Here is a cool Blueprint of a 2005 WRC Subaru Impreza in Monte Carlo Rally Spec.
I found the Subaru Blueprint a long time ago on the web – not sure who deserves the image credit. If anyone knows let me know.
Putting lights onto your RC car is a lot of fun and adds realism – plus if your lights are bright enough you can “really” drive in the dark .
You can purchase pre-build lighting sets from a lot of manufactures – which offers an easy way to get you started. Alternatively you can build your own lights for a fraction of the cost and likely with a lot more output and brightness. In my previous post I build headlights for my Tamyia DF03RA Subaru Rally car. The next logical step is to add rear lights and brake lights.
The rear lights are rather straight forward – just get some red LED’s wire 2 (one for the left side and one for the right) in series and add a resistor in series to not fry them when connecting to your rc cars battery. Remember LED’s always need a resistor and the size depends on your LED.
Building brake lights for your RC car is a bit more tricky. Most commercial rc car brake light kits only Continue Reading »
Ever since I was a little kid I was fascinated by night races. Regardless of what form of racing – night time racing has something very special to it.
Unforgettable moments of night racing are Rally Cars in the snow during the Sweden Rally, glowing brake discs and the super bright pitlane in backdrop to the dark Circuit de la Sarthe better known as the 24 hours of Le Mans.
Ever since we started Rally Cross racing our RC cars in our homemade backyard Rally tracks we knew that we had to race in the dark at some point. If you are following my blog you may know that I am not a big fan of buying off-the-shelve products to solve those fun engineering challenges.
The first stage in my RC car Rally Lights project was to build a simple prototype LED headlight array that would attach easily to the car. I opted to use Lego Technic pieces because 5mm LED’s fit perfectly. Plus if you drill out the pieces just a little bit you will find that they fit very nicely onto standard body mounting posts.
This LED Remote Control Car headlight array connects to the cars main battery Continue Reading »
I really enjoy running my RC car on my backyard track for a few minutes while taking a break from work. (I work from home -thank god for the Internet). The biggest problem is – or was- that it took simply way to long to put the car together to run it and then take it all a part to charge it for the next time.
I identified 4 major needs:
1) Easy to activate – but waterproof On-Off Switch
2) Totally sealed Body and Chassis that does not let any dirt in
3) Easy access to Charging Port/Plug for Batteries
What good does it do you to spend a bunch of money on a Rally RC car such as the Tamyia DF03-RA Series when you can’t drive them in conditions that make Rally racing so much fun.
Yes we are taking about driving our precious RC Car in the mud, rain and through big puddles of water. We don’t have snow where I live but I would love to do that too (Sweden Rally anyone).
The big problem is that the tub of the rc car will fill up with a bunch of dirt and water in no time at all. On my backyard track I have to dump out the car after 5 laps because it is filled up with dirt. I initially tried building my own electronics dirt and splash cover but results where less than stellar. The big question you may ask is why not use the Tamiya “Dark Impact” body as cover. Well A) I did not know about it initially – although a quick google search would have revealed it and B) once I did find out I was simply to cheap to blow $35 bugs on a piece of plastic. Needless to say I finally got over myself and ordered one on Ebay.
I read a bunch reviews regarding the Dark Impact Buggy and quickly learned that the number one complained was that the car fills up with dirt – which told me I can’t just cut along the lines that Tamiya suggest to trim the body to fit. I carefully cut away one plastic piece at a time to make sure I cover more open spaces compared to Tamiya suggestions.
Picture below: Test driving the Dust and Dirt Cover based on the Dark Impact body:
One concern is of course heat. Having a tight fitting body is awesome – but that also means that there is zero airflow Continue Reading »
The following article will compare the Tamiya Subaru 1/10 scale model versus the real Subaru Works Team entry. The scale model is really close in scale. Well done Tamiya.
All measurements are in metric – we are talking engineering here. The data comes Continue Reading »
The rc track has been relatively consistent lately which allowed me to run a suspension setup test. I started out with testing the extremes, such as super soft suspension in the front and hard in the rear and vice versa. Funny enough it turns out that the Tamiya suggested setup (the stock setup) produces the best car handling and smoothest ride on my particular track. A hard rear suspension and medium to soft front makes the car prone to oversteer, but can produce very fast laps. The lap times are Continue Reading »
It is absolutely amazing how the Tamiya DF03-RA Subaru’s RC cars handling and driving characteristics change when switching from All Wheel Drive to Front Wheel Drive or Rear Wheel Drive.
I did a Front Wheel drive test a while back, impressions and lap timing results are available here. Now I finally had the time and most importantly consistent track conditions to run the Tamiya Subaru in AWD and RWD on the same day back to back.
In order to change the rc car to rear wheel drive only I simply removed the front drive shafts as shown in the picture below.
Granted that this does not produce the optimum performance compared to removing the main drive shaft and therefore eliminating the Continue Reading »
I have been running a Brushless Novak Motor ever since I build my backyard RC track. However during the last rain session I fried the Speed Controller (water and wet mud got in it) which forced me to switch to Tamiya’s stock 540 motor. The lack of response, torque and top end speed was immediately apparent, but and that should be a bold yelling “BUT” – the Tamiya Motor has a higher resistance when turning over, which essentially acts as brakes when easing of the throttle in or before corners.
After several laps of getting used to the new handling I was actually able to turn faster lap times compared to the Brushless motor thanks to the new found “breaks” that allow me to get of the throttle later.
I have to investigate if there are Electronic Speed Controllers for Brushless motors that would allow me to adjust the coasting (breaking) resistance when letting off the throttle.
Just out of curiosity I removed the rear drive shafts going to the wheel on my Tamiya df03ra and ran it on the rally track that I set up in the backyard.
The car is much to light in the front (which was clearly visible right from the start) for making it a serious front wheel drive contender. I did not have the chance to run the front wheel drive configuration on tarmac, things might look different there.
One of the positive aspects of having the Continue Reading »
Now that the track is build and the racing line is measured I of course want to know how fast my car is. Unfortunately my current webcam based lap counter software does not have a function where it calculates the average speed based on track length.
I posted earlier how to calculate gear ratios and top speed. I also compared the RPM’s and MPH of Tamiya’s stock motor with a Brushless motor.
Here is the math to figure out the average speed:
Average Miles Per Hour
Average Speed = Total Distance divided by Total Time
D = distance (length of the track) in feet = 130 feet
T = time in seconds = 14.716 seconds (based on 4 test days and 3 race days)
S = speed in miles per hour
To convert seconds to hours use 3600 (because there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour)
To convert feet to miles use 5280 (because there are 5280 feet in one mile)
S = 130 feet / 14.716 seconds = 8.83 feet per seconds
8.83 feet per seconds x 3600 = 31788 feet per hour
31788 feet per hour / 5280 = 6.02 miles per hour
————————————————————————
Average Kilometers Per Hour
Average Speed = Total Distance divided by Total Time
D = distance (length of the track) in feet = 39.62 meter
T = time in seconds = 14.716 seconds (based on 4 test days and 3 race days)
S = speed in kilometer per hour
To convert seconds to hours use 3600 (because there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour)
To convert meter to kilometer use 1000 (because there are 1000 meter in one kilometer)
S = 39.62 meter / 14.716 seconds = 2.69 meter per second
2.69 meter per second x 3600 = 9692.3 meter per hour
9692.3 meter per hour / 1000 = 9.69 kilometer per hour
Finally the wait is over!
Today was the first day the car went on the backyard track.
.
Good News:
- Car handles like a champ
- Surprising off-road capabilities even in soft gravel
- Plenty torque and still enough speed using a 7:1 ratio and Brushless Novak motor
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Bad News:
- Track is too narrow in some areas
- My lower chicane is too tight for the steering radius of the Subaru
- Track is a bit short
- Speed Controller and Receiver dust cover still let’s to much dirt in
Unfortunately Tamiya’s DF03 RA Rally Cars feature an open tub chassis that easily collects dirt, gravel, mud and water.
In order to make the chassis a little more “Rally friendly” – which means running in wet and/or dusty conditions I decided to build a plastic cover.
I am using a thick-monofilm available in most arts and crafts stores. When designing your own cover make sure that your ESC (Electronic Speed Controller) still gets proper cooling or you are running the risk of overheating your ESC.
Detailed images below.
Tamiya Rally Car RC Dirt Cover Side View
Without a doubt one of the most widely and frequently used RC car motors is Tamiya’s stock 540 Motor.
The motor is produced by Mabuchi Motor Co. LTD, based in Japan. If you would like to know Voltage, Speed, Efficiency, Watt etc. to calculate your R/C cars speed and performance then this official 540 Motor product spec PDF might just what you Continue Reading »
Here is a side-by-side comparison of the theoretical top speed using Tamiya’s Stock Motor, the Mabuchi 540 and the Brushless Novak SS4300 with different gear ratios. If you would like to calculate the top speed of your own RC car take a look at my Step-by-Step Guide on how to figure out RPM’s, Internal Gear Ratios, Tire Circumference and all the other data you need to know.
Here is the Continue Reading »
Here are step-by-step examples on how to calculate the most common specs, such as Gear ratios, Motor and Wheel RPM’s and the calculated Top Speed of the Car.
Gearing Ratios
Driver Ratio (aka Spur/Pinion Ratio) [-Equals-] Spur Gear [-Divided by-] Pinion Gear
Example: Spur Gear 75T / Pinion Gear 32T (T stands for Teeth – if you are not sure how many teeth your gear has, just count them).
75 / 32 = 2.34 | The Driver Ratio is 2.34, which means that the Spur Gear will turn 2.34 times, while the Pinion Gear turns 1 time.
—————
Internal Gear Ratio (aka Transmission Ratio) [-Equals-] Final Drive Ratio (found at the wheels) [-Divided by-] Driver Continue Reading »
Tamiya for detail and authenticity.
There are several R/C car manufactures, all of which produce great products in their own right. Many manufactures produce On-Road RC cars with optional Rally car body’s. These vehicles are a blast to drive on the street but do little good on fine gravel or packed dirt mostly due to the fact that drive-train and steering are not adequately protected. Ride height is another issue. On the other end of the spectrum are offroad Buggies and Monster Trucks, often powered with powerful nitro engines that make your lawn mower jealous.
My personal model building preference is detail and authenticity, which essentially limited my choice down to the discontinued HPI RS4 Rally and Tamiya’s DF03 RA. Both models offer roughly the same feature, with Continue Reading »
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