Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoolio
Well, first of all I've got to say it got some attention even if a combination of crap build and crap driving did its best to ruin the day. The car was built with kit oil, pistons and springs and managed 2 qualifiers OK. Running minipins on a mix of carpet and boarding I certainly did not suffer from a lack of steering, the car was very pointy indeed. On the sleeping policeman jump the nose had an almost magnetic attraction to the floor and I was constantly flipping the car over - never really sorted that one all day, but generally got the hang of flying it OK over the table top. Had huge chassis-slap issues until I put loads of spacers on the springs then it sorted itself out. The slipper slipped a bit too much too, but adjusted that for Q3 and was much improved until the crap Tamiya quality kicked in and one front shock lower ball end came out of the rod allowing the spring and seat to make a successful bid for freedom. I had reservations about this when I built the chassis as the plastic is very soft and the rod only seemed to thread in about 4mm. I put it all back together for Q4 without much hope and sure enough BOTH front shocks did the same thing on landing from the first jump. Bugger  . For the final I bodged it with some RPM ball ends out of my RC10 spares. Was doing OK (started 3rd) and kept my nose clean despite not being particularly fast.
Then my crap driving kicked as I went over the tabletop at a slight angle and the rear right wheel nicely caught on the exposed lip of the downramp where it was wider than the tabletop. This removed the rear corner with surgical efficiency. I'm sure it would have done the same on any car so I can't really knock Tamiya for that. I eventually managed to find both the ball ends for the end of the hinge pins too and nothing actually broke so I assume the impact flexed the rear fixing enough for the hinge pin to pop out. Need to fix this for next time or at least buy lots of spare A-parts!
The one-way stayed in the pit box as I really didn't need it, there was plenty of steering and this was a very tight track, the carpet helped there I think.
The car got some good comments and I was very happy with how it went straight out of the box - it can only get better with practice and a bit of time setting it up. Found out when I got home the the cambers were all different on every corner - so much for the dimensions given in the manual. |
Reading your post reminded me so much of my first outing with the car two months ago! Same kind of handling (good except for the chassis slap and limited damping), same kind of interested looks and nice comments - and also my own driving letting me down
All I broke was a rear tower and since moving the wing back I haven't broken a single thing since having run the car at four or five race meetings so I rate it as pretty tough.
I have now got some TRF dampers on the car at last so hoping this will solve some of the damper/handling issues.