2013 SUMMER NATIONALS QUAILIFYING & ELMINATIONS

Hey all, Forgot to ask, how did green FED look, or go. Was it staying down (on track). Only way to know is to ask. This was it's 4th or 5th test session.

.............thanks, Peter

chriswfo your N/TF is a very clean well preppared car, but your custom wiper pickup is hurting your performance. I would dump that and go to braided pickups. I see you are using brush cups, I did not look at springs or brushes, you can do that. Check the wear pattern need to be even.

pceng, your green LL inline finally ran like it should. It was smooth going down the track.

sukafish your door slammers are nice cars, clean setup. They hooked up nicely. The cars did not have braided pickups these would have helped.

I was reading the debate on Mean Green early in the thread. Green/Green is great, Green/Gold is junk, all Mean Greens are junk etc., etc.. All of my setups are Green/Gold I do not own a Green/Green. All of my setups are Auto World. I only own one AFX 4gear chassis. I entered 2 M/FC and 2 T/F cars of those only 1 T/F car had polymers. Why? Not because I did not want to run them I just did not have enough. I went with what I had and built a super smooth car. #1 Building Tip: IF IT'S TIGHT IT AIN'T RIGHT!

Some of the cars I raced were so tight I am surprised they ran. Always look for the little things for example; tires rubbing, solder from shunts contacting track, bad pickup contact, gears to tight, to name just a few things I saw. How do you spot this? I use a piece of 6" track that is flat (it must be flat). I check out how the car sets, I roll it without mags to feel how gears feel. If there is a snag you will feel it. I lap gears too but this race I did none of that, no time. jjwallace was faster he did everything that was allowed balancing, lapping, polmers, etc..

For those of you that have no test track or no way to time. Get some straights with a 22 volt wall wart. If you have a Super G+ or Tomy Turbo put 8T pinion on it. Now put some silly foams on it. Run your 4gears against this car. When changing something on any drag car do one change and test. Did it help? If it did good change. Now do the next, and so on. You still won't know your times but at least you can tune to keeping up with a faster car.

Very good advice here. Most of the problems I saw could have been fixed by just looking at the car sitting on a piece of track. I have everything set before I ever go to the track to test. There is a piece of 6" track on my desk that I use just for that. Pick up adjustment has a huge effect on performance...even with braids. Pick up adj., chassis clearance issues, magnet height, car/body stance are some more things that can be looked at by using the track. 2 more things that I saw on several cars that Eagle did not mention.....grease in the gear plate and tires riding on the rails of the track. The grease is too thick to be used as a lubricant in my opinion and when narrowing tires to tuck under a body, be aware of the track rails. If your tires are riding on the rails, you are losing traction. I don't want to act like a know it all because I am not for sure. I did well this race, but it was very close. I still have a lot to learn. I have said this many times before....there is a WEALTH of tech information on this forum. General topics thread is a good place to start...archives is another. I balanced my arms for the first time ever for this race. I found info. on how to make an armature balancing tool on the forum. made it out of utility knife blades and some bolts and washers. Primitive yes, but it works very well and it cost me about $6.00. So go find that info. and build a rocket ship.

thanks again for the great RACE!!!!!!! also thanks for the info on the pick ups.

Chris Sukafish

Cars made it back today. Thanks again Robert, Alan and JJ for putting on a great race. Also thanks to our sponsors for the prizes - Hairy Canary, Tjetsgrig and Flame Masks!