I ordered a "Special Operations Thunderjet 500" car from AMG Racing (Pete McKay) about 3 weeks ago and was wondering if there exists or how I would go about qualifying this car as one of the fastest T-jets in the world.

I paid nearly $100 but the car is well worth it. The chassis is dyed this really interesting blue color and all of the metal gears have been machined to make them lighter and smoother. even the axle gear has been lightened. The armature is from a specialty chassis (whatever that is) drag application and has been ohm matched and balanced by Nagura. The letter I have said that what they do is dewind the armature and then match the resistance from pole to ploe then machine balance it. The motor brushes are a composite and all of the springs and pick up shoes are gold plated for better current. There are these tiny wires that are soldered from the pickup shoes to tabs on the side of the chassis to keep the juice flowing. Even the chassis metal parts are gold plated too The magnets are polymers and are even matched the letter says. The wheels and tires I recognise from road race replicas and it has white letter tires which are very cool.

The body is the T-Jet dirt late model and it is held on by a brass clip that has been lightened too. The body isn't even painted, its dyed the same color as the chassis EXCEPT for the widows which are clear. I have no idea how they did that but the body is still semitransparant. It has only one decal, a number circle and a number 6, indicating this is the 6th car in this series they did.

I laid out a drag race course of 15' and ran it against some of my other cars. Against my other X-Tractions it left them in the dust, even my mean greens. I have an old school Auroura G-Plus and it even beat that. Then i ran against my Tomy Turbos and out of 5 races it won 3 of them. When you rev this thing up it sounds like a magnet car.

So back to my original question, anyone know what the world record time is for a t-jet on a straight course? I have about 25' in straights but I can get more.

There is a group of drag racers that have websites up. Do a search and you should come up with a number that can be worked out into ft. per second. Make sure you check the voltage and rules they run under.

Neos right,

There are a couple large groups of HO drag racers out there. HODRA, USDRA, and DrHOE are places to look. I personally don't drag much anymore- I sold my Maxtrax drag track because it wasn't getting used. Heck- I can't seem to keep a car on my 4-lane max...

Anyway- it sounds like you have a very nicely tuned and fast tjet. However- with the Unlimited HO classes running well into the 100 mph+ area, I think 115mph is the record now, I am sure Tjets are low flying rockets now too. I know "they" have been under 3 secs on the scale 1/4 mile (something like 20 feet and some change). I bought a dragjet for Alan Galinko a while back. Sweet car- stupid fast. Custom wind arm, super low ohm, shunts, wheelie bar, the whole nine. Mine was bought to beat any AFX and Tjet pulled from a visiting race box. But it is certainly not what the "serious" drag racers are capable of making... God only knows what they are up to now with tjets...

Cool car- I'll race ya.. LOL

Take care- Marc and Marcus

I don't think you have a world record holder. The record was used to go back and forth between Alan Galinko (ag&g) hobbies and Jim Scrig ( formerly yellow jacket performance) they both used neo motor mangets and the cars went over 70 mph. I've even had one built by Jim Scrig that went over 70 mph at an ECHO event in Lansdale, PA some years back. Be careful running it to much because the commutator burns out fast. Mine is presently sidelined for that reason. Check howorld.net Slugger has an article of how to build an outlaw tjet.

Lemme git this straight. It is built to be a dragster but it uses a oval track dirt latemodel stock car body? And it has to be something I've never seen before cause I've NEVER seen a dirt latemodel with windows. Is it a dirt car or a drag car? I don't quite get the idea of a dirt car turned dragster or a dragster turned dirt car? If it has a stock car body I don't see how the chassis/engine set up would be for turning laps on an oval..And to mount a dirt car body on a dragster is something I've never ever seen before. Gee, just when I thought I knowed sumpin?

I dunno if it was built to be a dragster, thats just what Ive been doing with it. The body is vacuumformed and the windows are part of the body. I didn't think to cut them out but the tjet late model is the body it came with. I have others that came clear I ordered from AMG. And I'm pretty sure its nowhere near 70 mph real speed but it is the fastest pancake arm car i've ever seen.

sjracer, I run on 12 volts so hopefully it wont blow up too soon. I ran some road course laps on my 4x8 this evening and it holds the road pretty good but it has this shot out of a cannon type accelleration. I just never knew of things like machined gears like this for something like the tjet. I guess I need to read more of the forum.

It sounds very fast. Only running on 12 volts won't get you optimum speed because of your magnets and I imagine your high performance arm ( did you ever ohm out your arm?). Most drag racer use be some where around 24 volts (two car batteries). If you run it on that you shouldn't be losing to anything stock. Check with the person who made it and ask him how fast it goes and on what type of power supply. Most people won't make you a car faster then theirs because there's prestige to being the world record holder in any class.

Dirt Model, late model, nascar, tubbed Camaro- who cares... If it goes fast in a straight line, as far as I am concerned it's a dragcar. ; )

As for machined stuff for tjets... obviously it exists, because you have it! I ran my dragtrack and currently run my 4-lane track on a AG&G power supply, 0-20 volts, 0-10 amps. That has been plenty for any car I run. I dial down the voltage to 18 for everyday use. That's the first time I heard of 24 volts in HO scale, unless the lanes are powered seperately. Some HO dragcars can pull a ridiculous amount of amps off the line.

Enjoy the "dragcar" you have... Years ago I walked into a Hardware store in Westland Michigan. Nankin Hardware on Ford Rd. (check it out if anyone lives close). In the back of the store is a great hobbystore. A candy shop for guys like us. I was at the time quite easily beating all of my friends with slip-on tires and the stupid fast car out of the box. You know- the car that came out of the package fast and you have no idea why it smokes everything you have. Anyway- one look in the display case of HO stuff and there she was. An SS Slottech Tyco (narrow chassis). Sponge silicone coated tires, painted lexan body, independent fronts, and ski shoes. I couldn't afford that one, but bought one a couple weeks later. It smoked EVERYTHING I had. I quicked realized there was a bunch more to HO slots that I didn't know even existed.
(I guess that's what happened to others too prior to the Internet- LOL)

I think you had that same type of moment... recently...

Enjoy- Marc and Marcus

I don't know if this record still stands. However, at the 2003 H.O.D.R.A. Nationals, Alan Galinko set a National Record in the Outlaw T-Jet class with a pass of .310 E.T. at 72.95 mph. Jim Srignoli also made a pass at over 70 mph in the Outlaw T-jet class. The track was a 1/64 scale quarter-mile
(20 feet 7.5 inches) powered at 24 volts.

Yoshi and I built 10 of those cars, and only 10. We sold them for between $89
and $109 each depending on the armature and all of them were screamers. His has
a drag arm from a 4 gear in it that Yoshi massaged and yeah, it was insane fast off the line, but it has a limited top end. That's what he wanted. It was not built to be a record breaker, it was built to be a regional thug, which I guess it has become in Cheyenne now. Goal achieved. The locally owned cars beat the snot out of other modified T-Jets here but they are not the end-all, be-all of the T-Jet world.

The 6 we built with mean greens were so much faster on the top end and were much better cars. I have one, Yoshi has one, John Champion has one and the other 3 were sold. We built one with a matched and balanced T-Jet stock armature but it was throwing wires so we put a stock arm from an X-Traction and it worked much better. All of the cars were tested on 12 volts and that's what we recommended to the buyers.

We dyed the bodies instead of painting them to save weight, the reason the windows were still clear is we went back afterward and carefully bleached them to remove the dye. Now the secret is out. All of them had the Late Model vacuformed body because that was the only body I have to be vacuformed for the T-Jet car, to my knowledge only the car Champion owns has a hard body on it, a DASH Falcon. I don't make a Pro-Stock vacuformed body but if there is enough demand I may.

As far as the resistance on the arms, it varied and that's proprietary to the series of cars, I won't discuss it. Some things need to remain secret.


Parts sources:

Gears and such: http://rt-ho.com/

BSRT gold plated parts: www.scaleauto.com

WhiteBear MotorSports (AMG) bodies: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/whitebearmotorsports/

[QUOTE=smokinHOs;2902349]Dirt Model, late model, nascar, tubbed Camaro- who cares... If it goes fast in a straight line, as far as I am concerned it's a dragcar. ; )

Agreed ! I've seen folks run milk trucks on 1 to 1 tracks in both drag racin and dirt ovals and once you seen that heck anything is possible LOL ! Everything gets it's start somewhere so just cuz ya ain't seen it don't say it ain't happened or ain't right. Right about now there's some Nascar guy secretly running right turns while another group is racin outhouses down hills in San Fransisco ! Who cares if it don't follow the norm or match what everyone else does. So a dirt body on a drag chassis running a oval track ??? Sounds like someone 's havin fun racin and who knows maybe that will be the next normal racin . Hey as long as the fun factor is there it's all good ! :freak:

Bear :wave:

Sounds cool! I know Pete makes some cool stuff, when do we get to see pictures?!?!?!

Marty I will get some pictures of mine up on my website later this week or by the weekend. These cars were expensive to put together, Yoshi and I made maybe $10 per car for our labor. We took the first couple for ourselves because they were the cars we made the mistakes on, tooling errors and such. Of all of them John Champion's is by far the fastest and the 4th one we made. But we learned how to use a whole suite of new tools to build cars for our local series. Yoshi and I have spent over $3500 on a lathe and other things for his tool shop.

Something else that will be on my WhiteBear MotorSports website will be how to make things like wheelie bars, nerf bars and roll cages out of beaded jewelry findings, the thin wire used to make ear rings. This stuff is very thin, very malleable and looks great when done right.

Nice to see you out here Pete! Looking forward to seeing what you guys have done up, it sounds like fun!

Marty

Great to see you back on the boards Pete!!!

Rich

Great to see you back on the boards Pete!!!

Rich

Not back, just felt the need to step back in and clarify misunderstandings and misinformation. I'm heading back to my little hole now. Anyone wants to know what I'm doing, join the WhiteBear MotorSports Yahoo group.

Got a link?

How is the 88CV coming?

sure do miss your posting on here Pete! lendell

One of my favorite T-jet drag winds
is 50 turns of 33.

Pete,

I have to tell you that it was you and your post on the Sequeia Speedway that drew me to this site.

I consider this the best BB online for our hobby. Look at some of the others and you'll see why.

There will always be a few political advocates that will raise there heads but you have to look past that and realize what impack you " Pete McKay " has on the BB. I know a lot of times things are said that isn't appropriate.

I miss your input and your posts. Your very knowledgeable and an innovator.

This BB will go on without you but you would once again be an asset on here. You have more friends here than you might think.

Needed said , Gonzo

Gonzo, I'm still around, I just don't post much anywhere anymore except on our local club's forums. I appreciate your comments, they actually bring some brightness to what has been a pretty dark few months in my life lately, none of it slot car related. But I still cannot let pass the comments of some misguided 14 year old from western Pennsylvania that thinks it's OK to pirate copyrighted material such as CD's and slot car bodies, and who thinks anything he can steal can compete with originally produced designs. He needs to be banned pemanently from here, and continually if he creates other accounts. I just have no tolerance for him, so it's best that I avoid him if he is allowed by the admins to remain here.

Sequoia Speedway is being torn down. I made the mistake of storing it in a garage in the heat of summer and it warped the racing surface. All of the landscaping and buildings I scratch built are being sold off elsewhere on these boards. The remainder will be trashed no later than the end of September, I need that space in my second bedroom for my daughter who will be attending Fresno State and staying with me. I will be making a new track in about a year, a modular track this time and everything will be rebuilt with the lessons learned from Laguna Seca and Sequoia. Yoshi has a modular track he bought from John Champion that is the best racing surface I have ever seen on any track, this thing is seamless and traction is amazing even with T-Jets.

I still vacuform, although business has been slow with the closure of the hobby shop in Bakersfield that carried my stuff on a retail level. Our HO programs have slacked off big time, we're now starting 1/32nd scale rally racing. I may build a bigger vacuformer and do some 1/32nd scale cars someday, who knows. In a couple of weeks he'll have his own domain for that forum and that's where I can be found.

As far as the worlds fastest T-Jet is concerned, yeah Chris your T-Jet is fast, and I'm sure you're killing people in Cheyenne with it. But if you're ever in South Lake Tahoe and run across a fat bald guy who looks like Santa Clause named John Champion, get ready to have your hat handed to you, because his is really the fastest.

'nuff said, sorry I had that political outburst. Things change sometimes, sometimes they don't. Either way, weither I post or not, I still look.

Well, I am still "Yellow Jacket Performance", and yes, Alan & I have exchanged records in the past. Great friendly rivalry.
Alan currently owns the HODRA record, my record still stands with USDRA and ECHO t/a. I have an unofficial run of .299 @ 80.05 mph during R&D while building. This run has been very elusive to duplicate due to the forces & variables involved. It's kinda tough keeping these little buggers in the groove while going that fast. Things also tend to break!!

Here's a video of one of my "slower" cars, it's a 1 ohm quad w/neo mags.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shheaNX5oN0

I'm currently building a fresh chassis. I will be taking my time and hope thing "go right". I've actually spun the upper motor shaft clean off during launch with one of these! They take alot of patience and perseverence! I'll let you guys know how it goes!

Jim Sgrig