Local indoor "off road" racing, help w/pit and car setup?

[flipwils11]

Hey guys, well I hadn't checked in for a while with the local RC shop that has indoor racing and they've added a 2wd buggy class on FRiday nights. To start out I thought I'd bring my son and the newly acquired craigslist B3 that I got him and I can act as his pit crew while we learn the ropes. If it goes well then I'd bring my modern/vintage gold pan I've been working on similar to other builds on this board.

Since I've been preoccupied lately with the gold pan metal shelfer build, I haven't spent any cash on batteries or chargers and definitely not the lipo/brushless gear I've been wanting to do. I don't expect us to be competitive but I don't want to get laughed out of place for being clueless. They're doing carpet with jumps and such, and their main draw on Fri nights is spec Slash racing and other truck stuff. So I'm guessing the B3 will need some kind of carpet tires, but what kind? As far as setup, currently I have this Novak XRS reversible sport ESC (link here) and this motor I bought at the local hobby shop that only has a couple of runs on it. It's an "epic monster" brushed motor, I think a stock motor. It has a blue can.

My main need are good batteries. To just get us going and not have to do the lipo equipment changes (fancy balancing charger, voltage dropoff add-on for the esc, plus the cost of packs) I was thinking of getting some 5000mah nimh's like this. Racers Edge 5000mah sport pack link (or something similar) How many packs do I need to run one car for a night of racing? My charger is this MRC Superbrain cheapo charger, which hopefully could get one car through the night if I show up with both packs charged. MRC charger

For a radio I have one of the Traxxas AM setups which should be ok I guess. Oh, last question. Since it's indoor and a relatively small track, I'm guessing I'll go with a relatively small pinion to maximize responsiveness and not worry about top-end speed?

Another group near us started doing short course truck racing so maybe if this goes well I'll pick up an SC10? To someone like me who has been focused more on the home built bashing stuff and the fun of getting rare vintage parts, the modern racing scene with Lipos and $300 Tekin ESC/brushless setups is intimidating!

[JK Racing]

Those RE batteries will take a while to charge on that MRC (especially that one, I have that one and I use it for my sons Mini T). For gearing, if it is the blue can stock motor, they seemed to be more RPM-ish than torque-ish (IMO), so start about 20/81 and adjust from there (that is a shot in the dark). I try to gear my brushed motors to hit top speed about 3/4 down the longest straight away. I will adjust from there if I need more punch (tight twisty track) or more speed (open flowing track).

When I ran NiMh batteries, I had one for each practice, one for each heat, and the best one for the main. They dont like being run more than once in a day. Dont overheat them when charging (hurts them) and after a run, they will be hot too (put a fan on them, cool them if you must charge them again).

Tires? Carpet is high traction so anything should work, may not be perfect, but it will work. Just watch for traction rolling, you may want to stiffen up the suspension a bit (either springs or heavier oil) and lower the car as much as you dare.

[tim.sanderson]

Carpet offroad! By far, my favorite class of RC is 2wd carpet offroad! You'll have a ton of fun with a slash, too.
Try this link for various B3 carpet setups:
http://www.petitrc.com/setup/associated/SetupSheetsAssociatedRC10B3.htm.
Most carpet tracks have very smooth surfaces, with nice big jumps. As a rule, it's good to stiffen everything up. I like to run 35wt oil w/stiff springs on my RB5.
If you can find them, schumacher tires are pretty much the best for carpet/AstroTurf. 'Yellow' Mini pins on the rear: (the blue compound will do you as well if you can't get yellows)
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/1_26_213/products_id/170808/n/Schumacher-Mini-Pin-22-1-10-Buggy-Rear-Tires-Yellow-2
Yellow slim stagger ribs on the front are by far the best tires, if you can get a hold of them:
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/1_26_213/products_id/170812/n/Schumacher-Stagger-Rib-Slim-22-1-10-2WD-Buggy-Front-Tires-Yellow-2
They're slimmer than 2wd front rims, so you can either trim off the wheels inner bead-thingy, or just let the rim stick out of the inner bead of the tire.
I use Schumacher's blue inserts all around, but you can get away with pretty much anything in the rears, and no inserts in the fronts. They are so tight/low profile, there is little to no give in them anyway.
It sounds like you're on a budget, so you may want to try running other tires. Many tires will work well for you, just don't use too soft a compound, as you'll burn through tires very quickly. Anything that's fairly hard, with a smallish pin will work very well. A guy I race with tried a set of Tamiya Durga kit tires with great success. I'm not sure what cars they come with... but I know the basic DB-01 chassis used them. They are a pretty hard/stiff compound, which proved to have both good traction and tire wear qualities. You can make pretty much any tire work awesome when you apply a traction compound 10 minutes before hitting the track for each race.
http://www.amainhobbies.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=traction+compound&x=11&y=12
It even gives new life to very worn tires. Use it on stock slash tires too. Apply to 50% of the inside half of rear tires, and only the inside 25% of the fronts to star with. If you need more grip or steering, add a bit more. If you're traction/grip rolling, use less. For indoor offroad I use either Sticky Fingers, Jack the Gripper or Niftec. Outdoors, (on and offroad) I use Buggy Grip. Indoors don't use Buggy Grip, Paragon or any other compound with 'winter green'. You'll choke everyone inside! (most indoor places outlaw winter green use. It makes it difficult for people to breath, even if just one person uses it)
Hope this helps. Like I said, I love indoor carpet offroad, so feel free to ask any questions. I'll be happy to help if I can.

[tim.sanderson]

Here's a visual of how/where you want to trim your wheels for Schumacher's 2WD slim staggers.

[flipwils11]

Thanks guys, very helpful. I followed the link to amain on those tires and probably will get a set (or two). The inserts thing is still new to me as I'm old school where you pried the tires onto the rim and were done.

I got the B3 running tonight in the basement and I must say with my old-school, gold pan snobbery, this thing is pretty nicely put together. I like it! The kit I got on craigslist was a sport kit so I installed ball bearings throughout and cleaned it up. It's also sporting some brand new hard anodized shocks. I'm sticking with the rear dogbones for now but I have MIP CDV's on order that I may install later.

I can't say we'll be anything other than a rolling chicane, but I think we might try out the racing this coming Friday night. We can only learn right? I will have to get another battery or two to make this a possibility. JK, your info was very helpful. I was close to pulling the trigger on that scratch and dent charger on tower but thought about it overnight. And I'm still thinking, but given the upcoming date of this Friday night I will probably just go to the local hobby store and get two more nimh's and try them out. I know it won't be ideal if I have to charge another one but I'll make sure to let it cool. They're running other classes to so hopefully that will allow enough downtime.

Even if we show up with all our gear and end up paying to practice but sit out the main event it should be worthwhile. My son is turning 5 in Feb so despite is quick learn on driving while bashing in our driveway and street, he still has a long way to go. This could be a disaster in fact.... Hopefully the B3 is strong.

[JK Racing]

I hear some RPM arms in your future...

[tim.sanderson]

If you're going to order from a-main, here's a link to the inserts I've always used:
http://www.amainhobbies.com/product_info.php/cPath/1_26_234/products_id/170822/n/Schumacher-1-10-Buggy-Ultra-Wide-Foam-Rear-Tire-Inserts-Hard-2
Like I said, for the front staggers, you don't really need to use inserts. But make sure you use some on the rears. If you don't, you'll wear them out prematurely. Sometimes you can get away without gluing schumacher mini pins to the rims, but it's best if you do.

[flipwils11]

Stopped on the way home at the local hobby place and they had a really good deal on the 4500 nimh batteries (I already had one I bought a year ago and paid over $40 for it when I first got back into this). So I bought 3. The yellow 3300 pack is ok as is the old blue 4500 so I think I'll be good.

Here are pics of the car, electronics, and batteries ready to go. I'll charge the batts the night before and see how we do Fri night. If it goes well then I'll order some tires per the recommendations in this thread.

[Brandon G]

Don't be scared of the Lipo, it is well worth the change. Nice thing, you only need 1 pack. Get a 4000mah hard pack from Hobby King for $30 or less. Chargers can be had for very cheap too. The "fancy" stuff you used to pay extra for is built in to most of the newer chargers now. Lipo cutoff is really not necessary for racing since you will probably never use more than 1/2 the battery packs capacity in one heat. Just be aware of how long you can run and how much Mah you need to put back into the pack for a specific run time. My B4 with a 10.5 brushless will consume 1800 mah in our typical 8 minute heat with about 5 practice laps before. And by all means, if you see the car dropping off, pull it.

I hope the XRS stays running for you. I got one when they first came out and it did not last long.

[flipwils11]

Well, thanks to JK's heads up, I got a very good deal on a lipo capable charger that is on the way. So I'll slowly inch our way toward that option. There certainly seem to be a lot of options for esc's and brushless motors, but reading up on balance boards and all the other stuff involved is still intimidating.

My son announced this morning that if he lost a race tonight he wanted to go home, so I have to coach him through the learning phase of this. I tried to tell him that we will very likely not win tonight but we're there to learn! And hopefully have a car that is still running at the end of the night.

[seth556]

Balancers? Easiest thing in the world, plug the battery in, look for the lights, and when the lights go out (doesn't matter if it's immediately or not) unplug the balancer. There's no strict guidelines like with ni-mh and ni-cad batteries. Just keep them balanced, charge them with the correct charger, make sure the esc has a low voltage cut off, don't stab them, don't put them in the freezer, pretty simple stuff. They just have had a bad wrap because if you do stab them, they don't react as kindly as a stabbed ni-mh battery.

Also brushless motors are just like a glade plug in, plug them in and forget about it. You don't really have to ever do maitenence on them and they last a very long time. I got my first brushless motor in 07 and had to just replace it a few months ago because I had a few bad landings putting all the weight on the motor and it came apart. Other than that it still would have been good as new.

[flipwils11]

Thanks for the advice on lipos and brushless! Lipos are probably more in our immediate future.

Had a really fun time last night! He took it pretty slow and the car did wonderfully and I have to say I really really like this little B3. I think I ended up having the built in servo saver too tight because I somehow stripped the gears out when I got a turn driving the B3 during some open practice. So that ended our night before the mains started. They were taking a 20 minute break to start the mains and the buggies were the sixth and last class so it would be a late night for my son (5 in February). So we left but for only $8 due to his age, we had a blast. I want to race the B3 now I think and based on his driving and what I saw with other kids there, he should start out in spec Slash. I think that is coming up now for his birthday.

I have this perfect gold pan CE (with chassis protector plastic bottom) that I plan to make into a modern racer per the mods documented on the vintage rc10 section, but after seeing the bashing they take with big jumps and the carpet setup inside I think this B3 is a bit better for a while.

Other teething issues we had were the tires were coming off the wheels because I bought this B3 off craigslist and the glue was dry rotted. Also the car was pushing pretty hard but when I drove it I could get it to rotate by braking hard into turns (but lost momentum). I found it also hilarious that some younger drivers (teenage) thought the B3 was the "original" RC10 and another thought it was some off brand buggy and didn't even realize it was an RC10. I felt old (I'm only 35!).