rcLazy LiPo Weight ™
rcLazy LiPo Weight (tm)
Using LiPos in a touring car has one big downside: they’re too light.
So you have to add masses of weight to them. Usually the shortcut is to stick weights all over the cells.
But, if you then want to use the cells in a different car, that needs different, or no weights at all, then you’re stuck.
Until I came up with my amazingly simple rcLazy LiPo Weight ™!
Underneath, simples.
How to make one:
- Get a lump of thin lead sheet, cut it a bit shorter than your lipo, then cut it to width by weight, I needed about 150g.
- Then, just fold it over the top of your lipo, perhaps with an extra fold on the outside edge to make it fit.
- Cover it with your favourite Fablon. (I do have a roll of very choice Smarties fablon, but I decided carbon look would be more acceptable by the Touring Car fraternity.)
Negatives
It’s not perfect, the weight it pretty high up in the car, and a bit towards the centre perhaps, but, it’s easy, you just clip it on, tape it down and race.
And, if you’re running a fat lipo, it might be a tight squeeze under your top deck.
Oh, and remember, it’s very bendy, so don’t squash it.
Written by simon.
SLCC Round 3 – Yateley
rcLazy.com Team Including Tiny Mascot!
The whole rcLazy team was out in force at Yateley Model Car Club. at the weekend for round 3 of the Southern League Challenge Cup. We had fun, laughed at blue bits, fed chips to small children and went reasonably quickly.
The track is very similar in size to Bashley, a longer straight, and a KILLER downhill chicane. They’ve lowered the kerbs in this chicane for ‘09 thankfully, and it’s a lot safer, you get it wrong and you just end up out of shape, on the wrong line, slow, or on the grass. But you don’t end up in the air, or with a broken car.
New Shell Showing Battle Scars Already
Saturday was setup day, my 416 worlds was almost perfect on kit setup, I just changed springs. The rest of the Tamiya guys spent hundreds of laps trying to find the perfect setup, and ended up near mine! I added a bit of anti-dive on Sunday morning following their advice, thanks for all the hard work guys!
We did okay in the end, scattered around the A and B finals in all classes. I qualified 3rd in Stock, and had a nice second final, getting up into the lead, before throwing it away, falling into the grass and letting Scott Hauser through for the win!
Rob 'Sandbagger' Howett Posing Like A Pro
Some of us even got some trophies, Rob Howett resorted to sandbagging the pro-stock B final to show us all how to smile at a camera, hold a trophy, hold a car, ensure team logos are clear, all at the same time. Ol’ dog Howett gets it right every time! His B final winning performance would have been good in the A-final, too late in the day mate!
Ed Clark and Mark Townsend made the A final, and Mark had a nice battle in the second leg for position two. Sam ended the race in front of Mark though. We doubt Mark would have been up there if he hadn’t rebuilt his diff minutes before the final. Ed suggested he did it about 28 hours before, but of course that would have been far too sensible!
A great weekend, not perfect by any means, but being rcLazy isn’t about being perfect, it’s about not trying too hard!
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- rcLazy.com Team Including Tiny Mascot!
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- New Shell Showing Battle Scars Already
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- Mark Townsend Trying To Pass Sam Martin
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- Ed Clark Hand Painted rcLazy Sticker
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- Ashley Finch Sits It Out…
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- Jason Findlay Shows Bottom of Car
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- Reuben Manning Loses Feeling in Right Hand
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- Matt Sedgley Gets Newtonated In Sponsor Shirts
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- Rob ‘Sandbagger’ Howett Posing Like A Pro
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- SHMCC Team – Naughty Ed!
Group photos courtesy of Jason Moggridge.
All other photos thanks to Dan Pitter of Blink Studio.
More event photos at: YMCC
How was your SLCC Yateley? Comment below and tell us all about it!
Written by simon.
Building a Tamiya TRF416 Worlds Edition
After a year or so of running used Tamiya’s, I decided it was time I splashed out and got myself a new car. There was only one choice really, the Tamiya TRF416 Worlds Edition.
It’s clearly a very quick chassis and it comes with pretty much all the bits to be very competitive right out of the box.
Finding one in stock was a very different matter. Tamiya stopped production for a while, but it transpired they did another batch, so I found one of the new batch online. Ordered and it was with me a few days later.
It went together like a dream. Being a man, and very familiar with Tamiya builds I didn’t really follow the manual, well, I did, but not the exact order of the manual.
I added JAAD ceramic balls and thrust to the diff, Tamiya don’t seem to do a ceramic option, and I wouldn’t run steel balls since experiencing ceramic, and they’re not that expensive.
I also added low friction ‘V’ parts top and bottom on the dampers, with fluorine shock shafts. Mainly because I had them in the spares box, so it made sense to add them from the beginning.
The only awkward bit was the rear wishbones, they seemed a bit fat, I realise now I should have trimmed them a little, but instead I removed a 0.5mm spacer, and shimmed the gap back up. I’m sure after some use the 0.5mm will go back in there happily.
All the standard screws were used, they’re steel, but we’re underweight these days anyway, so no worries there. And some blue Tamiya threadlock was used with all screws that go into alloy, that’s pretty much all of them as there’s sooo much blue on this car. The weak threadlock prevents the screws loosening, but enables them to be easily removed, it just fills the gaps in the threads a bit.
Some photos are below of the build. I forgot to take photos as I was nearing the end, but some photos is better than none I figure!
First time out I ran it with electronics from my old car, for a direct comparison ‘chassis only’ upgrade. And I knocked 3 seconds off my personal best at Bashley, including a roll that cost me another 3 seconds. It really is quick then!
I was staggered how much more corner speed it carried, I built it pretty much with kit setup (a few very slight changes), and the grip was amazing, it turned in, carried the speed, and you could get back on the throtttlw very early. ’Glorious’ was how I described it on the night, whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat.
If I gave up racing now, I would still say it was worth every penny [cent]!
The final pictures show it with the Team Wave RB50 that was chosen to go in this car, a ‘generation 3′ speedo, with timing advance and ‘full-throttle turbo’ functionality at a bargain price. I look forward to fiddling with all the settings.
I think it’s an ideal speedo to squeeze more power out of the stock motors I like to race, whilst still being able to run 10.5 and mod motors should I desire.
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- Shiny Shrinkwrap
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- Lovely Label
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- Bags o’ Fun
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- Picture Book
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- Hang the Superglue
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- Blue is Best
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- One Down…
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- Motoring On
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- Note the Lengths
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- Spool Included
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- Added Ceramics
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- Not Difficult
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- Driven by Belts
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- Note Missing Screws
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- Rear View
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- Front View
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- Electrics Fitted
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- Race Ready
Written by simon.
Planning for the British Summer
Well, having had our glorious british spring, so the Summer is here, and we all know what that brings… rain!
Obviously, electricity and water don’t mix too well, but given we’re British, we’ll race whatever! So how to keep things from going pop?
Well, on display at the first national were a lot of different methods to keep water out, and magic smoke in…
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- Duct Tape – the choice of champions…
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- Fish food pots are a popular choices!
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- Resorting to brushed is also an option…
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- Custom made ATL fuel cell styley!
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- Maplin box, with metal base plate… & Snorkel!
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- Maplin box again, with snorkel & external connectors for a rapid change…. if you plug them in right!
Written by ed.
Nationals Update – Numero Uno
So the dust has settled on the first national at West London, and my report for RACER has been submitted… so now time to sort out my Lazy post (kinda fitting it’s taken so long for me to post, given the name, hehe).
Ok, so new season, whats new?
To be honest, not that much, all the usual suspects were up there, even with the large number of team changes going on.
In Mod, you still had Moore, Grainger and co up front. Interestingly, it seemed to take Andy a while to get into his stride, he came from being a bit middling on early sat, to TQ the final round on saturday, and then taking all three finals… maybe a case of removing some rust from the system 
The HB proto looked good on new and old tyres, as did Glenn Domans 416, if anything it seeming more comfortable on older tyres, and spot on in the wet!
Chris G was very quick in the first two rounds with the Mi4, some 6seconds clear of the filed! However, he didn’t have very good finals, managing to have an incident in the first turn in every one! The car also seemed to struggle a little on old rubber, a bit of similarity with RedBull F1 car.. a bit too hard on the tyres!
ProStock was pretty much a Schumacher affair, with 5 out of the top ten being the british make, albeit all bar one being Mi3.5’s. Rob West and Jay Westwood were the two to watch in this one, Jay having a bit of a mare on saturday (and almost going home!), but coming on strong in the finals to take the win.
So onto my own experience… well, it was a weekend of frustration really. In the first Q round, it was going ok until the rain arrived in the final minute, making the track really greesy. Was quite happy to see that despite that, I was 28th in round… however, it the weather did effectively loose me one “new tyre” run, as you have to start on new boots
Second round, new boots again, and put in a good time to go 25th, although made a few silly errors. Third round, final set of new boots (sunday was forecast to be wet wet wet, so thought it best to use them while I could!), and went 23rd in round, although again with some silly mistakes. Still, couldn’t be dissapointed as I was lying in 16th overall overnight!
A KFC, 3 Buds, and a kip in the car later… it was sunday morning, and suprise suprise, it was damp!
However, by the time everything got going there was potential for it jut to be damp, rather than fully wet. Being in heat 6, I was paying close attention to the weather… lo and behold, it changed it’s mind 5mins before the run. Cue a rapid change from dry electrics to wet ones… and thats when I had the biggest issues of the weekend! Managed to pop the negative wire off the battery plug by reverse connecting it in a rush (something I’ve now solved with a bit of red heat shrink rather than black). Thankfully the speedo still worked, but with no soldering iron on, it was a case of tape it in place and hope.
Amazingly, it lasted 3mins, until I barrell rolled it out of the first turn, and with the tape being damp, end of run. I was hoping though that I would have got a score in, but on returning the pits, discovered that I’d also plugged in the PT the wrong way round, so it wasn’t counting…. chalk that up to the rush before the start 
Anyway, the final qualy the rain decided that it wanted to make a proper job of it for a short time at least, with puddles everywhere. With all the wet electrics in the car, a bit of an increase in ride-height, and wet tyres on, away we went. quite simply, the car was great in the wet, ending up 3rd in the heat, and 15th in round! If only I’d done the same in round4.. who knows.
With the scores on the doors, turns out that some people had had even more inconsitent meetings (I always seem to fall foul of this in Rnd by Rnd), and despite counting a 25, 23, and 15.. I was pole in the D, dropping 15 places from the overnight, grrrr!!!!
The finals were fun though. I struggled a little in the first one, mainly as other guys around me had saved a set of new tyres for the finals. Despite how good the car was on the older boots, there was a deffinate advantage to running new ones. Posted the fastest lap time, but just pushed too hard, and ended up 3rd.
Second final was unbelivable really, impressed even myself. Got the most fantastic start ever, and the car just was working exceptionally well from the off. First lap was 2s faster than anyone else, and by the end of the race I was 4 up the road, even after having backed off a bit in the final minute. And if I thought that was good the next final would be some of the most fun racing I’d had in ages…
Basically, the rain came back right before the run, not heavily but enough to make the track very damp. If I’d have known how bad it was, I’d have gone with wet tyres (and maybe even starting at the back), but at the time it didn’t look too bad. BIG mistake :p It was very obvious from the first turn, when the car just decided turning wasn’t going to happen. Sorex32’s and wet tarmac are not comfortable bed fellows.
However, it turned out to be very fun, as for lap after lap, myself and Steve Lander were battling for 1st. I was quite a bit faster, but couldn’t find a way past, Steve making it really difficult. I did manage to get by cleanly once, but had taken a bit too much kerb, and was requested to give the spot back. Ended up finishing 2nd, but it was someone else’s turn to have a PT issue, as Steve’s only recorded nine laps, and I bumped up to 1st, winning the D, wOOp!
So a nice new plastic trophy on the shelf (hmm), and on to Halifax. Knowning roughly where I am now, I reckon a B final place at one of the rounds is the target… I just hope it’s dry!
