RevTech Lipo Battery Overview

Quick video I did a couple years back on the RevTec Lipo Battery. Great pack!

Body Mounting Tips from Jilles G. & Paul L

Normally I mount my bodies 5mm more forward then standard position, looked from the front wheels. The wing is mounted 10mm further back then the bumper which is in the rules.

I always start the wing to be 10mms behind the bumper. On the speed6 it will be farther back than the stock location dimples.

Having the wing farther back will make the car much more stable on high speed, especially when entering the sweepers. moving the wing forward will give the car more steering, especially in the high speed sections.

For me the wing position is a special tool to ballance your low speed and high speed steering. having the wing back or forward will effect steering in all places but it doubles or tripples its effect at higher speeds, where as a set up change is normally more across the board with high speed and low speed.

So it is a adjustment in a different demention from a chassis set up change which makes it valuble to me.

I first take a tall straight edge and stand it up behind the car, I then allign the straight edge with the wing (upper most lip of the wing). then i use a hudy droop block which is 10mm and slip it between the straight edge and the rear most bumper. it will be within 1mm every time. If you are having problems holding everything straight while measuring you can use double sided tape on the wing to hold the wings position while measuring, then just re-set the tape untill you get your proper 10mm. once its straight you can partially ream threw the wing, tape and bairly in to the body to make your dimples, remoove the tape, ream the holes properly then your all set.

(all information taken from RcTech.Net forum)

How To Fix R/C

I've been contemplating the issue that faces R/C today as it has begint o maintain a shocking decline over the past 10 years as a whole. I feel we spend at least half of our energy devoted to r/c, after work, kids, wife, issues, etc on dealing with issues related to the decline in R/C rather than enjoying the hobby for whatever you desire from it. This make absolutely no sense. Why spend whats left of our very limited personal time worrying about such tings but doing nothing about it. Well, here I feel is the best solution:

GIVE BACK TO R/C 

Yes, dare I, to say it. And its the truth. We as enthususts have drained R/C down to a very low evel that is beginning to show its ugly face. Particularly in onroad, the TC market grew at high high rates and took many people, starting out as an occasinal racer/basher into the highest level of race they could desire/afford. Notice I say afford. Now that's great - some people became super talented racers and other companies made a few Benjamins - "Whoo Hoo!"

One thing went terribly wrong, however, we forgot the public. We got too wrapped up in com lathes, brushless motor of the week and "what does Paul L. eat that makes hin so good?". We forgot what we all started as innocent kids or bored adults who happened to stop by this R/C racing shop and check it out, from wherever they discovered it. 20 years later, their kids are into it, it's basically a member of the family. Hell, a picture of your r/c cars is probably wedged in the frame that holds the family Kodak Moment. But again, we forgot what we started as.

Now flash forward to present day and our top level racing programs have been all but wiped away and companies are coming and going, as are racers, unfortunately. Dare I say, the top drivers, you know, whoever your favorite's are (yes, it's ok to have a favorite male driver, no homo), give back to this hobby that has made them wildly successful and their affiliated "sponsors" richer. Since when have you seen Marc Rhenard, undoubtedly the face of electric TC, among other classes, post on RCTech. I mean c'mon, don' t they at least give you free wifi at the hotel? I applaud those racers, Paul (Paul L) and Jilles (JHG) come to mind, who have gone beyond their normal circle of top racers and help those below them in an organized and efficient manner the Internet has come to be. On the track, both are extremely personable to everyone and represent this hobby proudly. On the other hand, in all respect, one particularly well known person in R/C racing's "Athlete" Facebook is nothing more than moans and groans about how awful the flight was or which bottle of beer they are drinking currently. You tell me, which this pair of examples helps the hobby on a whole?

But it would be all too easy to blame the guys who have devoted much of their lives and many time relationships into this hobby ,that will continue to only become more challenging, and have the trohpies and experience to prove it. We have to look at ourselves. Every single on of us. To recover strong and will a solid foundation, we have to give back to the hobby that has given so much to us. I guarantee, ask any R/C racer, he has at least one amazing memory linked to R/C that he will cherish forever and we have to share that with others now. Alienating ourselves because we think we are the best at toycarracing will produce much more harm than good. It has gone on long enough. I love onroad and I want to make it better for myself and those around me.

Jaco/Carpet/HotShot Rd1 Testing Notes

Flip L1/L2 (rear):

• more turn in
• more steering
• higher corner speed
• reduced stability 
• good for technical track

Flip L1/L2 Front: 

• less steering 
• very stable 
• probably not the fastest option for technical track

Tire Prep on Carpet

STX+STX Cleaner+Let Dry 

• little loose, good steering 

STX+brake cleaner+Let Dry 

• takes longer for STX to absorb 
• easier to drive, little slower

STX+STX+Let Dry 

• best compromise of STX cleaner and brake cleaner 

Length of Camber Links 

Rear 2nd hole outside on hub 

• more stability 
• more traction
• less initial steering 

Setup 6.15.11

A New Approach

After the move and getting things settled, I have been thinking heavily about practice and preparing for races. Approximately half the year is spent on carpet and the other half on asphalt but, in my opinion, I believe carpet is easier to learn (less complicated) than asphalt. I believe this because

1. less tire wear
2. consistent conditions when compared to asphalt.

That said, I have decided to focus on carpet this summer in lieu of asphalt. I believe taking a challenge step by step is the most effective method to achieve greatness. Lucky, in the U.S. we have many indoor tracks as track owners can keep it running year round while in the winter most asphalt tracks go untouched. Also, the US has far more large carpet races compared to large asphalt races. I plan to move to Europe within the next two years and I believe there I will have more and better opportunities to race outdoors. 

In the US, the Jaco Blue spec tire is very popular for carpet racing so I am going to test exclusively with that tire. Once I find a suitable setup and learn more and more about the car and driving, I will test with the Solaris Hard tire. Thus, by the end of the year, I hope to have very good setups for both tire as well as increased knowledge, experience, and skill. 

I want to explore all areas of preparation and setup from motors to tires and gain as much personal experience as possible rather than only relying on word of mouth to what works. 

 From here, I will record my findings. 

I'm Now Manager of New R/C Body Paint Business! Tatsubana Designs & Paint

Tatsubana Thread on RCTech

Some of our work: 

Collection of Driving Ideas/Theories from RCTech Posts

Throttle control is very important, but try and watch the way the real fast drivers steer as well. How you steer is VERY important to cornerspeed.

Most of us started out steering by just turning the wheel fully in the direction of the turn, and going as fast as we can through the turn that way. The real fast drivers are moving the wheel slower, and using less steering. What you're trying to do is transfer the weight onto the outside wheels gradually to get the most cornerspeed. If you just come up to the corner and crank the wheel over, you'll break traction and never really generate the grip you need to get around fast. Try starting to turn the wheel earlier, but slower, to ease the weight of the car onto the outside wheels... you'll find you need less steering and the car will tend to rail around the corner.

Trigger control is very important too, anything you do to transfer weight smoothly will get you better lap times.

also if you have to crank the steering and the car is pushing, you are scrubbing off a lot of speed in the corner, you want to take the corner at a speed that your car will turn with mininal steering input and keep that speed through the turn

Less steering speed = faster corner speed, less steering throw also improves corner speed, but if there are some low speed corners, it could be difficult to corner with. So now I'm running less steering throw, and -ve expone

High Corner Speeds with a touring car- As you progress in your ability it seems that you can set up your car to have more steering traction. If I let someone faster than me drive my car, they say it doesn't have enough steering, if somenone slower drives it they say it's got too much steering. It has as much as I can tolerate. You can tolerate more steering traction as you learn to use more throttle entering and during the middle of the turn. If your car has as much steering traction as the faster guys and then you let off throttle too much you tend to loose the back end. If you turn the steering wheel too fast you can stall the car on a hign grip track. You learn to use more throttle and smooth movement of the Radios steering wheel with practice. You can cheat a little on the radio by using the speed function to slow down your maximum steering rate. This keeps the car hooked up. It is better to learn to do this by moving your wheel more slowly. You can prevent stalls when you are learning by giving the car some forward throttle with the throttle trim. I find that each corner needs a little different throttle for corner entry so its probably better to do with out this as well. The faster drivers don't pass through neutral much if at all on our track, so even if they do have forward throttle trim they are not using it

Best Line For Stock Class. If you watch a formula 1 or a Cart Race and get an arial view, the best line is usually clearly marked with a blackened area of the track. It seems that every inch of pavement is used to make a corner. The cars start wide hit the apex and exit wide. In stock touring RC car's class there is just not enough motor to do that. If you travel a few extra inches your lap times will probably be worse. At the region 9 on-road regionals in Houston, I watched the line of the better drivers. You could almost take a straight edge and connect each corner radius with a straight line to find the fastest path. There were two exceptions. There was one corner (about 150 degrees, (where 180 degrees is a hairpin turn) very sharp) onto a chicane. If you took this corner about 10-12 inches wide of the straight path then you could use full throttle through the chicane and just steer through it. Coming off this chicane onto the straight there was a 90 degree corner. Your car was about 2/3 full speed here so it was a little faster to turn out about half to 2/3 the track width onto the straight. All the other corners were a connect the dots situation.

Cornering procedure-So how do you make the stock touring car take this path. Well you divide the track into straight sections and curved sections. Coming into the corner you have to slow to the right speed. You just reduce throttle (rarely off throttle) Then you drive it around the marker at constant speed. The faster guys are about an inch from the markers. Our layout had some markers made out of a curved material with a gentle radius. These were driven the same way. You stay on the radius till you intersect the next straight line section. You can see a distinct change in the motion of the car on the corners. Constant speed is the key. The car is being kept right at the limit of traction for that radius of corner at constant speed.

So How do you make your car do this. A couple of suggestions. you can't have all of your steering travel turned off with the radio to control oversteer. Fix the setup and make the car able to take a tight radius turn. Then if you need a gentle radius you can just turn the wheel less. Don't get greedy with speed entering the turn. You have to enter at just the speed that you can maintain for the entire turn.

12th scale pan cars are very good training... funny thing pan cars. The less you steer in high speed corners, the more steering it gets. So i do my training there ;-)
True! Same thing for 1/10th. Fast and very reactive. Makes better drivers, imho. I know I benefit from it. Small actions beget large reactions.