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 !

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.

Last Round of MNC for 2011

i joined the 4th rouund at glenmarie last month got quite a good placing, the cars especially solid in the first heat where i was blasting past half of the field in my heat grouping, it was immsensly satisfying driving a car people said couldnt be raced and overtaking many of the newer cars.
At the end ended up qualifing last in B main.
Learned quite a few new things after that on suspension setup, and i used that knowlegde to test out my car at Klang Track. The car is even more easier to drive fast and has more steering now. i am even more confident of joining the last MNC race this time. Look at this video below to see how well my Kawada performs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdraFWHB1Y4

my new setup

Rear end, Old Yokomo white springs circa 2000, shoucks mounted on inner hole of arm, on middle hole of shock tower, antiroll bar medium. Camber -1.5, piston 2 hole, 30WT oil, ride height 5.5mm, droop 3mm. The car has now more rear roll becuase the shock mounting shifted to inner hole on arm. Its easier to drive then in MNC round 4. i think i can beat the sole serpent S411 in the coming race with my Kawada with this easy to drive setup. The car just rails throught the corner without losing rear grip now even until the tyres wear down. Now thats consistency !

Getting Ready For MNC round 2

MNC is Malaysia National Championship for RC car racing. Its basically the creme de la creme of races.
With the great handling of my Alcyon II Ultimate, i am now confident to join this open class race, in the boosted 10.5T class. The race is on 29th May 2011.
I bought a new Mazda 6 body, and going to buy 2 sets of sorex 36s for the race. I also will install one more of my own designed lightweight aluminium diff cup for the rear diff. I also installed the Tamiya Blue lightweight 46mm bones. I also must buy 1 more IP 5200mah 45C saddle pack to race.
The diff cups each save 20g, and the dogbones 10g. That doesnt seem much, but they lower mass in the most important area, the drive train. My Kawada should accelerate faster and brake faster too.
Take a look at some pics.

Yesterday bumped into Micheal Loh at the track, he is a very rich guy and can buy anything he wants. He looked at my Kawada and commented that my cars weight distribution is "off" . He also said that the Top Photon, Tamiya 417 and many other newer cars arent good designs. According to him only the Schumacer Mi4 is the best. The funny thing is, he did see me rear ending 2 Yokomo BD-5s in the fast corners, but did not say anyhting about it. If my Kawada is so bad, how come its able to carry so much speed into the corner and can hit those newer cars? He extolled the virtues of the Mi4 to me, and he showed me a buddies of his Mi-4 on the track. It was sliding at some corners. I pointed that out to him and he said it was the way he drives. He also said a fast car slides a little. That may be so, but i cant drive a sliding car. i want grip all the time, and my Kawada grips all the time. i drive aggresively too, i punch hard out of the corners, and brake hard coming into them, no sliding at all. So never mind Mr Loh, i will keep my Kawada. It just too much fun being different. You may even see me pull a surprise this coming MNC. Who knows....

latest updates, there are about 60+ entrants into the open class, and more than half are the best drivers with the best equipment in the country, lets see how it goes !

So i havent updated anything for months ..wha happended you asked ? Well the race went quite well. In the first heat with ratio 7.0, i managed to stay in 3rd until the end. I felt the car pushed too much, i did  set up the car for glenmarie, but it seemed the hard setting was still giving the car too much traction roll and understeer. But i wanst the only guy having that problem, the car felt sluggish when accelerating. In the second heat, i asked the Hobbywing Guru to tune my ESC for me, and he told me to use a ratio of 6.5. i also put in new tyres this run, and i led the race from 30s mark to the finish! eventhough i never got track burning time that landed me in the a Main, but in my heat grouping, i set the fastest time ever that nobody could beat that day, at 21 laps 5.17s. That is amazing considering all the other guys are using much much newer cars. i felt so damn proud at that moment. In the 3rd heat i screwed up by not checking the car properly, a front turnbuckle nut came off the front left wheel was wobbling, causing understeer, so that blew my chance of burying every one else. Eventhough i  DNF the 3rd heat, no one else

Yep, thats me, RAMA. 17 laps in 5.11. also set the fastest lap in my heat, excellent condisering my car is the only car that is from pre -2008 !!!

 in my grouping even came close to overcoming my second heat results. These old saddle pack cars really do have good balance!!

I ended up qualifying 24th out of 43, which was in the C main. Not bad for a 10 year old car!

In the final there was something wrong with the car, i couldnt quite place what was wrong, but the car kept sliding when i punched the throttle out of any right corner. ended up 6th in the final C.

After a week, i decided to clean up the car ,then i discovered why it was losing traction, the rear left arm was partially broken at the hub mounting, causing the arm to flex !!

Driving The SV-10 Alcyon II Ultimate

 I managed to test the Ultimate on friday night at titwangsa track in Kuala lumpur. it rained a few hours earlier so the track was cold, but mostly dry. Traction wasnt very high as there was very very little amount of tyre dust in the body after 3 packs.
With the new suspension, the car feels like it has a little more steering than before. It was very stable, but can slide at certain sections of the track, i beleive this is becuase i was using 40R tyres and the traction wasnt very high. But overall the car was very easy to drive, and braking was very stable once the tyres warmed up.
I did face a few problems though, at one time on the long straight the car suddenly went straight and wasnt controllable, it flew right into the middle grass barrier.
When i picked it up, i found that the rear shock tower came off from the bulkhead, it seemed like, since the turnbuckles are now very high, and the antiroll bars hard, the force of the suspension compressing tranfers it to the shock tower.
So now i used 14mm long screws instead of the original 10mm long to secure the shock tower to the bulkhead. Also the front kingpin loosened a few times, need to use threadlock here.

I then brought the car home, and re set the suspension with a thinner anti roll bar for the back, leaving the droop alone. For the front, i reduced the droop by shortening front shock by 0.5mm, previously 64.5mm, now 64mm.
then i rebalanced the cars wheel weights.
Tried it at glenmarie track on sunday, which is high traction tighter track. Once the tyres warmed up, the car handled very well, as well as before the upgrade, it was tough to tell if there is an improvement, but it felt like it worked well with the reduced droop, something the older suspension was not capable off. I also did notice  a little more steering at lower speeds.
Overall was really happy with the car, and i ran an impromptu test against a Yokomo BD5-E at the track. My Alcyon II Ultimate proved to be a formidable contender eventhough equipment wise i was overmatched.
Here is the list of equipment the other driver was using
Yokomo BD-5E (2010)
Sanwa M11X radio
Savox servo
Orca 6000mah 55C batteries
Orca ESC with turbo and Orca 10.5T motor

My equipment
Kawada Alcyon II Ultimate (2002)
Sanwa MX-3 radio
Sanwa ERG VR sevo
IP 5200mah 45C saddle pack
HW Ezrun V2.1 & Team Powers 10.5T motor

As  you can see, my equipment is mid range, and his was much higher range than mine, but i still manage to put up a very good fight and even over taking him a few times, with his car losing control a few times, but mine never lost control, eventhough my tyres were already showing therads by the last lap, and his wasnt.
Just look at this video and see for yourself
My kawada is the white Protoform Mazda 6.
http://youtu.be/DqT-zoy4_ak

Keeping an old car running

Ok , for all you guys who want to keep an old faithful running, its possible, you need to make some parts, or get some from other cars to fit. Here are some interesting facts.
1. Did you know the TOP photon 46mm bones can be used in the Kawada? Thanks to mr Joe O Connor who told me that, unfortunately i had to design my own diff cups because the 46mm bones werent long enough. i had to extend the diff cups by 2mm each side, and i also enlarged the slot from 2.1mm to 4mm to accept the wear yokes, to prevent wear on the diff cups.

2. DID you know that Tamiya and TOP CVD parts are completely interchangable ? Yes its true, i tried Tamiya 46mm aluminium bones on the rest of the pieces of the TOP CVD and it fits ! i bought 4 Tamiya aluminium bones to use only for racing to lighten up the drive.

3. Did you know that you can loop your own belts and they work just as well as the originals? For Kawada rear belt, ask the belt shop to loop a S3M 171mm belt, 3mm wide. For the front, its S3M 516mm, 3 mm wide.

4. For the layshaft pulleys, its possible to use other brands of 16T pulleys, but you need to machine the pin slot to go all the way through, i havent tried these yet cause i got enough pulleys.

Creating The Alcyon II Ultimate

If you have read my blog about the Ultimate, you would know that it was the last version of the Alcyon, and it had the most advanced suspension of the whole series. I always wondered how the improved suspension would work, so i bought the 5 componenents that i needed to upgrade this car. I have everything except the main chassis, but i prefer the original Alcyon II chassis that uses saddle packs, and i prefer the more centralized and inward weight distribution of this chassis. Since i already have part SX-102 bolt frame set, i bought these parts.
1 . SX-204 Front Shock Stay Ultimate
2. SX-205 Rear shock stay Ultimate
3. SX-59 rear Hub ultimate
4. SX-158 Front C Hub Ultimate
The parts came, and i installed them, but unfortunately the plastic knuckle couldnt go into the C hub, i compared the c hub against a normal Alcyon II c hub, and saw that the Ultimates was lower, so i had to buy SX-57 aluminium knuckle with adjustable roll center. had to wait another week for it to come.
Here are some close ups.






Overall view of the Alcyon II Ultimate. Notice the new C hubs, new shocks towers, rear hubs and camber links that are much longer than ever before on this car, as long as a modern car, and Kawada already thought of this in 2002 !

Excuse my toe !Notice the longer upper link, thanks to the new lower C hub that places the outer link directly on the kingpin vertically like today's cars, giving the longest possible camber links. Notice my own custom design aluminium diff cup and The TOP photom 46mm steel dogbone.



Close up of the shocks and the new shock towers

New rear shock tower, and new rear hub, notice the odd design, that extends the camber link over the tire, and the hole on the shock tower for the inner camber link is placed inside the bulkhead area, to have the longest possible camber links, in fact, previously i was using 20mm turnbuckls, now i have to use 32mm long !

rear shock tower view, notice the shock tower is not so high and uses less material, becuase there is no space to mount the camber links at the old postiion, now they are mounted above the bulkhead.



close up of the new rear hubs shock mounted as straight as possible.Notice the TOP photon bones and also my custom designed diff cups that is longer than the original Kawada diff cup so that i could use the TOP 46mm bones.



another close up of the front upper link and alloy knuckle

Now the question is, what will be the improvement on the handling with these new parts? Keep in mind i already got this car to handle formidabbly with the old suspension pieces, horizontal ball studs and short camber links, the car had a lot of traction and enough steering already. With these new improvements, i expect the car to have even more traction, with the need for less droop, also the car will roll less, and the roll center will change less.  Lets see how it goes this weekend. I still use the same shock oil, pistons, springs and anti roll bars as the last time before the conversion. I am pretty sure it will be an improvement over the old suspension, MNC round 2 here i come !!!