This past weekend I basically blew everything off to concentrate on the rebuild of the Tamiya. As I've been mentioning with increasing frequency the past few posts, it really was in dire need of some TLC so I figured that I wasn't going to find time for that anytime soon, not if I was being a good student and focusing on my work entirely anyway... so, I made some time and took the blue beast apart and cleaned and rebuilt basically everything on the car.
No wishbone mount was left un-greased, no shock un-vacuum pumped...
No bearing un-cleaned and un-re-oiled, no whe- you get where I'm going with this right?
I made it look all shiny and blue and new again. Cleaning my car always makes me happy, I get a great feeling of satisfaction out it. This is especially true it you get a good result the next meeting you race it at. I didn't really.
Well no, that's not fair, it wasn't a bad meeting by any means but as I now know the car is capable of winning at MMCC I feel like it should uphold that tradition every week. Unfortunately, it's usually the driver who lets the machine down, rather than the other way around.
I'd made some changes to the setup during the rebuild, I'm now running a narrower front end (back to kit-standard), I lowered the rear roll centre by 1mm and there's some stiffer shock oil in there as well (MM550 up from MM500). I was trying to get the car to turn in a little more without me having to push it so much. I certainly achieved that, so that was... well... an achievement.
Trouble with all of this at a club meeting is that it made it quite hard to drive until the finals when the grip finally came up a bit - then it felt really good I think. Silly mistakes, clipping corners and the like, are what prevented me from a better finishing position. Anyway, the changes I made bode well for when I'm next at a bigger meeting and serve as a lesson for what setup change does what. Admittedly I changed quite a bit in one fell swoop, but the end result was essentially what I expected.
I finished 3rd in the A final at MMCC which is a good result for me I think, seeing as I spent what felt like years top of the B final but never quite making the A. Now, I'm starting in it for qualifying and more than holding my own in finals on a weekly basis, which feels good.
Oh, I almost forgot! Another addition to the car during the rebuild was a Xenon Spur gear, which has the correct holes for my layshaft meaning I could finally fit all 4 screws in and get rid of my spur wobble woes. On an even more important note, all the gears in the car are now white! Good times!
JNext race meeting is the final round of the 12th National series at Chesterfield this weekend. Expect the usual lap and time sheets to be posted. And lots of pictures hopefully, as I had an offer of help with pit photos from Vince Formosa after the Maritime National. Should be a laugh. See you then.
