Our first 2 cars

Show off your cool vehicle designs and track burning speedsters!
Post Reply
User avatar
davet
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 539
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 1:33 am
Location: MN

Our first 2 cars

Post by davet »

Image
Image
Image
User avatar
Darin McGrew
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 1825
Joined: Fri Jul 18, 2003 1:23 pm
Location: Knoxville, TN
Contact:

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by Darin McGrew »

Very impressive. I detect a theme here... Thanks for sharing!
User avatar
sporty
Pine Head Legend
Pine Head Legend
Posts: 3344
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2005 1:00 am
Location: rockfalls, Illinois

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by sporty »

looks really nice and detailed.


Nice job.

Sporty
Shawn Stebleton
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:20 pm
Location: Monroeville, PA

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by Shawn Stebleton »

Cool!

On the tank, are the middle two rows of wheels modified so they will never hit the guide rail? I'm thinking making the tread width narrower by trimming the inside section away, at least for the bottom 3/8" or so?

That rocket looks like it's ready to be turned upright and blasted off.
Shawn
User avatar
davet
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 539
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 1:33 am
Location: MN

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by davet »

Shawn Stebleton wrote:Cool!

On the tank, are the middle two rows of wheels modified so they will never hit the guide rail? I'm thinking making the tread width narrower by trimming the inside section away, at least for the bottom 3/8" or so?

That rocket looks like it's ready to be turned upright and blasted off.
Thanks Shawn. Yes, the inner wheels are narrowed so they can't hit the rail. The tank went to Districts. The missile went nowhere.

The missile was faster than every car it raced by 1-2 car lengths....at the bottom of the ramp. Then it wobbled itself into no better than 3rd place in any heat and got slower by a couple hundreths each run. Don't know why.

Oh well, onto next year's battleship car I guess.
Shawn Stebleton
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:20 pm
Location: Monroeville, PA

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by Shawn Stebleton »

davet wrote:The missile was faster than every car it raced by 1-2 car lengths....at the bottom of the ramp.
How did it get to the bottom of the hill so quickly???
davet wrote:Then it wobbled itself...
Same thing happened last year with my younger son's car at Districts. It ran fine on our wood Piantedosi track, but on a Best Track it banged off the rails the entire flat. Finished 12th out of about 50.

When we got home, we discovered the rears were a little off on alignment, but more importantly the DFW was not toed in anymore. In fact, it was toed out some. The car would move left (DFW is on the left) and the non-dom wheel would hit. Its nail was in a little more than the right rear's so the right rear would continue into the rail until the car was where it would get turned to the right. The car would then have the DFW hit and turn left. Repeat until end of race.

Check the rear alignment and DFW toe in.
Shawn
DerbyDash
Pine Head
Pine Head
Posts: 68
Joined: Mon May 21, 2012 11:45 am
Location: Marietta, GA

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by DerbyDash »

Shawn Stebleton wrote:
davet wrote:The missile was faster than every car it raced by 1-2 car lengths....at the bottom of the ramp.
How did it get to the bottom of the hill so quickly???
davet wrote:Then it wobbled itself...
Same thing happened last year with my younger son's car at Districts. It ran fine on our wood Piantedosi track, but on a Best Track it banged off the rails the entire flat. Finished 12th out of about 50.

When we got home, we discovered the rears were a little off on alignment, but more importantly the DFW was not toed in anymore. In fact, it was toed out some. The car would move left (DFW is on the left) and the non-dom wheel would hit. Its nail was in a little more than the right rear's so the right rear would continue into the rail until the car was where it would get turned to the right. The car would then have the DFW hit and turn left. Repeat until end of race.

Check the rear alignment and DFW toe in.

Have a question about the alignment issue. Were your axles glued into place? If yes, what do you feel caused it to get out of alignment? We glue our axles in with a 5 minute epoxy and hope that this will stop the car getting out of alignment. Or do relate the issue to something that happened to bend the axles? Just wondering...
Oddzilla
Pine Head
Pine Head
Posts: 91
Joined: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:58 am
Location: Shelby Township, MI

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by Oddzilla »

Those are sweet!
User avatar
davet
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 539
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 1:33 am
Location: MN

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by davet »

How did it get to the bottom of the hill so quickly???

I'm not sure. Could it be because the bulk of the added rear weight was high on the body? We added all of our 2.52 oz of tungsten in the rear 1" of the car. The COM was 1 1/16". I had it aligned so the rear wheels barely went out to the axle heads. The DFW was initially set with a slight turn in (1 1/2" in 5 feet or so I think) with a very slight negative camber yet the wheel still rode flat on track. After first test run I turned in a little more drift and it stayed the same. I then rolled it on a table at the race location and decided to set it as a straight runner because that's what we ran last year. I didn't really know what to do with it so we just ran it. The axles were glued in the night before with Pinecar Formula glue. It would be nice to get this missile aligned right then run it again. I know it would be fast but this year is done for us now.

I'm not sure it was aligned right from the start. When you say yours was knocked out of alignment how did you align the rears? This is a mystery to me still. With the tank last year I drilled the extended axle holes with a drill press and eyeballed them. I tuned it on the kitchen table to get the wheels to ride in middle of axle and to go straight. Was pretty simple and didn't even bend the axles. Just turned them a little and it went straight. It was smooth down the track.

I'm told to cure the wobble by turning in more drift. The tank didn't have any drift at all and was smooth. Something was causing the missile to go slower each race. I used Hob-E-Lub this year. I tried the spin test with Hob-E-Lub last year and had significantly less spin time than the Panef I ended up using. This year we went with HEL after reading it was better under load than Panef on DT. Last year I ran the tank on the treadmill and didn't add any graphite prior to the race. I read on DT this year that treadmill was bad so I skipped it this time. I'm not sure now if we'll try the straight runner or railrider next year.
Last edited by davet on Tue Jan 29, 2013 3:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
davet
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 539
Joined: Wed Jan 16, 2013 1:33 am
Location: MN

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by davet »

Oddzilla wrote:Those are sweet!
Thanks. My boy picks the design and we try to make it fast. Kind of like a sleeper I guess.
rpcarpe
Master Pine Head
Master Pine Head
Posts: 736
Joined: Wed Mar 17, 2010 11:58 am
Location: Huntsville, Alabama

Re: Our first 2 cars

Post by rpcarpe »

Missile Design Question:
Did you carve/sculpt the fins?
Or add on pre-made fins?
My wife started a new support group... Widows of the Pinewood Derby.
Post Reply