TRACK STAR RACER SERVICES NOW OPEN (SoCal)
10-20-2009, 09:54 AM
#121
Track Star report from Nitro Cross World Championship.
What a long week(end) for this years event! Ryan Lutz and I set out around 2pm from Track Star central and made the trek over to the Nitro Pit along the way we discussed how ready we were and excited to have this event return.
One of our anticipations was to see the track, however we didn't make it to Suprise until after dark due to a right rear tire failure on my Suburban. However this did allow us to take time for dinner and get checked into our hotel.
Thursdays practice sessions went well, first round was a feeler to see where handling needed to be changed, set close tunes and to find what may be the correct racing line. The first thing I noticed was the lack of oxygen in the air as even a bench tune showed to be rich. Things really changed later as the air temp became hot. There were alot of people, even seasoned veterans that were having engine tuning issues. I felt confident that we had our engines prepped correctly to combat the heat and lack of "air".
Ryan seemed to really enjoy the track layout as did I (once I found the groove as I can't see that far
In the first session my buggy felt great! I needed to work on the truggy as it was set up for a shorter track and was a little too twitchy. Second round of practice Ryan was really putting down the power and seemed to be having fun with the track and simply getting faster and faster. My second round was for run time testing. In buggy I broke a tie rod end dashing that test however truggy was another story. As reported before I made the complete 10 minutes plus the extra lap with fuel still in the tank afterword! This was indeed promising giving the terrible air conditions.
Friday & Saturday saw Ryan only needing to run once in truggy as he qualified directly into his main and saturdays buggy he qulified into the main out of his semi. For me in truggy it was two decent finishes that seeded me 9th on the grid in the A main and some bad luck in buggy as I broke the steering in two rounds and in the final round turning in a 5th overall seeding me in the bottom of the C.
Sunday came to an early A.M. start for me being in the C in buggy. During warm up my buggy felt good and the tune was a little on the rich side yet still drivable. This was good except the fact I misjudged my run time and only ran 8 minutes before flaming out one lap before my pit stop. This took me out of contention to bump. Ryans truggy run was very hard fought. He drove the wheels off of the 801xt and finished a solid 3rd!
My truggy main started off very rough as I got plowed in the first turn, popping off a tie rod. Luckily Peter Martin ( from TKO) saw what happened and fixed me up so I could continue. A couple of laps later the same thing happened this time the entire rod assembly came off. Ryan ran to the pits and grabbed one off of his truggy so I could continue. I knew I would have to drive hard for the next 20 minutes to even make it into the money. I drove too hard and came up short on the NX jump and destroyed the right front ending my A main run.
Ryans buggy main started off with some drama as he cased the back triple making the rear center drive shaft to pop out of the center diff. I grabbed the car and ran back to our pit to get it reinstalled. Ryan came off the stand to help. With the 2 minute call we got it back together and on the starting line with 30 seconds to go and started the race! However several minutes into the main the shaft let go, possibly because of a fracture from the first incident ending the event for Ryan.
I pitted Dave Enstrom from DE Racing and tuned a little here and there for him. Dave put both of his Mugens in the A main and finished 4th in truggy and 3rd in buggy! Congrats Dave!!
I'll be tearing down the Alpha engines I used this weekend today and giving a report on wear and anything I see. This will be the final stage until I get to the 5 gallon mark on these engines for the longevity report.
I'd like to thank Tamiya USA, Ryan Lutz, Eric @ Prime fuel, all of my sponsors and those who support Track Star, Chris Vierra for the prep work on my buggy and Dave & Cheri Enstrom for the great hospitality!!
Jimmy Wright
What a long week(end) for this years event! Ryan Lutz and I set out around 2pm from Track Star central and made the trek over to the Nitro Pit along the way we discussed how ready we were and excited to have this event return.
One of our anticipations was to see the track, however we didn't make it to Suprise until after dark due to a right rear tire failure on my Suburban. However this did allow us to take time for dinner and get checked into our hotel.
Thursdays practice sessions went well, first round was a feeler to see where handling needed to be changed, set close tunes and to find what may be the correct racing line. The first thing I noticed was the lack of oxygen in the air as even a bench tune showed to be rich. Things really changed later as the air temp became hot. There were alot of people, even seasoned veterans that were having engine tuning issues. I felt confident that we had our engines prepped correctly to combat the heat and lack of "air".
Ryan seemed to really enjoy the track layout as did I (once I found the groove as I can't see that far
In the first session my buggy felt great! I needed to work on the truggy as it was set up for a shorter track and was a little too twitchy. Second round of practice Ryan was really putting down the power and seemed to be having fun with the track and simply getting faster and faster. My second round was for run time testing. In buggy I broke a tie rod end dashing that test however truggy was another story. As reported before I made the complete 10 minutes plus the extra lap with fuel still in the tank afterword! This was indeed promising giving the terrible air conditions.Friday & Saturday saw Ryan only needing to run once in truggy as he qualified directly into his main and saturdays buggy he qulified into the main out of his semi. For me in truggy it was two decent finishes that seeded me 9th on the grid in the A main and some bad luck in buggy as I broke the steering in two rounds and in the final round turning in a 5th overall seeding me in the bottom of the C.
Sunday came to an early A.M. start for me being in the C in buggy. During warm up my buggy felt good and the tune was a little on the rich side yet still drivable. This was good except the fact I misjudged my run time and only ran 8 minutes before flaming out one lap before my pit stop. This took me out of contention to bump. Ryans truggy run was very hard fought. He drove the wheels off of the 801xt and finished a solid 3rd!
My truggy main started off very rough as I got plowed in the first turn, popping off a tie rod. Luckily Peter Martin ( from TKO) saw what happened and fixed me up so I could continue. A couple of laps later the same thing happened this time the entire rod assembly came off. Ryan ran to the pits and grabbed one off of his truggy so I could continue. I knew I would have to drive hard for the next 20 minutes to even make it into the money. I drove too hard and came up short on the NX jump and destroyed the right front ending my A main run.
Ryans buggy main started off with some drama as he cased the back triple making the rear center drive shaft to pop out of the center diff. I grabbed the car and ran back to our pit to get it reinstalled. Ryan came off the stand to help. With the 2 minute call we got it back together and on the starting line with 30 seconds to go and started the race! However several minutes into the main the shaft let go, possibly because of a fracture from the first incident ending the event for Ryan.
I pitted Dave Enstrom from DE Racing and tuned a little here and there for him. Dave put both of his Mugens in the A main and finished 4th in truggy and 3rd in buggy! Congrats Dave!!
I'll be tearing down the Alpha engines I used this weekend today and giving a report on wear and anything I see. This will be the final stage until I get to the 5 gallon mark on these engines for the longevity report.
I'd like to thank Tamiya USA, Ryan Lutz, Eric @ Prime fuel, all of my sponsors and those who support Track Star, Chris Vierra for the prep work on my buggy and Dave & Cheri Enstrom for the great hospitality!!
Jimmy Wright
10-21-2009, 08:10 AM
#122
Alpha Engine tear down after 2 gallons
This is the next installment in the Alpha Engine segment. Tear down after 2 gallons of a hard race weekend in 100+ degree temps.
Upon pulling both engine out of the cars the only thing I noticed externally was the very slight wetness around the front bearings. Barely enough to really notice unless you were looking for it which I was.
Upon tear down everything came apart as it was new. No stuck sleeves are usually the main issue. The combustion chambers were clean as expected as were the top of the pistons. Prime fuel burns very clean with no carbon. No detonation pits or marks anywhere. The glow plugs (OS P3) were the originals from break in and still look great. Though the one in the 850 will need replacing soon from running it lean as the coil is starting to grey.
The back plates have normal marks nothing deep or tell tale.
The rods on the big end show very very minimal wear. Something in the range of .0005-.0007" Almost un-micable difference. the small end shows no sign of wear or discoloring as does the crank pin.
The bearings are still holding up very well. No signs of any roughness or discoloration.
The carb slide shows no sign of wear. Boots are still intact.
Mechanical pinch is still present however very slight.
Pretty uneventful report.
For sales please inquire to [email protected]
Any questions please post here or PM.
Thank you,
Jimmy Wright
Track Star RC
Upon pulling both engine out of the cars the only thing I noticed externally was the very slight wetness around the front bearings. Barely enough to really notice unless you were looking for it which I was.
Upon tear down everything came apart as it was new. No stuck sleeves are usually the main issue. The combustion chambers were clean as expected as were the top of the pistons. Prime fuel burns very clean with no carbon. No detonation pits or marks anywhere. The glow plugs (OS P3) were the originals from break in and still look great. Though the one in the 850 will need replacing soon from running it lean as the coil is starting to grey.
The back plates have normal marks nothing deep or tell tale.
The rods on the big end show very very minimal wear. Something in the range of .0005-.0007" Almost un-micable difference. the small end shows no sign of wear or discoloring as does the crank pin.
The bearings are still holding up very well. No signs of any roughness or discoloration.
The carb slide shows no sign of wear. Boots are still intact.
Mechanical pinch is still present however very slight.
Pretty uneventful report.
For sales please inquire to [email protected]
Any questions please post here or PM.
Thank you,
Jimmy Wright
Track Star RC
Last edited by Racecrafter; 10-21-2009 at 12:01 PM.
10-24-2009, 09:26 AM
#128
Alpha Engine run time report.
We finally were able to get some clean runs on the F850.
Last night we went to the world famous Hemet Raceway Park (formerly known as "The Dirt")
During qualifying we were trying out some new ideas and products for the Tamiya 801X buggy. What we noticed was that after our 7 minute qualifiers we still had over a 1/4 tank left. Quick math says 125/4=31.25cc. 125-31.25=93.75cc used in 7+ minutes (13.4cc per minute). 10 minutes being the ultimate mark 10*13.4= 134cc Tank is only 125cc...... Being that we had a little over a quarter of a tank we decided to go 10 in the main.
In short, during the main we went 10:35 to our first (and only) pit stop for the 20 minute A main. After the main I took an extra lap (35 sec) and came in with 6cc left! 6cc equates to approx 30 more seconds......... 11:00+ minutes.
The F850 came in @ 255 (which has been the optimum temp for these engines) 8mm carb restrictor and no limits on the throttle throw, with a 2041 pipe.
We are looking to run at ARC tonite to see if we can get the same results at another track. ARC is a bit longer and wide open than Hemet.
"Stay Tuned"
Jimmy Wright
We finally were able to get some clean runs on the F850.
Last night we went to the world famous Hemet Raceway Park (formerly known as "The Dirt")
During qualifying we were trying out some new ideas and products for the Tamiya 801X buggy. What we noticed was that after our 7 minute qualifiers we still had over a 1/4 tank left. Quick math says 125/4=31.25cc. 125-31.25=93.75cc used in 7+ minutes (13.4cc per minute). 10 minutes being the ultimate mark 10*13.4= 134cc Tank is only 125cc...... Being that we had a little over a quarter of a tank we decided to go 10 in the main.
In short, during the main we went 10:35 to our first (and only) pit stop for the 20 minute A main. After the main I took an extra lap (35 sec) and came in with 6cc left! 6cc equates to approx 30 more seconds......... 11:00+ minutes.
The F850 came in @ 255 (which has been the optimum temp for these engines) 8mm carb restrictor and no limits on the throttle throw, with a 2041 pipe.
We are looking to run at ARC tonite to see if we can get the same results at another track. ARC is a bit longer and wide open than Hemet.
"Stay Tuned"
Jimmy Wright
10-27-2009, 12:28 PM
#134
