grizz1

Hey Matt, here's a couple of pics of the Bazooka pipe I was talking about last night, and one of the $35 "slightly used" 063 pipe and header I got at auction.
I will PM you as regards swapping some photos and details as per Jas and Louie.

zaintlouis

Hi all i'm currently about to use a lowered sleeve on my Xperimental vertex Engine , matt & jas is right about the port timings. But still curiosity runs over my head lol, the vertex is good as dead so i did it. prior to lowering the sleeve by a very fraction in length or just as thick as the shim, i did not have to lower the head just added some shims to keep the sleeve level to the crankcase so it's like nothing has change on top area. so the head would still sit on the sleeve. so i fire it up :-) and there it goes walla! it runs ok, i really like how it screams it's just that when i took out the glow igniter it starts to flame out so i was thinking of changing the plugs. Oh my God i tightened it really hard, the head got lose thread again for the second time hehe. Now i'm so excited to use a new head. i just know it will run just fine. as a matter of fact i put on a ceramic front bearing and eliminated the leak. It's ok to be crazy sometimes since the vertex is good as dead and it already has a replacement engine, instead it came back alive again lol! i'm so excited to get a new buttom head again. matt, i put scoops on the vertex crankshaft that's why i'm so dying to revive the vertex the trade off is it consumes more fuel than before. i think i need a restrictor for the carbs i think. above all there's nothing to worry, coz i have three new engines that goes with standard treatment :-) unlike the vertex, and soon a go tech if i find that $200US 7 or 5 port engine.

What i really like is to put up a business, i will make an oversize .21 pistons od all sizes hehe so you dont have to buy new sleeves anymore. acutally when our engine is worn out we replace the piston and sleeve even though the sleeve is still thick, and what if it's a modded sleeve? what a waste. anyway don't take this serously it's just a thought.

Jas the Ace

You guys want a bit of sunshine and dust!? Here is a look at the temp bash/race track the club made in about 10mins 2 weeks ago, there are are few tree roots getting exposed now which makes things a bit exciting, and as you will see none of us can drive very well on a specific track. It is a beginning for us in the area so we can only improve I hope!! lol. Further up the area is a small BMX track and half pipe, and there is good open spaces for a good old top end flogging. Not our ideal location for a club but a good starting point. Hope the link works for you guys, oh and excuse the video quality, some bits are a bit bright, enjoy and let us know of any suggestions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdCL7iUH4c
Cheers guys.

grizz1

Hey Jas, looks like you guys had a lot of fun in the video. You sure are dry over there buddy. I'm picking you spend a lot of time cleaning and re-oiling air filters in that dust.
Is that the site you gave me co-ordinates for on Google Earth. I remember seeing the BMX track whist looking down from the heavens.
Got the Bazooka all back together tonight. Fired it up in the garage at 10pm to make sure everything was OK. Sounds grunty with the OFNA pipe and header, much better than the tin can exhaust that was on there before. I might get a chance to give it a half hour run tomorrow afternoon, so am looking forward to seeing any major performance improvements with that pipe. Please excuse any spelling mistakes as I'm still lighht headed after being in a garage full of nitro fumes for 20 min or so
Hope all you guys have a good weekend. Take care, catch you soon [8D]

Jas the Ace

Yep it's the same park area as the one on google, the old bmx jumps and half pipe are about 100meters up from the little track they made with the car tyres, so plenty of room in between to open up the throttle for a good clean out, lol.
And it's not only the air filters we clean out and re-oil, our noses and eyeballs require the ocasional clean out as well.
I can't wait to get my Bazooka up and running as it will love that little track they made, I just need one more impulse purchase and it will be all go......it will happen Matt, lol.
You must have very nice neighbours grizz for you to be able to start your engine at 10pm? Can I be your neighbour so I can do the same?
Louis you have gone quiet again? Are you setting up your new adventure in modified parts for engines? It does sound like a good idea to be able to give people different options hey? I think you should go for it louis!! If it is done right you will do ok out of it and earn a bit of pocket money to spend on your race cars.
I purchased a set of Dynamite bell cranks for the aftershock, and well the LST/LST2 part is not quite the same as the Aftershock, the pivot pin is a different size, so now I will have to take them into work tomorrow to do a small modification to make it fit, so I can have a play this weekend!!! grrrrr!!! Nothing is easy these days, especially when the tools I need are at work and I have to go there on my weekend!!
Have fun

zaintlouis

Hi all, i watch that Vid jas! i enjoyed it! i like it when a buggy race amongst the monster trucks! what a great day you have there! Right fun for the right boys.

Jas, That's the great thing about this hobby.. modifications hehe

when the weather gets clear i'll make a small vid on my zombie vertex experimental engine and the cobra, vspec, mamba engine. compare the speed using a laser speed gun( if it arrive soon as well as the digital weigh scale) i'll try to know which tires runs faster and what is the ideal buggy weight. Boy this is going to be fun for me too.

Grizz how the Ofna pipe? did you buy it for more top end or bottom? hows the test?

grizz1

Louie, that pipe is excellent. Definite power increase all round.
It is supposedly designed, along with the long rounded header, for low / middle power, and certainly seems to have lifted the power through those ranges. It also has the poor old Vertex screaming at the top end too!! I don't think it knows what has hit it. Needed to lean the needles considerably with the longer header - had to do the same thing with my truggy as well when I fitted the low end pipe to that.
Put a couple of tanks through this afternoon and am very pleased. Had to re-shape the left rear of the body shell with a Dremmel tool to allow the bend in the header to clear, and also had to widen the gap in the shell where the stinger protrudes, as the pipe sits a little further back than the original. It looks OK - doesn't really matter as it's just my bashing/fun buggy. So the Bazooka is back !!!!!

zaintlouis

Ye Griz i'm beginning to love my bazooka too! that's why i bought a separate digital titanium gear servo for it's steering. i fitted a cnc knuckle arms for it too and set aside the die cast knuckle. i'm beginning to love it just as my sp2 coz this is where i'm gonna put my cobra permanently. i'll take note on that 063 pipe of yours. if ther'sanother auction for that pipe i'll surely get it coz i'm planning to build a truggy or monster truck too. hope hobby allowance gets fat again

mozzzy_2000

Hey Louis yeah mate that's what I was saying earlier; you can either replace it entirely or have the piston & sleeve re-sized. I'm not exactly sure how the engine modders do it but I'm pretty sure it involves pinching the sleeve back to original compression therefore keeping the original sleeve intact. But maybe they use the same technique as you are suggesting? That would be interesting.
Hey are you buying a radar speed gun Louis? Wow how much is that costing if I may ask? Haha I was thinking of buying those Matchbox toy car speed guns hey! lol I've actually heard they were reasonably acurate. $50 not bad for a laugh anyway! lol
My neighbours are pretty cool not that I run my nitro on the street that much but when I do I dont seem to have any problems. Although I haven;t tried cranking them up at 10pm at night! lol now that would be interesting. My street is so quiet at night a nitro would just ring out through the neighbourhood hehe, which would not go down too well at all. Anyway thankfully when i do run them during the day if people are around they usually seem to be more curious than anything else which is pretty cool.
Hey Grizz yeah that black pipe does not look like the one in my buggy. Great to hear you've had success with that new pipe setup. As you've notice a low end torque pipe is longer than a top end pipe and infact if you only have on pipe, you can use 2 different manifold/header lengths to tune it either to top end or bottom end depending on your engine and the track you are running.
And Louis hows that Cobra coming along? Opening up nicely? How much fuel have you forced through that one hey? I'm loving my LSK at the moment. Finally had a spot of fine weather which allowed me to fire her up for the first time in a month. Gotta love an engine that fires up virtually straight away after such a long period of inactivity, thats for sure!

Jas the Ace

I bought one of those Hotwheels Radar guns about a year ago and I am very impressed with it to be honest, well for the price anyway. I registered the speed of a real life car travelling at 60km/h on the speedo and the radar said 56km/h, that is well within the 10% margin that all speed guns must be given, including the police ones. I will let you know that the range is limited to maybe 30 metres and with the r/c stuff you have to be down at almost ground level to get a proper reading. It made me laugh when someone said their buggy or truck would do 100km/h, I would simply pull the gun out and show them the real reading, you quickly hear all the excuses under the sun with them blaming traction or tuning etc. I would say yes one can get a buggy to go that fast but the stock rtr has no chance without a few mods. So yes a big thumbs up from me with the radar guns hey.
Took my Losi out for a hiding today, man is it flying!! (sorry I don't know what speed she does yet, lol.) We had a few little bash races on the track today and we are starting to get some feeling for a little track. My day ended when I broke the LH upper A arm, thankfully I have a spare, just hope it is a LH one not a RH one, if not a set of RPM arms might be on the wish list. I will show the link when they get the video action uploaded.
Another one of my mates turned up at the bash today and his buggies have not been cleaned or touched for 8 months, and I couldn't beleive they fired up straight away with one flick of the rotor start, one even kept going after he realised he lost his air filter sometime earlier, poor engine, that intake on the carby looked pretty dirty.
Righto I'll shut up now and let ya's get back to it.
Cheers guys

grizz1

Jas, good to see you got the Losi up and running again. Looking at your vid from the other day I find it hard to imagine a buggy motor lasting too long without an air cleaner lol !!! It is amazing the punishment these things take. However I am learning that if you don't do your regular maintainence and neglect to nip up loose screws etc, they will turn around an bite you in the wallet - hard.

Yeah - my neighbours are pretty good. I don't normally expose them to nitro motors being started at 10pm, but I was back to work on a 24 hr shift the next day and just had to see if the Bazooka would run OK with the new pipe after being shelved for a month or so. I couldn't wait a couple of days to hear it going, you guys know how it is
Fortunately I have an empty section (council land) on one side of me and my next door neighbour was working on his car in his garage at the time. I was only running it on the starter box inside the garage for a few minutes. My neighbour has a couple of electric on-roaders and I am trying to convince him to go nitro. He comes over whenever I crank one up and is getting hooked I am sure.
No more racing for a while as I will be working weekends for the next 3 weeks. I will probably go over to the track a couple of times during the week on my days off and spend some time doing laps and tuning etc. I should have the whole place to myself which is really cool.
Later - grizz [8D]

ehroof

are you guys having any problems with your fuel tanks? i have went thru 2 tanks and they seem to crack for no reason, always right near the fuel nipple. Just figured i would ask and see if you know why.

Thanks

grizz1

Hi ehroof. Yes, my original Bazooka fuel tank developed a crack in about the same place - between the fuel line nipple and the mounting screw.
I replaced the original tank with a Kyosho MP one (7.5 or 777 I can't remember) which screwed straight in. No problems since then.

rclynx

Had the problem a couple of times myself but 4 very small O-rings with washers on either side at the mounts took care of the problem.............to rigid a mount I think[&o]

ehroof

thanks guys

zaintlouis

Hi all!! whew.. i thought it was a big mistake to buy an 80US$ radar gun.

I haven't ran the cobra quit so often, very hard to spot a good weather while our bashing site was destroyed by heavy rains[]

i happen tio fire up a cobra 12 midnight! but it was just a break in run. i enjoyed that moment with a hot coffe the roads are traffic free and safe.

i recently had some computer virus infection! this will take me out for a while. catch u guys later

mozzzy_2000

Hey guys. Yeah ehroof I only had a leak aroung the lid and the o-ring on my hurricane. Likewise I replaced it for a inferno mp7.5/777 fuel tank as well and its still going. I've had the same happen on my other nitros so I dont think its a one off thing. I just put that down to routine maitenance. I personally think its the fuel that eventually perishes everything it comes into contact with. I find I have to replace my fuel lines about the same time as they seem to get cracks in them as well.

I'm definately going to have to check out those radar guns hey. They actually sound much better than one would first think. I certainly would be curious as well to see what sort of speeds my buggy is pulling. Dont think 100Kph myself but I wouldn't be supprised if my fastest engines get up to 80Kph or thereabouts. But then if we were doing it onroad then yeah I reckon in a straightline speed test you'ld be amazed how fast they can go.

Hey Jas I'd love to know if that engine that sucked in dirt is still running hey. Man that scenario never ends well hey as it usually results in a killed engine. If it ever happens you should immediately shut the engine down as quick as you can. It happened to me and because I acted fast I did not do any damage to my engine but if you allow the dirt to cook in the engine its bye bye engine I'm affraid. I kid you not that there is not a bash I have been to yet where at least 1 person does not get dirt in their engine. Oh the tears....

Louis I'm all for good neighbourly relations but heck if my neighbour cranked up a nitro at midnight I'd be so fithy mad!!! I mean there's a time and a place is there not?! hahaha having said that there's been times when I wished I'd crank up the nitros in the middle of the night just to pee off the neighbours but never seem to resort to such behaviour! haha!

Anyway later chaps. Back to worhshiping the weather gods to bring us some fine weather...haha

zaintlouis

hey matt, i just got carried away for a bit of excitement to get the cobra going hehe. so far i have no neighbors to complain about the good sound of nitro. i have two rich neigbors on the left who could complain but their walls are made of thick cements, their rooms are airconditioned, so far none of them came to me to complain, their houses are like FORTS!. anyway, it just happens occasionally :-)

i got the bushnells speed gun. i just hope they arrive soon so i could start comparing speeds of a buggy using different tires and different engines ofcoarse in a straight line. This is just a matter which tires or engines pushes your buggy fast. (when it comes to cornering, break reactions, accelerations & top speeds on bumpy tracks that's a different story.

Jas the Ace

That engine that sucked in the dirt is on my mates Rex X Pro, it is or was the original engine that had lived maybe about half its wear life, but now the last half I think might be done after a bash around in about ten minutes. He hasn't played for quite a while and apparently he forgot to secure the air pipe to the engine with a cable tie!! He does have a .24 he puts in it occassionally but it is not any better than the .21. As I always say, it is the cheapest and most basic part that fails a vehicle, and thats goes for any form of motor sport. It was still running at the end of the day, but not very well, I think if he is lucky a good clean out might give him a bit of borrowed time for a little while anyway.
Yeah some speed readings I've taken were mainly on stock RTR buggies, on a very hard, rough surfaced football field, where they were basically skipping and bouncing accross the ground fighting traction and control. Basically they were much the same comparing Bazooka (of course), Rex X Pro, Kyosho Hyper 7, Inferno MP7.5, T-maxx truck....I think I got the names right, at top speed we could only get around 57-65km/h. To me that is pretty good for a few little stocko's.
A lot of fuel tank lids can be adjusted for a tighter seal, that is if the actual seal itself is ok. Thankfully I have only lost one fuel tank due to it breaking away around the outlet nipple, that was on my xtm x-cellerator, but the rubber mounting is highly recommended in my books.
Louis, keep us informed on how the bushnell's radar gun performs when you get it. eg, range and direction etc.

zaintlouis

K Jas u got it.

i really can't wait to see how my self modded vertex goes compared to the cobra. i have to use one buggy for the four engines that i have, have to exclude the P5 coz it needs new piston and sleeve which currently the price is still expensive compared to the gotechs.

grizz1

Hey Louie - Fancy out doing me by 2 hours and racing your nitro up and down the road at midnight, lol !!! That is so BADDD [>:]. You da man Louie .
Radar gun sounds cool. I will be interested in the results of your testing as well.

Jas - that's a bummer about your mates engine. Easy thing to do though, just get preoccupied or disturbed and forget to put that plastic tie back on. Just unfortunate he was running in that dust. No chance of any dust here mate. Another three days of solid, heavy RAIN !!! Arghhhh [&o]
You have given me an idea though with the rubber mountings for the fuel tanks. That will be my project over the next week while I'm stuck inside - some thinly sliced fuel tubing, some small clutch shoe washers - hey presto !! instant impact absorbing fuel tank mounts.
I did manage a half hour between downpours this avo to give the Bazooka and that Ofna pipe another run around the end of my street. It's a little more fiddly to start since I fitted the pipe, but once its run for a couple of minutes it really flies.

Jas the Ace

Anyone up for a 2am bash at my place? I'm sure my neighbours would donate some pretty red and blue disco lights for us to bash under? hehehehe.....we can even compare speed readings on our radar guns with the official ones I reckon! Actually no, we won't do that cos it would be past my bedtime, lol.
I don't know if you guys have anything similar to my "Dick Smith Electronics" stores, but you can actually buy a build your own speed gun kit from them. No doubt there would be similar kits out there, I don't know what they are like though, just a thought.

mozzzy_2000

I was in dick smiths the otherday actually. Got some cool stuff but dam their prices are expensive thesedays. You used to go there for cheap prices but not anymore. Oh well its the way of the world unfortunately I think.

Building a radar gun though is a pretty cool idea though in any case. I reckon they'ld be pricey from DS's and knowing me I'd probably do a really bodgy build! haha. Louis what did you pay for the bushnells radar gun? They're the ones that I was looking at. They look pretty reliable. Its really interesting that Jas's readings topped 65kph. I would have thought these nitros go faster hey?

Interesting idea with the fuel tank mounts. I've never experienced that many problems to be honest. I reckon you could run into problems if the mounts are too rigid without much flex in them. Mine seem to be quite bendy which is interesting. I dont know which would be better in terms of impacts though.

AND I still wait for clear weather to play in...

zaintlouis

Grizz, i have a computer shop, some costumers stay up very late until 2 pm or 1 am or 6am - 7am (but not all the time), just playing against each other via lan games, Warcraft III is what they love most. so sometimes i really have to stay up late too. so when i'm not in the mood to play with them, i thinker my buggies or i go oustside and bash on the street, security guards and sometimes the roaming police are my audience hehe. They are so amazed how this scale model cars runs so fast.

Matt the bushnell radar guns are around 80$US plus 30$ shipping cost. quit pricey. any news about the new coming K car for the 2008 worlds?

ehroof

my local target store has hotwheels radar guns for $15 each on clearance, they say they are accurate to within + _ 1mph, i have the bushnell one and i am happy with it, i got mine from radio shack for $90, i dont think they sell them anymore, i wish i would have seen the hot wheels one first, for $15, how can you go wrong???