2016 Encino Velodrome RC10-L4 custom build

[JK Racing]

More info coming....

[JK Racing]

I last ran a pan car or oval over 20 years ago. Due to Facebook, I actually found (or he found me) one of my racing buddies that I got addicted to oval back then. We would race at Ascot/RCRC and other local tracks. He tells me they are going to run at the Velodrome again...I am instantly excited. I jump out and purchase a L3 oval immediately. I strip the car down and clean it up and begin the long journey of building a suspension front end for it. Most guys are using DS front arms, B3 carriers & axles and custom bulkheads & towers, with micro sized shocks...looked in my parts box. Nope, didnt have any of that. What do I have? RC10 shorty arms, 5/10/15 degree carriers (not sure which ones), trailing knuckles & B4 trailing axles. What the heck...lets build a frankenstein!

[JK Racing]

I dug into an box with an old OFNA Z10 sedan. Started looking at the front gearbox mount/bulkhead and thought...that could be a base. I measured it out and it was pretty dead on to what I needed. I had a small sheet of Delrin (or Delrin like material) and quickly made a spacer to lift the bulkhead up off the chassis. After that, I trimmed the hinge pin area and fit the front arms. Made a little Delrin piece to fit inside the bulkhead to hold a shock tower...now, what to use for a shock tower? How about a modified rear RC10 shock tower? SURE! After a few measurements and cuts/grinds/cuss words/re-cuts, I end up here:



Mocked up on the chassis:

[JK Racing]

Further front end progress and goofing off...





But wait....this build is about an L4 oval, not an L3....guess what popped up for sale on FB as I was almost done building this chassis....

[JK Racing]

So, I clean up the L4, move the front end over. "Borrow" the micro shocks from the L3 and fab up a way to hold the shorty 2 cell lipo battery.



I wasnt 100% happy with my first battery holder (RC10 stock holder up side down, bolted from underneath & holes for the wires opened up. So I robbed by gold pan racer of the cut battery box & G10 strap with hold down screws for the race.



Painted up a body, tossed on some stupid large pinion gear & tiny, tiny spur...

[RC10resto]

When is the race?

[JK Racing]

So, I go out for a shake down run....not sure what I'm shaking down, the car or my nerves. Suspension way to soft, scraping all around the track. It gets the best of me and I do a full tilt run up the turn in 1 and slam into the wall hard. Car rolls to a stop inside the turn and is unresponsive great....


I take it back to the pits and see the carnage. Destroyed the right side nerf bar & sheered a couple bolts. Servo came loose & a motor wire was off. Took some parts off the L3 and got it back together. Nerves were shot to hell.

I was coaxed to go back out and retry the truck. So I stiffened up the suspension and retested everything and headed back out. Truck feels amazing now, corners well, smooth down the straight (car, not driver). I run about 20 laps of practice and call it good . Very happy with how the truck felt. Had no idea on speed, there wasnt another truck on the track to gauge against.

Qualifying starts, they split us into small groups, so we can get good clean runs. Standing starts..great, something I didnt test at all. Tone sounds, I roll onto the throttle slowly, truck feels good, going straight, so I let it rip. Take off into the lead and never look back. Completely amazed. Ran 20 laps (TQ is 23 laps, so I am pretty slow overall). Motor was cooking though...

What to do? Motor was hot, but down on speed. So I took some timing out of the motor & gear up 2 teeth. Q2 comes around and I immediately know that was a mistake. Truck feels sluggish around the entire track and the other trucks are walking away from me. 19 laps & motor is over 220 degrees. Crap...quickly get it in front of my makeshift AC unit to cool it off and hope I didnt hurt it too bad.

Q3, dropped my gearing as low as I could, I dont own very many 64 pitch pinions. Q1 - 72/62, Q2 - 72/64, Q3 - 75/60...Get out onto the track, tone sounds & I roll on the throttle. I dont spin out so I get it up to speed and wow, truck feels much better. Still down on speed overall, but what's a guy to do? Drive the wheels off I turn 20 laps, 2 seconds shy of 21. Satisfied we head to the mains.

Mains - they combined all the truck heat into 1. 10 trucks, I am 8th overall. Tone sounds and a bunch spin out...but not me , I roll on smooth & easy and take off in 4th place. I concentrate on just turning smooth laps. I do get passed and dropped to 5th, where I stayed for the rest of the race. Down on speed, but drove super clean and didnt get in the fast trucks way. I'll take it...5th in the A main after a 20 year absence...

[JK Racing]

When is the race?

It was last weekend, June 25th. They are trying to plan another on Labor Day weekend...

[DaveM]

Nice work, well done!

Cheers, Dave.

[JK Racing]

Some more stuff from the race , yes, even though I was down on power, I was over 52 mph average for the entire race.

[RC10th]

Mmmmmm, 4 pole SCT combo time

[JK Racing]

Nic Case ran a demo car with a Mamba/Castle 7700 in it. Sub 7 second lap times (over 90 mph). I'm trying to get some video off facebook to load onto YouTube.

[JK Racing]

Not my race, but 17.5 stock car

[youtube]WXkCCAs9ry8[/youtube]

[fredswain]

Joey, perfect time to find your thread since I was asking you about this earlier. Is there a way to retrofit the rear side dampeners to a 10L?

[JK Racing]

I don't see why not, change the upper pod plate and make mount points off the chassis.