Vintage AE Ad -- 1979 RC12E "Go Racing With The Team"

[clinehobbies]

In the last picture of the Radicon mag there is a plastic chassis in the lower rigt hand corner do you have any info on that type of car?

[WC1982]

Kent-
What year did you first start experimenting with carbon fiber layups for the chassis and did this development lead to any carbon fiber/kevlar or carbon fiber/spectra chassis layups?

Thank-you

dirtdiver

I didn't experiment much with custom graphite until the late 80's. In the early days we took what we could get, selecting different thickness plates from the production parts. For a long time I think all of the graphite for RC cars was reject material from aerospace production. By the time there were manufacturers willing to experiment with different layups I was mostly into oval and my on-track results were always better with a soft chassis so I was happy with the stock parts. Graphite seletion wasn't an area that paid off for me in terms of results, so I spent a lot more time on motors,batteries, charging, dynos, brushes etc.

[WC1982]

In the last picture of the Radicon mag there is a plastic chassis in the lower rigt hand corner do you have any info on that type of car?

Those were Lexan chassis that some of the UK drivers used. I don't remember the brand name of the car but I think they had problems because the weather in SoCal was extremely hot for that race which made the chassis flex too much.

[kenooze]

The lexan car was the first Schumacher 1/12 scale car, just before the C Car.

[uzzi]

Schumacher XL is the lexan car

[polarbear]

Also SG Italy also made a lexan chassis. probably called Gemini. THe rcmagvinatge ebsite has its image. http://www.rcmagvintage.com/reviews/retro/voitures/electrique/musee/sg/sg.htm

[polarbear]

In what years/circumstances that the wing on the motor mount was abandoned?

[WC1982]

In what years/circumstances that the wing on the motor mount was abandoned?

When the 12L came out we stopped using rear wings. Improvements in tire technology and the grip of the T-bar design gave us enough traction to run without them.

[Charlie don't surf]

Also SG Italy also made a lexan chassis. probably called Gemini. THe rcmagvinatge ebsite has its image. http://www.rcmagvintage.com/reviews/retro/voitures/electrique/musee/sg/sg.htm

My Kyosho Bluebird had a red Lexan chassis, don't think it was ever a competitive car though


Also to Kent and Bud, we have a Vintage On-road Nats in TN coming up in mid Feb if either of you
are interested-- http://2010von.rc50.com/

[Bud Bartos]

Yep, that's true about the pinion. I was TQ in stock and ran the same Danish coin on my pinions for that race. I think Bud saw me running them and did the same. My idea for doing that was an evolution of the superlight pinion gears that had just been released. I noticed that in stock the lightweight pinions made the car feel slow, and the heavier steel pinions gave me a lot more punch and faster lap times. Thinking "more is better" I used a reamer to enlarge the hole in the coin and glued it to the pinion. And it worked on those motors. I think it had something to do with the armatures being very lightly packed. That was just about the end of Stock class racing for the pros, so I didn't use the heavy pinions much after that, but I still have them in my pit box

danish coin.jpg

I never Knew You ran the flywheel pinion back then ???? I thought Parma was the only one running them. See what You learn after 25 years

[HotRodJosh]

What an awesome thread!
Great story about tire compounds....racing on carpet in AK, my pops and I found out that common lamp oil worked very well, heck, we had a bunch of it for keeping the house lit during power outages during the winter...haha!
It's cool to see alot of the racers guys like me looked up to during the 80's here ...

[mk4]

for info , here is my SG gemini with lexan chassis

[polarbear]

WC1982 Kent, it sounds to me that the lightweight resistor speed control was not in the product list of AE but Parma. Am I correct?

By the way, anyone knows if the standard size resistor now available from Parma nowadays (under slot car controller section) the same as we used in the 12E?

[WC1982]

Correct. Parma came out with the lightweight resistor before AE had one.

[polarbear]

Thanks Kent . So what do you think is the best mechancial speed control at big races??
I know and used the "Reedy's trick" by adding a wiper at the full speed position to ensure best contact. Some used a BIG micro switch there, some used the short side of the resistor to get more punch power..... and thicken the wiring...
While we have the various FET technologies in the past 20 years, was it a "one-best design" at that time in big races???


For the variant of chassis cutting of 12E, do you feel there are significant differences? I mean the standard "I" shape, "A" hole in front of motor; milk bottle shape and even DA graphite blank etc. I found the tightening of the front grommet was effective in the flexi difference rather.

On the other hand, the original AE chassis was made of epoxy plate while the Yokomo's was green FRP which was stiffer and heavier.