Race Day - Southport 13.03.11

So I arrive in Southport hoping that my Shark will get round the track in one piece! I'd like to spend today concentrating on sorting my Emax Motor and not rebuilding the car!

Practice came and went and to be fair the car went around the track, the grip role and rear wheel lifting I experienced last than 2 days ago at Ellesmere Port appears to have stayed at home!

Running the SP 6900kv motor sees me topping out half way down the straight so my Emax 4950kv goes straight in. I'm thinking about the length of straight at Ardent already so need to get the gearing right! It's now set on 18/45 and appears to be somewhat slow

Round 1 saw me up the timing to 15 degrees advance on the motor to see if that helped and it didn't really. However it was the quickest of the 8 Micros here today with me being an extra lap up on Chris Evison

Round 2 I threw the timing up to its maximum, 26.25 degrees advance and the car was so much quicker but even with the heatsink on it came off a little too hot for my own comfort levels!

For round 3 I've put green springs in the rear just to try and stiffen it up a little, see what effects it has on landing of the jumps and I've turned the motor timing down to 22.5 degrees, see what that does!

It's good to be playing around with things like this!!

Finally a problem in Round 3! On the last lap the car slowed down then kicked back in! It suggests and smells of thermaling but the car was cooler than the previous round, I believe the issue could be down to the LiPo so this race I've decided to leave everything the same with the exception of the LiPo.

That was alot better! A couple of errors meant I wasn't any faster but ultimately it was more important that the car last 5 mins with no cut out, it came off cooler also which is a bonus!

As it stands with the exception of Round 1 everyone in the race is being lapped so it's too tough to compare today but I'm still happy the car is going round!

As a result of what I believe is a dodgy LiPo I've purchased 2 1800 30c ones from Tony Mulligan who is unfortunately selling his Micro gear up.

Southport have just announced a 5th round of qualifying too, more races for my £5, bonus!

Round 5 and the final went off quite comfortably for me. My only concern was the motor worked itself loose so I'll need to keep an eye on that.





Back to a good starting base, bring on the next 2 weeks!

Back in Shark Business!

Well after a couple of weeks of Micro turmoil my LRP Shark appears to be back up an running.

After a snapped Prop Shaft at Hereford forced me to start running my spare and followed by me stripping down my original car I've not had my Shark running right. This was shown after my C Final finish at last weeks National.

This week I've once again stripped the car down and replaced 2 Hinge Pins, 4 Screws and most importantly a driveshaft that had seized and was not working!

Ellesmere Port on Friday night proved to the start of the comeback trail, this resulted in a last place finish though due to a lock nut popping off one of the rear links. A bit disappointing but more importantly the car worked!

Still, Ellesmere Port was providing one more issue and that was the in the form of the read wheels lifting slightly under fast turning. The day after the club night I reduced the length of the shock shaft to it's minimal length and I'm ready to go at Southport Club Day.

With a little over 2 weeks until Ardent National I could do with this solving the problem!!

2 Micro National Championships Decided

Craig Harris won yet another 1:16th scale final to take the National Championship. The title was confirmed after my failure to take TQ.

Morgan Rham also took the National F2 title in the 1/16th 4wd class so a big well done goes to Morgan for that

Hereford Micro National

I've not been able to blog so far on yesterday due to not really recalling what went on through the day!

My 4wd was rubbish and if it wasn't for Steve Guppy and Mike Sanders then i wouldn't have even made the final, a further complete rebuild on the car is needed! Back to my chassis and all plastic parts like the good old days! There was also other documented events that surrounding me and at the time I was annoyed but the plain and simple fact is it's 24 hours later and life has moved on, roll on Ardent!

As for the Chunk well that was a different kettle of fish for me! Qualifies and finished a superb 2nd overall behind Craig Harris, it wasn't for a back marker in the A Final I would have been closer an you just never know, I did hold the fastest 6 laps in the final. We changed the springs on the shocks as the day went on and that made a massive difference, next meeting we'll have a play with shock positions and see what we can learn!

Overall a frustrating day but I'm still sitting 2nd overall in 1/16th 4wd and a guaranteed top 5 finish which I would have took at the start of the season.

Let's see what happens at Ardent!

Race Night - Ellesmere Port Friday March 4th

Back to my usual Friday night routine and a trip to Ellesmere Port, the nice 4 minute car journey as opposed to Hereford last week!

Chunk front end as been destroyed this week to so we can use our B4 parts and it's looking good, let's hope it goes well on the track with brand new Mini Pins on the rear!!

Shark is also ready to go for the weekend but still having slight concerns over motor meshing so I will be asking the Emax expert Darren Stephenson to give meshing the once over! It sounds awful but the spur looks perfect!

I'm undecided what car to race in what order tonight. I'm going to practice first with Chunk to make sure that goes. Both Gavin and Dan are running their Sharks and 1/18ths so I'll have to sync our order!

Well Practice went wrong the front wheel fell off the Chunk resulting in a lost bearing so that puts away any ideas of me running that tonight, Sunday is not looking promising!

In terms of the Shark the Emax motor just sounded like it wanted to strip the spur so it came out after 2 mins and back goes the trusty SP Motor!!

After changing diffs, bevel gears and eventually the spur down to a 45 tooth I got the car sounding ok! The only problem is I didn't tighten up the 'new' diff and it was slipping like a bitch! After 3 minutes of slow clean driving I had nailed by a back marker and that cost me the race! Afterwards I tightened the diff and the car was amazing quick (and quieter)!

So on to Hereford, I'm tempted to give Chunk a miss and focus on the Shark for this round as I still have an outside chance of taking the title. I can sort Chunk out going forward.

Plans to try to mesh the Emax on the 45 spur for Sunday morning and if not then whack up the timing on the motor and see if we can get down the straight at a respectable speed!

One thing is sure it's going to be a long weekend and I have no time to spare!!

Quiet Night In Broughton

So after last Friday at Hereford decided to miss out on the football and head up to Broughton for a race night! For me it was a nice relaxing night!

4 races and 4 wins but more importantly nothing broken despite hitting several corners very hard! It did appear I had some servo damage but I'm attributing that to the Servo Strap Holder coming loose however I'll be putting in my new Savox Servo ready for the weekend.

Bad times for both Morgan Rham and Si Stickland who managed to snap their LWB Chassis in the same place. Luckily I have a spare which Morgan is now using

So a bit of prep work ahead of both Friday night and Sunday National but we've got time to do that!

Oh What A Night!

So tonight I headed off down to Hereford to run both the Shark and Chunk.  It was an ideal time as there was just over a week until the Hereford National.

It started off well, got there that early I decided to try to build a Shark with a small chassis but decided after taking the front end off to put it back, no stress tonight!

Then it went from bad to worse, 3 laps into practise the car had no drive and after investigation I found out the that Prop Shaft had snapped in two pieces, something I have never encountered before!!  so Round 1 was missed.  I changed the shaft in double quick time by moving the electrics into a spare Shark I had just bought from Stu Mac, thanks matey. 

Got the car on the line (just about) for Round 2 only to strip the spur before the race even started!  So 2 hours drive and 3 laps so far!!  During Round 2 I threw Chunk on the track only to fall off the big jump on my second lap and rip a turnbuckle out of its socket!!

I changed the spur gear in the Shark and the meshing didn't feel comfortable so in double quick time (again) I threw in my Speed Passion 6900kv motor which I had set up on a spare motor place.  I finished 3rd in the race behind Bish and Craig Harris but most importantly I managed the quickest lap of the race!!

The final came along and I despite missing the warble at the start I drove to a creditable 2nd place although about half a lap behind Bish.  According to the computer however I won so I can't argue with that, oh, I also had the fastest lap!

So a long evening and little reward.  Plenty of rebuilding to do before my next outing in err... 2 days!

The night finished off with a wobbly (buckled) wheel, we will be getting rid of that me thinks!!

Thanks to Hereford for their hospitality as always and I'm really looking forward to Morgan Rham making his top heat debut at the Micro National, he looked in stunning form tonight