Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Secrets, tips, tools, design considerations, materials, the "science" behind it all, and other topics related to building the cars and semi-trucks.
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davet
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by davet »

Very cool!
derbypain
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Re: RE: Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by derbypain »

davet wrote:Very cool!
He would not have gotten the top on as easily if we had not received your application of photo information... Totally appreciated. Just so you know we designed it in photoshop and printed an 8x10 from Walgreens that had multiple of the same top design. The first one messed up so we cut out another since we used the 60 min epoxy and successful overall install. Yours and all the other comments have been our instruction manual. Thanks again.
On another note:
We have a gentleman in our pack that creates great cars and won our district last year.. His car did well in the Mid America race as well... Today he sent me pics of the new car (which of course looks great) He went on to tell me how there is no way to run a four wheel rail rider so he is making his car run fairly straight. We are hopeful that if he is telling me the truth we may actually have a shot if we set up our car correctly.

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davet
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by davet »

If you learned any tricks with that cover let me know. We'll be doing a car for a race in June.
I've never built a 4-wheeled rail-rider but the guys here have the best advice. You'll do awesomely.
Speedster
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Speedster »

That guy is teasing you. There is ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, a way to set up a 4 wheel rail rider and Sporty explains it exactly.

A 4 wheel rail rider is nothing but a 3 wheel rail rider with the NDFW set with slight Negative Camber and toe-out.
Anyone can make a car run straight on a level test board. What it will do on the track is a different story.

How Big a smile did this gentleman have on his face when he told you it couldn't be done?
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

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He called me over the phone and sent text. Totally agree there is a way. He is supposedly running back negative cants and both front positive cants the way he described his set up. I had not heard of that method before and he has not ever told me a blatant lie about his setup. I think to be honest he is just having fun with my son and i. He definitely has an advantage over us due to his best friend owning a 42 ft test track. They hone for two or three weekends before finalizing their settings. In one of the pics he sent me it contained the weight of all his items in the background: body, wheels, axles, HVAC foil tape, etc... It was interesting to see his wheel weight was about .10 ounces lighter than standard prepped BSA wheels. I would post his pic but I am sure he would be upset if I shared with world prior to the race.

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Speedster
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Speedster »

I wouldn't worry about his wheels being light. I suspect he did a lot of light sanding.

By the way, I have some property in Florida...
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whodathunkit
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by whodathunkit »

Speedster,

Seem's i can recall Sporty,
saying something about his 4 wheel touching rail riding set up as well!
Something like needing very little bend in the axles for the front wheels and the 1/16'' notch in the body for the DFW.
plus to set the axle gap on the DFW much wider ( about twice as much ) then you would for the axle gap on the NDFW !
And that this would reduce problems during the track transition section!

However I can seem to find his article at the time.. to read up about it some more on that tip he gave.
What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
derbypain
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Re: RE: Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by derbypain »

whodathunkit wrote:Speedster,

Seem's i can recall Sporty,
saying something about his 4 wheel touching rail riding set up as well!
Something like needing very little bend in the axles for the front wheels and the 1/16'' notch in the body for the DFW.
plus to set the axle gap on the DFW much wider ( about twice as much ) then you would for the axle gap on the NDFW !
And that this would reduce problems during the track transition section!

However I can seem to find his article at the time.. to read up about it some more on that tip he gave.
Here is the link... https://sportypwd.wordpress.com/2015/02 ... the-floor/

I have been following it to the letter and so far it is reacting as he described... He does mention having the DFW twice as wide as NDFW as well.

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Speedster
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Speedster »

I have a question.
Who is Kurt? Are there 2 "Sporty's"?
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Re: RE: Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

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Speedster wrote:I have a question.
Who is Kurt? Are there 2 "Sporty's"?
Good question.. I see that on the contact page. Hmm?

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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by derbypain »

One question I had related to the four on the floor is regarding the double width gap on the DFW. Let's say you gap the NDFW and rear wheels gap at .03" (credit card width) and you have a 1/16" (.0625") indent for the DFW with double the gap at .06" aren't you potentially giving back the intended distance between the rear wheel and the rail when rear is riding parallel down the track OR will the DFW tend to ride on the body more while the rear wheels should ride out to the axle head therefore no gap loss. I may be missing it completely but thought it important to ask before we start tuning.

Do you believe the extra gap on the DFW is acting like a shock absorber for the transitions that are not smooth?

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Speedster
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Speedster »

The DFW should be riding on the body. I do not know the science as to what happens when the car goes through the transition.
It would be really COOL if we could see a Slow Motion picture of that.
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whodathunkit
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Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by whodathunkit »

It 's like go carts and ackermann angles
maybe even be caster angles off the slope into the flat as well. Twisting of the front axles in the bores!



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What type of automobile can be spelled the same forwards & backwards?
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Vitamin K
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Vitamin K »

Speedster wrote:I have a question.
Who is Kurt? Are there 2 "Sporty's"?
Kurt is me. I helped Sporty set the blog up, but I don't know why it's got my bio in there. I'll have to see if I can fix that.
Speedster
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Re: Any recommendations for car design? Help appreciated...

Post by Speedster »

You did a nice job, VK. I'm sure Sporty, and many others, are very grateful.
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