Polestar Volvo wins the STCC
Congratulations to Polestar for winning the 2009 STCC drivers and team chamionship. The normal Volvo C30 for sale at Volvo dealers might not be a hit but the Polestar built C30 s2000 car is massively impressive when studying the details of that car. The 5 cylinder engine sound is great. And it is a full inhouse project by Polestar in Sweden.
With the championship decided in the second race of the double header at Mantorp, the final race of the season, this is a race that will be remebered for a long time.
October 3, 2009
RC Outdoor 2009 season summary
During the 2009 outdoor season we did quite a lot of testing and a lot of new parts were tried on the 416. Owerall the car worked wery well. I found a good base setup. Often only minor changes was needed to adjust the balance of the car. The experimental upper chassis did a small change to the car but no improvement in laptimes.
ETS Andernach 2009
The ETS finale in Andernach Germany was the highlight of the season. Arriving well prepared with quite a lot of testing and a well prepared car hoping for an improvement of the result from last year. The car worked very well from the beginning and did not have any big disadvantage in the power department this year. But in the end the result was very similiar to last year when comparing the gap to the TQ result. A little bit disapointing as the car was good and I was driving better than in any other race in 2009, but the level of the drivers in this race was very high. But the most important thing is that the ETS races are great fun, RC racing cant be much better than this.
There are many areas of improvement for the outdoor racing season 2010. Improving the handling characteristics of the chassis with LIPO batteries, need to put some focus on the braking that is becomming more and more important. And there is some new suspension under work as well plus the 416 X that soon will be out.
October 1, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 7
ELECTRONICS INSTALLATION
ESC: GM Genius 120. Endless choise of diffrent motor mapping possibilities even if it is not very user friendly. A lap top is needed when making adjustments. But it is still one of the best performing ESCs for prostock even when using any of the standard programmes. Brake feeling could be a little bit better though.
MOTOR: GM 10.5 for the Prostock class.
BATTERIES: GM LIPO 2 35C 5000 mAh with tungsten plates glued to the bottom http://supertec.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/weighted-lipo-batteries/
SERVO: FUTABA S9551
TRANSPONDER: MTRONICS PTX
BODY: PROTOFORM Mazda Speed 6
RADIO: FUTABA 3PKS 2.4 Ghz
CHARGER SYSTEM: GRAUPNER ULTRA DUO Plus 40 No. 6443 + GRAUPNER 12V/25A 300W POWER SUPPLY No.6460
OTHER SPECIAL FEATURES: Tungsten chassis ballast weights, Non reversable temp indicator labels.
Non reversable temperature label shows the highest temp reached on the motor can.
Tungsten used as ballast weight. Lot of weight in a small volume which enabels precise placement of ballast in the chassis.
August 17, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 6
CHASSIS PARTS
Carbon fibre steering brace. This is custom made to be able to remove the aluminium brace to avoid interference with the upper deck like the aluminium brace do, if you run it disconnected that is normal, at least outdoors. 
EXPERIMENTAL UPPER CHASSIS 
All these carbon parts we received within one week after sending the CAD files to Fibrelyte, pretty impressive! Made from similar stiffness material as the standard Tamiya 416 WE chassis.
The first upper chassis is same as standard but with a cut out at the rear.
The second chassis is shaped in a way to add more flex around front of the motor position area. Both these are experimental parts just to see if their effects can be felt at the track.
July 24, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 5
ALUMINIUM SPRING RETAINER
These we use because they should keep the springs better aligned in the center of the damper rod. If the spring is not well aligned it might add horisontal forces on the damper rod trying to “ bend” it and I belive that can add friction from the damper rod sealings. Trying to remove friction and stiction is one of the main points that full scale racing damper manufacturers focus on in their development work.
FLOURINE BALL CONNECTORS
These minimizes the friction from the connecting points for the damper on the damper mount and on the suspension arm.
July 9, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 4
RACE SUSPENSION
We have pre assembled new suspension components that will be used only for the races. We will replace the complete front and rear uprights together with the driveshafts to limit running on these important components. The uprights are built with Square titanium wheel axles, TRF flourine sealed bearings, aluminium driveshafts front and rear and low friction lubrication for the driveshaft joint. For testing we will use the normal uprights and steel driveshafts but for races we replace them with these complete uprights.
July 8, 2009
Testing update
The recent high outdoor temparetures was a good opportunity to do some hot weather testing with track surface temperatures reaching 45 degrees. Most of the testing was done with the same specification of Sweep tyres that are used in the ETS series. We found that the tyres have a very high wear rate which is worrying as only one set of tyres is allowed for qualifying. But we expect the tyre wear will be less at the Andernach track. The Sweep tyres have a lot less grip than the normal LRP 27. The car is understeering more with Sweep but the grip level is high at Andernach so the balance might still be quite good there with the same set up.
July 5, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 3
SQUARE TITANIUM WHEEL AXLES
These are light only 2,3 g / pc. Less than half the weight of the standard axles. Lowering weight this far out of the corners of the car should improve cornering speed and steering due to less polar moment of inertia. Soon to be tested to see if its effect can be felt on the track.
July 5, 2009
Building the 416 for racing part 2
RIEMON TITANIUM TURNBUCKLES
We have been searching for these type of turnbuckles for the upper suspension and steering arms for a long time. The Riemon Speed Works titanium turnbuckels are a lot easier to adjust because they have a hole in the middle instead of the hexagon part that is normally used on turnbuckles. These have already been on the car for some time and I’m very happy with them.
June 30, 2009
Building the TRF416 for racing part 1
The Tamiya TRF 416 WE out of the box is already a high level competition chassis but we try to improve it further. Lots of new parts in preparation for the upcoming races. Follow the building process as we prepare the 416 for competition.
June 28, 2009
