It's all relative...

Just another photo placeholder.  I'm having a discussion on a forum about RC car scales, and how they're not the most accurate.  "Scale" is a fairly loose term with RC cars, and this pic illustrates it rather well.  Left is a 1/10 Short Course truck(with monster truck tires and a plow added), center is a 1/10 on road car, right is a 1/8 scale 4x4 buggy, top is a nearly full scale house cat:

 

More F&C CAD

I spent some more time with Solidworks.  This is still a "see if I can" rough draft, so none of the dimensions are accurate.

Fast and Cheap update

Just a quick update of the Fast and Cheap.  I'm going to make a new body mold if I ever get up the motivation.  It'll be CNC'd instead of hand carved plaster.  Since I'm not all that proficient in Solidworks, I started on a super quickie Solidworks model just to see how much work it would be.

Gyro

After my last crash with the Drift Star, I decided that I needed a gyro to help me keep the car straight.  Here you can see the difference with the gyro off and on.  I'm using an Esky EK2-0704B gyro with the gain hooked into ch3 on my receiver.  If the car starts to slide, the gyro will steer it back straight much quicker and more accurately than I ever could.  I haven't driven it yet, so the settings are still pretty rough, over steering it slightly.  I'll be able to get it dialed in better once it's on the road.

New wing

I decided for my new wing, I'd use the simple pro mod style.  It should be plenty effective, and is super easy to make so if/when I crash again, I can whip up another one quickly.

Fixing, part 1

It's cold and rainy out, a perfect day to work on the Fast and Cheap.  When I crashed, the rear body mounts cracked out, and the rear body section cracked.  Unlike Lexan, Shoe Goo doesn't really stick to PETG so the Shoe Goo/Drywall tape method of repair is out.  Instead, I elected to just skin the inside of the tail with another sheet of PETG.  This should provide reinforcement, and help stiffen the rear of the body too.

Packed in like sardines

In order to increase my chances of success with the Fast and Cheap, I added some more stuff to my already cramped chassis.  The first thing I did was switch from the RTR radio to my FS-GT3b transmitter.  It's got a dual rate function that actually works, so I'll have much better control over the steering.  The second piece, which I should have left on from the get go is a gyro.  I'm using an Esky 0704B gyro.  This will help correct any slides as soon as they start, much faster than I can react.  To get it to initialize, the yellow gain lead gets plugged into ch3 of the receiver.  The third item, and just as important, is a handheld GPS unit.  It's got an on board speedometer and top speed recorder.  This means no more marking distance lines on the road, and no need to set up my radar gun.  With less setup involved, I can just take the car out and run it with less worry about traffic and making a perfect run.  All of this I managed to (just barely) squeeze onto the chassis and still fit under the low body.

Battle scars

I finally have the motivation to do some work on the Fast and Cheap.  I haven't touched it since it's first(and last) outing and subsequent crash.  It was the back of the car that took the brunt of the damage.  The wing broke, the diffuser cracked, and the body cracked.  While not polycarbonate tough, the PETG I'm using did surprisingly well considering the tumbles it took.

The Fast and Cheap

One of my myriad of projects is the Fast and Cheap.  It's my attempt to get an RC car up to 100 MPH, and do it on a budget.  Anyone can build a fast car, anyone can build a cheap car, doing both is the challenge for me.  If you want to read the entire F&C Saga, here's a very big thread about it on the Ultimate RC forum:
http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=171392

Well, I finally had time for some test runs.  Needless to say, it didn't end well.  At around 40-45 MPH, the car spun out then went airborne.  On the plus side, I got to 40 MPH and hadn't even gotten to half throttle yet :)