Morning prep? Relube or not?

General discussions for car and semi-truck racers.
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davidwilkie
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Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by davidwilkie »

So my sons just dropped off their cars for weigh in and impound.

They will have the option to prep them once in the morning right before their races.

Each car races 4 times.

We figure absolutely:

- clean the wheels with dab of 91% alcohol on a cotton rag
- check the car over

Debating:

- relube the wheels???

Wheels and axles were burnished. They added a bit of graphite into the wheel bore (with axle in place) before inserting axles. A tiny bit graphite added more after alignment.

Should they add yet a bit more? Or leave as is?
chromegsx
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by chromegsx »

I'd leave it alone for only 4 races. I added extra this year in preparation for 20 races (we only did 7). It took 4 races for the car to finally break free and start turning better times by .01 for each of the last 3 races.
davidwilkie
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by davidwilkie »

My first son's races completed as follows:

Lane 4: 3.1319 - 157.8
Lane 3: 3.1707 - 155.9
Lane 2: 3.1513 - 156.9
Lane 1: 3.1605 - 156.4

I'm wondering if these results inform anything for his older brother's races later today? Same car prep.

1. Does is suggest adding a tiny bit of graphite?

2. If so, bring a Dremel with cotton wheel and spin the wheels?
davidwilkie
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by davidwilkie »

Okay, so we opted to put a bit of graphite on the older brother's car before his races. Seems his first time suffered a bit:

Lane 2: 3.2105 - 154.0
Lane 1: 3.1553 - 156.7
Lanes 4: 3.1710 - 155.9
Lane 3: 3.1489 - 157.0

Both won their ranks and will move in to pack finals today.

The older brother's times all improved.

Now the debate whether to retouch the lube on either for races 5-8 in the finals?
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sporty
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by sporty »

is this a rail rider ? if likelt reduce the drift a tad, double check the axle gap spacing, clean the wheels. rub some more graphite on the edge of the wheel that is the rail rider. might add i tad bit on the axle head / wheel hub.

I would not do anything else.

If you can adjust the drift, If reduce by a very tiny about, just a hair.
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by Speedster »

We're facing a "Best Track" 1st thing March 16th. The car is going to travel 29'. We've won on a beautiful wood Piantedosi track. Someone stated we needed a fairly aggressive toe for the Best Track because of the curve. I was going to back off on the toe but decided against it. I have a decent wood track that we will be tuning on tomorrow to see how it does against 2 fast cars. Should I set the toe for the best times on my wood track and hope it is also the fastest it can be for the Best Track? If we can get by the Best Track, we will then be racing 8 times on a Freedom Track.
Last edited by Speedster on Wed Feb 13, 2013 7:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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sporty
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by sporty »

Speedster wrote:We're facing a "Best Track" 1st thing March 16th. The car is going to travel 29'. We've have won on a beautiful wood Piantedosi track. Someone stated we needed a fairly aggressive toe for the Best Track because of the curve. I was going to back off on the toe but decided against it. I have a decent wood track that we will be tuning on tomorrow to see how it does against 2 fast cars. Should I set the toe for the best times on my wood track and hope it is also the fastest it can be for the Best Track? If we can get by the Best Track, we will then be racing on a Freedom Track. Ohhhh, the woes of racing in the Commodore Perry District. Oh, shut Up Bill. You BIG BABY.!!!

Now, typically, if you tune to a wooden track, a wooden track more often then not, requires more drift, then the freedom or best track. Unless it has some weird gradual slope.

But if you super tune to a best track and then go to a wooden track, the car will not stick to the rail on the wooden track.

if you are done racing on the wooden track, tuning to for it on a wooden track for a best track or a freedom track is not going to help you out much. otherwise tune it to the wooden track and check the tuners on your tuning board and then back it off say, 1/8th of a inch at 4 feet. this should get you close.

The differance I have seen, is that my old wooden track seem to need 1/4 of a inch more drift to 5/8ths more. depending on the type of car i was running, standard wheel base, exstended, stuff like that. so 1/8th less you should be fine.

Sporty
chromegsx
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by chromegsx »

rail riders usually produce fairly consistent times. Those times seem fairly scattered for both cars even though run on different tracks. Adding graphite to any car will give the illusion that the car got faster because the first time will usually be slower. I would be hesitant to draw the conclusion that adding graphite after impound is beneficial, if anything you may not have had the proper amount in to start with. Depending on your race format that slow time could have cost you in some way. Throw out that slow time due to extra graphite on the second car and you can't make the conclusion that it got faster rather than slower. With so little data to compare it's hard to make any conclusion at all about what is best for one car or the other. Even though the same prep method is used, no two cars are ever built identical...Congrats on moving on... How does the car look as it goes down the track? Any wobbles?
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by Speedster »

We have no wobbles. Tuning for a different track is only one of the problems. I will do what Sporty suggested. Regarding graphite. Josh lubed his car yesterday while I lubed the other 2 cars we race times against. All cars run against the timer in Lane 1 only. I already had elapsed times on all 3 cars from previous testing. Josh put a little bit too much graphite in the hubs but I let him go to see what would happen. His new car lost .03 seconds on its 1st run while the other 2 cars maintained their previous speeds. I had Josh sit and spin his wheels and when re-tested it returned to its normal speed and maintained it throughout the testing. At District races the cars all run Elapsed time, 4 times down the track, for the 1st race on the Best track. The top 8 fastest cars advance to the Freedom track where the point system is used for scoring. The cars run 8 times down the Freedom track. You must have your fastest times possible for every time down the track on the Best track. One bad run can eliminate you from the competition because of elapsed times.
Here is something I've often thought about. What happens to graphite in the wheel hub if the car sits for 6 weeks? Anything? Scouts have come to our Pack races with their car in a Ziplock bag. Is this helping some situation? Would you recommend putting a small dab of graphite in the car the morning of the race, running it down the track a couple of times, and head for the race? Thank you.
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Re: Morning prep? Relube or not?

Post by rpcarpe »

Too much graphite will slow your car, until the excess graphite works in/out/down.
Thin layer of graphite should last around 8 races.

Good Luck!
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