TORCH Clubby Race Day

AKA The Great British Winter strikes again...
(Please note, I only have a few photos from this round, I will add them when I've got them off my camera, so do check back)

Sunday 9th January should have seen us all make the trek up to Slough for a round of their winter series, however with the recent wet weather it always looked unlikely. When Adrian emailed to let us know it was off it wasn't a massive surprise. The photos he posted were, the lakes on the track were only surpassed by those in the car park, I think even Jaff's Landy would have struggled! Having planned ahead Tony 'RC' and I had decided another day at TORCH was a suitable alternative so Saturday was spent in the workshop tweaking the Mighty Ansmann and getting the LiPO's charged and ready. One pleasant surprise was that my previously damed pack that I'd disassembled and had resoldered (big thank Dave H, you da man!) charged perfectly and balanced at exactly 4.20V per cell. Looks like I may have saved it, with a little help.

In terms of car set up, I'd not done much since the last race. I rebuilt the shocks with slightly thicker front and thinner rear oil and fitted softer springs on the rear. Ride height was lowered, the front toe set to 0 degrees and camber checked. The main change was to pull the pin on my speedo, as whilst checking the settings during the week I had noticed I had the throttle limit set to only allow 40% of full power. School boy error, should have double checked that earlier.

Having agreed to collect Tony at 8:00 I stuck my head out the door at 7:40 to find the thickest frost I think I've ever seen. No idea what happened there, but the whole world had gone diamond white... hum, early qualies are going to be interesting then! After clearing the car and collecting Tony and his gear we rolled up trackside and set up for the day. Cameron 'Cammers' Taylor rolled in shortly afterwards and set his stall up next to us, at which point a side wager started on which car he'd end the day running having started the last couple of meetings with the Schumacher Cougar, and each time falling back to the X6 Squared when the Cougar gave trouble! Shortly after Dave O'Brien pulled up to pit with us followed swiftly by Jamie Kerr, out with his Durango for the first time. Having received an express delivery from Kifopaint the day before Jamie was rocking full on pro gear, including a branded hoody and matching body shell. Clear having all the gear, did he have any idea? Time and results would tell.

The track layout was unchanged from the previous round, but the track was frosted hard. Clearly grip was going to be at a premium, and with my limited selection of tyres I was on the back foot from the off. General advice seemed to be pink Ballistic Buggy spikes, of which I own precisely no sets. Ah well, out on the trusty Schumacher yellow mini-spikes then, staggers on the front as always. Into round one qualifying, and I can;t believe this is the same car as the week before. It's all over the shop... not quite undrivable but not far off! The results was 7 laps in 5:52, I bit slower than the week before and not the result I hoped for. In truth I must have gone faster than I thought as I was figuring on only 6 laps, but I wasn't happy. The car was a handful and I was over driving it trying to make up for it. The main problem was inconsistent grip, with the back end snapping away at really odd times.

Four wheel drive qualifying went badly for Tony RC, his Durango snapping yet another servo saver arm. Dave ran well to a solid seven lapper, but the boy Kerr was a revelation running a solid 8 lapper to finish just over a second behind Steve B in the fight for TQ of the round. A good showing for the first run of a car, could he keep it up through the next three rounds?

Due to marshaling for Tony whilst he worked on his damaged 'Rango I didn't change much for round 2 qualifying and it showed. I dialled in a degree of front toe out in the hope it would stabalise the car, which it did, but nowhere near enough. The official line is five laps, now I don't want to argue with the computer, and I did make a lot of mistakes, but I'm pretty sure I crossed the line more then five times. Oh well, that round was going to be a dropper, and it was time to get to work on the car for the next one.

In 4wd Dave was again solid with 8 laps, Tony did yet another servo saver and Jamie was again second in the round, all be it slightly further behind Steve B who seems to just keep getting smoother and faster.

For rounds 3 and 4 of qualifying I took a real punt. Realising that my problems seemed to revolve around the rear tyres I decided to try a set of new yellow mini-pins with firm inserts. I figured that the mini spikes were fitted with too soft an insert and were rolling over mid corner causing the snap instability. The use of spikes in the now soaking conditions (the frost having thawed) seemed to raise a few eyebrows, but hey I'm new to this malarkey so I don't know any better. And besides, I don't exactly have too many sets of tyres.

Within half a lap I knew I'd made the right call. The car was so much more consistent, especially in the high speed sweeping center section of the track. Things got even better when I passed Cammers, and then realised he was struggling to keep up. Result! Things looked up even further when the results were posted and I realised I hit my first 8 lapper, which had been my goal going into the day. That result put me forth in the round, not bad for a cheap little Ansmann with an electric-racing noobie on the controls, even if I do say so myself.

Round four was much of the same, with a few other drivers following me onto spikes. This round saw me sixth with another 8 lapper, about a second behind Cammers but pushing him all the way. We had a cracking ding-dong battle for several laps, great clean fun and exactly the kind of RC action I enjoy (yes, I know we were qualifying, but we just couldn't help it!). In the end Cammers finished fifth and I was sixth in qualifying which I was pretty pleased with all things considered.

In 4wd Dave had continued his consistent runs, having found his cup. Tony had finally come good and after borrowing a servo saver from Jamie final got in two half decent qualifiers. Jamie had a bad run in round 3, pulling out with a mechanical, but was back in round four to finish second to Steve again, leaving Steve to TQ, Jamie second, Dave fourth and Tony back in eighth.

Finals were run over a single leg, and in my 2wd A final Cammeron and I had a blast running round together. I could push Cammers hard, but just couldn't quite get the jump on him for fifth. I lost some time on the penultimate lap giving the leaders room to get past which upset my rhythm, although I guess it did the same to Cammers and we crossed the line fifth and six, with me just under a second behind. The final was probably the most fun I've had in RC for some time, being able to push to 100% for a full five minutes against Cameron was a blast. What was more amazing was Cameron running a whole day with the Schumacher, I think the X6 Squared was feeling a little neglected sat on his bench all day.

JK employs an unusal start line tactic in the 4wd A final!

In the 4wd B Tony lead from flag to lights taking a dominant win. In the A final Steve B again dominated, taking the win by around half a lap from Jamie, with Dave coming in fourth. Top marks to young Jamie Kerr, he drove a fantastic race and it's hard to credit that this was his first time out with the 'Rango. Give is some time for him to get it fully sorted to his liking and I think Steve could be facing some stiff competition.

The field for the 4wd A prepare for the off (TQ man Steve Brown out of shot)

Click here for a full set of results, courtesy of TORCH.

So a great days racing drew to a close, and Dave, Tony, Cammers and I decided it was time for a bit of car swapping. We spent an enjoyable hour or so playing with each of the 4wd contenders to see what we thought. Me, I still prefer 2wd... but I would like to try the Ansmann Pro4 just to see how that goes.

A big thanks to Steve, Mike and all involved in organising another great, relaxed days racing at TORCH, any disappointment at another weekend without a nitro fix was rapidly erased once racing kicked of. If you haven't been to TORCH yet, I strongly suggest you do, ASAP!

So what is in a LiPO pack then?

Last night I did some thing I've been waiting to since I got back into racing electric cars, I managed to connect a LiPO pack to my speedo with the polarity reversed. The plugs were connected for a spit second, to be honest the loud crack and bright spark was enough to ensure that! I guess 4600mAh 40C batteries really can deliver a quite a current.

It's a totally dumb thing to do, and happened whilst I was doing some work on the car and was in a rush, all the typical excuses! What I was left with was a speedo that fortunately seems to have escaped harm, but a battery that wouldn't charge as the charger just showed a connection break. With nothing to loose I decided to see if the pack was salvageable.

Warning - delving into LiPO packs can be extremely hazardous and isn't something to be done lighly. If you choose to do this, you do so at your own risk!

Step 1: A dead hard case LiPO pack

First things first, how to get at the guts of the battery? From the picture you can probably seen a thing split around the circumference off the hard case. I used a cut-off wheel in a Dremel to very carefully cut the case in front of the sockets, figuring that I wouldn't cut into the cells that way. With a small cut in the case I inserted a flat blade screw driver and twisted to pop the case in half.

Step 2: The case is now split allowing access to the cells

OK, at this point the bottom is of the pack, but the cells (the silver foil packets in the picture above) are stuck to the top of the case. Judicious use of a smooth plastic tool allowed me to safely lever them out, it turns out that they are stuck to the top of the pack with double-sided foam tape of the very sticky variety.

Step 3: A 2s 1p set of bare cells. Handle with care!

With the cells out I gave them a cursor inspection. Everything looked good, now splits or puffing, but trying to charge them resulted in the same 'connection break' warning. On a whim I flipped the cells over and plugged in from the bottom. Success! Charging started quite happily. Hum, that's got to mean somethings wrong with the pole connector sockets, so lets take a look there...

Step 4: You can just see the connection break (click to enlarge)

Now the problem is obvious. There should be a bridge of solder running from the positive connection across the board and to the cells. Looks like the short caused so much heat in that split second that the bridge blew, rather like a fuse. With luck it's saved the cells, and almost certainly it blowing so fast is what saved my speedo so I'm not going to moan too much.

The fix is pretty simple, I'll re-solder it tomorrow and see what happens when I charge the cells. With luck I'll have got away with it, but needless to say I'll be watching closely as a charge to ensure nothing goes haywire. I'm also going to put more definite markings on all my packs from now on to try and avoid doing this kind of thing in future.

Ansmann XPro review

Having run the Ansmann XPro 2 wheel drive 1:10th electric buggy for a couple of races now I thought it was time to do a more detailed review of the car. The car shown in the pictures is my racer, and I'll admit up front that it's not exactly as the XPro comes out of the box, mine has a few optional parts fitted, but I'll point them out in more detail as we go over the car.

The completed XPro from Ansmann

I bought the Ansmann knowing next to nothing about it. I checked a few of the usual places, and saw it was getting some good press on Oople and so figured it was worth a punt. I was even more convinced when I saw the price JE Spares were doing it for on EBay! So good old PayPal swung into action and three days latter the car (in kit for of course) was sat waiting for me when I got back from the office.

The Build
The XPro is fundamentally the same car as the cheaper Ansmann Mad Rat, however the plastics in the XPro are much less flexible due to a higher carbon content and the XPro has a full set of bearings and turn buckles, which the Rat does not.

The build its self is pretty straight forward, 2wd drive cars are not the most technical racers available and all follow largely the same principles. The instructions are pretty good for an experienced builder, but may be lacking for a beginner. They certainly aren't up to the standards of the big players like Losi or Associated and are especially week in detailed ares like building the ball diff and building and bleeding the shocks.

The XPro's design is typical of rear-motor 2wd chassis

One of the major weaknesses of the XPro are the screws used to hold it together. Hex-head screws are used through out and even with high quality drivers the toughness of the high-carbon parts like the main chassis make them very easy to strip. My advice would be to either pre-tap the holes with a tap or high quality screw, or to replace the screws with higher quality items. I went with tapping the holes and had minimal issues, but again this is something that could cause a beginner considerable trouble.

During the build I fitted a number of option parts, partly for looks, partly for performance and mostly 'cause I'm a bit of a tart. Most of the parts were ordered in from from Hong Kong via the web, the car being sold under the Team C banner in the Orient. Delivery was extremely fast, and prices were extremely low. I added carbon front and rear shock towers simply because I like the look of carbon, and a carbon T Plate at the rear end as I have heard the kit item can be a week point (apparently addressed in newer kit's through a running change to the molding of the plastic part). I also fitted a CNC motor plate as it was sturdier and would shed heat faster, and replaced the stock plastic idler gear with a metal part - again for durability as the car would be running a poky brushless set up.

The optional carbon fiber T Piece was added during the build, CNC pin mounts were a later addition

The only other area of concern on the car is the ball diff. I have to admit I've built and run a few of these back in the day when I ran touring cars and PRO10 and have always found them a pain. On the whole I can build them and tune them fine, but they do always seem an Achilles heal for any car using them. I'd heard reports that this was especially true of the XPro, and that most people upgraded to a BFast setup. I decided to try the Ansmann diff and see what I could do. I polished the diff rings using wet an dry through to Simichrome metal polish, and then thoroughly degreesed them. The thrust washer was packed with Losi High Pressure black grease, and then the diff balls and rings given a light coat of the Ansmann supplied diff lube. The whole lot was then assembled and tightened down. I then went through a gradual break-in of the diff using a speed adjustable electric drill, tightening the diff down a little at a time as it loosened. Two races and a fair bit of practice later it still seems pretty smooth, so fingers crossed I've cracked it.

Ansmann shocks are excellent, just wish they weren't quite so green!

The shocks are worth a mention, ally bodies with bladders and breather holes they build into very nice smooth units with minimal fuss. Kyosho pistons can be used as tuning parts if required, and I believe Losi springs will fit nicely. I just wish they weren't green, ho-hum...

Laying down the colour
The body shell is, at least to my eyes, very attractive. Very smooth and slippery it responds well to a nice coat of paint and fit's very snugly to the chassis sides. I shot a simple colour scheme on mine as I needed it in a hurry, but I think it looks OK. The only two drawbacks to the body are that there is a lack of room for the speedo, as the side pods are very low, and the front body clip is a pain to get to as it's under the shock tower. I solved the later problem with copious use of velcro tape to hold the body on. The lack of space is still an issue, in future I may try one of the other shells that fits, maybe the 2wd Tamiya TRF shell or possibly a Proline Bulldog.

Finishing kit
I the spirit of racing on the cheap I spared every expense to complete the car. Wheels are provided, using a hex style fitment, but no tyres are in the box. I ordered up some stagger ribs and yellow min-spikes as they seemed popular. Having run 8th for the last few years I'm no expert in 10th tyre design, but these seem to work and compared to 8th tyres the price is a rather pleasant surprise.

Batteries are budget LiPOs from Hong Kong, they seem to do an adequate job. The 6.5 turn brushless motor, speedo and programming card were £60, again from Hong Kong, and the steering servo is a budget hybrid geared Futaba item. Every thing fitted, just about and with some fine soldering from Mr Tony 'RC' Scott she was ready to hit the track.

Racing
I've completed two races with the XPro so far, and it's been fun to say the least. Breakages have been limited to a rear inner hinge-pin holder and a servo arm, both as a result of full-bore encounters with very unforgiving pipe. I've subsequently fitted they very nice CNC machines rear arm holders, and also the front arm holder with extra brass weight. These updates should help with durability, and the extra weight up front has also helped get the nose more planted for high speed cornering.

Having had a quick play with chassis settings during a recent meeting at TORCH I can say that the car responds well to changes, and is pretty sensitive. This bodes well for the future an I hope to get out testing as soon as possible. The shocks are so far stock, but with AE black springs fitted, and I feel this is one area that I can develop to get a more consistent and controllable drive.

Conclusion

Ready to race

Ansmann XPro, TQ Racing SX10, Team C or Kawada. Call it what you will this budget racer can really fly, and to me makes the perfect entry to the world of competitive 2wd racing in the UK. If you can get past the Ansmann branding (and their reputation), a cracking car awaits. Combine the low cost kit with a few equally cheep hop-up, and one of the ever growing range of budget speedo/motor combos and you have a great little club racer that just might show up some of the big name chassis with the right driver on the Tx!

I still have the Team C mid motor version to build up ready for the summer, that version of the car should be hitting shelves in the UK any day now and will be the subject of an update review as soon as I've had a chance to get it built and tested.

TORCH Grand Re-opening

New years day 2011 and the Clanfield faithful are hovering near PC's and mobile phones waiting for one piece of information; 'Are we racing tomorrow?'. With the dreadful weather of late it was always looking dodgy, and eventually the news went round that the race was canned, the clay sections of the track were holding too much water, and the committee didn't want to risk the track surface. Bugger, another week and no racing. I hate winter.

Then Tony 'RC' Scott texts... did I know that TORCH was opening it newly rebuilt track? Truth told I'd not been keeping up with things on Oople so I'd missed that. Yay, racings back on, out to the workshop and LiPo's on charge. Boys, we're going 'leccy racing again!

One of the best things about TORCH is that it's only twenty minutes from me, and I can pick Tony up on the way through. So at 8:30 we roll up track side to find the place busy, with a large number of the Clanfield Massive in attendance. I've got the Might Ansmann and will be rolling 2wd with Cammers (X62 or Cougar), whilst Tony RC and Grant Fribbins are both rocking the Durango 4wd. They are joined by Lionel Croucher (the original Crazy L) with his Tamiya Durga, plus Jon Wolfe and Dave O'Brien with... cars of some sort (can't remember what). Jimbo Tattlow is the surprise visitor of the day with his AE B4.1 RTR, complete with RTR transmitter! Rob 'Holywood' Raisey was also in town, but had swapped his AE B44 for a Tamiya TRF, a masterpiece of carbon-fibre and blue anodizing.

Now for the new track. It mahoosive! Much smoother than the old surface and with a technical but flowing layout that rewards the ability to be smooth and carry speed. There's also a table top in place, with the promise of some more air time to come later in the year. Definitely a hit!

The new TORCH track.

After a bit of practice I'm out for round one of qualifying. We're running four rounds with two to count, and as long as I beat Jimbo I'll be happy. The round is OK, still learning the car and track so 7 laps in 5.30ish is not too shabby, good for 6th of 14 in the round. Tyres were all wrong though, yellow mini-pins all round gave way to much turn in and made the car stupidly darty and edgy. A change would be required for round 2.

Out for round two and I'd swapped to stagger ribs on the front end. I also elected to go with a last minute change to yellow mini-spikes on the back and that proved my undoing. I must have fluffed fitting one of the wheel nuts as half way around the first lap, just as I was thinking the car was the nuts... I got over taken by one of my own wheels. Arse, school boy error and worse, a no score round. Top marks to Jon Wolfe for finding all the bits, including the wheel nut.

The mighty Ansmann XPro - Stagger ribs and yellow mini-pins were order of the day

Round three, no changes to the car but the astro's drying up now so the grips up. Car feel awesome and is flying (well, for me anyway). Then I get a bit carried away heading onto the back straight and tag the pipe right in front of Hollywood. I can hear the snap from the rostrum on the far side of the track. Somethings very broken, and I have no steering. Back in the pits an its pretty obvious the servo horns bust, and I don't have a spare. At least my el cheapo Futaba servo's still in one piece, and Fribbers comes to the rescue with a spare horn, I owe you mush. A quick bodge later, and I'm back in the game ready for round four. It's all down to this one. If I screw it up RTR Tatlow will do me... the pressure is on big time.

So, round four and I need a good time, but I have to finish. The cars feeling really good now, and I get a safe 7 lapper in 5.12. I'm happy, but a couple of grip rolls have cost me time and I need to sort that for the final. Better still me two 6 place's mean I've done Jimbo by one place, qualifying 7th overall with him 8th. I'll be tail-end Charlie in the A final with him heading up the B.

With so much going on I didn't have time to follwo how other were doing to any detail, but on the whole people seemed to be running well, I the Dave was having some new-to-him car issues and Cammers had swtched from Schumacher to XFactory after experiencing diff issues with the newly rebuilt Cougar. Rob R was obviously flying with the Tamiya, and it looked like TQ and the win would be betwean him and the equally hard charging Steve Brown with his Durango.

Fribbers fettles his Fandango (Durango) during qualifying

Lunch is a chance to catch up with a number of other Clanfield regulars who have turned up to see what all the fuss is about. Have a feeling a few more nitro-heads may be trying the electrics fairly soon! Car changes were limited to raising the front end by a millimeter and adding a little negative rear camber to try and fix the grip rolling. Other than that, I figured it felt good enough as it was and I didn't want to risk screwing it up trying to be clever.

Lionel's Durga prepares for launch, 4wd B final leg 1

Finals ran over the standard threes, all of which followed the same pattern. I run round at the back, just about able to hang on to the end of the pack but not quick enough to get onto terms with them. I'm more than happy with the performance, it proves I need more time with the car (it's only the second outing in my 2wd career), and that the suspension on the Ansmann could do with some tuning to handle the ripples a little better. It's also a little nose down off the jumps which I'll have to look at sometime soon. What is gratifying is that my lunchtime tweaks have worked, and can certainly be felt in how the car goes. It's always a good sign when you can feel the changes you're making to a chassis.

After the mad rush of racing I manage to kick back an watch the last leg of the 4wd A final which is a belter. Holywood is running out front but Steve B is pushing him really hard with the Durango. The racing is fast and close but extremely clean, it fascinating to watch. Steve can get his nose in, but just can't make the move stick for lap after lap. Coming on to the back straight on the last lap Rob has a couple of car lengths, but Steve reels him in through the twisties. Again, he just can't make the killer move. Then at the last corner Rob goes in just a little too hot and flips the car so Steve nips through for the win. An amazing final that had the crowd on the edge of their seats and a great display of driving.

Time to pack up an head home after a brilliant days racing at a great track. Once the work is 100% complete TORCH will really have something to be proud of. I have to tip my hat to a great club, and offer my thanks to all the members who helped with the rebuild. The amount of work involved, and the weather it had to be competed in make the time it took scarcely believable. Top job to all involved, I'm looking forward to many more great days racing there this year.

Results to follow once posted by the club.

Mr Magoo's 2010 retrospective

So, that time of year has come round again. You know the one, too many pies, too many relatives and some kind of chunky knit sweater your gran thinks will look lovely. It's also that time of year we all go bleary eye'd and look back over another year. Not wanting to be one to break from tradition, here's my look back over a year in RC racing...

Mr Magoo's Event of the Year
This was a tough one, I've been to some great races this year. The stand-out for me was three days in Slough in September for the ProLine International Invitational. The track surface was amazing, I've never seen a groove develop like that on a UK track. The racing was awesome and the social element was also off the chart. Probably the most fun I've had racing, although my performance was less than stellar! I'd only raced buggy once before and so was always on the back foot, a bad engine tune and an RC8B that I just couldn't make work didn't help. This was the race that convinced me I needed a Losi 8ight EU, a decision I still stand by.

Mr Magoo's NOT the Event of the Year
Epic fail of the year has to be the SRS round 2 race at Slough. Radio gremlins meant I turned three laps all day in an event I was very much looking forward to. Given that this was probably the last time I'll ever get to run the truggy at Slough makes this especially disappointing. I won't dwell on this one, suffices to say that the fault hardware has since had a swift meeting with a wood-splitting axe and won't be causing me any more trouble!

Mr Magoo's Product of the Year
I'm going to give this one to the Alpha Plus line of engines. One of the main topics on almost every racers mind this year seems to have been the cost of racing. Lets face it 8th of road is not a cheap hobby these days and anything that can drive the price down with out sacrificing quality has got to help. I've run the Alpha S852 and F850 motors in buggy and truggy all year an found them utterly reliable, plenty powerful and very good on fuel. Both engines are deep into 4-5 gallons now and look to have plenty of life left in them. How good are they? Well, these £140 motors have relegated my £300 OS Speed Worlds engine to my spare... nuff said.

Mr Magoo's NOT Product of the Year
Sorry ProLine, but this ones gotta head your way... Over priced tyres that just don't work that well on your average UK track, and rubber compounds that just don't seem to last. You've been out front for so long that you never saw the competition coming until they were out in front. If you want to see what you should be doing, take a look at www.raceaka.com and learn a new trick or two. But mostly, can we have sensible prices please? At around £60 a set, people are going to stop racing just because they can't afford the tyres.

Mr Magoo's Why didn't I Try This Before?
Electric 2 wheel drive. Cheap kit (Ansmann X-Pro, some electrics from Hong Kong), low tech chassis and close racing has to be fun. Throw in a good club atmosphere and some great characters and a Sunday's racing at TORCH almost made it to my event of the year. I think I'll be doing a lot more of this next season, it's so much fun it'll probably be banned!

Mr Magoo's Man of the Year
Mr Neil McRae, figure-head of truggy racing in the UK, and Mr UK Truggy Pro. With almost no help and a hectic personal schedule Neil manages year after year to put on a top quality national truggy racing series against all odds. The guy's a legend, a status made even greater after a sat-nav induced 'incident' at a very wet Deerdale this year. Cheers for another year of fun event's Neil, we'll see you in 2011.

So, there you are, 2010 done and dusted. All that's left to do now is get this miserable winter out of the way, and get into 2011 ready to generate some more great memories. So you all track-side real soon!

JVD RC Clutch review

The clutch of a nitro car is one of those things that's all too easy to take for granted, at least until it fails on you mid A final, or you need to make a change in a rush between heats. For most 8th scale off-roaders a three shoe clutch is the norm (we'll ignore Losi for just a while). These have been around for ages and most people will have worked on one at some point, and more than likely stabbed themselves whilst trying to pry the clutch springs over the clutch nut with a screwdriver. Sure, there are tools available but I tend to never be able to find mine when I'm in a rush!

In recent years several alternatives have arrived from sliding clutches to the (frankly dire) Werks Power Clutch, notorious for adjusting itself mid race. I've tried a few and never really found one I was happy with until I discovered the JVD-RC clutch system about a year back, since then I've been a convert and run one all season in my RC8T truggy. After a full year of racing and countless gallons here's the full SP.

The clutch in pieces

The JVD clutch is a four shoe arrangement, looking not unlike the Team Losi 8ight clutch at first glance. The main difference with the JVD is that the clutch pins are permanently attached to the flywheel as can be seen in the image above. Each aluminium shoe is drilled to accept a clutch spring, and the set contains a full set of each of the three common spring tensions (.9mm, 1mm and 1.1mm). The spring tensions with in the clutch can be set to precisely control the engagement of the clutch to help tune for track conditions, or to work around an engine with a weak low-end response. Typically I've run 4x1mm for most conditions in the truggy running a torquey but smooth Alpha Plus engine. In very loose conditions I'd probably drop to 2x.9mm and 2x1mm to ease the bottom end slightly.

Once all four shoes are fitted to their pins the main 'basket' can be added. It's at this point the JVD comes into its own, the basket tensions the clutch springs, but in doing so also serves as it's own clutch tool. Simply drop the basket on lining up the holes with the springs. Twist counter clock wise and the ramps on the basket will smoothly tension the springs. Finally press the clutch basket into place on the clutch pins and you're ready to fit the clutch to the motor. The photo below shows JVD's own tool for fitting the basket, in all honesty you don't need one as strong fingers are fine.

Using the clutch basket fitting tool to lock the clutch springs

The photo below shows the completed clutch ready to rock. One of the joys of the system is the the clutch can be fitted and removed from the engine as a piece. This means engine and clutch swaps mid race are a snap, and if you feel the need it easy to keep spare clutches built up ready to go in case the conditions change. Try doing that with your old three-shoe set up!

All done and ready to fit to the engine of your choice

The JVD set include a collet and specific clutch nut, plus enough shims to fit the clutch to pretty much any engine and chassis combination. It also runs a standard clutch bell (unlike the Losi clutch).

The clutch shown in the photos is the same unit I've run all year, the shoes having at least three gallons running on them, and they still have a ton of life left in them. I really do think that in terms of simplicity, ease of use and shoe life the JVD has every one else licked, and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's saved my butt on a number of occasions when I've need to change my clutch mid-race, with the JVD it's a snap and takes literally seconds.

So, what are the downsides? Well, it didn't fit my RC8B, the flywheel was too thick and rubbed the rear brake disk. Also, at present JVD only supply aluminium shoes and there's no UK supplier yet that I know of, so it's an internet only job. 

On the upside, the unit is the same as the US Ascendancy clutch (JVD makes those clutches as well), and they offer three flywheel weights and composite shoes so if you're happy to order from the US you really can have the best of all worlds, and probably the greatest off-road clutch available anywhere.

2011 Starts Here!

I always find the winters hard to stomach... cold, dark, usually wet. All the things that add up to cancelled races and sitting around on the weekend watching endless re-runs on TV. It's not even like there's 1:1 racing to watch.
There are only a couple of things brightening this time of year (aside from Christmas of course); those rare racing days when the weather doesn't suck and the track isn't a swamp, and planning the 'big' race days for next year. So for all those truggy racers out there looking for something to brighten their days, the dates for next years BRCA UK Truggy Pro national series have been announced. Here's hoping for good weather, good racing and some good times in 2011!

• R1 1st/2nd May (2 Days)
• R2 26th June
• R3 17th July
• R4 14th August
• R5 4th September
• Reserve date 18th September

Venues will be announced later this year, but round one will be the traditional two-dayer at Herts/Ware/Westmill... which ever you want to call it.