maUru

I finally have built my RTR nitro car just the way I like it. I took it to bits and gave it a complete rebuild, which I definitely recommend anyone with a RTR nitro car should do if they want to learn the car.

So anyway, it now goes faster (the brake assembly was not built right) and made the brakes engage slightly at full throttle causing resistance. I made the brake engage very very slightly when the little adjuster switch on the radio controller is pulled way back, which helps intensely for turns. Since it takes some discipline to control the brakes on an rc, this way it applies just the right pressure to take a turn without braking, (of course you have to brake before the turn, this is just mid turn).

A couple of the drives were not perfect, 2 wheels had clicking dog bones due to bad distances between the wheel and dif and one of the difs was screwed too tight. The gears that connected to the clutch were also a bit lose which caused them to slip. Now they all sing.

Also, I found a switch to make the car go 30/70 with the brake/throttle for more control over the throttle which has helped a lot for my control of the car. It's only a .15c but wheelspin is on demand at full throttle. I can really manouver this baby, unlike when I first got the thing. The practise of course helps a lot, learning different turning techniques, and especially powersliding to get the back around the turn, nitro cars accelerate so fast it doesn't really matter what your exit speed is, as long as you get around the turn as fast as possible.

The problem is that although it reaches 40-50mph at full speed in 2nd gear, its too far away for me to control it accurately which sucks. It takes roughly a couple seconds to reach top speed but by then its does 50 meters or more and it's already time to slow down for the next turn.

I think nitro rc driving requires more skill than even formula one! Especially since we don't get the point of view advantage and the 'feel' of the car as it slices round the tracks. Think of it like this, if a formula one car does an average of 150mph on a track, then a 1/10 model would need a 10 times smaller track, but it would also have to run 10 times slower, at 15mph. But nitro cars can reach 80+mph! So in effect, a nitro car is cutting reaction times 4-5 fold, even more. Where a formula one car has 2 seconds to react, we only have less than half a second, which makes it a lot harder. Still - if we **** up, it doesn't mean we RIP...or does it...that probably depends on the price tage of the car .

pozix604

To directly answer your question, it seems that, for many people, having the fastest car basically equates to having the biggest d*ck. There are always those for whom this is not the primary reason, but I would bet that this is by far the most popular reason.

i8tweety

My Feedback: (11)

Just because the car will do 50 MPH doesn't mean you have to drive it that fast. When I'm racing, I only pull full throttle on large straits, otherwise it's partial throttle.

To learn better throttle control, set-up a slolam course with empty soda cans and practice driving through them. You will find the optimal speed to run through them. You can also experiment with suspension adjustments to improve handling.

Shadow102

My Feedback: (5)

even though this could turn into a flame war i am just tired of listening to the "how fast will it go" and "how can i make it go faster" threads if RC cars where meant to do over a 100mph then they would come that way in the box like some of schumacher cars. however ppl buy purpose built racers like the FT gt and 1/8th scale race buggies trying to make them go mach 5 and they want two speeds and things when they dun relize the whole point is to have enough top speed to handle straightaways on tracks not how fast can i go until i lose the radio signal.

SpoonAvenger

Well, the whole time to react thing is off. Indy cars go over 150 easily, but taking 150 as the point, thats about 220 feet per second, so in 2 seconds they have gone liek 440 feet, and that could be fatal. They have WAY less than 2 seconds for reactions. And the point of view could also be considered an advantage, since you can see the whole track, and thus its easier to pick faster lines...

and tweety pretty much covered the rest so yea

Shadow102

My Feedback: (5)

yea but you do have to agree that the big plus of being in the car is being able to feel how it is moving and how it is reacting not whatching the RC car and reacting to small cues of where it is about to loose traction

Krusty

Mauru,
If you are up high on a platform and are able to see the whole course, the car will be easier to see and control. At ground level (standing) it is very difficult to see unless the car is very close to you. When we go to the parking lot (no driver's stand) we'll usually stand inside the bed of someone's pick-up truck. It's a portable driver's stand

i8tweety

My Feedback: (11)

With hours of practice under your belt, you will be able to "feel" what the car is doing visually.

While being in the car will allow you to feel what the car is doing, you can't always see what is happening. Being able to see what is happening is very helpful when drifting, power sliding, under hard braking, and on-power drifts when exiting corners on heavy throttle. With plenty of in car practice, you can learn how to feel these conditions (and their severity), but in these cases, it is easier to see than feel what is happening.

You can also see what is happening both in front and behind you.

So I guess I'm trying to say it's both an advantage and disadvantage to be in the car (or out of the car).

Shadow102

My Feedback: (5)

yeah i can definatly see a huge advantage while drifting and being in the car as opposed to outside of the car

caseyddr

My Feedback: (13)

bleh i disagree about the rebuild. theres no point. MOst ppl who buy RTR want to drive and go. let them have fun with the car, alot of ppl arent mechanically inclined to be able to remember where a few screws went. let them go out and drive it till it breaks is my moto, let them have fun.

maUru

I have made myself a little track. There is a stretch of tarmac (parking) that is about 20x40m in front of my house, and I get a birds eye view from my balcony. I drew some lines using chalk and have been playing about for the past couple days. It has really improved my driving, I even ran out my (fresh) transmiter batteries yesterday! . It's true, you almost never use full throttle unless you are on a long straight, and even then a twitchy finger can send you off into a spin.

I used 150mph as an average speed - I don't think Indy cars can do 150mph average on a twisty track, the slower tracks fall to 80-100mph, eg. Monte Carlo. I know they can get to 190mph on the straights, but divided by 8, thats only 24mph for a 1/8 scale car - thats nothing. About the reaction time, it was relative, it shows how much a difference there is - you can't say that every turn in every race has exactly 0.5191939539 seconds reaction time, sometimes its more, sometimes its less. Indy cars although they can reach those speeds, they aren't going to go full throttle at top speed into a turn, that's just ignorance. Also a good driver doesn't go into a turn and then use his reactions to fix his driving. A good driver knows how the car will react, where his exit line, what his exit/entry speed will be before he even gets to the turn.

True, but disassembling the car really lets you tune it to your taste, and imho half the fun is in the tweaking. Just love that greasy oily feeling.

racerts20

At first you said Formula one cars now your saying Indy get it strait not that it matters to what ever your talking about in this thread but theres a huge difference between them!

maUru

ops my bad - i was thinking of CART - which is like formula one right? is indy the oval race?

besides, if indy racing is the left turn race, then where is the reaction time anyway?

nodolarsnosense

comparing driving a rc car to a f1 or indy car is farsical. and i just cant belive you said rc requires more skill than f1 driving!

the forms of driving are in different realms.

indy cars race on many non oval circuits, eg the gold coast street circuit in australia.

try even understanding
how to get in?
the steering wheel?
starting it?

a drivers skill off the track would beat virtually any rc drivers total skill. thats why the moneys in f1, and the best engineers, aerodynamisists,...... and drivers.

maUru

i am saying that it is lot more difficult to control a rc car as accurate as the f1 cars

but it doesnt have to be f1 cars - consider a regular car, from that vantage point it is possible to see/feel and act accordingly when wheelspin comes in, you feel the car losing traction before it actually does

even though i dont like it, the main reason everyone loves f1 or any dangerous sport is the possibility of a wreck

there is nothing that gets crowds happier when a car almost touches the other in a high speed turn

otherwise it would be cars going round and round all day...not really fun for the spectator

i8tweety

My Feedback: (11)

Reaction time has nothing to do with scale. It has to do with vehicle speed and required precision of vehicle line. Regardless of the type of full scale racing, the r/c equivalent uses much wider lanes (when was the last time you saw an actual roadcourse 10 lanes wide?) The dirt oval I race on is 18 ft wide. I don't think you can find a real dirt oval with a 180 ft side corner.

There are quite a few sloppy driving techniques that can be done in r/c that the pros wouldn't use like power sliding through corners, sliding the rear end around during braking for the tight corners, WIDE courses allow less optimal approaches to corners just as fast. The allowable margin of error is huge (relative to the real deal).

The fact that the real mccoy is running 3 times faster means they have 1/3 the time to make a more precise maneuver. I can't even imagine how consistent their lap times were if the cars were governed at 55 MPH (the speed of a fast nitro r/c).

maUru

i agree - but if the rc tracks were in fact proper replicas of real tracks then it would be a lot harder dont you agree?

i8tweety

My Feedback: (11)

Answering that question is just like trying to determine if a kiwi is sweeter than a macintosh apple when, while you've seen kiwis before, you've never eaten one!

maUru

chalk out a turn which is 1 meter wide and try to take it while standing 5 meters away as accurately as possible, keeping the race line without losing speed

i find it almost impossible at medium-high throttle speeds - but if im going at 15mph it is a piece of cake, and 10 times 15mph is 150mph

so what im saying is that a 1/10 nitro car going round a 1/10 size track at 30mph should be as difficult as driving a real size car going round a real size track at 300mph

and that is without the inconvenience of not being able to feel the car

i8tweety

My Feedback: (11)

There is no such thing as scale speed. Lateral G-forces, wind resistance, aerodynamics, gyroscopic effects within rotating parts,... are all factors that increase exponentially, and is not a linear relationship with respect to speed.

Mark out a roadcourse with 4 foot wide lanes. That is still wider than a scale course would be. Take a piece of chalk and mark out the fast line around the track (the full scale guys run that line with little variation). Run that course with the worst pair of tires you have (r/c cars have much better traction than their full size counterparts). That's what the real car drivers have to do.

Just because you or I can't do it fast, some of the sponsored r/c racers can and do such things at every big race.

The real race drivers spend countless years (not hours, days, or weeks) developing their craft starting with go-carts and move up from there.

There are some big advantages of being outside the car. Instead of having to rely on feeling what the car is doing, you can actually see it (no interpretation required).

nodolarsnosense

in my oppinion using 1/8 scale etc coparisons is innacurate as car performances cannot be compared between real and model cars in this way. eg gearbox relative sizes/strength etc, even the way gears are changed for that matter. relative damper and spring sizes etc etc, they arent scale