Weekend of Mod Truck

After killing another SXX speedo, I dropped in an old Sphere TC unit, with a fan, to control the 6.5 motor.  I raced mod truck Friday and Saturday night. 

After a bunch of wrenching to fix various broken parts I found after a few runs, I finished 4th in the A Friday and 7th in the A Saturday. My fastest lap turned on my MC Ions, a 20.9.  I ran the Friday main on gold pressure points and all day Saturday on gold barcodes. Not much difference in my lap times as thu were hovering in the low 21's. I'll need to make some setup changes as I'm losing a lot of time slowing down for the end of the straight to keep from spinning out in the sweeper.

Below are my race results from Friday and Saturday. 

Friday 

 

Saturday

T5m rear end completed!

Tonight I finished the rear hubs with cva's and built the diff and transmission. I might have over done it with the white lithium grease on the tranny gears as it sure doesn't free spin like my buggy trans. But whatever, I'm building this truck for mod!

T5m build progress

I was able to work on building my T5m some tonight. I was disappointed though as I've already run into a part which was machined wrong. One of my front axles has the wrong thread on the end for the wheel nut :(. I went ahead with the build though. I'll just need to swap out the bad front axle layer.

I finished assembling most of the suspension.  Next up is the diff and transmission.

The axle on the right has the bad thread on it :(

UPDATE:  I emailed AE and Nolan Anderson is sending me some replacement front axles.  Thanks Nolan!

Mod Truck, almost!

I tried to race mod truck. 1st run was ok, then I turned up the power for the 2nd run. I clipped someone's foot at the end of the straight and broke an a-arm and broke a shock mounting screw, losing a delrin shock bushing :(. I fixed that and the steering block kingpin popped out!  I fixed that and went out for another run, turning up the power again. Just as I was getting a feel for the handling, my speed control shut off!  I think something overheated as the case was pretty hot. I let it cool and tried to turn it back, but nothing. I guess it's done. Luckily I have more speed controls for mod at home, so I'll put one of those in and try again next weekend. 

I brought my stock buggy also, so I ended up racing that instead of mod truck.  Grip was pretty good for once!  Lol!  I finished 3rd in both my qualify heats, qualifying 3rd overall. 

In the main I didn't have smooth start and a few cars were able to make a pass on me. This bunched up at least 5 cars. We only managed 2 laps like this before someone up front crashed and cause a pileup. I got out last, but 3 turns later another pileup occurred and I missed that one and came out in 2nd!  I sped up a little to try and catch the leader, but he had at least a 5 second lead by this point. After I shorted the double back to the straight and crashed, the leader had a huge gap on me, so I just maintained 2nd for the rest of the race. At least I pulled out a good finish!

T5m build starts!

I finally started the build of my T5m. Then I realized I still need a Nova Slipper and could use a light motor plate to help with the install of my temp sensor for my 4px radio. Yup!  No more checking the temperature with my Exergen temp gun. I can just look at the display on my radio!  I think I can even data log the temps during a run, if I get a micro sd card. Hmmmm.

Yup. I cut the center chassis brace to have more options in mounting the electronics.

Dirt Refresher

I bought some Tire Refresher from JConcepts new Dirt Products line. This is a compound which refreshes the rubber of a tire to give it a new rubber feel.

It is not a traction additive or tire sauce. The bottle says so. 

The instructions say to wash the tire, apply this to the tire, let sit for several minutes, then wash off , and store or use the tire.  I plan to use the tire for racing after wiping off the excess with a wet rag.   Will my lap times drop?  I guess I'll find out Saturday. 

Custom iCharger charge cable

My buddy who works as an electronics technician, meaning he has very good soldering and wiring skills, built me custom 2s balancing cables for my iCharger 4010 Duo.

The cables are built with 10awg high strand count pure copper wire, with thick silicone insulation, 4mm bullets, and hidden balancing wires. Each cable is specific to the left or right channel on the charger, as the ports are reversed from one side to the other. Below is a pic of the right (Ch 2) cable. 

Update 4/8/15

The second cable was completed!  Below is a pic of the 2 of them side by side. 

I got both custom cables for $40, $5 cheaper than 1 Trinity Lightning cable.

Road trip to IERC

I managed to talk my friends into racing up north at IERC this week. I really wanted to spend the race bucks I won my last trip there.  I raced in intermediate stock buggy. 

I blew out in r1 crashing several times. 

In r2 I got myself back together and put in a run good enough to qualify 3rd. 

In the main I crashed a few times and fell back early in the race. But I calmed down and drove clean in the closing laps. Everyone else started crashing and I passed them and managed to finish 2nd. I could've raced in the expert main but they allowed zero time to get ready so I decided to just skip the race.  

I also got my new resistor bank to allow me to be able to discharge batteries up to 40A!  It works really well!

T5m is here!

My T5m was delivered yesterday!

I've also been slowly collecting electronics and parts to use with my new mid motor truck!

For electronics I picked up a Tekin RSX speed controller, Futaba R304SBE receiver, and Futaba S9352HV servo. 

I also picked up some aluminum rear hexes, JConcepts Finnisher titanium turnbuckles, and Avid shock mounts with Schelle bushings.

At some point I also want to pick up a JC Finnisher body.