SK Modified Build

[Iowa crawler]

I ended up replacing the 9650 servo with the plastic gears for a protec with metal gears. At the speed these things go a servo saver can only do so much.

 

[Serea71]

Alright, so the paint and body guy at my LHS no longer works there and couldn't get ahold of him. This is the 2nd paint and body specialist I've lost at my LHS within a year. So I asked Frank over at Mertz Racing (the same person I purchased the chassis from) if he was willing to trim out and paint my bodies and pay him for it and he happily accepted. I had to send the chassis minus the wheels, and the bodies over, and of course the paint. The paint I wanted was finally in stock, so I picked up two of the larger cans yesterday. I packed everything up really well and securely and dropped it off at the post office this morning. Not going to lie, I'm a little bit of a worrywart about my car, but it's going to Pennsylvania from Maine so it shouldn't be too long. I should have everything back next week.

 

[Serea71]

I went ahead and cut out the spoilers for the bodies. I already had the spoilers premeasured which are just flat rectangles. I made spoilers from 0.25" - 1.5" tall in 0.25" increments. I made an extra 0.75" tall spoiler for the display body. My cricut machine was actually able to score the lexan and I was able to cleanly snap the pieces. Definitely made my life easier. I'll make the mount holes next week. The green stuff is just the protective film.

 

[Serea71]

Got the ESC, Motor, and Receiver today. The car bodies have been painted up ready to go and shipped back to me, I should get it in a few days. I also had to get new front axles and steering arms becasue I appearantly had 1:12 scale ones. I also bought a new bearing set since the 1:10 axles uses a different size bearing. Those should come in on Monday and or Tuesday.

 

[Iowa crawler]

I have my SK kinda up to speed. The fast guys are turning 3.8 second laps and I am a solid 4 second car, and I can get 3.9 once in a while. That was good enough for third place in my first race. There seems to be about three tenth of a second that is all driver. If you turn to sharp you bog down if you turn to slow you make a bigger path around the track. So practice is really important with these.

 

[Serea71]

I have my SK kinda up to speed. The fast guys are turning 3.8 second laps and I am a solid 4 second car, and I can get 3.9 once in a while. That was good enough for third place in my first race. There seems to be about three tenth of a second that is all driver. If you turn to sharp you bog down if you turn to slow you make a bigger path around the track. So practice is really important with these.

I'm definitely going to practice a lot this winter for sure.

 

[Serea71]

The correct 1:10 steering arm parts arrived early today. I bought enough for 2 pairs so I can have a pair as a spare. (I feel like Dr. Seuss typing that lol)

 

[Serea71]

The new bearing set came in today. They are ceramic which is really nice and should help the car a lot. Still waiting for my car to come back. Mertz shipped it out on Thursday but I'm not going to lie I'm starting to get a little impatient.

 

[Serea71]

Alright, so for some reason my mailman delivered to my house twice today and the car is back. Everything looks great and he did an amazing job. Still got some chassis work to do I gotta put on the other steering arms and change the caster blocks, adjust ride height, all that fun stuff. Then motor, esc, receiver install and then mount the spoilers.

 

[Serea71]

I installed the zero degree caster blocks, adjusted the caster shims to my liking, , installed the proper 1:10 scale axles/steering arms, and then bolted it to the chassis. It took me all night to figure out the proper ride height. When mounting the body, Mertz had to add 5mm for a proper fit for the foam tires and the body. It took me all night to figure out that I originally installed 4mm ride height blocks when I sent it to get painted and fitted. That makes 9mm. It took me all night to figure out that I needed to put on the 5mm ride height block which meant I needed to find 4mm to make up the 9mm. Fortunately I had these carbon fiber shims that are 2mm so all I had to do was stack 2 of them on each side. Very confusing, and my tiny brain took all night to figure it out. I'll put the ball studs on the steering arms once I put the steering links back on. I also put a Mertz Racing decal in the battery tray to show my support to him. He's helped me so much and I couldn't be anymore thankful.

 

[Serea71]

Alrighty, so after taking a needed break, the chassis is finally ready for the motor, esc, receiver, etc. I had to go back and replace all the brass shims on the chassis (except for the right side nerf bar) with my CRC ones. It's not that I don't like the brass ones, I just prefer the CRC ones as they are just a little more precise in my opinion. I made sure the thickness measurements were all the same as before. I also polish any aluminum that needed to be shined up. I also set my axle spacing with shims to my liking which took forever because the shims loved to fall out of my hands and onto the floor lol. I also had to replace the plastic body mounts with red aluminum ones. For whatever reason, every time I unscrewed the body mount screws, it would take the plastic mounts with it which was really frustrating. I might take off the red anodizing from the posts and make them silver again but I'm not sure yet. I know it's easy to do with the yellow can easy off oven cleaner. Fortunately they were the same length as the plastic ones. I also had to rebuild the front end yet again, because I made a silly mistake and stripped the plastic in the lower suspension arms from the mounting screws. It's getting there, I would like to get the electronics installed by the end of the week but we'll see. Afterwards, I should be able to fix the front alignment and steering trim and stuff like that since I finally bought my transmitter.

EDIT: Oh! I forgot, I also upgraded the chassis with ceramic bearings.

 

[Greywolf74]

Shes starting to come together!

 

[9x19]

Looks like a nice rig!

 

[Serea71]

I decided to de-anodized those red body posts and it worked! I put on some rubber gloves, dropped them in a small plastic disposable container, filled it up with the yellow can Easy-Off Oven Cleaner spray until the parts were submerged, let it sit for about 10 minutes, and then rinsed them off with some warm water, an old toothbrush, and a little dish soap. I then dried them off, and then polished them with Mother's Mag and Aluminum polish and they look awesome!

 

[Iowa crawler]

This weekend is pan car racing so I’ll be running my SK sportsman car.
It is all repaired and I have a new body. I am finding that the cars are easy to drive and handle well. But driving them fast is really challenging.

Practice Friday night.

 

[Serea71]

Electronics are in and test fitted the body. Wiring is a huge pain while trying to make sure everything moves freely in tight places. Anyways, I should have the front end aligned by the end of the weekend.

 

[Iowa crawler]

I did not realize this was a 17.5 motor pro class car.
The class I am is sportsman and we run the 25.5 motor. The 17.5 will be very fast.

 

[Doom!]

Ok, not being into racing, I've always wondered what the colored band on the tires is? Is it a wear indicator, or a traction thing?

 

[Serea71]

Ok, not being into racing, I've always wondered what the colored band on the tires is? Is it a wear indicator, or a traction thing?

If I recall correctly, the color bands indicates the type of compound of the foam. I was a little confused by it at first

 

[Doom!]

If I recall correctly, the color bands indicates the type of compound of the foam. I was a little confused by it at first

Thanks, makes sense.