i am so torn on the fastlane front a-arms, but i am not a huge alloy fan on my rc trucks. on a tc i dont mind, couse they dont get bunged up very often. i do like alloy parts to add strength. i used the alloy kick plate and hindge pin braces on the evader.

If you go with the alloy arms you pretty much would have to go with the kick plate and then the shock tower. Withut either of those all the enrgy from a wreck would go into some part that was a pain to replace. A shock tower takes almost as long as a bloody idler gear! At least the way I have my pede set up it does, what with Losi shocks and the like. Not much stock on mine these days.

Your 18-Turd will fly funny because of the 4wd, even the slightest throttle variations in flight will make it do wierd things. and having the heavier aluminum parts up front will make it worse.

Just my .03

it had alloy every! now it has none.

it, is just weird. my mini giant hell even my hpi micro rs4 jumped better then this thing did with out the Bl set up. but it's getting better. i got sucked in to buying a another micro hitek servo that is junk. i think if i could sell it and mayeb go wtih the new ko one that is coming out i would be 90% happy with it.

we have had some great sunsine this last week :D and i buste out the Bl pede. man it's fun. not as fast as the 18th bl setups but just better. think i may try my hand at making my own body posts. and i need to replace the spur...today as well. and a friend gave me a motor heat sink that attaches on the outside motor plate next to the spur i want to try out.

we will see.

have a nice weekend all!

-peter-
:)

Totally un r/c related but I figured you might be amused.

We are giving Jess a new mountain bike for his b'day. Not a new-new bike, but one built from new and old parts including a bunch from my current bike. (this allows me to upgrade!).

My current bike was bought used last summer and included parts that were way newer than any I had ever owned. I didn't need to service any of this until today when I decided to pull them for the other bike. First thing I found was I needed different tools to pull the cranks (the parts that hold the pedals). I tried to machine an adaptor to use my old tool. Didn't work. So, off to the bike shop for the "right tool". Got the cranks off. Next up is the bottom bracket (the bearing set that hold the cranks to the bicycle). Once I had the cranks off I found out what was needed to take the "BB" off. ANOTHER trip to the bike shop for the right tool. Got home and found that in all likelyhood the previous owner had never taken these parts off in 5 years. No amount of trying with my tools and muscles could budge it. So, off AGAIN to the bike shop. This time with the bike. I went to a different shop because I couldn't face having bought all the tools and then still coming in to get the job done. The small solice was that the mechanic had a heck of a time getting the BB off as well.

1st tool: $14. 2nd tool: $14. Shop fee: $10. Having the parts to put onto Jess's bike? Priceless? Not a bloody chance. $38!!! At least I have the tools now to work on it the next time I need to play these games.

Oh, and the trips to the shop, by bicycle? it was 20 degrees out with 30 mph winds. brrrrr.

:rolleyes: :p :rolleyes:

I have nothing interesting to say.

hello.


thought i would check in as well.

nothing new to speak of here either

boring...

Well, more non-RC news. Went skiing on Tuesday (no snow but lots of fun) and the knee actually did really well. No residual pain to speak of. Now if I can get rid of those five weeks of total inactivity maybe my pants would fit. :rolleyes:

Went Skiing, but no snow? Hows that work? Is it like that credit card commercial?

Well, the ground around the mountains is bare, or darn close to it. The ski areas themselves have had a bit of a chance to make snow so it is at least white. Ice is white too, in the right conditions. And loud. very loud. :p


And no, it is not priceless. Far from it. ;)

It's only been a little over 35 years since I went skiing, I'm sure things have changed just a little bit.....

Hi.

Does anyone have experience with the FastLane Machine aluminum parts?
There was a guy on another board that had an almost all aluminum Pede for sale but he didnt get back to me.

How would an all aluminum Pede handle? What about breakage, are these parts worth it? My experience with aluminum parts is that they seem to crack, or break way too quick. Have things changed any?

Mostly I just like the way it looks. It wouldnt be for racing or showing off. Just bashing. I was considering converting to all aluminum but would have to sell some nitro stuff to pay for it.

What are your thoughts on an all aluminum Pede?

I have personally never tried the Fastlane stuff. It sure is pretty though.

I have tried a variety of aluminum parts n my Pede and generally I have removed them. With all the bits in place it was way heavier and I felt it handled much worse. All I have on my Pede now is a front shock tower of aluminum.

Gnerally speaking plastic flexes, aluminum bends or breaks. Or it doesn't and something else downstream takes the beating. an example would be if you had aluminum steering knuckles but plastic arms. The arms would break in a crash. make the arms aluminum and the bulkhead breaks. Only by making the whole thing aluminum could you stop that but then on a big enough hit it would bend and then you are out the big bucks for the parts as compared with the stock (or RPM) plastic parts. The reason I went with the shock tower is that that is such a pain to replace I decided, after breaking a few, to just make that solid. Haven't had a problem since then.

Bottom line for me I guess is that if you want a show piece (shelf queen), definitely go for the BLING. If you want something you can beat the snot out of for relatively low cost, put that money into parts that matter: RPM hub carriers, aluminum idler, steel outdrives from the diff, aluminum shock caps, better tires and, of course, a hotter motor, better ESC and servo. With that, you get the best performance for the buck and way less worries. Can you imagine the tears the first time you really scrape up a Fastlane truck? Not me.

It's only been a little over 35 years since I went skiing, I'm sure things have changed just a little bit.....

Nah, it is still all downhill. Seriously though, the sport has changed so much it is insane. I started skiing over 35 years ago and there is no comparison. The skis all but turn themselves now, the boots are more comfortable but more rigid. The bindings actually release when you need them to. The lifts are lightening fast to get you up the mountain in a fraction the time and the equipment they have to groom the slopes and to make snow is light years ahead of what they used to have. The clothing I think, is more functional keeping you warm and dry. Oh, and most everybody wears helmets!

And lift tickets are about $75. a day................

Thanks for your response.
Guess that I just needed to confirm my previous experience with aluminum parts.
Im sure that I would love an all aluminum Pede... But then I probably would not want to run it.
Will save my money for something else.
Thanks.

And lift tickets are about $75. a day................

Oh yeah, I forgot that part. Or maybe I blocked that out.

Actually, having a family of four skiers we tend to only ski when we can save some bucks. Generally that means skiing at the smaller areas but this last week we were at one of our favorites where we got all four tickets for $108. Still a bunch of bucks but a darn site cheaper than a day at Disneyland. Unless you know the right people, eh Bill? :)

15 degrees today. Must be winter. So, how warm is it on Catalina right now?

Yesterday, high 60's, but it rained two days ago so it should be warmer today. This winter hasn't had but a couple of rain days and the wind blew a few times. Now that we have kids (campers) coming to camp I'm sure it will get colder and wetter.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Bill

sound slike fun to me bill ;)

we have had a record settign wet month, a super dry month and a record month of lows. but all pretty much all stand alone weather issues. we had 3 inches of snow for about 8 hours and it was gone. the worst was the 6-9 days straight of days barely reaching 32 in in my front yard :( but it always could have been worse.

hello all!

-peter-
:)

We've had an odd winter, I thought we were really in for it between Thanksgiving & Christmas because we had alot of snow, but then just before Christmas it warmed a little and we haven't really got much snow since. even had a couple days in the High 40's.

I'm just waiting for riding season again! C'mon Spring!

This has been the winter that wasn't for the east coast. We got a bit of snow and lots of cold in Decenmber then we had one of the warmest january's on record. My heating bill liked that but it has been weird. now they are promising an inch or so of snow. What are supposed to do with an inch of snow anyway? Cover up the electronics and Pede away!

TWhat are supposed to do with an inch of snow anyway? Cover up the electronics and Pede away!

See... You answered your own question! That's one thing I haven't done this winter was get out with the Pede in some light snow... Of course we haven't really had much light snow.

My racing is the only thing I have been doing RC wise.

We ended up without a single flake of snow! Good from a 'get done with winter' point of view but not terribly exciting.

although playing in the snow is fun I am always afraid of breaking stuff when it is really cold. Darn plastic just doesn't give like it should when it is 20 degrees. Oh, and getting the glove into the trigger isn't so easy either. That was one of the reasons we stopped heading to the track in the winter- just too cold to enjoy ourselves. Now they probably have heat but our schedules just haven't worked out.

Yahoo! I finally won the A main with my EVO! That was fun!

Wow! that is great! Congrats! :thumbsup:

Jesse and I went over to the track today. not to drive but to spectate. They were running a 250 lap enduro. What a blast that was to watch. They had six teams of four. Each driver had to do 25 laps and then sawp. Assuming you didn't break, of course. There was plenty of breakage. No team was allowed to have more than two 4WD buggies. most of the others ran trucks while there were a few Kinwald buggies. Over 250 laps there is plenty of time for errors. Some drivers were. Well, they were bad. Others were amazingly consistent. At the end of 250 laps I was told there was ONE SECOND separating the top two teams. I am not sure I beleive that but they were darn close with less than a lap between them. Unfortunately the vehicles didn't have a good numbering system so it wasn't clear who was on what team and the announcer was calling out team names rather than numbers. it seems that two teams thought they were "team 2". No '3's out there to be seen.

Surprisingly although the 4WD s were faster they really weren't making huge advances on the other trucks. On the winning team there was a truck driver who wasn't that fast on the straights but was absolutely clean on the corners and jumps. he would just sit back and wait for the moment to pass. He never pushed into a hole that wasnt' there. Sure he wrecked (or WAS wrecked) a few times but it was a thing of beauty. That team lost a XXX4 in the first few laps. Then the truck broke something. Then his radio died. They were running, with ~75 laps to go, only a XXX4 and a XXX. had one broken they would have been hosed. Luckily they got the truck back up. I can't imagine what was left of the brushed motors out there at the end of 50-75 laps! It was ~20 seconds/lap so that is a LOT of run time. There were a lot of Novaks out there so they would have been fine.

On the whole a great couple hours! Not enough to get me back there for an event like that. Way too stressful. :p

Those kind of races are real cool. I did one once, but the format was a little different. The one I did was on a road course indoor carpet with sedans running Mabuchi Motors. but it was a scale Lemans style race, 3 drivers per team with 3 cars, ran 2.4 hrs straight. You had to be ready at any time to go out, because if 1 guy breaks you gotta go! It was fun-but-stressful, especially when one of my team guys broke after only a minute and a 1/2 on the track. To do something like that you really need 1 guy just to do the pit b!tch stuff for battery charging & wrenching so the 2 drivers waiting can watch whats going on and help out a little. It can be more fun that stressful as long as you have it planned out properly. 20 second lap times must make it a fairly small track, the track I've been racing at has seen the very fastest lap time set at 25.7 seconds with a 4wd open class buggy (and that is Screaming fast!). Fastest lap time I believe I've pulled with my Mod truck was 28.2 but other guys have done low 27s.

It was either 20 or 25 seconds. The track is 100X50 and pretty tight on the whole.

By their running whatever motors and cars there was quite the speed difference that made it really interesting. On that last driver section the team that won lost two laps due to small bobbles, a car swap and some awesome driving by the opposition. Each lap you could see the gap going down and you just wondered if there was enough time. I hung out and watched so I didn't see the chaos in the pits (where there was heat- out at the track you could see your breath!) Jesse did go in and out to see what they were going through. I think if I were to runn one of those I would want to have a complete spare truck!

One of the big differences between teams was how quickly they swapped the transponder. AND to be fair, I heard the director say that the transponder was supposed to be inside the truck body whereas it could be on the wing on the buggies. The winning team's truck had the transponder on the outside. They saved about 10-15 seconds each sawp. And they won by one second. You do the math. BUT, I just found out that two of the three drivers on that team are only 16! That is pretty cool.

I'd do a race like that in a heartbeat. I'm sure my son would go with me, even my oldest if he wasn't in Maryland! Off Road rules!

$100 a team. Winner takes 1/2 the proceeds. Prizes equaled 3/4 of the take I think. I will let you know when the next one is coming. You can sleep on our floor!:) If you come, Jesse and I will come out of retirement and join you!

With the new year it’s time to go through and do a little house cleaning. Those of you that have been around here know that at the beginning of each year we go through and suggest that older larger threads get closed and new ones get started.

This is done for a number of reasons. One is to keep the information at fresh and not overwhelming for new visitors. If they see a thread with 150+ pages they are much less likely to go through the thread to get information. This also makes sure the info in the thread is no more then a year old.

Also, long threads have a bad effect on server load and we like to try and keep that manageable.

What I would suggest is that a regular here start a new thread putting a link in it to this thread. Once the new thread is started I will then close this thread.

Thanks!

Uh oh, does that mean we're to yakitty? LOL! I guess we'll start a new one then.

New therad started at http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=139957