10 replies to this topic

[TSR]

In the recent donation by Mike Steube to the LASCM were these two motors built by his father in 1966. They had been carefully kept by Bruce Paschal, the Godfather of Pro-Racing, and recently passed to Mike.
Built over the usual (for Bill Steube) Dynamic/AMT Mabuchi FT16D, they have been rewound, epoxied (one with similar stuff as used by Dyna-Rewind) and dynamically balanced. There are small variations on these such as the placement of can screws (one of them using K&B machine screws) and sleeves over spring posts, a Dyna-Rewind/Ted Lech invention.
Few of these motors have survived, but thanks to the generosity of both Bruce Paschal and Mike Steube, the LASCM has no less than five of them now, one being in the car that Billy Steube used at the R&C Coupe race in 1967.





These were built at a time were things were simpler and probably a lot more fun, when experimentation was all and everyone had a ball building things.

Until about six years ago, no one had seen any of these since the 1960s...

[dc-65x]

Cool, thanks! The files will be down loaded and printed out for reference .

[Maximo]

Awesome! Beautiful Horsepower! Steube Checkpoint Power!

Those FT16D rewound wonders are a sight to behold. Made my day!
These are the same era rewound motors that I am trying to build in coooperation with Ron Hershman and John Havlicek.
I use mine in an arsenal of racing style thingies!

A recent eBay Checkpoint armature went for a small mint.

If only Santa would smile on a young boy still dreaming...

-Max

[TSR]

David,

The arm that went for a mint on ePay was not even wound by Bill Steube but by one of the persons who bought his business, and dated from the early 1980s.

The cost of making a 1966 Steube replica motor is actually quite low. An old AMT motor can be stripped, the arm rewound and balanced, the can and endbell drilled and fitted with the pretty K&B screws that can be pirated from an old K&B chassis, and... voila!

[68Caddy]

I would love to see one of Bill Steube motors in action at the track to see what it can do, is it possible?

Nesta

[havlicek]

Philippe,

THANKS for showing these motors. I was never much of a racer although I did enter some races and if my memory serves me, those were days when (at least where I ran) it was pretty much anything goes. If your car cleared by 1/16" and had a body... you passed "tech". Motors, chassis were a glorious mix of RTR and aftermarket stuff and everyone was keen to see what the "next big thing" was. One race later and everyone was already looking at the next big thing! Motors went (at least it seems so in retrospect) from crude slugs to weapons of mass destruction overnight and the race was one to figure out how to keep them from vaporizing. Hotter winds drove hotter magnets drove better endbells and hardware drove hotter winds still driving better cans and bearings etc. While I wasn't aware of what Mr. Steube and guys like him were doing, they drove the industry.

These were built at a time were things were simpler and probably a lot more fun, when experimentation was all and everyone had a ball building things.

Boy, is that ever the truth. Thanks for reminding all of us just a little of how things were. A little perspective and context is a beautiful thing!

I would love to see one of Bill Steube motors in action at the track to see what it can do, is it possible?

Nesta,

The beauty of these motors isn't in flat out performance by today's standards. You'd have to be accustomed to how a stock FT16D-powered car ran back then to get a real idea of what these things were doing in comparison. It's no different than seeing a 1:1 car from decades ago run today... it's all about context. Because of that, you might or might not be impressed by what these motors could do in a period chassis/body... but it would definitely be a beautiful thing anyway! It would be super-cool to see people today running a similar "class" though.

[GTPJoe]

Hi John,

Your take on racing "in the day" is exactly as I remember it here too. Body and clearance were all that was teched. I saw chassis cobbled together to last one race only. And motors were all over the place. And what worked one week was obsolete the next!!

Being one of the younger racers I got a lot of hand me down stuff from my older cousins who raced. I'd take stuff from different chassis and motors and try to keep up with them, usually not very successfully. But it was fun watching and listening to what those older guys were doing...

Do you have blue paint to do motors like those??

Nesta,

John's right about the absolute speed of those classic Steube motors. I've calculated how many feet per second those old motor went and compared them to modern motors and the D3 motor that PdL designed is just as fast as those old motors when comparing the ft/sec speed. Sure tracks are much smoother now but just looking at absolute speed as a function of how far in how long the motors that Retro uses today are a perfect fit to recreate the fun of the time...

See ya!

[TSR]

Do you have blue paint to do motors like those??

Joe, they are metallic purple. My pictures are not so good, I need a better camera.

[Bill from NH]

Joe, you ought to build one for the "Billy Steube" chassis you built. I'm sure John could help. I got the proper Chappy body from Tom Andersen.

[havlicek]

Hi Joe,

Thanks for confirming my memories of that time! Great fun eh? No, I don't have any metallic purple paint, have to look around for that one.

-john

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

I still run this stuff which is why I still have to rebuild them! Lately, I have been getting a lot of track time out of a trio of Dynamics I have in 1/32 which have been blowing up arms. Lost all three in one day a while ago. Luckily, I have a small bin of replacement 110/32 arms to replace them with....from the day.

I have shown up with some of this stuff every convention, so some of the guys have driven them...including my 1/24s.

I think that was part of the comments I made about D3. Kept the cars, still run them, can compare them directly to our current stuff. The real problem is that the BP king is about 35% faster than the same shape track was in the day. Six second cars then turn 4s now!

Fate