Shaping wheels

General discussions for car and semi-truck racers.
Speedster
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by Speedster »

I understood the tread contact but I thought he needed to migrate the wheels toward the caps. I don't know if what he did to the rear wheels would accomplish that. I haven't seen any mention of narrowing the DFW side, at the DFW, a 1/16" of an inch and I'm wondering if the rears are simply going to drag on the rail. I was hoping TroyThorne's book would answer a lot of his questions.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by Stan Pope »

Speedster wrote:I understood the tread contact but I thought he needed to migrate the wheels toward the caps. I don't know if what he did to the rear wheels would accomplish that. I haven't seen any mention of narrowing the DFW side, at the DFW, a 1/16" of an inch and I'm wondering if the rears are simply going to drag on the rail. I was hoping TroyThorne's book would answer a lot of his questions.
Right! The migration is an almost non-issue if the rears are nicely aligned ... as they will be if the axle is straight. The other issues are included in pretty concise form in AwanaMom's thread http://www.derbytalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7132
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chobo
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by chobo »

Just out of curiosity, being as our rules state that the wheels can be modified and the finished product must have four wheels, could I essentially make the wheel diameter extremely smaller than the rest of the wheels and still make it a rail runner? Or on the extreme end of things, glue the wheel to the top of the car and not have it actually mounted on an axle at all?
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"You guys know that the derby is over, right?!!"
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Stan Pope
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by Stan Pope »

The judge needs to recognize 4 things that are "wheels". The definition could be very loose or it could be very tight. For instance, it might expect the wheels to have a high degree of similarity! For this, your best resource is the event chair / judges!
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chobo
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by chobo »

Thanks Stan; I will be sure to ask this weekend and get their input on it. I've had a pm from one of the guys on here also about working with my axle rods - you have all been a great trove of information and hopefully I can put it to good use with my kids :)
Wife:
"You guys know that the derby is over, right?!!"
chobo
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Re: Shaping wheels

Post by chobo »

I think I need to pull the axles off our test car and do new wheels over again. Although rail riding definitely did not hurt the car, my oldest kids straight runner is just as fast. I got to run all three of our cars against each other after the derby was over and it was literally neck and neck for my oldest kids car and the rail rider test car (we ran all six lanes during testing). I think if I do a proper bore polish, maybe get a hand lathe tool so I can ensure the wheels are true after shaping, and work out the kinks in rail riding, then my kids will have better success next year.

On a side note, I have one happy kid and one upset kid. They both ran their cars in today's Pioneers district race - my oldest kid got third and my youngest was in fifth (I believe it is a 28ft? aluminum BestTrack). So I have one happy kid that is going to nationals on April 13th and one unhappy kid that isn't. I offered my youngest the test car and the fastest of any following builds we test this year for next years derby; he willingly took that, but still is upset. I honestly didn't expect either of my kids to place top three because it seemed like they had a lot stacked up against them (straight runners and unpolished bores).

My kids and I will be running cars in the NWPDRL using the standard Pioneer's kit to find what is and isn't working for us; I'll try and keep a log and post things on here for anyone else that has to run cars with similar kits. I talked to them and let them know that it will probably put us at a disadvantage there, but it will give us a lot of information for their Pioneers race kits.
Wife:
"You guys know that the derby is over, right?!!"
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