INVADER - Nitro Slash drag car

[luke66]

Got some testing in on Saturday, as it was 45-47 degrees. No sun though, so still a bit dodgey. Packed the truck up and headed to my test spot, one last test with the ceramic bearings in.
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Used the black body out of thinking I don't want to demolish one of my good green ones. I knew that this wasn't the best idea, but we are about to get doused with Winter here real soon apparently, so figured one last try to see what it can do and get some video. Conditions last time were about the same, and I had some traction issues, so my hopes weren't real high.

Figured I'd take a pic in case I wrecked it.

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The car is a pretty far cry from the original, 2019 version! (bottom car was 6.7 lbs, with a small block and plastic gears vs 5.9 for the big block, steel geared car on top that has twice the HP!)
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No wrecks, this was after two passes, car intact!
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So, two hits, and they were both full passes, though I did have to get out of it at about 110-120 feet and coast to the 132 mark, but still going by the video time, these were right at about 2.0 seconds. The car started pulling right, which was probably due to losing traction when the car hits the peak power band. Doesn't help that it's riding the bar pretty much the whole run too (I do have the bar set really low, so the front wheels aren't too far up, but still had no steering). Thinking I should have used the green body because the wing on that body has way more downforce. Might have at least stayed planted.

That side exhaust is sick!!!

I put the engine back together over the weekend and fired it up in my garage. Wanted to test out the big nitrous bottle. (pic from another post here)
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It's double the size of the little one, which definitely worked but after seeing how much that .12 jumped in power with the little one, I figured the .30 needed a larger shot. I did a few tests to see how the engine reacted with it just sitting there idling. With the little bottle, the RPMS would just jump up. Testing with the big one, it's hard to explain, but the RPMS do surge, but it's a different sound altogether, kind of what I hear with the .12 and the small bottle. So, I think I was on to something.
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I put the body on and charged the nitrous up to 70 PSI for a little test in front of the house. It was only 45 deg and the wind was picking up and temps dropping, so I didn't figure driving out to my usual spot would be a good idea since it's usually much windier there. Did a quick launch test, hitting nitrous at 10 ft. Good freaking lord Maybe one day I put these things on a dyno to find out just how much more power it's throwing down, but I can say, it's definitely a LOT.

I don't have video, but we have warm temps on the way, I should have something this week.

Mo powa!

 

[johnnydmd]

Man, RCWillpower has OS R2104 9port on-road engines for practically half price.

After my experience with the T1204 in Hissed Off, I'm pretty well sold on true race engines for this sport. The Hyper 30T has been good, but since I used the backup engine for the OG Invader, maybe it's time to upgrade this and relegate the Hyper 30T as a backup. I definitely have enough time to break it in and test. I know going forward that for my drag cars, I won't buy RTR type engines in the future. The difference in quality, speed, power, is vast.

 

[luke66]

If you want to sell your old engine I bet @Lukedavis would be interested.
But sweet setup.

 

[johnnydmd]

If you want to sell your old engine I bet @Lukedavis would be interested.
But sweet setup.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind, but I'm going to keep it as a backup for now.

 

[johnnydmd]

Ok, I ordered the R2104. Thing is actually going to be here tomorrow?! I'm half expecting an empty box

 

[JCsRCcar]

Well this is an interesting thread. Nitrous on a Nitro RC drag car. Doesn’t get more realistic than this!.

 

[johnnydmd]

Nitrous on a Nitro RC drag car.

Yessir. After this season, I believe it's going to be the norm in the Nitro Street Eliminator classes. Either that or banned, lol.

Well, it wasn't an empty box. So, I got to breaking the bad boy in Saturday morning. Much like the T1204 .12, it was tight. Real tight. Had to heat the thing up pretty hot with the heat gun to get it able to turn using the starter box. But, once it did, it fired right up and purred like a (tiger) kitten. Idled 3 or 4 tanks, then took it outside for some light blipping around. Couple more tanks, and I took it to the stadium lot to stretch it out some.

Engine was still tight, got it stuck at TDC a couple times trying to start without my heat gun handy. Hence the flathead screwdriver there to put on the flywheel teeth and smack it loose a few times. Drove the car lightly up and down and around the lot, started getting into maybe 1/4 throttle. Man, aside from being an extremely loud engine, the power it had already was astounding. Vastly more than the Hyper 30T! Some of this could be attributed to gearing as I geared it up to 16/42 from 18/40, but still, this was a stark contrast. I'm kind of wondering about the Hyper 30T now. I never had close to this kind of power with that engine.

After a few more tanks, I started trying some light passes. It was 65 degrees but getting it to hook up was requiring some very light throttle work.

I probably made a dozen and then decided it was time to at least see what it would do with nitrous. I brought both sized nitrous cans with me.

Since the .12 did so well with the little can, I tried the big one first. Charged it to 100 PSI and hit it after rolling out 10 ft. Ok, that's *way* too much for the .21, and I mean like it felt I guess like having an 8s battery in a 5 lb car "too much". There was zero chance of controlling that much power. I don't know how much power it added, but it felt like double. I took one look and saw one of the rear wheels was wobbling too. Hex socket was completely stripped! That ended my day, and I got no videos sadly.

So, I will certainly stick with the small can going forward. Big can is too much nitrous. Too much nitrous. Totally undriveable. And I wasn't even giving it half throttle at this point. Also, going back to using Baad Racing aluminum rims. Wish I could have gotten a video of the nitrous pass just to show (and re-see myself) how crazy the power explosion was. The car was tearing up the tires all the way down the track, almost hopping actually. I won't speculate on the times this will run yet. Next weekend is our first team test and tune day, so I'll be on the tree and have some real numbers then.

 

[Doom!]

Crazy when you think you've got things close to perfect, then you find out how much more was out there!

 

[johnnydmd]

Crazy when you think you've got things close to perfect, then you find out how much more was out there!

Yeah no kidding. I read back through this thread and see how many times I had it "better than ever", and then I discover some other thing. Constantly evolving and learning for sure.

 

[JCsRCcar]

I read through this entire thread just because it was very interesting which is something I rarely do with a thread this size. The pictures, the story, and the ingenuity is amazing. This thread should be stickied.

 

[johnnydmd]

Our first TnT was this past weekend. It was cold, and we had problems with the tree (turned out to be a faulty powerstrip of all things), but we gave it a go. Two guys blew engines!

Couple of things worked against me, but the cold was the primary issue. Aside from having a hell of time getting it started (no power to run a heat gun, had to sit the car on the dash with heat on), traction was just about non-existent. I was running the black "practice" body out of fear of trashing my really nice ones. It was well warranted.

This had the wing I'd made a couple of years ago myself, and it's got less downforce. That might have been a mistake, but I got a few passes in anyway. On the final pass the rear camber link snapped, luckily at only 30 ft out, and the car rolled, destroying the wing. So, I took the wing off the green body, put it on the black, and painted a new one for the green body.

Decided to use the CF stabilizers from the damaged wing too. Little refreshed look for 2024

Meanwhile, so much to figure out with this thing. I worrried about the weight - it's down to 5.6 lbs now. But I think it's more about weight transfer. The wheelie bar was too low, so the rear wheels were lifting off the ground it looked like to me.

 

[johnnydmd]

Got it out Sunday with some temps in the mid 60's and all the changes.

Definitely much, much better in overall driveability. I think the gearing change really tamed it some, and definitely the suspension adjustments helped. Still some work to do there though. Power is just off the chain really. It took a bunch of tries and tweaks to get some good passes and figure out how much power I could throw down. I had a few that were really good, but the top end, was just scary and the car was breaking loose 80-100 ft out if I laid into it all the way. I didn't dare touch the ntirous! Next TnT is Sunday, but we just cannot catch a break with the weather (60 deg high). Gonna leave the weight at 5.6 lbs, I think with warmer temps the traction will be vastly better, that's been my experience with Spring testing in the past.

 

[JCsRCcar]

Don't forget to shoot some video if you can for those of us who wish we could have a nitro powered car but can't. I love the sound of that thing.