INVADER - Nitro Slash drag car

[johnnydmd]

Big race weekend, both Invader and MeatETR entered. Didn't feel entirely ready, but what you gonna do.

Got there, good crowd of racers both 1:1 and RC. Track was nice, though because of the 1:1 racing, sticky...too sticky, IMO. Saw a couple of nice pro stock cars, bunch of guys with Vette's, Mustangs, Supra's, some were fast, some you could tell not all that experienced. One of the pro stock cars was running low 7's.

I got a little practice in just to see what my car would do on a prepped track. The prep made little difference for me.

Still stuck in the low 3's at around 50 mph. Watching this particular video, I think that I need to swap the 24t clutch bell for the 22t and see if I get off the line better. I have tons of top end, but I'm not getting that early power like before, you can tell from this vid that it was a little sluggish after the start. I have yet to try the 22/66 combo, this was 24/66, and previously I had tried 22/70 (which seemed to lack the top end). With this track, I was able to really wind it out after 123 ft, and saw that I had pleeeennntyy of speed left over with 24/66.

I tweaked the tune after that run, tested a couple more times, and then focused on MeatETR. Was having some trouble with it, running too rich and stalling, leaned it out, got a little testing in on the parking lot, and got it dialed in really good. Man that little car is fast! Took it to the track to do a test hit, and the dang thing literally stuck to the track and stalled. Also, my shoes stuck to the track, and I couldn't move!! The organizers decided to let the 1:1 cars do some more runs to try and loosen the track up some. It kinda messed up the event a little, some people didn't want to wait around. Eventually the track was runnable, and then it was time to register both cars. There weren't a lot of 1/10 entries, due to some leaving, and some others just seemed to be having a lot of difficulty running the track (aka, putting down too much power or lacking throttle control). I was first off the "trailer" with Invader. I told my wife and kids before the race I was gonna win because every pass I ran was straight and decently fast.

First round, I must have jinxed myself. Not only did I sleep at the tree (the other guy must have gotten close to five feet out on me before I hit the throttle, but I dropped the hammer a little hard to compensate, and here I was, zig zagging down the track. However, unlike the last event with the 20/72 gears, I ran him down at the big end.

Next round, no sleeping at the tree. This time, I ran straight as an arrow, and gapped the guy.

The next round, the other guy hit the wall after losing control, but I was out on him at that point according to my wife (hard to see from the video because she swung over to his side to film the crash, lol).

Final round, I ripped off another great run, and my opponent failed to launch, I think he actually might have been stuck to the track, lol. Victory was mine!

First place 1/10 winner (me!)

1st place, and runner up (1/10)

All event winners

Despite it being a long, exhausting day (my kids all left because they got tired of waiting around of course), it was a lot of fun! Charm City RC and Brian Davis did a great job getting this together, and it looks like it's going to be a monthly event! I expect it to grow big time given how much drag racing is blowing up in this region.

As for MeatETR, still a learning curve. At staging, I was having some trouble getting it started, and then saw that my glow igniter was dead. Didn't have a spare! (Invader uses a different setup, a port that uses a traxxas wand to ignite). DQ'd. Dang, because that thing was gonna be tough to beat.

Good day for NITRO. People want to talk about nitro not being able to beat electric in drag racing...but....on this day

 

[Greywolf74]

Awesome man! Gratz on the win!

 

[WickedFog]

Grats on the win man!

Yeah, that VHT they put down is like freakin glue! Likely it would slow down an RC if it was still tacky. We rented a drag strip right after the Nationals ran there. It turns out a guy paid the track owner to VHT an entire lane after the race because he was spinning all the way down the track. He wanted to see what his car would do with good traction. The track owner warned us of this, and the first car to run that lane was a brand new Mustang Cobra with less than 100 miles on it. He launched and broke both half-shafts instantly lol. She was STICKY!

 

[johnnydmd]

Grats on the win man!

Yeah, that VHT they put down is like freakin glue! Likely it would slow down an RC if it was still tacky. We rented a drag strip right after the Nationals ran there. It turns out a guy paid the track owner to VHT an entire lane after the race because he was spinning all the way down the track. He wanted to see what his car would do with good traction. The track owner warned us of this, and the first car to run that lane was a brand new Mustang Cobra with less than 100 miles on it. He launched and broke both half-shafts instantly lol. She was STICKY!

Not sure if there are any videos, but there were some hilarious moments of both me and some others with their feet stuck to the track! It really looked like something from 3 Stooges

 

[WickedFog]

Not sure if there are any videos, but there were some hilarious moments of both me and some others with their feet stuck to the track! It really looked like something from 3 Stooges

Yeah, we did the same thing! It was like the goo from the movie Venom!

 

[Doom!]

Congrats! Glad it was a good time!

 

[cbaker65]

Not sure if there are any videos, but there were some hilarious moments of both me and some others with their feet stuck to the track! It really looked like something from 3 Stooges

Great stuff ,look like ya all was having a lot of fun!..

 

[johnnydmd]

Great stuff ,look like ya all was having a lot of fun!..

I was just as happy about seeing the "nitro curiosity" as I was winning! There were more than a few guys who said they had nitro vehicles that they wanted to get running and convert to drag cars after seeing mine.

 

[johnnydmd]

Talked to a few people about gearing and tune. Some watched the vid of the practice run. One thing is I am going to stick with the 24/66 gears and work more on generating and delivering more power. I plan on switching to Bones Brew 30/8 or 30/10, but not sure which I should go with for this application (most are telling me 30/8). I am currently running 25/12, which isn't ideal. I'll switch to a colder plug when changing to the higher nitro fuel.

 

[Doom!]

Oh, I see, 1st place wasn't good enough for you! Always gotta see how much more you can squeeze out it.

 

[johnnydmd]

Oh, and a follow up on the transmitter/receiver issues.

It's neither that is the problem. My neighbor and I did some testing, and I walked about 500 feet from him, and it had full control. I had full control at the racetrack as well. I'm thinking that the issue is possibly some electrical field interference at the locations I had issues. Certainly the spot at RFK stadium with the power lines and metro train rails right along side of us had to be an issue (and this weekend I was talking about it with some guys that were that event saying they had issues too). As for the old Walmart parking lot, maybe some wiring, or the lights, I dunno. But it all worked fine this weekend at the dragstrip and in my neighborhood.

Oh, I see, 1st place wasn't good enough for you! Always gotta see how much more you can squeeze out it.

Haha, yeah, you know it! Well there are some big events in my area with some really fast guys, so I need to up my game a little

 

[johnnydmd]

Got some 30/8 on the way. Also, a solution as suggested early in this thread could be changing to use a 2 speed Jato transmission. It's not a terribly difficult mod, found some info where a few people did it. That gives me 1) a lot more torque off the launch and 2) a lot more tuning possibilities. Top speed should be pretty much the same or better than my current setup. With a TRX 3.3 it's 72mph(as claimed by Traxxas, lol), so I would think at least that or 75+ with an O.S .21 tm, but only testing will verify.

Those Jato transmissions aren't exactly cheap, but I found one on eBay that was, minus the diff, which I also found on Jenny's RC for 10 bux. Overall a 70 dollar experiment that will hopefully pay off. Only drawback is I'm downgrading from my bulletproof alloy gearcase to a plastic one. Integy used to make an alloy case for the Jato, so maybe I'll be able to snag one at some point down the road.

 

[Doom!]

Hope this works out, she's already a screamer!

 

[WickedFog]

Got some 30/8 on the way. Also, a solution I found by chance, that might be the best yet - changing to use a 2 speed Jato transmission. It's not a terribly difficult mod, found some info where a few people did it. That gives me 1) a lot more torque off the launch and 2) a lot more tuning possibilities. Top speed should be pretty much the same or better than my current setup. With a TRX 3.3 it's 72mph, so I would think at least that or 75+ with an O.S .21 tm.

Those Jato transmissions aren't exactly cheap, but I found one on eBay that was, minus the diff, which I also found on Jenny's RC for 10 bux. Overall a 70 dollar experiment that will hopefully pay off. Only drawback is I'm downgrading from my bulletproof alloy gearcase to a plastic one. Integy used to make an alloy case for the Jato, so maybe I'll be able to snag one at some point down the road.

One thing to note on those Jato transmissions is the shock tower bolts onto the transmission housing at the top on these small bosses that break off if you breath on them heavily. Not sure how your shock tower is gonna be mounted since this is a custom install, but just wanted to let you know about this.

 

[johnnydmd]

One thing to note on those Jato transmissions is the shock tower bolts onto the transmission housing at the top on these small bosses that break off if you breath on them heavily. Not sure how your shock tower is gonna be mounted since this is a custom install, but just wanted to let you know about this.

Luckily the Slash has a bulkhead that the shock tower bolts to and not to the trans. The original transmission is held in place by the bulkhead, and also I imagine gives a little support to the bulkhead. Luckily, my bulkhead is alloy, and that shouldn't be an issue, and possibly I might be able to drill some holes through the bulkhead to allow the transmission to bolt to it and add some more support, but probably not necessary for an on-road drag car. The Slash trans only has 2 screws that hold it to the chassis, and then a raised part that slips over the engine mount and has 2 screws there. The Jato trans also has that same raised part, and 2 screws, but whether they line up perfectly I don't know, hoping at least 1 does, but if not, probably also ok as the Jato trans has six bolts in the bottom, I can't image the chassis flexing enough to cause tooth separation from the clutch bell. But, really hoping one or both of those holes mate up with the engine mount for peace of mind.

 

[WickedFog]

I was driving my Jato over a tabletop doing sbout 25 mph. It went straight up just a few feet then landed on the back facing straight up in the air. Not a hard landing at all. But just the weight of the rear suspension pulling away from the trans pulled those two bosses off the trans. Not a very good design.

There used to be really nice aluminum tranny housings for the Jato, but I haven't seen them available for awhile now. I wish they were because I'd be snagging one. If you find one, let me know

 

[Doom!]

Excuse me but I don't think we are allowed to call them "tranny" anymore.

 

[WickedFog]

Excuse me but I don't think we are allowed to call them "tranny" anymore.

As they said in Clerks 2 - I'm takin it back.

 

[Quip]

Nice.

 

[johnnydmd]

Parts are arriving. The transmission and diff came. I started disassembling the car, and looking at what it was going to entail. Sadly, the info (videos) of how to do this mod are lost, so I'm trying to read as much as I can, and learn from pictures (which aren't the best of quality unfortunately). I want to do this with the least amount of hacking my expensive CF chassis.

Mounting the transmission is pretty straightforward. You need to make a plate, mount the transmission to it with countersunk screws, then mount that to the chassis. I'm going to use 2.5m CF for that. That parts easy.

The less easy part is, that you need to move the engine more to the center of the chassis to get the spur and clutch to mate.

In the examples I saw, looks like one guy used the stock engine mount for the Slash. I took a look at this, and concluded that the only way he could have done that is the cut away a portion of the transmission in the front to allow clearance. This also would sacrifice one of the bolts holding the case together. That's a no-go for me for a couple of reasons. 1 - with this being a high load situation of drag racing, I think the case would break. 2 - I plan on eventually replacing the case with an alloy version once I locate one.

The other example I saw looks like, though hard to truly see, that they used the Jato engine mount, which IMO makes much more sense since everything will mate up correctly. This will also get mounted on a 2.5m CF plate, that will have slotted holes to allow for positional adjustment. The 2.5m should also be just thick enough to allow a slot for the flywheel to sit and not need to cut another hole in the chassis for that.

Will only have to make some minor adjustments on the exhaust hanger, and hopefully the rubber stinger extender will still be aligned well enough with the hole in the body for exhaust exit with some minor adjustments (thinking that'll be ok one way or the other).

Sigh...I feel a little queasy about taking a very reliable, bulletproof car and possibly making it less than reliable...but...I know that to get this car where I want it, to make it competitive with the guys running low 2's, it's one of those things where I just have to go for it. Having a 2 speed is just such a huge advantage over single speed in drag racing, and I guess pretty unique to nitro. I also noted that very early in this thread, years ago, D3MON suggested this very mod Haven't seen him post in a while, hope all is well with him.