Test & Tune last night -- advice?

[roosclan]

Last night was our pack's Test & Tune, with the race being the evening of April 4th. The rules require the axle slots to be used. No mods to wheels such as H or V grooves, etc. The official measuring template requires minimum 1 3/4" width of the block, so my Wolf's car barely squeezes by due to trying to sand the right front a bit to move the wheel in.

The test track was the old (as in 45yrs old!) wooden track. The race day track and the District derby track (same track, same place) is a Best Track (37' I think?). the boys' cars did pretty well. I didn't let them run too much, and they beat the other cars there.


I have the boys' cars set up as thus (Wolf's on the left, Bear's on the right):

Bear's car:

• Weight: 4.995oz
  
• COM: .985" ahead of rear axle
  
• raised left-front wheel
  
• axles polished with 8000 grit polishing kit from winderby.com
  
• wheels rounded with Wheel ShaverXT
  
• followed RacerX's tips on rail riding
  
• tried to weight the car more to the right side
  
• EZ-slide graphite paint on body where wheel hub makes contact
  
• coated outside of wheels with graphite/moly from MaxV
  
• drifts 1.5" at about 5' to 6'
  

Wolf's car:

• Weight: 4.994oz
  
• COM: 1.158" ahead of rear axle
  
• raised left-front wheel
  
• cut 3/8" off back and glued to front
  
• axles polished with 8000 grit polishing kit from winderby.com
  
• followed RacerX's tips on rail riding
  
• wheels rounded with Wheel ShaverXT
  
• tried to weight the car more to the right side -- not as well as Bear's car
  
• EZ-slide graphite paint on body where wheel hub makes contact
  
• coated outside of wheels with graphite/moly from MaxV
  
• drifts 1.5" right at 5' consistently
  

There was almost no wobble, and they stayed on the rail fairly well, but I don't know how much of any wobble was due to the wooden track that might not be there on the Al track. There are 2 or 3 cars that I am certain (knowing the dads) will be fast cars that weren't there last night, so is there anything that I can do to tweak the cars to put them in front of everyone?

[Sappington R]

Roosclan,
Thoe cars look like CARS! I can tell that a ton of work went in. I'm sure you guys will do well. The hardest part for us has always been the waiting between the final tune and the race. There is always a temptation to do more, i.e., graphite, tune, polish, (and re-polish- paint & body). I think the best thing to do know is to box em or bag em and put them AWAY! easier said than done. Good luck on the 4th. We will be Cheering for you, Be sure to get photo's and post them.

[roosclan]

sappingtonr said:

Roosclan,
Thoe cars look like CARS! I can tell that a ton of work went in. I'm sure you guys will do well.

Thanks! The boys worked hard on them. I think I can honestly say they enjoyed it more than I did. The boys love it, so I want to help them do their best and learn as much about competition with a sporting attitude while trying hard to win. We have 6 kids, and I think my wife will be the happiest woman on earth when this season is done.

Right now, I'm helping another dad-son team get a car put together. He works at the community college and hasn't had time (or the tools) to help his son build one. They came over this morning and we got his car designed, cut out, and weighted down. I sent them home with some wood putty and sanding/priming/painting instructions. Next week we'll work on the axles and wheels (2 days before the race! ). It won't be a screamer, but he'll have a car to enter, and hopefully we can get the axles polished enough that he will be able to compete with most of the den.

The hardest part for us has always been the waiting between the final tune and the race. There is always a temptation to do more, i.e., graphite, tune, polish, (and re-polish- paint & body). I think the best thing to do know is to box em or bag em and put them AWAY! easier said than done. Good luck on the 4th. We will be Cheering for you, Be sure to get photo's and post them.

I'll put last-minute graphite on before final weigh-in that night, but I'm curious about the alignment. Is the alignment aggressive enough? Too aggressive? Other than that, I don't plan on doing anything else to them. The steering wheel is not glued in, so I can adjust if need be.

I have a craft box with some foam in it that I will be using for transporting them, our scale, some graphite, a few spare axles and wheels, glue, putty, my digital calipers, and some Dremel bits. I have 3 holes cut out so I can use it next year when I'll have a Webelos1, a Bear, and a Tiger. It took me about 30min. to throw together.