newbie questions

gearhead · November 08, 2005, 02:43:57 PM

I picked up a 10th electric and look forward to racing next spring

Is there any problem running a 200 mm body on these rules wise?
Gearhead

gearhead · November 08, 2005, 02:48:29 PM

WUT, I cant edit my own posts??
will there be a regular 19 turn class next year?

limey · November 08, 2005, 03:28:50 PM

welcome gear head

190 mm bodys are the norm and during a speed weekend event they must by ROAR approved and meet hieght and wing measurements

Tom · November 08, 2005, 03:32:23 PM

You have an opportunity to proof-read and edit your posts in the preview mode, prior to hitting submit. There are serious ethical issues when you allow people to edit posts, since on-line discussions depend on what was said. If you can retroactively change what you said, you can easily manipulate a discussion in an un-ethical way.

Electric cars use 190mm bodies; 200mm bodies are for nitro cars. I would suggest you use your 200mm body for practice, and pick up another racing body.

We are in the middle of our 1/12 scale winter season, and as such have made no plans for the upcoming summer season. When decisions are made about what classes IROCC will be running during the summer, we'll let everyone know. You are also invited to attend our pre-season meeting, but again, that won't happen for some time now. At this point in time, all I can tell you is some of the people who make the decisions are very for running a 19-turn class, while others are very against running a 19-turn class. Rest assured any decision that is made will be in the best interests of the club to promote the most competetive and cost effective type of racing, and the top speed of cars has little to do with how competetive and fun the races are.

haddow · November 08, 2005, 04:12:13 PM

Quotethe top speed of cars has little to do with how competetive and fun the races are.

Amen brother.

actually you could argue that the faster the cars go the less competative the races are.

gearhead · November 08, 2005, 04:42:46 PM

So, are you saying its illegal to run a 200 mm body?
I havent even seen any decent 190 mm bodies.
How do I know if its roar approved?

Blake · November 08, 2005, 04:51:55 PM

Quotethe top speed of cars has little to do with how competetive and fun the races are.

Haha, I wonder what side of the fence Tom is on....

Blake

haddow · November 08, 2005, 05:56:10 PM

QuoteI havent even seen any decent 190 mm bodies.

most bodies I have seen are available in both 190 and 200.

A 200mm may look cool in the ads in magazines (when sitting on a 200 mm chassis) but it wont look cool on your 190 chassis when you cant see the wheels. LOL

you can run a 200mm body on your 190mm car if you absolutely must. Roar legal bodies in our book means any sedan body (4door prefered) but no sports cars etc. The wing can not be oversized (cant stick out past the side of the body or above the roof)

RYY · November 08, 2005, 06:40:24 PM

Not to stir it up at all, but with gear head here is a perfect oppertunity to prevent the problems of different bodies being run throughout the season and then to some peoples surprize, having to run a ROAR legal body for the speed weekend. Why not make it simple and mandatory. A 190 mm ROAR legal body is required to run IROCC same as a 27 turn motor is. Also as easy as it is to cut bodies and adjust heights why not say that having a car teched every other weekend for those who bother to keep competivite is also mandatory.

Gear head if I was you, I would get onto the ROAR site and find a legal 190 mm body and go with it. And as far as motors go we very rarely run 19t, you could probably plan on purchasing a 27t motor. But as suggested you should probably wait until after the summer series club meeting to do so.( for those of you paying attention, howabout we drop those stinky noise nitro cars and run a 19t class instead!!AHAHHAH) These few suggestions will prevent alot of issues for you in the long run.

RYY

Grinder · November 08, 2005, 06:51:02 PM

There are more 200mm bodies than 190mm - that just the nature of the beast at this point in time. There are a lot of decent 190mm bodies out there. Once you start getting more competetive you will realize that the bling bling look isn't necessarily gonna get you around the track the fastest. With a 200mm body you are potentially carring more weight and possibly causing more drag. Remember we strongly advise ROAR legal 4 door sedan touring car 190mm bodies. If you are just starting out its not a big deal but when you get up in the B and A mains people are more competetive and will give you a hard time about an non-ROAR approved body. Do some reading on the 'net and you'll find what bodies a lot of the top racers are using. That's a good indication as to what would be a good choice. Personally I started out with a Nissan 350Z because I really like the car. Turned out to be nothing but grief because of how the body is shapped the body would fold up in the rear over the back tires and really throw the car off.

As for different classes you can be certain we will be running stock and nitro at a bare minimum. Once you are in the hobby for a while you will understand why this is our cornerstone. It allows for a level cost effective playing field that still requires many years to master. There is plenty of speed and power to master with a stock motor in our touring cars. The 19 turn cars are faster but with our tight technical tracks you will find that they don't run lap times that are much more than up to a few seconds (if that) faster than the stock motor lap times. I think most amature drivers will find that they are slower with a 19 turn or mod motor because there is too much power to drive properly. I personally would like to run 19 turn as I like to race as much as possible. As Tom said the executive's decision truely takes the best interest of the club itself into consideration based on the executive's MANY years of experience rather than the personal wishes of the individuals in the executive.

IROCC is possibly one of the largest per capita on-road R/C clubs around and definately THE BEST (not that I'm biased or anything). We owe that sucess to our simple formula based on our corner stone Stock motors and the amazing individuals that make up our club. You won't find a more helpful club overall around. There is lots of help right from the guys starting out to the highest level of competition willing to trade secrets of how they got their car faster this week. Thats something you just don't see in ANY level of racing.

Ok, I'm done tooting the IROCC horn now - something I'm always happy to do

gearhead · November 08, 2005, 07:10:41 PM

I bought the body but havent opened the box yet, Its made by HPI. here is a pic:

I already bought a roar legal 27t motor.

dajracer · November 09, 2005, 12:44:46 AM

Sweet looking body(from pic posted) but it would be aerodynamically challenged with that blunt front end and square back end. Your best bet would be to try and get a roar legal 4 door sedan and make it look sweet by putting a sweet paint job on it. It is the paint job that makes it look sweet but a warning here would be that the paint job(and body) only last a short time when in the hands of a new racer who has not had much previous track time. You could always keep the Mustang body, paint it up "real pretty" and then put it on your shelf to admire it. I don't want to sound harsh but I know the first body I painted for 1/12 scale, way back when(1993) only lasted 1 week of racing. Touring car bodies usually last a little longer but then again I wouldn't spend too much time fussing on fancy paint for your first racing body.
Good luck, hope to see you next spring, but try to make it out to a 1/12 scale race night to make yourself known and probably get more helpful hints for your racing adventures.

gearhead · November 09, 2005, 01:48:45 AM

Thanks to you all for your responses, gives me a lot to think about.
Cheers,
Richard

gearhead · November 14, 2005, 04:03:46 PM

Ok, so I got a legal body.
battery questions.
I have never soldered my own batteries. I am getting a set of 3300 matched cells and Deans probar (silver plated copper). Do I need to use silver solder on these? If so, does anyone want to trade for regular bars? I cant find any info online.

Tom · November 14, 2005, 05:02:20 PM

You do not need to use silver solder to solder something silver plated. Conventional tin-led (Sn-Pb) solder works on many materials, including steel, copper, gold, silver, tin, etc., you don't need gold solder to solder to gold-plated contacts, similarly you don't need silver solder to solder to silver-plated contacts.

What you do need however is a soldering iron with a high heat capacity. If you remember your high-school physics classes, you'll know that heat is not the same as temperature. Heat is a measure of the capability of one object to change the temperature of another object. One analogy is to compare boiling water in a pot with Beaver Lake; Beaver Lake (even at this time of year) can melt more ice than your pot of boiling water, which means that Beaver Lake has more heat in it, even though its temperature is far lower than that of your pot of boiling water.

Similarly, you want a soldering iron that is both hot enough (in temperature) to melt solder, and has enough heat (in heat capacity) to raise the temperature of the end of your cell sufficient to melt solder, so that you don't raise the overall temperature of the cell much. If your cell is hot after you solder, then either your technique or iron is lacking.

Soldering battery packs together can be intimidating, and I would suggest against it unless you are confident in your soldering abilities. If you aren't careful, you can over-heat and damage the cells in your battery pack, and this would be a rather expensive lesson. If you show up to the race track, there are at least 10 guys there (out of the 30+ racers that show up every night) who are highly proficient at soldering battery packs together, and at least another 10 that could do it in a pinch. Any one of those people can give you an opinion on your equipment, give you giudance, and help you out.

To answer your questions about silver solder, silver solder has a higher melting temperature than conventional electrical solder, and provides a mechanically stronger, as well as electrically lower resistance joint. It is superior to conventional solder in many ways.

Don't ask me why it isn't more popular in R/C racing when people fret over minutia and blow the theoretical performance benifits of the slightest effect far out of proportion.