Top Force racer build

[Headling]

So went and raced the top force st Brett Davis gp (lots of pics on iconic rc Facebook page) from me and others

The topforce went well for 3 x qualifiers and was sitting top 2/3 in class with it, as the day went on the gearbox was getting more noisy and it stripped a spur gear

I was running speed tuned gears and had no spares so ended up using my rc10 in the finals

Car handles well but on carpet with the heavy breaking/grip the gearbox is the weak link for this car on this surface

[jwscab]

thanks for the results, and that looks like a really fun track and great cross section of buggies there!

[Headling]

No worries, some more pics

[RCveteran]

Great video. Nice thing about the grey carpet and vintage is as lower horsepower levels so many tires including the vintage ones will work just fine. No need to try and adapt modern rubber and guess the clay compund of the day for a car you do not run often. But I digress. You guys seem to know how to to VIntage well over there evidenced by the variety of cars that show up.

How were the classes broken up? Motor, car???

[Headling]

Here is a video from the event

https://youtu.be/-B8-fnA3364

The iconic team split the class by 2 and 4wd and by years so they are competitive and on par

[RCveteran]

And how do you guys do motors? Silver can or something else? I enjoy all the Iconic videos on youtube.

[Headling]

Most lads at the event ran brushless motors in their cars ranging from 13.5-7.5

I used a 7.5 in the TF but prob too much for the gearbox tbh, a boosted 10.5 would be spot on I reckon

[jwscab]

I would say that probably explains the gear carnage.

[RCveteran]

Wow, I was worrried about running a 13.5T in mine on a black carpet track. You were not messing around!

[stickboy007]

For a track that tight, a 7.5T is ludicrous in any car. You probably would have been faster with a 13.5T, plus you'd be less likely to tear your gears up. Frankly, I'm surprised your spur gear went before the splines on the diff outdrives.

[Headling]

The car power wise didn’t feel too bad for the track and I had it set up pretty smooth

I think it was under breaking that it went, few other TF guys did the spurs as well, the car could certainly do with a slipper!!

I’ve sold the car this week as no real need for it and I prefer racing the rc10

[stickboy007]

That's a lot of work to put into a nice car and then end up selling it

There are a few ways to avoid stripping the spur gear without a slipper. First is to motor down (e.g., 13.5T. I'm sure it would be plenty quick on that layout, which frankly had no really long straights or really big jumps). Second is to use ball diffs. Although the splines don't run as deep on the ball diffs as they do on the gear diffs, you can intentionally set them ever so slightly loose so that they slip a little bit. It's a pain to tune perfectly, since you have to take them out of the gearbox to adjust them, but it can help. This is actually a big reason why the RC10 never had locking diff rings (Cliff Lett talked about this himself at the 2016 VONATS), because it allows the diff to slip a little bit to preserve the drivetrain.

[Headling]

Cheers, some of the guys use a ball diff in the back and gear in the front which saves the drivetrain a bit

I saw on Facebook a guy use a slipper pinion off a carisma
which looked cool

Interesting point on the rc10 diff