Acer ceramic bearings, wow what a difference.
short story....i run 13.5, and my car is good but not very fast, i can get 19 laps out of it just like the mod guys, and top 13.5 driver, but i am about 8 seconds behind....so something needs to be done
when i try to make a car faster theres 3 things i look at: weight, friction, rotational mass.
so to get fast i decided to fix 1 thing at a time and test drive.
Rotational mass.: my main competitor runs a B44.2 which has a very light drivetrain, with its spool in the center and ball diffs front and rear, with plastic gears. D413 has metal gears and oil spinning around....heavy, and there is not much we can do about it...theres two options i can think off, 1 is earplugs in the center and front diff, this is lighter than oil, and allows the diff to have some give....onroad guys have been doing that for years....ok so theres nothing i can do about it....i wish someone made aluminum center axles like tekno does in their bigger buggies
Friction.: 1 gears, my car was a used from a team driver....so i was surpriced when i saw ring and pinion gears where dry....when you got metal to metal contact you really should have some lube, if you dont like the mess of black grease you should at least use some dry ptfe (teflon) spray....i use honda 60% moly, moly is a crystal that goes into the pores of the matal and continues to lube even when there carrier (grease) is gone.....honda grease is a lighter grease than say regular RC black grease, so it sticks less which makes for less friction than black grease.....i went out and ran a pack, motor came off 10 degrees less, and it was like taking out 5% dragbrake, and i started to overshoot here and there....NICE, and CHEAP to do
Bearings have friction too, i have had the stock bearings out about a month a go, where i cleaned them and lubed with acer liguid sin oil....which helped a bit. i usually rung avid bearings due to their cheap price, and excelent quality, but their ceramic bearings start out at 100+ $...boca is more like 200$ for a kit...too much $$$ for me. acer has a sale going on and i picked up a full kit for 60$ (they are not fully ceramic but rather ceramic coated)...still very expensive, but i decided to give them a go....all bearings swapped out and WOW it was like taking out 10% dragbrake...i never thought it could be this big a difference.....i have to add a bit of dragbrake now....my lap times went down 0.2-0.4 seconds NICE !ohh yeah motor temps down 15-20 degrees
Weight.: lots of stuff to do, but most are expensive, so i always start with the cheap stuff first. Cut wires as short as possible, wires weighs a ton...and its a free mod....second you can go with titanium in a lot of places, this tend to cost a lot, hingepins are the cheapest, but havent found them for the d413. Ti turnbucles are the one of the most expensive upgrades, and it only makes for 4-6 grams difference, so not worth it imho. theres plenty of screw kits ranging from 40$ to 200$, its doesnt take out that much weight. Ti ballstuds are an option too, again its less than 10 grams saving....and with Ti you risk snapping stuff, instead of bending like steel. so i dont know if i want to go Ti
any one know of other mods to get the D413 faster in spec class ?