Lets get together and get some of those tire changes, truing, etc. out of the way, so we can get started to race again. This is just a get together, maybe some racing, but not for Piston Cup points.
Doors open at 6:00.
Let me know who want to come over.
Cheers!
Seb
Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Nobody?
I see that there hasn't been any comments left for the tire post. Not sure if everything is working as it should or if people just don't want to have new tires?
Maybe my wording "respond" wasn't chosen wisely - I should have said "reply in the comment section which tires you initially want."
Seb
Maybe my wording "respond" wasn't chosen wisely - I should have said "reply in the comment section which tires you initially want."
Seb
Monday, February 29, 2016
In the meantime....
Some might have wondered, why there isn't any racing going on these days. Well, besides being traveling as usual, I was also working on finding a new tire compound for our cars.
It had all started before Christmas, when I visited a slot car club in Berlin - they are racing on commercially available urethane tires and like it a lot. That made me think, because there's 2 things I don't like about the silicone tires we run. Silicone is very hard to true and takes a long time, and secondly, the residue left behind on the track, which results in a lot of cleaning (no, I'm not looking at you, Scott).
So, with the help of Bruce we bought tires that are commercially available in the US for the 1/24 cars - both tires are made by Paul Gage. I also brought back one of the German tires. I established a time table for these tires by mounting them on separate axles and installing the axles in always the same car - ran each tire 100 laps, recorded each lap time, average, etc. This gave me a pretty good idea. The German tire outperformed both of the Paul Gage tires - not by much, but if your tire runs consistent 1/10 of a second better, then I'd say you have the better tire.
After ordering many different urethane compounds, making tires with each, mixing compounds and making more tires, and of course testing all these tires and comparing the data, we finally settled on one particular compound. It also beats the Paul Gage tires and performs equally well as the German tire.
The big disadvantage of the urethane is that the making of tires takes a lot longer. The silicone allows to be cured at elevated, moderate temperature, in order to speed up the curing process - de-mold time is only 1 hour. The urethane takes 16 hours to cure - of course heat can be added, which also results in faster cure/de-mold time, but, and do not underestimate this, if one does accelerate the curing process, the tire will not perform (yes, it was very frustrating to learn). The heat will cause a change in properties of the urethane, which will impact the performance for our use negatively.
One can imagine, that Bruce wasn't looking forward of making tires at all! So, we had to work on a solution for this as well - providing more molds to Bruce.
Only a few challenges to overcome: make it fast, cheap and good quality! And I think we did!
Bruce now has the first batch of molds and is testing this week the tire production with the new urethane compound. We are both excited and looking forward to race with urethane tires in the future, which will be almost the same as on silicone tires.
The urethane seems to be 5/10 of a second slower per lap on the Überring, compared to silicone, but they seem to be almost more fun to drive.
Of course, tire demand will be high, since everybody wants to change their cars over to urethane, so I suggest for everybody to respond to this post with 2 sets of tires he wants to have initially. That way everybody has 2 cars to start out on and can then replace all other cars later on. Also, Bruce will have an idea on which tires to make first.
Looking forward to see you all, soon!
Cheers!
Seb
It had all started before Christmas, when I visited a slot car club in Berlin - they are racing on commercially available urethane tires and like it a lot. That made me think, because there's 2 things I don't like about the silicone tires we run. Silicone is very hard to true and takes a long time, and secondly, the residue left behind on the track, which results in a lot of cleaning (no, I'm not looking at you, Scott).
So, with the help of Bruce we bought tires that are commercially available in the US for the 1/24 cars - both tires are made by Paul Gage. I also brought back one of the German tires. I established a time table for these tires by mounting them on separate axles and installing the axles in always the same car - ran each tire 100 laps, recorded each lap time, average, etc. This gave me a pretty good idea. The German tire outperformed both of the Paul Gage tires - not by much, but if your tire runs consistent 1/10 of a second better, then I'd say you have the better tire.
After ordering many different urethane compounds, making tires with each, mixing compounds and making more tires, and of course testing all these tires and comparing the data, we finally settled on one particular compound. It also beats the Paul Gage tires and performs equally well as the German tire.
The big disadvantage of the urethane is that the making of tires takes a lot longer. The silicone allows to be cured at elevated, moderate temperature, in order to speed up the curing process - de-mold time is only 1 hour. The urethane takes 16 hours to cure - of course heat can be added, which also results in faster cure/de-mold time, but, and do not underestimate this, if one does accelerate the curing process, the tire will not perform (yes, it was very frustrating to learn). The heat will cause a change in properties of the urethane, which will impact the performance for our use negatively.
One can imagine, that Bruce wasn't looking forward of making tires at all! So, we had to work on a solution for this as well - providing more molds to Bruce.
Only a few challenges to overcome: make it fast, cheap and good quality! And I think we did!
Bruce now has the first batch of molds and is testing this week the tire production with the new urethane compound. We are both excited and looking forward to race with urethane tires in the future, which will be almost the same as on silicone tires.
The urethane seems to be 5/10 of a second slower per lap on the Überring, compared to silicone, but they seem to be almost more fun to drive.
Of course, tire demand will be high, since everybody wants to change their cars over to urethane, so I suggest for everybody to respond to this post with 2 sets of tires he wants to have initially. That way everybody has 2 cars to start out on and can then replace all other cars later on. Also, Bruce will have an idea on which tires to make first.
Looking forward to see you all, soon!
Cheers!
Seb
Sunday, January 24, 2016
It is started....
We finally have the first event of the 2016 Piston Cup in our book! Attendance was average with 8 drivers, but the racing was really good. Pat and Paul were at their best, and ran away from the rest of the field.
Find the results in the "Standings Piston Cup 2016" page.
Looking forward to the next one!
Cheers.
Seb
Find the results in the "Standings Piston Cup 2016" page.
Looking forward to the next one!
Cheers.
Seb
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Racing at Paul's
We'll be racing at Pauls on Saturday at 6pm.
Let us know if you can make it.
Cheers!
Seb
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Racing at John's
John is inviting to race at his place, this Saturday 1/16 at 1:00.
Hope everybody can make it!
Let us know.
Cheers!
Seb
Hope everybody can make it!
Let us know.
Cheers!
Seb
Monday, December 28, 2015
Cheetah test and tune night
Lets get together and make the Cheetah's work....
Wednesday, 12/30 starting at 6:00pm
Please let me know who is coming.
Thanks.
Seb
Wednesday, 12/30 starting at 6:00pm
Please let me know who is coming.
Thanks.
Seb
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