Thanks everyone for the input. All this leads me to some questions.
In comparing my son's car to his, he did not go as thin but had a modified wedge that was less than 1/4 in the front to about 3/8's in the back (they were at 1/4"), tungsten weight was put in a pocket routed out right above the rear axle, (theirs was in line with the rear axle plane), he did not rail ride but ran straight (they did rr) and he did the work most of taught here on prepping the wheels (were only allowed to lightly sand mold marks) and axles (looks like they may have used vendor wheels if comments about winderby wheels is correct).
Although he did well again this year, he said he would still like to try to go even faster next year. Having seen a number of cars that are thinner and rail ride, my son had discussed going thinner, using the 1/4" tungsten cubes in line with the axles and possibly rail riding. However, even not doing it this year we won almost all the races (and against a RR). I guess that would lead me to wondering if a change is even needed. It may be needed if we determine that we are going about as fast as we can with "4 on the floor" and riding straight. It also could be needed if the competition works on improving their RR car.
What could we expect in faster times if we go thinner and rail ride? I know that the prep and alignment work is the key and "issues" with any of that work could make the car slower than expected which may make it hard to say how much faster the car would go. Would his rail riding car be expected to significantly outperform the one that won this year? Should we still expect to get much improvement without changing our general approach (maybe we could go thinner and have even less wood which means more tungsten in line with axle plane)?
2013 Pack Champion
Re: 2013 Pack Champion
It sounds like you're already doing a number of things quite well.
Further improvements easily made by raising a front wheel and learning to Ride a Rail.
Further improvements easily made by raising a front wheel and learning to Ride a Rail.
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- FatSebastian
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Re: 2013 Pack Champion
In principle, a straight-runner is fastest if it never contacts the rail. How much speed is lost is a function of how much the straight car impacts the rail (particularly the raised non-DFW). That is partly a function of staging, which can vary. A big advantage of rail-riding is consistency in performance from one race to the next. Another is better stability control, which allows one to push the CoM further back, allowing faster speed in the straightaway. How much times improve are therefore affected by the length of your straightaway. And so on...DerbyDash wrote:What could we expect in faster times if we go thinner and rail ride? [...] Would his rail riding car be expected to significantly outperform the one that won this year?
Anecdotally, I would say that when we switched to rail-riding, we probably gained 1/2 a car length or better in our local racing scenario? Races went from nail-biters to not even close.