It's amazing where some of the conversations I have with Larry at work inevitibly lead. Larry is recently into the rebuilding of turn-of-the-century pocket watches. Today, he was talking about a watch he just picked up that wasn't working. He opened it up, and oiled all the moving parts, and it started ticking in his hand as he is oiling it. He then started telling me about this pocket watch oil (of course I forget the brand), and I look it up to find it goes for $25 for 2cc's of the stuff!!! Okay, now I'll do the unit conversion for you : 1 fluid ounce is 30 cc's. That makes that $25 for 1/15's of an ounce of oil. I decided to look up bearing oil for RC's on the barely-safe-for work Acer Racing website where they have thier SIN for $9 an ounce, a practical steal in comparison!
And then I got to looking to see if they had a ceramic bearing kit for the Photon... I navigated their bearing kits but didn't find it, so I e-mailed them to ask if they had one in the works - it didn't take long to get an answer back. They already did, and it was currently on sale! Eric sent me a direct link to the kit : http://www.acerracing.com/ball_bearings/TOP_Racing_Photon_Ceramic_Bearing_Kit-1187-0.html
I don't know how long it will be on sale, but at $86 for a ceramic bearing kit with free shipping, it's also a practical steal! Now, it's just a matter of waiting for the postman to ring!
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Vintage Trans Am - October 7, 2009
Hey! What happened to the post for September 30th?? *cough* *cough* I was sadly home sick for the first week of the Fall points series!! :( I was able to catch Jeff K's posting of the video on the hobbytalk forum to get an idea of what had happened though.
So, new week, same track layout as two weeks prior, but I come to find out James is done running VTA for a while as is Tim - they're focusing on 17.5 in preparation for the Halloween Classic in Cleveland. Barry's still in it, and Mark has switched from his Tamiya to a Losi, and has been fiddling with the Tekin RS to get it dialed in for the track. There are a few more new faces again this week! John (not St Ammant), and Tom - who knew Barry when he was "a young lad" (Barry remarked he was in his 30's about that time), and one other guy whom I didn't get a name from who had a lime green cuda with a flat black hood that was painted on the outside!
Qualifying was rough tonight. In the first qualifier, I got sandwiched between Jeff and Kevin, and wound up with my switch in the off position, and lost a few laps while Bill and Mike D looked for it. I was running well, turning in 12.8's after I got back in it, but only mustered a 20 lap run. It was was promising when I took into account the time I lost that resulted in a 53 second lap - I figure good for three more laps.
The second qualifier was fraught with drama, but I wound up putting in a good run and hitting 24 laps instead of the 23 I had been predicting! I had geared down for this qualifier in preparation for an eight minute main and it seemed about right. My fast lap was slower, but I figured I would need the slower gear to run the eight minute main.
At the end of qualifying, Mark and Barry were neck and neck, only a single lap up on me in third. I made a comment about wondering if Barry was sand-bagging, and others were rumouring Barry had his throttle end-point set way down, to which he just sort of grinned and provided a "no comment" response. One guy swore Barry was running 82% throttle (I've found if you're going to make stuff up, be specific!), Dave said it was 70%. Only Barry will know for sure.
No video of the main this week, but there's seven of us in the A. Barry, Mark, myself, John, Jeff, Curt & Matt K. Of the seven, three just started racing VTA within the last three weeks, which is outstanding! Not surprisingly, Barry is running in the lead early on and battling with Mark, but Mark is losing ground on him. Back in the middle of the pack, positions are swapping regularly! My car is running slow, and I'm driving my tail off to find I'm only turning 13.5's - I think the gear-down was inevitably the incorrect choice. I manage to keep it cleaner than John, Jeff and Curt and hold off John by a bit over a half lap for third place, crossing a lap down behind Mark in second. Since the Anniversary race, it seems Barry has become the new James of VTA...
Next week is a new track layout and the pursuit runs on! I plan to try a diff up front if I can actually get the parts to build one! Oh, and a new body is in the planning stages, and it is NOT a 1968 Camaro!!!
So, new week, same track layout as two weeks prior, but I come to find out James is done running VTA for a while as is Tim - they're focusing on 17.5 in preparation for the Halloween Classic in Cleveland. Barry's still in it, and Mark has switched from his Tamiya to a Losi, and has been fiddling with the Tekin RS to get it dialed in for the track. There are a few more new faces again this week! John (not St Ammant), and Tom - who knew Barry when he was "a young lad" (Barry remarked he was in his 30's about that time), and one other guy whom I didn't get a name from who had a lime green cuda with a flat black hood that was painted on the outside!
Qualifying was rough tonight. In the first qualifier, I got sandwiched between Jeff and Kevin, and wound up with my switch in the off position, and lost a few laps while Bill and Mike D looked for it. I was running well, turning in 12.8's after I got back in it, but only mustered a 20 lap run. It was was promising when I took into account the time I lost that resulted in a 53 second lap - I figure good for three more laps.
The second qualifier was fraught with drama, but I wound up putting in a good run and hitting 24 laps instead of the 23 I had been predicting! I had geared down for this qualifier in preparation for an eight minute main and it seemed about right. My fast lap was slower, but I figured I would need the slower gear to run the eight minute main.
At the end of qualifying, Mark and Barry were neck and neck, only a single lap up on me in third. I made a comment about wondering if Barry was sand-bagging, and others were rumouring Barry had his throttle end-point set way down, to which he just sort of grinned and provided a "no comment" response. One guy swore Barry was running 82% throttle (I've found if you're going to make stuff up, be specific!), Dave said it was 70%. Only Barry will know for sure.
No video of the main this week, but there's seven of us in the A. Barry, Mark, myself, John, Jeff, Curt & Matt K. Of the seven, three just started racing VTA within the last three weeks, which is outstanding! Not surprisingly, Barry is running in the lead early on and battling with Mark, but Mark is losing ground on him. Back in the middle of the pack, positions are swapping regularly! My car is running slow, and I'm driving my tail off to find I'm only turning 13.5's - I think the gear-down was inevitably the incorrect choice. I manage to keep it cleaner than John, Jeff and Curt and hold off John by a bit over a half lap for third place, crossing a lap down behind Mark in second. Since the Anniversary race, it seems Barry has become the new James of VTA...
Next week is a new track layout and the pursuit runs on! I plan to try a diff up front if I can actually get the parts to build one! Oh, and a new body is in the planning stages, and it is NOT a 1968 Camaro!!!
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