I've been churning out some AW's lately. Here is an update on past and recent developments.
Starting with this older warhorse that I've raced a lot. This chassis has raced several times in NorCal and once (I think) on the flat track @ Buena Park maybe about a year ago. This car has always been good and I usually run it with the added weights as shown. Lately, it's been a little iffy on some tracks and I knew it needed a trip to the jig. Here it is stripped down and a few things repaired. It's ready for reassembly.
- 3 rails of .055 spaced.
- Coined nosepiece is an R-Geo part in .040 . Other brass plate is .032
- Pans are "shaker" style.
- 12* motor angle
- Weighs in @ ~~ 108 gr. all up.
In the meantime, I had built this a few months back but never raced it and hadn't even tested it much. I had built this halfway thinking about it as a flat track car and thought maybe it'd have too much bite on a speedway. I took it to our last race at Motown b/c I was suspicious about the old one. I tested the old car and it was pretty good but I thought something was wrong so I tested this one. It was a little grippy but spectacularly fast so I decided to race it. It was so fast that I didn't have to go real hard with it. I just ran it about 95% and stayed out of trouble. Since then, I tested it on the sorta diabolical Yellow Dragon Flat track @ Fast Track Hobbies and was blown away by it. It really is a flat track car.
- 6 rails of .039 with a space.
- Nosepiece is a coined R-Geo part @ .040. Other nose brass is also .040
- Hinged pans are .032 with wire stiffeners
- 12* motor angle
- Weight is 111 gr all up with the .032 center weight in place.
So just recently, the occasion came up to build this one for a customer after he pretty much demolished the one he had. This is a rail layout that I've used a lot and it is always good. On customer cars, I'll usually use a little steeper motor angle to facilitate gear choices and also to make motor installation easier.
- 3 rails of .055 soldered.
- Pans are .055 wire.
- Nosepiece is .050 other nose brass is .032.
- Motor angle is 14*
- Center weight is .025
- This is a speedway car and will go about 105 all up.
Since I was in the mode, I made up another one for myself. This one is intended to be a little stiffer than the .039 car in case the situation arises where that one just has too much bite. I seldom do unsoldered rails but in this case, it hit the target for flex that I was after.
- 5 rails of .047 unsoldered between the nose and the bite bar mounts.
- Pans are .047 wire
- All nose brass is .050.
- R-Geo hardened steel guide tongue.
- Motor Angle 10*
- Center weight is .016. (this is going to be a handy place to store some lead)
- Bite bar is .062. Inboard tubes are std but outboard tubes are drilled out to .070 ID.
- All up is going to run about 106.
