Charles Leto

thanks for all the info

will the C version work for just average club racing with larger foam tires and occasion parking lot or would the AP be better all around???

C. Leto

daleepp

Charles;
I would definitely lean towards the "All Purpose" #1476-01 version for the kind of race conditions you described.

Related to J.J. by any chance? lol

Thanks for your interest - Dale

Exe

as i understand carpet version should give more traction and downforce? am i right?

dstyles

are there any physical differences between the two? i picked up one with the hood indentations and i don't remember the number on the header card.

rtypec

iTrader: (2)

From what I can see, there are a number of front end differences between the A and C version. The carpet version has:

Hood dimples
Front chin lip is a shallower
The edge from the front lights to the top of the A-pillar is more rounded and the "scallop" is not as deep as the asphalt version

I'm sure there are other small differences but those are the three that stood out most to me.

Charles Leto

lol i've been asked a lot nothing that i know of but i havn't looked into it and i think J.J.'s is spelt different also

Jiveslug

Ok, my turn.

So, I may be new to R/C racing (have yet to enter my first event), but I have watched a lot of it from the sidelines. What first got me into RC back in the day (i.e. 1987) was my love of full-scale auto racing. I love cars, especially highly modified racing machines. I was in college when I noticed the TC cars becoming big in RC (I think that was 96 or 97). I loved the cars because they were more like real racers. Granted, most real racers dont have AWD, but they do have fully independent suspension, radial rubber tires, etc. Now, almost 10 years later (which is making me realize that Im actually an..... adult..... ), Im fully starting out in this sport/hobby and am a little dismayed at the lack of variety in bodies. However, reading through this thread, especially Dale's posts, has given me a lot of insight as to what is wrong with the current crop of bodies. Its not the manufacturers, but the rules. Dale's work is incredible. I went out and bought at Protoform CTS-VR the second I saw one. I love it simply for its style and bling-factor. I do also see what he is saying about the licensing issues. Thus, I think that the proposals regarding min/max body dimensions is great. Give guys like Dale a set of standard guidelines to work with and let the go to town. No licensing issues, we have cars that look great and perform well to boot.

The fact that ROAR did not bother to reply to Dale is sad. At least give the man the courtesy of acknowledging his hard work. I think ROAR can be fixed to work a bit better, but its going to not only be the voters, its also going to be the folks in office doing some of the work. Voters need to be active and officers need to be responsive.

On a side note, I DO love the scale bodies from HPI and Tamiya. In all honesty I wish all RC racing could be scale, but Im realisitic and understand that it wont work that way. Thats why I have been thinking of getting starting in the TCS as well as my regular club racing. I have also been kicking around the idea of starting a local club after a while that was based more closely to full-scale sports car racing. They need to run bodies that are scale looking JGTC/Sports car (HPI, Tamiya, maybe Proline C6 Vette), no aero wheels, must have all grille/light decals in place, etc. Each driver would also have a permanent number assigned to them and this must be placed on both sides and hood of the car. Maybe even the driver's last name in white lettering on the bottom right of the windshield....

Anyway, I digress. To sum up:
Dale=good
Licensing=bad
There needs to be less finger pointing and more action on all sides
Creativity=good

Oh, and NO MORE MONOCHROMATIC BODIES SANS DECALS!!! Those are so damn lame.

Jive

P.S. Dale, what kind of bodies do you have in the works? I understand if you arent inclined to share, but Im curious and I love your work.

Exe

is this the carpet version i got or what? it has those thing on a hood...

been racing this for two months now... this is my second already...

daleepp

Exe - no, it's the "All Purpose" 3.0 that will give the most downforce.

rtypec - you nailed it. Those are the major noticable changes.

Jiveslug - thanks for the kind remarks, especially regarding the Cadillac CTS-V . I like your ideas for a "more scale" appearing class.
Hope you don't mind me telling you a funny (or depressing - you decide) story about the Cadillac CTS-V body. That mold was flat-out the most work I've ever put into a sedan style mold. Took me 7 weeks. It's not just that the Caddy CTS is a very uniquely styled car, but it's design cues are all attached to each other, from one end of the car to the other. This make it very difficult to "purposely distort" its true dimensions, to not only allow the body to fit the pre-determined sizes of todays chassis, but to also hopefully allow the body to actually work reasonably well. (after all, PROTOform IS a "race body" company). I also kinda just knew that the real Caddy CTS-V race team was going to be very competitive in the Speed TV World Challenge Series, and would probably get a lot of TV time. Both hunches turned out to be true - and they almost won the series. I simply didn't want the PROTOform version to look " half_ _ _ by comparison. A few months after it went on the market, I got a phone call which was one of my personal highlights of 2004 - if not my whole rc career. It was from the Cadillac design center in Detroit. It was from a lead designer on the real Cadillac CTS project. This guy, knows his stuff - his father was responsible for the original Corvette Sting Ray in 1964. Anyway, he has some pretty strong words of praise for exactly how the 1/10th PROTOform CTS-V body was executed, and this thrilled me to no end. There wasn't even one negative comment or any constuctive criticism- only praise. Blew my mind - I didn't come down for a week. His comments were about a body that was actually very radically distorted. Why did I distort it? Let me tell you. In order for a CTS, or Mazda6, Stratus, or Acura any 4 door sporty sedan to fit, look right, handle reasonably well in rc form, the following are the dimensions that I NEED to start messing with:
REAL SEDAN LENGTH = approx. 186-190 inchs average length = 19 inch long rc body. PROBLEM IS: an rc car simply will not handle with a body that's that long. Rc bodies that are approx 16.5 inchs in length is about ideal. So, the rc moldmaker needs to creatively remove 2.5 inches (or a scale TWO AND A HALF FEET) from the overall length of the body. Thats a bunch.
REAL SEDAN HEIGHT= approx. 57 inches. PROBLEM IS: IFMAR, EFRA & ROAR rules allow a min. body height of 115 mm or a scale 45.5 inches tall. The rc moldmaker now has to creatively take almost a scale FOOT out of the height of the car.
REAL SEDAN WIDTH= approx. 67-69 inches wide. PROBLEM IS: all the sanctioning bodies in the world (BRCA included) allow a max width of 195 mm or a scale 77 inces wide. The moldmaker now has to creatively ADD a scale 10 inches to the width. In the case of 200mm gas bodies, we are adding a scale TWO FEET TWO INCHES to the width.
REAL SEDAN TIRE DIAMETER = approx 26-27 in. PROBLEM for moldmaker IS: no rules at all for tire sizes. Most rubber tires are a scale 24 in. in dia. and foams are run at a scale 22 in. which is really smaller than an 1/11th scale tire.
It's pretty amazing, given the facts, that any of the racebodies out there (made by anybody) even have the sightest semblance of reality. When we finish a new body, it then needs to be approved by licensing people who simply so not understand the dynamics that we are dealing with( unlike die cast cars), and rc sanctioning officials who either don't care or don't take the time to understand what lengths we have had to go through, to find workable solutions.
Where am I going with this? Well, here's the depressing part of Cadillac CTS-V story. (for me anyway) Last month I recieved a letter from a Body Eligability Officer who works with a large highly respected rc racing sanctioning body. The letter was sent specifically in regard to the PROTOform Cadillac CTS-V. This is an excerpt take directly from this letter.
" There is a caveat with regard to this submission ( #1472-00) which should be born in mind with future (body) submittions. The area between the lower line of the side windows and the upper waist swage line has been cantilivered which is not in keeping with the full size vehicle styling. A tolerant view has been taken with regard to this aspect of the modelling of this body shell. Should future submittions from this source (PROTOform) feature similar "styling" I cannot guarantee the same tolerant view being adopted."
Wow. The guy that helped design the real car gave me big-tme kudos, but an rc body "expert" (in a part of the world that Cadillacs are seldom seen), tells me I'm skirting the limits of his tolerance - and they were both looking at the same body. ?? Although I've never heard of the term "swage line" in my 35 years of customizing cars and doing design work, I've determined that this "official" thought that the rear quarter panels bulged outward too much. Viewed from the rear, a real Caddy CTS has a distinctively tall and rather narrow rear profile. There's not a day of the week that I don't seem to be driving behind one on the road - here where I live. I was only doing what I thought was required to keep this distinctive CTS "look" while at the same time adding the aformentioned scale 10 inches to the width, so the rear tires are covered.
I'm not trying to bore you all with minutiae. I'm only tryng to highlight to fact that we really need some global rc body standards - and soon. This whole body approval thing is simply too subjective. I wanted to give you a little more evidence of this fact, with this story. It takes a month to do a good mold, and it would be so nice to work on these mold with a degree of confidence. Not confidence that it would be good seller and a race winner, but at least the feeling of assurance that it will be allowed to race at all, and if it's granted approval, it doesn't anger the many rc critics that will start murmering that it's "too cheated up" to be good for the sport.

Done

thanks - Dale

Jiveslug

OMG, that story is at the same time hilarious and pathetic! I can certainly appreciate the trouble you have to go through to make a body such as the Caddy CTS-VR. When the actual designer of the original car calls you up and tells you what an awesome job you did, you know you have something special. As far as the “expert,” in my experience there are many “experts” in this world who don’t know a THING about what it is they claim to be an expert in. As far as I would be concerned, I would take heart in the knowledge that a lot of people appreciate the work I’ve done, and said expert can go take a long walk off a short pier (now THERE’S and old-school cliché!). Regardless, just know that many of us are perfectly happy to walk into the LHS and plunk down $25 for one of your shells. Keep the awesome work coming.

On a funny side note, I almost killed said CTS-V shell last night. I was testing my newly constructed TC3 (I finally managed to complete a 5 minute practice run without a mechanical failure… go me!) in the street in front of my home. I lost control of it and the car seemed to dart off and get stuck behind a couple of trash cans. I go over to fetch the car and find a rather large storm drain opening where the car should have been. Luckily the drain was not one of those ones that drops off immediately and the car got caught by the antenna a few feet into the drain. Doh!!!! I had to get a 3-foot stick with a hook on the end and grab the back of the body to pull the car out. My neighbors already think I’m insane, and I’m sure this did nothing to change their opinions. ANYway, both the car and the body held up extremely well to being crashed, soaked, smushed, and prodded in the rear. Hehe.

Oh, and one last thing. I’m new to this hobby and I think its awesome that you post on the boards and talk to the folks who actually use your products. It shows a hands-on approach that is so sadly missing in so many enterprises. Keep up the good work and know that you have buddies amongst the little people in this hobby.

Jive

Damn, if I keep being nice like this, no one is going to take me seriously anymore. Im losing my touch.

Exe

i don't get something? it was stated that carpet version will give you most downforce and now you're saying it's all purpose giving highest downforce...???

by the way, the code is the same to what you've given and what's on speedtechrc.com

am i missing something

here is my first body with the same code YOU gave


and here is my second stratus body... with same code...




seems like i got unreleased body for two months or so...

Speedo

Dale, quick question:

If there is to be an all-purpose 3.0, and a carpet 3.0, what is happening to the original 3.0?

Thanks,
Josh

Exe

from what now i get... the one listed on protoform website is all around, and the one i show ir carpet.. simple..

there is no 3rd version i think or am i wrong ?

daleepp

Exe - I don't know where your getting your information. It's crystal clear in my posting here yesterday - "AllPurpose" 3.0 = MORE DOWNFORCE

Speedo - good question. There was originally going to be only one 3.0. The original version was modified to to improve performance on HI BITE carpet, and it turned out that the modifications really did make it work better. We were in the middle of indoor-carpet season so naturally, that was our focus. It then became clear that the original version worked extremely well outdoors (in Florida testing) and I decided to re-create the original mold (with no changes) and designate it the "All Purpose" because thats really the best description for it. (Low bite carpet, and oudoor rubber tire usage) Not trying to confuse any one, just provide bodies that are optimized for the different racing condition that exist. No different than in any full size racing venue - racecars and all their related components have been so refined in recent years that there is rarely a revolutionary performance gain, usually a series of small refinements and a gradual evolution in components that yield smaller, yet still important performance gains.
Review - 3.0"Carpet" 1476-00
3.0"All Purpose" 1476-01
3.1 "200mm Gas" 1477

Dale

Exe

so you simply ignore my post

for it doesn't matter i'm gonna be kind to shut my mouth
anyway, the body is great... and some guys from our local club adore how the car handles.

great job protoform.