1. CompetitionX Budget Touring Car Build CompetitionX Budget
Touring Car Build competitionx.com
/rc-how-tos/competitionx-budget-touring-car-build/ How Much Do You
Really Have to Spend to Go Fast? Its no big secret that the touring
car segment of RC isnt doing so hot. Ask any number of people why
and the answers will range from the cost of the cars, the secret
tire compounds, or even the ESC of the week issue. I personally
think it could be a combination of all three, but I also feel that
if you stick with one thing and focus more on your cars setup than
what the other drivers are using for equipment, you have a very
good chance of taking the win with a budget built race car. Case in
point; I do a lot of local racing. I see a lot of guys showing up
with the latest and greatest racing equipment. I see them put their
$1000+ car on the track but struggle to put in good lap times. I,
on the other hand, run my competitive TC with a tried-and-true
electronics package. I do try to keep up to date with the latest
battery packs, but at times I run packs Ive had for about a year.
And I win races. Why? While the other guys are fumbling with those
high-tech gadgets to make their car go fast, I already KNOW how my
electronics will work, leaving me time to perfect the cars setup.
So I got to wondering about this; could I build a budget touring
car with a budget of $500 and still be competitive against those
high-dollar hotrods? Lets take a look. Chassis I figured the
chassis was going to be the most expensive part of my project. I
made a wish list of reasonable tuning features that the chassis had
to have; adjustable turnbuckles, threaded shocks, multiple shock
tower and camber mount locations, etc. After searching high and low
for a chassis that fit my needs, I came across the 3Racing Sakura S
Zero. This chassis had just about everything on my wish list;
adjustable turnbuckles, droop and arm mounts as well as multiple
shock locations and Ackermann. The Sakura S Zero also features a
very smooth belt drive system, upper and lower 2.5mm black
fiberglass chassis, zero-maintenance gear diffs and enough room on
the chassis to fit most electronics. It didnt come with threaded
shocks, but I can live with that. Oh, and did I mention that the
3Racing Sakura S Zero has a street price of only $110! Thats a lot
of touring car for such an inexpensive price! Total Cost Thus Far:
$109.99
2. CompetitionX Budget Touring Car Chassis Shot After finding a
diamond in the rough with the Sakura S, I was confident I could
round up some electronics that would be fast, reliable and
inexpensive. Servo To handle the steering duties, I chose the Savox
SC-0252MG Servo. This hunky little servo is fast and touts a
145oz-in torque rating, which is easily enough to work the front
tires of the Sakura. Its metal geared-drivetrain keeps it strong
and its digital circuitry keeps it precise, and it sports a street
price of only $37.99. Total Cost Thus Far: $147.98 Brushless
ESC/Motor The ESC/motor is the heart of any fast touring car. The
ESC needs to be programmable, smooth and able to transfer every
ounce of battery power to the motor without heat buildup. Heat
buildup can do two things; 1) it can cause parts to overheat, thus
losing their efficiency and 2) heat is the loss of overall power;
if theres heat that lost power is not being transferred to the
motor. I could have spent a little extra in this department
choosing a separate brushless ESC and motor, but went with Speed
Passions excellent Cirtix Stock Club Race combo. Ive actually used
this combo before and found it to not only be quite powerful, but
also extremely simple. It works with both sensored and sensorless
motors and features 9 different driving modes, proportional ABS
braking, 3 running modes and an easy one-button programming mode.
It is also compatible with Speed Passions pocket-sized Smart ESC
Programming Unit. This system comes with everything you need
including the sensor wire and power wires. The best part is the
price; its only $89.99! Thats a ROAR legal ESC and motor with a ton
of features for under $90! I couldnt pass that up. Total Cost Thus
Far: $237.97 Transmitter When it comes to transmitters, Im a bit of
a snob. I like digital screens, blinky lights and clicky buttons,
so I chose the Futaba 3PL . Sure, it might be a bit overkill for
this project as any non- computerized radio will do, but if its one
thing Ive learned over the years its that you ALWAYS want to spend
as much as you can on the transmitter. Why you ask? Its pretty
simplewhats the one RC item you can use with EVERY RC car you buy?
A computerized radio, especially one like the 3PL that has a
10-model memory. In addition to the 10 model memory, the 3PL also
sports standard features like 2.4GHz technology, dual rate, low
battery alarm and an internal antenna. For those of you that arent
impressed yet, what about other slick features like special mixing
for 4WS (for crawlers or brake mixing), ABS and 4 useable channels
with neutral trims! So, how much does a system like this cost?
Surprisingly cheap for what you get; a street price of only
$114.99, which is a good price considering you probably wont have
to buy another transmitter for quite a while. Total Cost Thus Far:
$352.96 Battery
3. When it came time to find a battery for this project, I was
a little torn between picking up a NiMh pack or a new-generation
LiPo pack. NiMh packs can be had for pennies, but they weigh a lot
more than LiPo and just arent as powerful. So I decided to go with
one of Reedys Wolfpack 3000mAh LiPo packs. At a street price of
only $34.99, that will give me plenty of power while saving quite a
bit of weight. Less weight can equal a faster car, so I think its a
pretty good tradeoff. Total Cost Thus Far: $387.95 Tires For those
of you that dont know, tires are about 75% of a cars setup. You can
have a perfectly set up car but if your tires are junk, your car
will be junk on the track. Since I do a lot of local racing I know
that the Solaris Pre-Mounted tires work good on both the carpet and
asphalt (better on the asphalt) tracks. Being pre-mounted, there
was nothing to do but bolt them on to the Sakura S Zero. Price:
$27.99 for a set of 4. Not a bad deal. Total Cost Thus Far: $415.94
Body The body controls the aerodynamics of any car and can greatly
affect the handling on the track. I knew I needed something that
worked both on the carpet and asphalt so I chose Protoforms R9-R
body. This body was designed to work on both carpet and asphalt and
features a low CG (even with its ROAR legal height), a large rear
wing to help with loose surfaces and fenders that have been molded
with enough clearance for standard rubber touring car tires. Even
though the body was only $23.00, I knew I still had to have it
painted which can be a pretty expensive endeavor. Instead of paint,
I opted for a less conventional method and used one of XXX-Mains
Touring Car Wraps. The Ignite X-Wrapz is an easy peel and stick
setup that makes decorating your ride extremely easy. A few minutes
of work (and $19.99) and I had a custom TC that looked like a
winner! Total Cost Thus Far: $458.93 Charger The final step in this
build was the charger. Since I went with the LiPo pack, I knew I
would have to get a LiPo-compatible charger. I chose the DuraTrax
Onyx 230 Advanced AC/DC Charger . This charger allows you to charge
any NiCd, NiMh or LiPo pack up to 7amps and features an
auto-trickle function. It also features a built in AC power supply,
cooling fans and a 10-battery memory for configuring different
battery charging setups. Its small size also helps keep your pit
area clutter to a minimum. With a street price of $79.99, its a
great deal for the amount of charging functionality you get. Total
Cost Thus Far: $538.92 The Drive I gathered up the Sakura S Zero
and all my racing goodies and headed down to TQ Raceway in Chino
California. After unpacking, charging and doing last minute setup
check, I put the Zero down for its maiden
4. CompetitionX Budget Touring Car Wrench Shot run. The car
felt pretty good and I was putting down some 12.5 and 12.6 second
laps, but this was nowhere near the 11.9 second laps the fast guys
were doing. I knew that it would take a couple packs to burn the
tires in (since they were brand new) and tweak the suspension some,
but I had complete confidence that I could get to that magical 11.9
second lap time. Every time back out on the track, the lap times
were falling; 12.5, 12.3, 12.1, 12.1but that 11.9 second lap was
just not happening. Finally, on my last pack, I made a drastic
change to the front and rear shocks by laying them down quite a bit
and saucing of the front tire (instead of the Id been saucing).
After the first couple of warm up laps (which felt pretty good), I
buried the throttle and went for it. I was consistently hitting
12.0 lap after lap until about lap 7 when the computer rang off an
11.8 second lap. I thought that was the hero lap until the next lap
announced an 11.7! The next 3 laps in a row were a 11.8, 11.9 and
11.9 consecutively! Had the track finally grooved up that night?
Had my tires finally wore in or did I find that killer setup for
the Sakura S Zero? Maybe it was a combination of them all, but I
knew that if I could pull off an 11.7 in practice, hitting 11.9s in
racing should be obtainable. Final Thoughts As you can see, my
project cost a total of $538.92. Yes, thats about $40 over my
budget, but if I didnt need to purchase a new charger (say, I
already owned one), that would put me UNDER my budget by about $40;
thats another battery pack! I should also note that I did have to
tweak the setup quite a bit to hit some fast laps but did not use
anything other than what was included in the kits box. If I did
have that extra $40, I would probably purchase a set of front and
rear anti-roll bars and a full shock spring set. I honestly feel
like this car could go a couple tenths faster with some more
tuning! In the end, its not always about the best equipment but
more about the RIGHT equipment. When building any vehicle from
scratch, take your time and do your homework! I built a fast,
competitive car at a fraction of what it cost of some of those
ultra-racers out there. EDITORS NOTE: Please be aware that even
though this project was done within a limited budget, this does not
mean it will work for everyone. Some car setup knowledge will be
beneficial to tune your ride to obtain maximum performance. Parts
Used 3Racing HKSHobby.com Sakura S Zero #2628 Savox SavoxUSA.com
SC-0252MG Servo, #SAV-SC-0252MG Speed Passion SpeedPassion.net
Stock Club Race and 17.5T Brushless Motor Combo Set, #12280175
Futaba
