Drive on water?
 

Ok, so I was bored since I didn't race at last weekends Kidderminster National and the terrible weather in 4WD got me thinking, what would it take to drive over water?

If you've seen the Icelandic 'forumla off road' buggies, they are so powerful they can actually drive over lakes and the like. So, what setup do you think it would take to do the same, or is it even possible, with a 1/10th off road buggy?

Here's what I mean:

Everything from the car to the electrics, tyres, setup and modifications - what would YOU do if you wanted to give it a go? :)

You never know, it might make an interesting article, hehe.

4wd carbon fibre car like a BJ4. Motor like a 9x1, Lipo Pack, hack the chassis to make it as light as possible but with undertray. Doubt itd work like.

Big fat tyres, like those dune buggy ones.
A boat like front to make it glide better.
My 6x1 motor :D
Mucho ground clearance.
Lots of revs!

TBH though i just see it going south, lol.

xx4
3.5t sinitered brushless
Lipo
Paddled tyres

Easy

Oh and some major waterproofing to the electronics.

A

Sub zero temperatures.


Those Nordic/Iceland cars rule BTW.

So........ice? :D

Massive paddle tyres, weight towards the rear.

Make sure the tyres are elestic, so they can stretch more, and have it as light as possible.

I may try this with my X10 :D

Any idea who makes paddle tyres for 10th buggies? The only ones I can think of are on the Tamiya Sand Scorcher / Grasshopper. Those are very baloon like, but the paddles aren't very big.

ive only seen some for the little 18th critters, i'd love to see some rc aquaplaning though.

Only seen em for the mini-t

Start with a micro car? Their cheap, light and small, plus you can get these tyres

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?im...GB219%26sa%3DN

Those are for the monster truck TMAXX>

Will be HUGE.

They have an 8.4 cm width :o Wow hehe.

14cm high :wtf::p

try these jim

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXNPT2&P=7

Its been done, I remember seeling a video of a Losi truck going accross a swimming pool I think. ;) ;)

G

You'll need to get it to float, best is a set of 2.2" truck wheels and any of the various paddles by Panther or Proline making sure there are no holes in the tyres and wheels to keep them full of air. If you have enough air in the tyres it should float, after all I have a mod Clod crawler that can float no problem, that's somewhat bigger and heavier, but it needs Clod size tyres properly sealed.

The Icelandic racers float only due to the speed the tyres are spinning at, so I would presume the lowest wind motor you can find will be needed to get it moving at speed.

You'll need a smooth way of entering the pool too, maybe like a lake would be better, due to the gentle banks.

If you get a pool, you often see a 'curb' of maybe 2-3 inches. For bigger wheeled cars this would be fine, but if you had a smaller, nose heavy car, it would sooner turn into a submarine, thanks to the drop :(

I would put RC10T4 wheels any tyres on my X-6, but put some air pressure into the tyre - fill it with baloons and glue the bead up super well with no hole in wheels.

Then I would get a polystyrene office roof tile and cut it out to chassis shape and stick it under the car.

Waterproof everything.

I would try and make the thing move at low RPM, so not to spray water everywhere - filling up the chassis would be BAD news, not only would it risk sinking, but it would fizzle the electrics - cells atleast.

This was done in the 80's by real monster trucks accross lake Michigan. Many of them with the standard tyres, and I think bigfoot had twin tyres on each corner.

Chris

I'd say that the underside of a pred would be ideal for this.

Go on jimmy, you know you want to.;)

Perfect, the Preds already boat shaped, just seal the body on top and fill the holes underneath. Bit difficult to fit truck size wheels to it though. How about fitting the body on then filling it with expanding foam?:D:o

You would be surprised, being an old school racer we used to charge batteries in a bucket of water to keep them cool. Motors and batteries don't have a problem running under water as long as the radio gear is protected.

I don't think a car that floats would be a fair go - low RPM is a bit opposite to what I had in mind also. I was imagining something like the icelandic stuff, with so much power that the car could skim across the surface - no floating, just POWERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

What is the fastest and lightest setup available in terms of electrics? The Mamba Max and 5700kv is the fastest setup I know of, since you can run it on more than two lipo cells for insane power.
The Tamiya Scorcher paddle tyres are bolted to the three piece wheels - so there is no risk of them coming off with mega power - but mounting them to a modern chassis might be an issue I guess.
In terms of cars - well, sealing them up might be the biggest problem, and running an expensive super racing car might not be too good for its health, but who cares. :D

it would just have to be a
tamiya wild willies jeep,
mamba max,
paddle tyres,

I don't think this guy has the right idea, but you gotta admire his electrics!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz7XKpGkbfU

:D :D
But this guy does it right . Not fast enough for you though Jimmy.
Build it, and it will swim!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt40fCutpmU

Man, that's pretty awesome! haha
That would be a worst case scenario though- drive along the bottom if it all fails! haha

I have a Tamiya Wild Willy carl, but I don't think you can get away with much more than the 540 motor without it flipping... I was hoping to get something about 60mph or so on normal ground - that should be enough power to skim! :)

They guy who did it

His car almost appears to float, thats why.

I still think you should hit it as fast as can, that way, at 60 m.p.h your bound to win the water ;)

Did that with my confused B4 but haven't tried it on water and I'm not going to either :p

Handled rather well thought indoors @ TRCC

Jim also beware, as you will be skimming across the water (hopefully) you will be pretty much just spinning the wheels up, so there will be a good chance of throwing a wind on a conventional motor, and the brushless ones seem a bit tempermental at the moment too:(

One of the old Associated R/C Video's had Cliff lett and others messing about with this idea, i'm sure it was a Yokomo he used but with big tyres on and a bit of speed it went across the swimming pool no problem!

I think it should be done with a modern day 4WD car.

'normal' buggy tires, maybe somethign like bow-tie rear and holeshot front?

no holes in the wheels, glued up 'pumped' tires, a bit of extra ride height.

PLENTY of speed and go for it!

maybe truck tires could bit fit onto buggy wheels, I think they are still 2.2 inch wheel diameter? that would make good balloonage, we are all skilled with making 'wrong' tires fit wheels, we all raced tivy 2WD :p

Spot on.. you took the words out of my mouth! I have this video and just put it on to see how it was done.

Cliff used a Ally Chassis(!) RC10T with paddle rear tyres and a huge sheet of flat lexan underneath kicked up at the front I believe. He drove it straight across a swimming pool which looked pretty full up, but it made it across the whole thing!!

I'm sure Cliff or Gene Hustings could fill in the details if you emailed them - both very nice guys :)

yep...i was about to say the cliff lett thing too!

i thought it was a yok....

hmmm.. looks like a truck... I'll try and grab a still from the vid later. :)

I am sure it was a Yokomo too but dont remember oversize tyres - I am probably wrong though...

There were some guys in the pool that had to help it across the last metre or so but it did look good.

We have all of Gene Husting's footage here on DVD but not sure which Associated Racing video it was on - sorry.

Would be good to see that, I fancy having a go! haha, or John Price having a go whilst I take photos maybe. :)

Jimmy forget brushless and lipo this is what you need:)

http://www.gliders.uk.com/images/6813.jpg

A

:D
:o

you would need to lock the diffs. otherwise if it diffs out then it would roll over

Here are some pics from the Associated Video. It is definitely an RC10T with what looks like a buggy body. it's hard to work out from the pics what the rear tyres are, but when they spin they look like paddles?

Oh and it made it the WHOLE way across the swimming pool :cool:

http://194.83.41.249/lett1.jpg

http://194.83.41.249/lett2.jpg

Images are copyright Associated Electrics/ Gene Hustings

What you can do if you are rich enough to own a pool hey? haha

I saw the husting videos but I was greedy and wanted loads of them - hence I realised I couldn't afford! :D Oh well, they look good tho if they have random madness like this in there.

Does that have some sort of special 'boaty bits' or is it pretty much just a buggy / truck ?

Well it looks pretty stock, except it looked to me like it had a sheet of lexan underneath it... the more I watch it though, maybe it doesn't, it could just be an optical illusion created by the "bow wave" of the car..

A great bit is when Lett does it, he shouts "I told you it would work!!" to the others. See, anything is possible (with enough money) ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5c4UdRiRKw

Looking at this clip I think it would work, speed, power, lots of wheel spin and it should work... maybe.

That car is floating.

But, I'd like to see him do it on more than 1 inch of water :D