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.

ETS 2009 Gallery

 

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.

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.

  

New TRF 416 experimental chassis

CAD pictures of two new experimental upper chassis soon to be tested.

 

 

LIPO battery weights

With the introduction of the 100 g lighter LIPO batteries for this season ballast needs to be added to the car. The ultimate solution was to use LIPO batteries that have a flat bottom and glue heavy tungsten plates to the bottom of the battery.

The tungsten alloy material used has 60% more density than lead and stonger than steel making it very suitable for gluing the plates to the battery. Formula 1, Le Mans prototypes etc. use this material as ballast because you get a lot of weight in a small space. 

Total weight for 6 plates is 85 g and the complete LIPO battery weight is 370 g with car center of gravity as low as possible.

Gluing the weights. Using a chassis plate as template for positioning of the weights.

Center of gravity as low as possible.

Same weight as a 5 cell NIMH battery.

TRF 416 Testing may 2009

Outdoor testing started early this year with the first runs at the local track in Vasa already in April. Starting with the TRF team standard outdoor setup as a base together with lessons learned last year, the car has so far been handling a lot better than last year so I’m confident that I will have a really good car for the ETS race in Germany this summer.

Testing in may

Clubrace 2nd may

August September TRF 416 testing and racing

During August I concentrated on trying to find ways to get higher cornering speeds out of the 416. Laptimes improved so I need to work more in this direction for the future.  Also different bodies were tested because that was one are area that I did not focus on earlier in the outdoor season and found some improvements.  This shows that it is important to focus on all the essential parts of the package to get the best performance out of it.

In September I have been doing some experiments with LIPO batteries and that battery technology is very promising and I hope it will be allowed in racing very soon. 

Testing in late August sunset

July testing and racing events

Testing in July was a bit limited because of rainy weather.  I learnt a lot about the car during the ETS series race so for now it was just a question of making small adjustments according to track conditions and finding the right balance for the car. Race result was not as good as it could have been because of some experimenting with bodies that did prove to be the wrong direction.

July / August 2008 TRF 416 set up

ETS Andernach

27-29 June I attended the 9,5 turn class at the Euro touring car series final in Andernach Germany. Drivers from 15 different countries including most of the fast TC drivers in the world, great track and facilities and nice atmosphere did make this a race to remember.

With limited testing before the race and the challenging Andernach track it was important to make most out of the practice rounds on Friday. The track did have a lot of grip so diffrent setup was needed for this track. The cars handling was not very good in the beginning but after some experiementing with damping and springs I improved the car and in the end of the day it felt very good and I was ready for saturdays qualifying rounds.

During saturday I made further small changes to damper positions, droop and experimenting with diffrent upper decks. During qualifying the car did felt extremely good. The driving was good too but still I was 1 second off the pace. The level in this race was completely diffrent than what I normally is used to and I qualfied on 31st place. The final was fun with some good racing. 

The racing in the mod A final was extremely exiting, RC racing cant get much better than this.

The most Important improvement to the cars set up at this race was the use of HPI springs that really improved the car.

Andernach 416 set up here.

Red RC race coverage http://ets.redrc.net/2008/06/hara-wins-ets-finale/

This is by far the best RC race I have been to. I will most propably be there again next year better prepared.

June TC testing and racing

Continued to make progress on the car during the next Finnish championchip rounds. One of the more significant improvements was to use the longer suspension arms, which generated similar laptimes but the car was easier to drive and not feeling so much on the edge in corner turn in. Generally long suspension arms are not used much on the 416 now but set ups are individual and and different driving styles require different set ups. 

Rear toe in was mainly used to change the balance. Also different damping and springs were tested constantly both to change the balance and generate more grip. Played around with different chassis stiffness to try to generate more grip. Generally the cars balance always did feel very good and I could concentrate on making adjustments to try to get faster laptimes.

First off road race

With no testing expectections were low and the two day race was seen as a practice and testday. I used a similar set up to Hupo Honigls TRF501X euros set as the base to work from and the car felt extremely good already from the first run. I experienced some teeting troube in the beginning but otherwise the car was very reliable. I only broke two suspension arms and bent a hinge pin during two days of racing.

The driving and especially clearing the jumps were very difficult and i think my driving only got worser through the weekend so more practise is needed.