10-06-2007 - BRCA Bury Metro National - Round 3

Round three of the BRCA national series was hosted by the Bury Metro Radio Car Club. Arrival on Friday saw the weekend start out to be a scorcher, with temperatures in the mid 20's touching the near 30's! The track it self is mainly astro turf, with grass and cobble sections with other features such as the famous sleeping policemen. The club had been working on new features a few months before their place in the spot light, with a new double, a triple and an angled double section.

The track has to be taken slowly due to its technical sections pushing the drivers to their limits, but has some fast sections such as the banked corner coming on to the straight where cars can wind up before a height change on to a sandy cobbled section. The new triples was the struggle for some drivers in 2wd. Especially when the sand came up through the turf and new tyres were required - with a smooth throttle and precise jumping it was achievable; however in 4wd this section was a breeze.



Tyre choice was very easy, with schumacher yellow minispikes all around being the hot ticket. But with an incorrect weather forecast the week upcoming to the event, shops brought more wet weather tyres, and eventually ran out of the tyre of choice!
Luckily for my self, one set lasted the day with the car getting more consistant over the day as the tyres wore, this made the car less snatchy and more predictable through the technical sectors.


Practice 1:
I kept the same set up on the car as I used the week previously at the SRCC GP as the car was very good giving me TQ and win. Even though it is a different track, the car felt good enough to keep the same.
The car took to Burys track very well, a slight push mid corner but it was very driveable and I could push the car when needed.

Practise 2:
I went out with the same set up as the car felt really good in the first practise. Unfortuantly the new brushless system i was using reset it self when the car was switched on. I quickly had the car passed to me and re set up the esc to get some practise in at least. I had a few laps with the car and it was still going well.

Round 1:
Advice was given to me from fellow BJ4 driver Colin Brenen, to keep my cool in the first round and set a comfortable time. I went out and for most of the race the plan was working, keeping up with drivers at the front end, unfortuantly 3 minutes in to the race a steering ballcup fell off and with confusion from a marshal I received a 42 second lap, instead of my average of 25/26. Even with this lap, I was sitting half way in the F final which was very promising. I went on to replace the ballcup to be safe.

Round 2:
Who ever said lightening can not strike the same place twice obviously hasn't been to Bury Metro! At roughly the same lap, in the exact same place, and the exact same marshal with the same ballcup coming off I lost yet another good time, I was quite gutted about this as the car was very good.

Round 3:
The tracks condition was noticably worse this round, with the grass cutting up and alot more sand coming to the surface the car seemed to be abit unpredictable due to the set up being abit stiffer than required. I still produced a good time with 12laps 312 seconds. The temperature was raising around this time of day and my brushless coped right untill the corner after I crossed the finish line, then thermaled! I decided to go back to my brushed system as I desperately needed another good time to get me up the finals.

Round 4:
It took me the entire round to change back to my brushed set up as all the electronics needed relocating and rewireing. I finished the car the heat before I was due on and quickly set the esc up. I had changed to losi blue pistons in the rear with 30 weight oil instead of losi orange to soften the rear up. I had also changed to losi red pistons in the front with 35 weight oil. instead of #3 ae pistons and 40 weight oil, for the same reason and to hopefully give me abit more steering. The car seemed abit sluggish compared to my brushless system, but what wouldnt compared to a 5.5 motor!

This made the car easier to drive, but went 'soft' towards the end of the run due to the heat. Funnily enough I finished with another 12 312 time which set me up for the back end of the E final.

The final:
I had fitted a fan to the car, wired by Trish (thank you), I also opened a few vents and fitted a bigger heat sink to aid cooling. My stragety was to take a wide line to the first corner to miss the first corner pile up, and it worked. I just clipped a car who was on its roof and got through up to 6th place, I was then faced by driver Adam Skelding, but due to me not being used to racing a driver of his standard my bottle went! I fell through the positions to 8th then got my act back together and actually kept up with Adam for a while.

I finished the final in 8th place, the cooling aids helped alot and the car handled fantastically, however I knew there was more to be had out of the car. I had set about making the car easy to drive over five minutes rarther than quick over one lap, and good enough it paid off. I'm happy with an E final placing, it gives me great hopes for the rest of the season. The next two tracks also favour the BJ4, Oswestry an all grass track, and Southport my home away from home!

 


-Driver interview-

Richard Lowe has been running the Jconcept cars since they were first released. He has ran the TC3-O conversion car previous to joining forces with the american company. Richard has been successful with both the original BJ4 and the worlds edition. I met up with Richard at Bury national for an update on his day, and a driver interview.

Richard Lowe Interview:

You were the first person in the UK to own the original BJ4x4, how do you feel the car has progressed from then to the now world champion winning car?
The origonal BJ4 was a very good car, but it was quite hard to get the most out of it. Moving to the Worlds layout has improved everything in general, the new car is more stable, easier to drive and a lot easier to reach it's full potential.
The setups for our tracks have come on a lot in recent months too, Rich Barton and Rich Cree have been a big help bringing new ideas to try and the car now gets a lot more track time with three of us working on it.

You have raced the worlds edition car for quite some time now, what is the best change you have made to the car, and how has it helped?
The biggest improvement came from a setup change made recently. Out of the box the car has a tendancy to lift it's inside front wheel coming out of corners as it's quite soft in roll at the back. This works for dirt tracks to generate grip but over here we have pretty much all the grip we want so it isn't needed. Previously I had always run the shortest setting on the rear toplink to stop the back rolling, but to give the car back the grip doing this took away I was running the rear shocks on the inner hole in the tower. It worked but could make the rear of the car quite tricky on bumps. The solution was to go to the medium length toplink and stand the shocks up so they stop the body roll instead of the suspention. Doing this has improved stability, grip, bump handling and has given the car even more drive out of corners.


Are you running any of the avaliable hop ups on your car? How are you finding them? how do they help?
On my car I have the one way diff, steel t-nut for the slipper and the new JC white ballcups. The one way diff is something everyone should have for the car (don't forget outdrive springs!), I used to take it out for bumpy tracks but with the current setup it's just as easy to drive as the centre one way or no one way and most of the time it's faster. The steel t-nut makes the slipper a bit easier to adjust and more reliable than the plastic t-nut as it's less likely to back off. The JC ballcups are much better than the standard AE ones, much stronger and the white ones look ace

Do you have any advice on the car for other racers?
Take it easy and let the car do the work, it rewards being smooth and accurate over thrashing it. Don't forget to threadlock the slipper too...

Congratulations on making the A main at Bury Metro, your car seemed to be very fast all day, did you make any changes to the car?
As soon as I did the first lap of practice I knew the car was very quick, I made a few little changes here and there but almost every time I made a change I went straight back to the starting setup. The only differences by the end of the day were moving the front shocks out on the wishbone to calm the front end down a bit, medium wheelbase for the bumps and taking a few rows of spikes off the tires.


Thank you Richard, and good luck.

-Setup-

Here is a comparison to my own and Richard Lowes finishing set up at Bury Metro.

Paul Rotheram

Front
Drive: Front one way
Spring: Blue
Piston: Losi Red
Oil: 35
Limiting: 0
Shock location - Tower: Middle Wishbone: Inside
Camber:1.5
Camber washers - Inside:2 Outside: 2
Steering rack - Front, 3 washers

Rear
Spring: Silver
Piston: Losi Blue
Oil: 30
Limiting: 0
Shock location - Tower: Middle Wishbone: Inside
Wheelbase: Short
Antisquat: R 2 3
Camber: 1.5
Camber washers - Inside: 3 Outside: Middle

Richard Lowe

Front
Drive: Front one way
Spring: Silver
Piston: Losi Red
Oil: 40
Limiting: 0
Shock location - Tower: Inside Wishbone: Outside
Camber: 1
Camber washers - Inside: 1 Outside: 1
Steering rack - Back, 3 washers

Rear
Spring: Silver
Piston: Losi Blue
Oil: 30
Limiting: 1
Shock location - Tower: Middle Wishbone: Inside
Wheelbase: Medium
Antisquat: R 2 3
Camber: 1
Camber washers - Inside:4 Outside: Middle


I have been experimenting with Losi pistons over the past few weeks, and they have definatly made an improovment on the cars handeling.
Losi orange feels similar to an AE #2 and close to #1 whereas the blue is close to a #1. There is no 100% comparison as losi pistons all come drilled with three holes over the AE two holes.

Thank you to everyone who has provided help in one form or another, i've met quite a few different BJ4 drivers, and a nice handful of people who are considering purchaseing the car, or have already ordered one.
The BJ4 seems to be a really personal car, with set ups varying from driver to driver.. i'm yet to see anyone running the same set up as one another.

Oswestry next, another track where the BJ4 should perform - 100% grass with some jumps. I'm looking forward to this, as over the years i've never raced on a grass track! New experiences loom.

Over the next series of reports, I will be having a section for hop up parts supplied from Jconcepts. This first article is of what is to come.

The standard CVDs that come with the BJ4 WE are steel with a black coating. These work well but have been known to bend when using the one way differential, or under big impacts.


Jconcepts answer to this problem is the MIP CVD range which they have supplied for the front and rear.
The new driveshafts have a chrome finish and feel abit lighter than the standard steel items.

Racers tip - Literally!
This is a tip i found by accident. When rebuilding a set of CVDs for my 2wd car in winter, i had sheared my .050 wrench but managed to salvage some of the end with a dremel by flattening the tip.

I was going to replace the tip, but found with this one I could give grub screws alot more torque whilst turning as there is no chance the remaining tip can snap.
Worthwhile doing? in my opinion definatly, but don't go grinding your new set of tools, use an old one if you wish to try this.

I'm yet to have a CVD fail on me, and I personally believe this has something to do with it.
I've ran the MIP CVDs on my car for the past three meetings and so far they have been perfect, with only slight wear around the pins due to the high grip and powerful motors. These I would reccomend to anyone to purchase, they add extra reliability to the car, and also a nice amount of 'bling'.


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