The second shippment with parts arrived at my office today! Flo's holidays began and he now is on the way to Italy by train. You might know the problems with our damn Deutsche Bahn (the German Railway company), but it's the easiest way to visit the Lake Garda. I did my holidays there for mountain biking with a friend when I was a young gun 15 years ago. I had a fantastic original Bontrager bike, that virtually eat the mountains! But that's another story … Back to my buddy Flo. He will stay with his girlfriend in the country of spaghetti, pizza, pasta and skew-angled towers for two (boring) weeks. Enough exciting time for me to convert my Kyosho Mini-Z fragments into a bad boy killer machine.
As you know I am a mechanical engineer and I work for a growing RC-Car company. Therefore I have to attend at one or the other additional software courses to brush up my knowledge in 3D engineering software. I had the first one for ages this week and it was quite stressful for me to be honest but when I got back to the office there was a big yellow box already waiting for me in my office at the evening!
I opened it and found two large plastic zip-bags. "CAR 1" and "CAR 2" was written on the bags! Of course I found the parts I ordered in bag number one. The number of winning machines! Unfortunately the bag in question only contained the option parts. The cars themselves need some more time as the shop has to solder the mighty 'Turbo-FETs' in. Well, anyway. As usual I am so exited on new stuff that I often start wrenching without the car and so did I with my new Mini-Z. Thank god it was Friday and the wife far away in their former hometown for a visit at their parents.
The two-piece power pod with a 43T motor that should be good for small tracks, because of its smooth and linear acceleration
I started the build with the PN Racing V4 power-pod for a 98mm wheelbase. The rear-axle received the PN Racing V3 ball diff, 64 pitch gears over the 48 pitch stock gears for more efficiency and lower noise (when overlapping Flo and the other maniacs on the track!). The power pod has two different ride height inserts for the ball bearings, which means a total of four different ride height adjustments (+1, +2 and -1, -2). This should be enough room to adjust the car on the track.
The assembled rear unit. The rear axle always needs a little axial play of 0.2mm. Check the play at least every other run. I do it after every run, because I am maniac
Next step was to assemble the PN Racing friction plate system. The white plastic friction plates have a groove to collect the silicone grease when it's operating. Unfortunately the groove is scratching over the carbon fibre plate when moving and the whole assembly felt everything but smooth when operated by hand. I tried to sand the bottom-side of the plastic-plates with very fine wet-and-dry paper and also rounded the edges of plates to get a smoother system.
Sand the friction plates with very fine wet and dry paper for smooth operation
The holes of the plastic plates proofed to be a bit on the small side. The tight fit on the the friction post caused the plates to bind excessively. To overcome this I took a body reamer to make the holes a little bit (!) wider. Please do this with patience and veeeery carefully! A too big hole in the plastic plates is not good for correct operation of the friction plate system!
Somebody told me the carbon H-bars from LMN Racing are the best for RCP tracks. We will see … I bought the set with 3 different pieces, what are marked at the front-end for identification
My plan is to test some different silicone greases on the track later on and to make sure the set-up adjustments are clearly noticeable I tried to be as accurate as possible on the building step I just described. Back to the greases: A harder grease generally is better for high bite tracks and a softer grease for low grip conditions. Keep in mind, the grease must fit to the track and also the H-bar stiffness. Stiff H-bar need hard grease, soft H-bars soft grease.
I also pre-assembled the front end. My idea was to do a mix of the best components money can buy. I mixed the PN aluminum upper arms and aluminum lower arms, the revolutionary Reflex Racing upper arm mounting system, PN Racing steering knuckles (yes, you are right - in aluminium of course!) and the upside-down kingpin system to reduce friction on the steering knuckle. The idea to mix all this components was only theoretical and I hoped and still hope, everything will be working together without any problems on the track.
To make a long story short, everything fits fine. But it's hard to say it for sure, when you are waiting for the chassis. The only thing you need to change for upside-down king pins, is to exchange the lower against the upper pivot balls. That's all! Flo, my Italian Stallion, thinks it's too complicated and doesn't like mixing things up. But he will massive pi%&ed off, when I drive circles around his car for sure. Well, in case my theory is right and the new front end not only looks good on the work bench but also performs flawlessly on the track!
To handle all those tiny parts when assembling is not easy. My fingers seems to be way to big! You definitely need a small tweezers to hold the parts when assembling. Where is the warning-note, that you can inhale small parts and use is not allowed for critters under the age of 3 years?! Anyway. I wanted to tell you something about the different Mini-Z motors. We ordered a 50 Turn, 43 Turn, 39 Turb and a so called Chilli motor. What I tried to figure out beforehand: is this Chilli the hottest, strongest, most barbarous motor on planet for a Mini-Z? If not, please send us an e-mail ASAP and let me know if I am wrong! I need a moon rocket motor to attend the Guinness World Record Race on the largest Mini-Z RCP-track ever build which takes place near Hamburg. I miss a serious world record in my life and the time is right to change this unbearably situation! Every starter on this race will get an official Guinness Book-document to be a part of this (declaredly absurd) world record. The germans always makes the strangest world records? The lenght of the straight is planned with 27 meters! I need insane speed to win this race and to beat my antagonist Flo 'The Flea'!
I marked the off-set on my wheels
We also ordered the PN dish-rims in all types of off-set. From 0-3mm off-set. Off-set, for those who don't know, describes, very generally spoken, how wide a axle will become. Say a chassis is 10mm wide with zero off-set wheels. Than it becomes wider by the amount of 'off-set' a rim is given. 1mm off-set wheels increase the width by 2mm overall. 2mm by 4mm and 3mm off-set by 6mm overall. Does this make sense for you?
Beside the fact that you need a degree in rocket science to measure things like this off-set is a great feature to tune the handling of your car! It depends of the track, the speed and the grip-level, what off-set is the best. Less off-set on the front-wheels makes your car less aggressive when cornering and more smooth to drive. We will test this first, what wheels are best on the RCP-track. Flo's driving style is more aggressive than mine. My style is smoother (at times, when I have a better day …). We will have for sure different set-ups, because our driving style is very different. It will definitely hard to beat Flo. This student was a darn fast boy two years ago! I need to come up with an idea to stop him go quick! I marked my rims with an Edding permanent pen for better identification. You will look like an idiot, when you use different off-set wheels left and right!
So long, Michael
