Post by Father on Feb 16, 2015 8:05:35 GMT -6
My buddy and I built cars for today's derby grown-up race. Mine is the second in from the left, his is the outside right.
He put more effort into the fine-tuning on the track than I did and it definitely showed, although I think I was also doomed by poor axle installation and COB was a little off as well.
My buddy cut his stock wheels down (see attachment) and I just polished the stock wheels. We both used the same process for axle polishing.
He put some of his weight behind the rear axle where as I put all of mine just forward of the front.
His car weighed <1oz before paint and parts were put on, mine was about 1.4oz if I remember right.
So my buddy was getting consistent 3.75-ish second times. I was <4 second.
Is it normal for "high performance" cars to get down to 2.5 seconds? Is that using modified stock parts or paying the money for the high-end wheels and axles?
One thing neither of us did was us the wheel scraper to get the roundness of the wheels close to true. We simply sanded/polished them.
Naturally, mistakes were made and lessons were learned so now I have a year to refine my build process and hopefully humiliate him next year by building a sub-3 second car. How to do that without breaking the bank is another trick though.
I'll probably go with a less complex design next year. I witnessed today when a kid had a painted block with weights perform very well. My buddy and I both designed our cars in Sketchup and he used his CNC router to carve them out. I'll probably just do a flat design next year and focus more on COB and better axle/wheel installation.
Suggestions?
He put more effort into the fine-tuning on the track than I did and it definitely showed, although I think I was also doomed by poor axle installation and COB was a little off as well.
My buddy cut his stock wheels down (see attachment) and I just polished the stock wheels. We both used the same process for axle polishing.
He put some of his weight behind the rear axle where as I put all of mine just forward of the front.
His car weighed <1oz before paint and parts were put on, mine was about 1.4oz if I remember right.
So my buddy was getting consistent 3.75-ish second times. I was <4 second.
Is it normal for "high performance" cars to get down to 2.5 seconds? Is that using modified stock parts or paying the money for the high-end wheels and axles?
One thing neither of us did was us the wheel scraper to get the roundness of the wheels close to true. We simply sanded/polished them.
Naturally, mistakes were made and lessons were learned so now I have a year to refine my build process and hopefully humiliate him next year by building a sub-3 second car. How to do that without breaking the bank is another trick though.
I'll probably go with a less complex design next year. I witnessed today when a kid had a painted block with weights perform very well. My buddy and I both designed our cars in Sketchup and he used his CNC router to carve them out. I'll probably just do a flat design next year and focus more on COB and better axle/wheel installation.
Suggestions?