or two better than the associated. So I could make the conversion and maybe play with it next year. The Heart of America series had some of the best 2wd racers around and a few pan cars as well, so maybe we can get a few cars back out.

So we'll see if there is more interest ....... Howard, you should make the trip next year. (will ship your tires in the next day or so). I also have a few Vintage Parma Lola's to run, and yes Howard, green and white paint.

single speed, check .......... fixed suspension, check .......... 3 port engine, check ..... 25 rears / 40 fronts, Check .......... vintage body and paint, check. .........

aarcobra

iTrader: (12)

DISCLAIMER: In this post I am talking with a fellow Toledo Club member about Toledo Club Races. This has NOTHING to do with any other group, club, series, national or international event! (Got it Jason??? )

Joe,
That's fine with me. (Of course since I won't be at every club race, I may or may not make it to the right one!) It will not fly with some for sure but I personally would love to see it!


Ned

aarcobra

iTrader: (12)

Don't be concerned about your suggestion. It's just that when it was brought up for discussion in the Toledo Club, a very well respected member made a point that it was not a good idea.

I only suggest that the rules treat it as a "local" exception and not the normal rule. If the class ever grows to a National level, there might well be issues without more specific definitions and rules. But that's some one else's problem.

I would suggest that if you are trying to get something started in the HoA Series, you follow the Toledo model and run what is available and see where it goes from there. Toledo had no Pan car races until after some of us started bench racing about bringing back vintage pan cars. Lon mentioned he had some of the modern Classic Pans and the modern pans became the most popular. Some vintage cars have been run but mainly the modern Classics and a number od scratch built cars run in Toledo and the MWS. But the most cars running and the winning cars are almost always the Modern Classic Pans.

You talk up the options, get a few cars out to a race and see what happens. I wouldn't be concerning myself as to what the Toledo, MWS, Or New York City rules are going to be unless I was intending to race there...eventually the rules will likely be what ever the international Classic Pan Rules are in Europe where the pan class is much more popular. I say this because I believe the only way the class can grow is with modern, store bought equipment. I don't think it will succeed with lock suspension cars, vintage, and scratch built cars alone. Although I do hope they are allowed as that is where my heart is at!!!

aarcobra

iTrader: (12)

[QUOTE=hitcharide1;12674169]Phil,
What kind of issues would you expect? The cars that run well enough and long enough to win have all been modern pans. Rick's cars may be considered an exception, but then so is he!!! Since there are no rules, no points (at Toledo Club Races) and everybody seems to get along, what would the issues be? Joe Tuttle is by far the most consistent and fast driver in the pan class in Toledo. He won all 9 races that are listed, won all but 4 of the 27 heat races and second place was only on the same lap with him once. Everybody knows he's running legit.

Also, FYI: A converted suspension cars (one at least) has been run in more than one pan car race. I have opinions as to what it would take it to work better, but let me say it was not the worst car on the track! Also FYI: Lon keeps hinting that he doesn't think the L/S car should be run, but ...it is running.

I will again disagree with you that just because there are no issues to date about rules doesn't mean they are not needed. They will prevent or at least give guidance when questionable stuff comes up. Also the ROAR pan rules and nowhere specific enough and as has been said before ROAR doesn't seem to be at all interested in including this class. As you mentioned there are so many old and useless rules on there that you can't be sure what your are looking at!

aarcobra

iTrader: (12)

Sure don't! (It's a Southern thing!)

aarcobra

iTrader: (12)

I keep thinking about what the definition of a "PAN" car should be and come up confused. What are the design features in an "OPEN" car that we don't want included in a pan?

I suggest that it is involved with any type of independent movement (suspension) of any of the four wheels that touch the track. The wheels need to rotate, the front ones need to turn to steer, and seems most are ok with caster, camber, and toe allowed in any corner you want. Just so they are adjusted when the car is stationary and they are fixed when the car is actually on the track.

That leaves basically vertical movement of the wheel/tire assembly relative to the track that we don't want to allow or at least don't want controlled by suspension arms and dampers (shocks).

We seem ok also with flexing of the chassis pan between the front and rear axles but not across the pan. Except that most feel ok with an "articulated" front end, that rocks from side to side as long as the front wheel/tire assemblies are connected across the pan with some sort of beam or plate arrangement. This is different from what happens in the rear as, at least on the cars we have seen, when one rear tire moves vertically, the opposite one does also but only as the chassis pan allows flex. In the front the axle is mounted to an articulated plate that is semi-independent of the main pan-why?

This is where I start to get really confused because I think some of the designs might allow independent vertical movement if there is not enough stiffness in the parts used to mount and locate the front end. This being said, since we are running 40 to 50 shore front tires, I believe to reduce front traction, and therefore cornering forces, why would we be concerned with "front suspension" when we could easily use softer tires and get to a similar amount of cornering force-which I thought we had too much of to begin with???

It seems to me the key issue in defining a pan car needs to be about defining how the wheel/tire assembly attaches to the chassis pan and/or how these assemblies move relative to the chassis when the car is driven or subjected to simulated forces of being driven.



Ned

hitcharide1

iTrader: (1)

Ah...no. I'm definitely not in favor of the articulated "suspension plate." I believe fully it's too much like suspension, but....I got over-ruled by the consensus...and both large manufacturers make it that way. If we rule them out, then only the guys with a vintage or scratch built have a ride, thus killing the class. Meh. We're talking now about making an articulated chassis and/or wobble front of our own design. There were times on the track I was able to keep up with anyone, but design oopsies laid us low, and that was without wobble technology, so I'm going to lean their way in order to pick up some speed in the corners.

I suspect the reason WRC went with a wobble front end is that there is no other way, without suspension, to keep all four tires on the ground in a turn.
Rigid aluminum chassis aren't very flexible.

I hoped to make more progress on building new SuperJ's for sale this year, but all the free time got spent tweaking on a pan build in between bouts of crap health...so I've shelved that idea indefinitely.

Our pan build, IMHO, is the closest new thing to a true pan out there. No suspension arms, no belt, solid chassis with no wobble plate.

Yes, Joe T. had a VERY good year. I suspect next year may not be as great for him...lol. The level of competition is going to pick up, partly because Rick built a rocket, partly because the other drivers are catching up. Next year should have some EXCELLENT competition.

Lastly, I'm not concerned much with ROAR. I suspect all their energy is in off road...I hear from them exactly once a year, and only for renewal of dues. Whatever we do with pan is strictly on us, our membership, and how much energy we can put into it. We're not going to get outside help from any direction at this point, and that's fine, because we're having fun with what we're doing, and fun brings more people to the hobby.

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

These are all excellent observations of what a pan car should be!

This is done so the corner weights ("tweak" in RC-speak) don't change as the tires wear unevenly. As I have posted before, it is not optimal for handling. Putting all of the roll stiffness at the rear of the car makes the rear end loose and reduces traction out of the corners.

It would be much better to make the front end stiff in roll, and put the rear tires on a pivoting arrangement. This is pretty easily done on a belt-drive car. (Again, I have posted this previously.) I would suggest that this NOT be allowed.

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

Not really. It would be a very simple matter to insert some washers/shims/spacers to lock the front end so it doesn't rock side-to-side on these cars. Then they would be exactly equivalent to a locked-suspension car. The cost of the shims is negligible, and none of the cars would be rendered obsolete.

Of course, it's fine if the racers decide that rocking front ends are okay. But "it would make a car obsolete" isn't a strong reason for NOT banning them.

Gary NJ

iTrader: (8)

To me the defining characteristic of the nitro onroad pan cars (as opposed to their 1/10th and 1/12th electric cousins) is that there is no independent movement of the front wheels relative to each other, and the same thing in the rear. When I look at my WRC - and this is the only car I've stared at hard - the only "suspension" is the ability of the rigid front end to roll side to side in a controlled fashion relative to the rigid rear end. The WRC front rocker has no vertical movement at all - it is mechanically not possible based on the design. Any fore and aft flex in the car comes strictly from the flexiness (is that a word???) of the main chassis plate and the stiffness provided by the radio upper plate mounted on standoffs. That flex is controlled by the design and thickness and material of the plate (in the case of the WRC the company makes aluminum, fiberglass and carbon fiber chassis plates, and carbon fiber and aluminum radio plates). They also make a stiffner plate that you can screw onto the main chassis behind the rocker to control the fore and aft flex - it is not controlled in any meaningful way by the front rocker.

I think you could duplicate the movement of the front rocker if it was locked to the chassis by adjusting the width and material of the chassis between the front and rear ends of the car. However, to get enough flex, the car would be extremely fragile and easy to tweak, and any adjustments to the roll stiffness would have to be made by either changing the chassis or by adding or subtracting stiffening plates. The rocker design is just an easy to manufacture and easy to maintain way of giving the car enough flex to be driveable, while still staying true to the intent of the class to have no independent suspension of any wheel.

I agree that making the rear roll rather than the front would make the rear easier to hook up -- and that would be a bad thing. The beauty of the class to me is that by being rear traction limited horsepower becomes a non issue - any old crap pushes the car faster than it can be driven. It seems to me with my limited experience the class is about getting the balance right front to rear, and getting the rear to have the right balance between grip and slide so the car doesn't hop, diff out or slide excessively. It is definitely a car you have to drive, rather than point and shoot, and I like that.

hitcharide1

iTrader: (1)

I don't think I agree with that.

"Back in the day," it was a fact that the guy with the Ron Paris engine was going to do a lot better than the guy who didn't have one. I don't think we've seen the limit yet on horsepower vs. driveability. Two years ago, I managed 23 second laps at Toledo running a 35 year old Delta with a 35 year old Pico. Last club race, I watched Rick run his underweight scratch built and I believe he was knocking out 20/21 second laps. Not being 4wd, we're never going to have 4wd lap times, but I had no trouble controlling my car, and Rick sure didn't look like he was having any problems either (and the schmuck was doing it standing on the ground, us short bastards need a drivers stand.)

I've been around long enough to have seen Art Carbonell do incredible things with a SuperJ while using an engine powerful enough to shred tires and tracks both. I really don't know where the limit is, but I suspect our pan cars will only get faster, WITHOUT resorting to suspension of any type, but I'm positive we're nowhere near our peak. Right now, this isn't a problem, we don't have the numbers for it to be a problem. Later, if we get more people, it will put those without top engines at a severe disadvantage. Joe T had a really good year, but he did it by virtue of not having the fastest car, but the cleanest driving. I'd bet money that next year, Rick (and hopefully at least one other, lol) will break 20 with a pan, but it will take more than a 3 port engine to get it done.

Taylorm

I have an old Davis ball diff 300 car that has a rear t bar arrangement.....so we are willing to let a modern articulated front car run but not a 30 year old articulated rear car run???.......How about rule says one articulation allowed....EITHER the front or rear with no oil shocks.....that allows modern pan...
my 30 year old pan...plus scratch built cars with a pivot...( like my next one will be if I ever stand up straight again.........blew out my back muscles...

howardcano

iTrader: (37)

That's not what I meant. It's okay if the entire rear pod can pivot, like on a T-plate car, as long as the engine, transmission, and wheels move together as a unit. What we don't want is for the rear wheels to rock side to side while the engine and transmission remain fixed (similar to a DeDion rear suspension). This can be done with any arrangement that has half-shafts on the rear end, or even with a solid axle using a belt drive to its center.

I believe that's what this rough translation of the French rules forbid:

"If rear axle articulated levels of driving the dynamic axis of the drive wheels must be attached to a same element."

EDIT: Any rules suggestions I make will always allow existing cars (that I'm aware of) to compete. I kinow about your T-plate car. What I want to avoid is someone designing a car that exploits something not addressed in the rules, and is sufficiently different and quicker than existing cars to make them obsolete (regardless of it being true or simply the racer's perception).