Saturday, November 1, 2008

Gary O's "Problem Child II"






This is what Gary says about his car:

About 3/4 of the way through building Problem Child it became obvious that it wasn't the most efficient way to build a speed car. It quickly became very large, very heavy and despite my attempts at simplicity, very complicated.

I hadn't even finished PC before PCII was coagulating in my mind. It seems that a twin engine car would accelerate more quickly, would be lighter, smaller and would likely be faster at top end.

I went through a half dozen designs, each having some design flaw that I just didn't like. I wanted to keep 4wd since it seems for more stable than rwd and puts the power down better than fwd.

Then. a couple days ago, after completing my mail-order correspondence classes and graduating Magna cum 'Loudy' from the Nick Mazlowski School of Backwards R/C Cars, the solution came to me....spin PC around and run it in reverse! Seriously! That Nick's a genious!

Spinning the engines around allows the exhaust to exit towards the rear of the car, narrowing the body and allowing it to taper at the rear. Using the two rear engines (now front) will give stability at speed and allow the use of Mac's pipes inside the body.

The steering will be at the front (sorry Nick, I'm not that crazy!) and the rear diff will be mounted ala Associated 10L. A second drive shaft will allow the rear diff to go up and down.

The cool thing is, I'll be able to use almost all of the drive train technology I developed with PC along with many pick up points.

Well, I have no CAD skills (skipped that class at the Nick Mazlowski School of Backwards R/C Cars) but I can solder a wicked brazing rod or two and that's what I've done to get an idea of how things will come together....

Here is PC and PCII. Note the noses and tails are reversed

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