Re lube

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mschmalzsr
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Re lube

Post by mschmalzsr »

How many runs before you need to re lube your car?


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whodathunkit
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Re: Re lube

Post by whodathunkit »

:welcome: mschmalzsr.

This is a very good question.

What type of lube will you be using?

For graphite lubes I'd say if you could get somewhere between 6 to 10 good runs on the track
with out seeing the times fall off you are doing good with graphite lubes.
I could be wrong on my thinking here as well.

Someone else will have to chime in to help you out with the oil type lubes if your asking about them.
What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
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birddog
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Re: Re lube

Post by birddog »

At the Mid-America race, the graphite cars run 6 runs (once down each lane of a 6 lane track). After that, those who move on to the grand finals, run another 6 runs down the track, for a total of 12 runs. My son's car was mailed in, so although those who are present at the race can re-lube, those who are not, generally do not. I know I didn't. What I don't know is if somebody did it on our behalf or not (if they did, they did it without asking).

Anyway, my son's car actually got faster the 2nd 6 runs compared to the first 6. Maybe we "over lubed"?

To get a feel for how other cars did, you can see the results here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B10lro ... ef=2&pli=1

birddig
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Vitamin K
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Re: Re lube

Post by Vitamin K »

birddog wrote:At the Mid-America race, the graphite cars run 6 runs (once down each lane of a 6 lane track). After that, those who move on to the grand finals, run another 6 runs down the track, for a total of 12 runs. My son's car was mailed in, so although those who are present at the race can re-lube, those who are not, generally do not. I know I didn't. What I don't know is if somebody did it on our behalf or not (if they did, they did it without asking).

Anyway, my son's car actually got faster the 2nd 6 runs compared to the first 6. Maybe we "over lubed"?

To get a feel for how other cars did, you can see the results here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B10lro ... ef=2&pli=1

birddig
I'm told that if you put a note in with your car at Mid-Americas, you can ask them to add more graphite, in the event that the car reaches the finals.

I know that with graphite, I've seen speed drop-off in as little as four runs. Of course, with proxy racing, there's always the chance that some graphite shakes out of the bores in the shipping process.

With oil, on the other hand, I have heard that cars can go as many as 100(!) runs before seeing any significant speed drop-off due to lubrication ablation. I don't have personal experience with this, but I do know that you get a lot more runs out of an oil lube.
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birddog
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Re: Re lube

Post by birddog »

Agreed, oil lubes last much longer.

Although I'm told you can ask for a re-lube of graphite to be done at MA with a special note in your car, we did not include any such note, so my guess is that the car was not re-lubed at all.

It is possible that car times change more as a function of the cars they are racing with. Possible that the aero-dynamics change when running with "slower" cars, as compared to running in the finals with all fast cars.

birddog
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