On-road BL project

brian, just to let you know, the anaconda tires are soooooooooooo sticky that on my nitro jato it is almost impossible to push sideways on glass and other smooth surfaces……………….

[BrianG]

Yeah, that's how it usually goes. Sticky tires=fast wear.

not too much yet with the jato 2.5, about 5 tanks and not that much wear....................

[BrianG]

Well, got the tires and rims in and they look nice. I dyed the rims black, but noticed it took longer than usual to dye dark enough. RPM stuff dyes VERY easily by comparison.

I took the Jato to a track at my LHS only to find out there was a big puddle on one end. Hmmph. I guess I should've called first. So, I ended up going to an out-of-the-way parking lot at the local fairgrounds. The tires work well at high speeds, but getting there is a challenge. Any more than VERY gradual throttle throws the Jato sideways. It takes me about 50-75 feet just to get to a speed where I can start laying into the throttle and even then I have to be careful. I've set all the settings on the ESC for as gradual power curve as possible.

Anyway, I was doing some high speed passes racing passing traffic which was on the other side of a fence when a cop shows up with his blues on. At that point I was wondering what the heck I did wrong - the grounds were open to the general public after all and I was way out of the way from any cars or people. So he walks up all serious and says "Sir, do you realize you were doing 47 in a 25?" and then cracks up. Whew! He apparently was watching for a while and got a kick from me racing the cars on the other side of the fence. So we starting talking a while about what was in the truck and so on. Finally, a cool cop. :)

Back to the tire performance: I had duct-taped the inside of the tires to prevent balooning, but by the end of the run, the tape had broken or come loose or something. Oh well. They still work well. In hindsight, I probably whould have gotten the soft compound for better grip, but I didn't want to be buying tires again next week. I might eventually pick up some anacondas for low speed, high power turns. Also, I got just under 45 minutes of mainly high-speed runtime with my 2s2p emoli packs and they were barely warm at the end.

For parking lot racing, I want to pick up some thin (~2" diameter) cloth/canvas tubes about 6 feet long that I can fill with sand to use as banks. That'll let me easily make any shape track I want while still being protable. They should be heavy enough to stay put. What do you think about this idea?

cool. sounds like you had a good day. that was really awesome about the cop.

[BrianG]

That was actually yesterday, but I fell asleep while typing it up last night. When I finally tried to submit it, I got an error and didn't feel like typing it again right away. And yes, it was a good day. :)