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