woohoo!

F1 summer break over! DVRd practice qualifying and the race, but cant watch race until my 2 year old gives up the TV.

Saturday races were good. VTA anyway. Car ran great, good races, think I got 5th or 6th. The good drivers are joining VTA and Im falling back further in the pack weekly (weakly too). But its fun, competetion is fierce, and the track is full. Good combo in my book.
F1 we had enough  drivers for a class, but when the tone sounded for the first heat, only one was on the grid. And it wasnt mine. Camber link came off on warmup lap, not the first time this has happened. Another car had a fried motor. We decided to tell the race director to just write us off as a class for the day. But I did get my car fixed, and my spins are gone. Replaced the adjustable front end for the older f103 frontend until I can get the right parts. And after all this time and effort, my spins were rather simple: wrong size ballcups on the rear links. I was binding and just kept overlooking it. I knew it was something simple, just took a month to find it. My F109 is back to being great. Got some good practice in between VTA heats. Back at it next week, and with a new IIC type track layout. Should be interesting. Technichal track.

F104 body on an F109

F109 bodies are tough to get ahold of. F103 bodies look like grunt on an F109. Solution? F104 body! Kind of. You have to sacrifice, because all that beautiful chassis space for your goodies on the F109 is gone. I have switched back to 1s lipo/17.5 so I figured I try it. F1 Alex had a spare F104 body so he gave it to me to try out. Minimal trimming on the body was needed. New body post hole in the front, the rear is held in by velcro and I had to cut away the cockpit. VTA Bob (liberated from my Zero) is now pilot of the F109. Heres what I had to do with the electrics.

So I got everything rewired ( yet again!) Wires are zip tied all up, VTA Bob is shoogooed on the upper deck, velcro and the on/off switch are only things mounted outside of center line of chassis. Tomorrow my parts will be here, real side spring mounts, titanium turnbuckles and yet another set of steering blocks. Aluminum this time. We'll see how all this work turns out next Saturday, hopefully better than all of the work from last week. Atleast its alot of fun to hang in the mancave and play with my cars. Oh and I repainted the body. It was solid black. Now its not.

F1 babe

When Life gives you lemons......

I protest the idea of a Summer break for F1. One more week. One more week. I can do this.
My racing is falling off lately. I am a half second slower per lap in VTA than I was a month ago. No set up changes, Im boggled. F1..... I cant keep my car in one piece long enough to sign up for a race. Broke the left rear wheel hub last weekend overtightening it. Replaced it and got some nice Tamiya steering blocks. I busted one of them after 10 laps of practice.  So I ordered aluminum blocks. Any way, enough of that, Ill have more later on. In the meantime, enjoy her lemons.

more paint

not my best. But something to do.

Night in the Mancave

Ive spent the last 2 evenings in the mancave tearing down and repairing my two cars. The F109 has been torn apart and rebuilt almost comletely. I have taken all the slop out of the front end with shims and new tamiya streering blocks. Cleaned chassis, reinstalled the 17.5, switched back to 1s lipo power, geared it to the moon, put the Pit tires back on, and then at the very stinking end of it all I broke the left rear wheel hub. Dammit all to Hell. So I switched to the VTA car and went to work there.
Replaced bearings in both diffs, replaced bearings in rear uprights, cleaned 3 weeks worth of Mikes Hobby dirt and grime, replaced steering mechanism with aluminum parts, fixed battery brace to keep it off of the belt (gained .5 second a lap there!) changed tires and wheels, and stickered up a stock car body. Pretty stinking productive couple of days in the Fortress of Solitude.

A-main 8/13 VTA

Racing at Mikes 8/13

Well, at least my car looked good. In VTA I finished 5th out of 6th, qualified same. We didnt have an F1 class. Which is just as well, because I wouldnt have fared well there either. Although my 109 was alot better today than it has been lately during practice. Decided to clean my foams with Simple Green instead of just dousing them in Paragon. Then I decided not to run with any Paragon at all, just Simple Green. Pretty hooked up, still lose it in the rear at times, but not nearly as bad. Just a snap spin getting on power at 2 points of the track, every where else its fine. Ill figure it out.

New VTA shell

65 Shelby GT350

VTA at mikes 8/11

heat 2 VTA.

I did reasonably well thursday night. Even with the 4th place finish. Had a good time, and really didnt have but one bad race. Had a bad lap in the main, and was behind from there on out.

Mikes 8/6

Great day of VTA and F1 racing. Car again was great in VTA, I missed TQ by 2 seconds, and finished 3rd in the main. Car seemed slow on the straights, and lap times showed it. Never got into the 13s in the main. F1 car was another story, went straight to foams after one lap of practice on the very dusty track. Very loose in the rear again in first heat. Got it corrected a bit after talking with Robert Bremer and lowering the front mount of the shock, to make it more level. That really calmed the rear down. Also got ahold of some CRC side springs and did that mod. Big difference. Car got better as the day went on, my driving did not. Crashed out of the main with a busted camber link. Fixed and practiced for a pack after races. Car is coming back around, silvercan is pretty quick too. Nice surprise there. Vacation this week, so I will be at the track all day Thursday. Much needed practice day.

Heat 3 VTA at Mikes 7/30

Trying out some free video editing software. So there s a big water mark on the video. But heres heat 3 of VTA anyway. I dont know how I edited this race from the rest of the video, it was a 28 minute file. Now its 7, and the 2 F1 races and the VTA main have up and disapeared. Im new. Excuse me.

F109

Had a crappy raceday this past weekend. Loose out of the turns. Thought it was just the new tires. But now I believe the culprit is my side springs. I haven't done RobK's side spring mod, but I believe it may be the one "must do" mod to the F109. My side springs are collapsing in the turns and not rebounding. Helps me spin out on power out of a turn, doesn't help getting good laps. I have replaced with springs from my speedmerchant Rev6 and will get the spring holders ASAP. Or I will mod it some other way. I have also replaced the new body for the old body and painted it black. Totally rewired the car, swapped 17.5 for a silvercan and replaced the broken left A-arm. Should be good to go this week. I'm running the first heat on rubber tires again. If I don't like it I will go straight to foams for the rest of the day.

Heres the diffuser I made with a wing from my VTA 65 Shelby 350 body and some carbon fiber looking decal. Once again, I was bored.