Enforcerman

MantisWorx wrote: "why is everyone so afraid of change, it blows my mind that there are so many racers that think that something that works on one car wont work on another. why dont we all just go to a flat chassis, no suspension NICAD and a resistor speed controller"

I understand and agree with you completely! Modern direct drive pan cars and F1 cars are nothing more than slot cars without the guide and braids and they are controlled by a transmitter; other than that the designs are the same overall. This concept goes way, way back in time. I understand that many are indeed afraid of change, especially when a given design has served them fairly well over the years and is basically inexpensive; but is that reason enough to not move pan car and F1 car design forward with fresh approaches?! Basically a pan car or by extension an F1 car needs to be driven by the rear wheels only and be direct drive with only two gears, the pinion and the spur. Those should be the basic and only parameters other than the specified dimensions of said cars. The suspension system should be left open to interpretation thus allowing for different concepts.

I have been around model car racing for most of my 54 years, starting with slot cars in the early 1960's and then moving to rc cars in the 1980's. My main love is full-scale real F1 racing and I have been following that since Jim Clark and Lotus in the 1960's. My idols in the sport were Colin Chapman and Gordon Murray and Jim Hall; men who didn't settle for the "status quo" of race car design; but who had the vision to push the limits and experiment and try new ideas; and most of the time they were a huge success!! Where would modern race car design be today without men like Chapman and Murray
and Hall? I shudder to think how archaic racing cars would be if they all took the "safe" approach to car design.

So keep on "pushing the limits" and trying new ideas. As I have posted on other threads, I am working with someone on our own design for a fully independent suspension F1 car with direct drive to the rear wheels and an all-up weight only slightly more than an F104. Hopefully, in time we will have a prototype to test with; not sure when it will be ready.

I for one embrace change and look forward to it!

Jeff D.

iTrader: (1)

Please be a woman, I'm falling in love you

JayBee

iTrader: (31)

This thread has definitely taken a WRONG TURN!!!!

MantisWorx

iTrader: (28)

"run circles"is a relative term I believe that in the right hands my chassis is good for at least two tenths in most situations.of course tis is not going to apply to everyone inn all situations.i have no access to carpet so I haver no ideas yet what it will do on variety but on asphalt with foams and rubber it is good.at any rate I will make it to cali sometime soonwith one of my test drivers! But I'm tellin you now I'm not messin with a turtle 21.5, by that time I will probably have 13.5 turbo !!

InspGadgt

I'm not afraid of change...Heck I usually choose unusual cars in the first place. I race 2 BMI cars which are often looked oddly at because of their unusual suspension. In this case I am not speaking out of fear but out of experience in that I used to race an EV10 reguarly. I loved that car and would still be driving it today if I could easily get parts for it. But from that experience I find that using shocks there does not work any better than a damper tube. A coil over damper is quite different of a change as only 1 car uses it. TCs are a much different animal from a pan car. Differences in shocks left to right don't have near as much of an impact as they do in a pan car. I loved my EV10...but the shocks in that situation were quite a pain to deal with and they are heavier and raise the CG of the car compared to a damper tube.

If they are built the same they should work the same...yes...however it is in building them the same is where the problem is. It takes quite a while to get both shocks so they have the exact same amount of rebound. A damper is much easier to get consistent and takes considerably less time.

Arahawak

iTrader: (32)

I think i missed something in the picture... where does the battery fit in to the car?

JayBee

iTrader: (31)

Where the 6 battery slots are. Those are usually for NIMH's but now there are lipo saddle packs out that replace 'em.

robk

iTrader: (22)

Serpent Ten-Force 1990
manual
http://www.retromodelisme.com/pdf/ma...t/tenforce.pdf







These are the only crappy pics I could get...Nobody is afraid of change. On the contrary, most people like something better. The thing is all this stuff usually has been tried before, and what works catches hold. Full travel independent front ends, sort of like what is on this Serpent, really only were used on velodrome oval cars, where they needed the travel due to the track conditions and the high speeds. It's a niche segment. This Serpent car came out around 1990, when 1/10 pan was huge. This car was illegal due to the IRS, at least in the USA. At the same time, it seemed to enjoy a very short lifespan. I don't know if it was legal anywhere else.

Put it this way, cars like this-


and this-



were overshadowed by these-



which became the dominant design. It's not that these things haven't been tried, it just turns out simple is usually better.

Arahawak

iTrader: (32)

Ahh.. alright.. not quite used to the saddle packs concept..

JevUK

I don't think simple designs are faster. There are many problems with the more complex designs that stoped them taking off. Back then power was much lower so 4wd was not that much of a help. It takes more work to get a complex design to work best, trial and erro with geomtry etc.

Touring cars are now dominant onroad and they are more complex than those examples. The 4wd helps a lot when there is so much power available.

Do you think a ball diff is superior to a torson diff? Why have no 1/10th cars got torson diffs? Because it would be too expensive and difficult to make. The ball diff succeded as much because it was cheap and simple as much as anything else. At the time the cars schummacher made ball diffs for would have struggled to fit gear diffs on them(pan chassis). Do 1/8th or 1/5th cars use ball diffs?

Anyway back on topic . Mantis I aplaud you for going out there and creating your own dream machine but the rear geomtry will not be helping. I have a ball link pro10 and can get it to handle well but I am in no illusion that it is an optimum design. For a start the roll centers are wrong and cannot be adjusted. And even on the chassis were the link are aligned with the center ball the system it requires slop or flex for the pod to pivot.

Rear independant suspension is not allowed in the rules of pan cars. To have independent suspension you would either need a flexible driveshaft or cvd/uj's at each end which is forbidden.

MantisWorx

iTrader: (28)

couple of points: you say that it is not a good design although in my testing it works very well so are my laptimes not faster?do you realize that this is my 5th version and it has already been on the track for about 3mths now testing........IT WORKS! all that any of you have seen are pictures, for anyone to say that it will not work is absurd how do you know by looking at a picture that it does not work? as stated before the slop is minimal and not enough to throw anything off or have the car pull to one side or the other. there is nothing wrong with slop or flex , its part of the game. did you notice the controversy in real f1 when redbull had flexible wings? once again this just proves a point that change is "BAD BAD BAD" before you state that it is a bad design think about what you are saying. the f109 has the same type of suspension and that car works very well especially in low grip situations and that is a fact. another point: you cant tell me that from a design point of view that my system is not better than the standard disc damper system??? you want to talk about old and very inconsistent, but yet more racers use that system and swear by it! how do you adjust the roll center on a DDS? how do you adjust the pivot point on a t plate system. im just putting things in perspective about this whole thing, im not creating these parts to go slower, im not going to put out a product that does not work or that is slower. it is not an independent suspension so adjustable roll center does not even apply????? check out my website and see the products that i make . at the PNWC worlds last month my team cars won the A main and placed third and fourth, EVERY car except for one had 75% of my parts on their cars and my team dominated every qualifier through the year!

so in the end its like this, my chassis is design for power. putting a 21.5 in a RCf1 is like putting a festiva engine in a real f1! im a very good driver and my tests are very thourogh, im fortunate to have some world champion drivers locally which helps out. we have a VERY fast local pool of drivers. if i make a change and get a tenth of a second Quicker than is just that much quicker and not a fluke. the car is much easier to drive and accepts high power much better, am am able to out brake and out accelerate the other chassis out of the corners, the chassis is VERY stable. the next innovation that is in the works will make everyone happy and is the best of both worlds so stay tuned


BTW i dont care about the "PAN" rules as there is never and F1 class at any sanctioned events so it really does not matter, 98% of us dont race at sanctioned events so that point is moot


ROBK , man you are just a plethora of information!! do you have all of this stuff on file or just a search wizard?

Bob Kelly

That's the whole point... the evolution of pan cars was centered around 1/12 cars on carpet. That's all well and good but I have a brushless F! that'll go 70 mph. If that's not your bag than I can understand the resistance to further development. But as Mantisworx said, it's not important that F1 cars compete against traditional pan cars; rather, we either develop a new class or we just have fun. Running outdoors on unprepped asphalt is a lot different than indoor carpet trackes. Besides, a lot of us are going for scale realism in a high performance F1 car, something that Enforcer RC and Mantisworx are working on.

MatsNorway

EFRA and IFMAR has no rules in 1/12 that says anything about suspension.
main reason 1/12 got stiff rear axle layout is because of weight. you just can`t get lower in weight without ditching suspension entirely.

InZane

iTrader: (2)

A little less conversation, a little more action please!

+ YouTube Video

Prove your design on the track - good luck!

heretic

conception : not impressed at all ( same comments as before about one end of the side pivots having to be aligned with the center pivot ) The angled side links might work OK though.

Manufacturing : not impressed at all, the CF plate edges seem delaminated all around. BTW do I see not countersunk holes ? I hope not.

Handling : waiting to see a video/ try one. But I honestly don't see how anyone could go faster than even a less than average F103/104- with one of these cars.

Anyone who thinks that decent pan car F1 manufacturers are lacking imagination , either has no RC culture at all, or doesn't understand what a pan car is, or both.