BRCA R/C Touring Car Championships - Round 5 Mendip

See video streaming of the BRCA Touring Car Championships - round 5 from the Mendip circuit.

http://rcracingtv.net/2013/09/brca-electric-touring-car-championships-round-5-mendip-live/

Unfortunately - No Spec R Team !!

Visit to Cheshire Cats Car Club

Last Sunday, my son and I visited the Cheshire Cats Car Club which is in Congleton in Cheshire. The track size is larger than our club, and what was most noticeable was the carpet had much more grip.  At our club, quite a few of us use Schumacher Wet tyres which offer more grip than the usual Sorex 28's, but at Congleton, the Sorex 28's went back on the cars.  As the day went on and the grip got better, my sons car also ran with no tyre additive, and he still had more than enough grip.

There were 3 heats, my son went in the race with the kids, and I went in with the fast lads, which probably wasn't the best idea !  I finished forth but the car held up well against a Schumacher Mi4LX and a Tamiya 417v5, and may have finished closer but for driver error and inconsistency. The other 3 drivers ran quicker motors and / or boost against my 17.5 turn Yeah Racing Hakamoto.  I was slower down the straight, but was able to keep up through the infield which is a real credit to the much cheaper Spec R S1 car. I find the car is excellent through a tight infield, is able to change direction quickly, and gives superb turn-in on a tight track.

Below is some video footage of one of the races.  Mine is the predominantly white looking car with the coloured sides.

 

I find the handling of the car very good, and consistent, and as my confidence in the car grows I am able to set faster and more consistent lap times.  My set up hasn't changed apart from using Sorex 28 tyres on this occasion on a more grippy carpet against my usual Schumacher Wet tyres. The set up can be found here.

 

Tidying up the wiring

I had installed a new ESC which comes with a capacitor and switch, and I stuck them all in with some servo tape, and cable ties for the wires.  The wiring was a bit long, so was coiled up and held in with cable ties.  The finished wiring wasn't very tidy so needed to be tidied up.

 

I decided to tidy it all up by shortening the wires using this kit :-

I also removed the sticky pads, and the glue it leaves behind and re-installed them using some clear silicone sealant which will keep everything in place without moving, and doesn't have a dirty sticky pad showing underneath.  I started by sticking the switch and capacitor in place using the silicone.

Check out the finished work :-

 

After a nights racing, the switch and capacitor remained securely in place.  The wiring may still be visible, mainly due to the multi-coloured wiring used by servo and ESC manufacturers, but at least the wires are short and relatively tidy. 

The receiver and ESC will be given the same silicone treatment.

Another car was given similar silicone treatment :-

Bolink Beetle body

I picked up a Bolink VW Beetle body from a club member and thought it might be a bit of fun to run it on the Spec R S1 touring car.  I painted it up to match the touring car body I'm currently running, and installed a HPI wing on the roof for a bit of rear end down force. This was the only mounting position as the rear of the shell doesn't have enough space to add a wing.  Here is the Beetle beside the touring car shell :-

Appearance wise, the shell got a lot of positive comments, and it does look great on the track.  Surprisingly, in-spite of negative comments from clubmates, the Beetle body handled very well, and resulted in a car with quite a bit of turn-in, and good rear end grip.  I ran three heats with the shell, and won all three races. For the last heat, I changed back to the touring car body for a comparison, but unfortunately I wasn't able to compare much as I had a couple of technical problems with the car.  However, fastest lap times were only a difference of 0.05sec in favour of the touring car shell.  So all in all, I'm quite happy with the Beetle shell and will run it more in future.

Improving the car

The Spec R S1 is great out of the box, but like any other car, can be improved.  Here are some of the improvements which I have made to the car.

 

Shocks

 

I have replaced the kit shocks with Tamiya TRF shocks in both cars.  These are reputed to be the best in the business, and so far have provided great, reliable performance.  The front shocks have Kyosho 350wt oil in, which is equivalent to 35wt for other manufacturers, and the rear shocks have Kyosho 250wt, which is 25wt.

 

Springs

 

The kit springs have been replaced by XRay springs, using silver on the front, and gold on the rear.  The suspension needs to be quite soft for a low grip carpet surface using rubber tyres.  My current set up can be viewed here

 

Gear Diff

 

Both myself and my son found difficulty with the front spool.  Our club has a small, technical track with tight turns and corners, therefore a gear diff is a better option.  We also found that front UJ's were breaking on small impacts.  We believe that the lack of "give" in the spool can be quite unforgiving, but as soon as we installed a gear diff, we have had no more breakages.  The car also handles a lot better with the gear diff.  The diff has 300,000 diff oil which is quite stiff, but allows a small amount of diff movement.

Wheel hexes

Kit plastic ones need to be replaced by aluminium clamping ones which are available from Spec R or other manufacturers. The aluminium is more solid and gives better support to the wheel.

Shims

Replace plastic shims with metal ones from Spec R or other manufacturers.  The plastic ones aren't as solid as the metal ones and may not stay solid and keep their shape.

Servo Saver

The kit one is quite poor and has been replaced with a Kimbrough one.
 

That's pretty much it, set up tips have been found on RcTech.net, and I've settled on my own set up which I've posted here.  I've used roll bars on both front and rear, and up front on its own, but removed them and now run without.