Saturday 31 March 2012

How to reduce maintenance on your Kawada Alcyon or other touring cars

Everytime you run your car especially outdoors, there is a lot of tyre dust generated and sand will also stick on  your moving parts especially the rear.
You rear ball diff will get gritty by the second or third pack, and your rear shocks will have its oil contaminated. Just have a look at your rear shocks shafts after every run. Notice all the black tyre dust sticking to it? Here are a few tips to extend our time of maintenace so that you dont have to take apart the car so often.
1. Use ceramic diff balls. Buy ACER racing ones, they are really good. The Alcyon uses 1/8" diff balls. I use schumacher diff grease as they are better than associateds.
2. Cover your diffs. Kawada makes foam covers for your ball diffs. if you can get them, buy them. I think the part number is SK-27? If you cant get them , buy some thin sticker sheets from car acccesory shops. then cut into a circle to fit on your ball diff pulley sides. a middle hole must be cut to allow the diff outdrives to go through. Now you have stopped dirt from getting into your main diff balls.
3. Get some dishwashing sponge. Cut a small block piece, and stuff it into the hole where the thrust bearings is housed. if the sponge is too big, trim it some more. Ideally it should cover the access for the thrust bearing screw. This will seal off your thrust bearings from dirt and keep your diff feeling smooth for at least 10 packs. so far i have run my car 3 packs and they are still as smooth as the day i cleaned them. Compare this when it was withouth this sponge, after 2 packs the diff is gritty.
4. Coat you shock shaft with associateds green slime. Do not place them on your o rings as this will cause your shocks to stick and jam up. When rebuilding your shocks, put very little green slime on the shcok shaft then slide them into the oring. They should move smoothly. Next put in your shock oil. Tyr moving your shock shaft again. if they are smooth, continue with the rest of the process. If not drain the oil and remove the green slime. try putting less green slime or put then only on the outside of the shock shaft, after you pushed them through the o ring.
5. Buy ceramic bearings for your car. i use ROCHE ceramic bearings that were for the Tamiya TRF416. they fit perfectly and are cheaper than other brands. They remain smooth longer and the teflon seal keeps out dirt much better than metal seal.
Just buy doing these few simple steps, you have cut down your maintenace time tremendously.

Tuesday 27 March 2012

Shorty Packs a way to reduce weight

As it is My Alcyon II weighs in about 1490g with a PT and IP saddle packs. The IP Saddle packs weigh at 280g. The turnigy saddle packs weigh at 260g. I just discovered shorty packs which are 97mm long, 47mm wide and 25mm high. that means they are the same dimensions as one saddle pack except they are longer They also weigh at 200g only. Last night i did a mock up shorty pack placement on the car and checked the balance. It was enlightening, i still get good 50-50 LR balance, and the FR balance is only biased towards the rear by 31g. And the cars running weight is brought down to 1383g  even with PT at the front ! That is amazing ! The less Mah on the batts shouldnt affect performance much, but the weight decrease should help the car use up less tires and also use less turbo. I am in the process of negotiating a 3 shorty pack lipo deal and if it goes through, i will have them to test on my kawada. i will probably have to use much softer springs to compensate for the weight loss. I can actaully place some weights at the front bumper to bring the car up to legal wight of 1400g and laso bring the weight bias FR to perfectly 50-50 !

Friday 23 March 2012

What Happened to me?

Well those of you who follow the blog will wonder what happened since november that i have not posted anyhting at all? Well in preparation for the final round of MNC, my Hobbywing V2.1 ESC decided to give way. it would not respond at all. i Got so dissapointed and having not enough cash, i went to my optima mid for rc fun. I only sent the ESC for repair in early february, and until now i still have not got any replies from HW. But its ok, i heard lots of horror stories about HW servicing, some people never get their ESC back. But its sitting here being useless, might as well i try to repair it. If it still doesnt caome back in amonth i will buy an ORCA ESC with better local support. I had lots of fun with my optima mid these past few months and learnt some things that i can transfer to the kawada. will let you all know what are those things soon.