453 replies to this topic

[Alan Draht]

I reduced the Husting dragster's nose weight from 1 oz. to 0.75 oz.

 

I epoxied a cylindrically-shaped stack of tungsten weights together, laid the stack on its side, tucked/ cemented it in between the rails at the nose of the chassis, hidden under the the body's rounded nose.

[Phil Smith]

So, I borrowed a page from a distant cousin to slot car racing -- Soap Box Derby racing -- to use tungsten ballast.

 

Tungsten is 1.7 times denser than lead.  A cube of tungsten, one inch on all sides, would weigh 0.70 lbs -- 1.74 times more than the same sized cube of lead, so it's more compact in size than lead is.

 

Here's a set of tungsten weights which come as a kit of 3/8 inch diameter round disks.

 

I think you may have mistyped. Did you mean pinewood derby tungsten?
 

[Jay Guard]

They both use Tungsten. it's the bomb when it comes to density. It's a little bit expensive but who's counting $$ when it comes to winning.

[Tom Katsanis]

Awesome Alan the 3 volt arm should pick it up a bit.
I have had no problems running protracks I believe Mark's fast Magwinder that had run at Mike's has gone under 1.10 on protracks & one of Floyd's neo built cars had run under a sec on them the Germans are fine I have some on my Ramboochie street car but once you start putting power down the protracks are more trouble free.

With ratios I run 2.38 to 1 on my car with a 6 volt arm & it does 1.29s pretty easy geared 3 to 1 it does 1.5s.

[MSwiss]

After watching these vintage cars go down the track, periodically, in the last year, I agree with Isaac S's post #411.

The Protracks just are not the way to go on my track, with this style of car.

My surface is extremely bitey.

It's painted with a Sherwin Williams 2 part epoxy, that sells for $190 + for the the 1 gallon kit.

The dealer, a few blocks from my raceway, had to sell it me under another name, as he would be breaking some sort of policy (or law???) selling it to me as Mike Swiss, or Chicagoland Raceway.

Sounds crazy, but it's the truth.

None of Mark's early low 1.1 passes were anything near smooth.

They were that fast because the motor is a monster.

When he made a 1.08 pass a few weeks later, it was only accomplished because the Protrack tires were narrowed to .300, and it was the first pass he tried that night, with the tires sitting on the car, to dry out out for a week or 2.

Once they made the pass and were subjected to any light film of glue on the track, and morseo, the shutdown glue, they were useless for all subsequent passes, that night, hopping hopelessly.

Alan's car with the Protracks was even more comical than any of Mark's.

It was more entertaining as it would launch both rear tires off the track, and slap them back down, at the same time.

Sort of like a series of reverse wheelies.

Once Alan put his Hustings car, with the German rubber, that all changed.

While I could spot some arcing from my ideal vantage point, the car ran perfectly smooth.

With the slow motor, we just turned the voltage up and up, with car getting faster on every pass.

On the last pass, at 24V, the car went 1.201, running perfectly smooth.

Along with not biting too hard on the launch, and the pass, it also didn't bite hard in my shutdown, and it used up almost all of the 44 ft, so we decided to call it quits.

I'll be cleaning up the shutdown, on Saturday, for a race on Sunday, so I'm hoping with glue not all contaminated with tire rubber, it will stop faster in the future.

Anyway, with the realization that the German rubber is the way to go, I'm confident we'll see a sub 1 second pass, with a dragster powered by an all vintage motor.

And I think there's a good chance it will be on my regular/modern 16V power.

[Tom Katsanis]

I will say that I have found my car is faster when I clean the tyres & the track after every run glue does slow my car down.

I should try a narrower tyre when I get it back & rebuild to see if I can get a better run out if it.

[Alan Draht]

 

I think you may have mistyped. Did you mean pinewood derby tungsten?
 

  

Thanks for the correction!  I meant "Pinewood Derby".

[Alan Draht]

Awesome Alan the 3 volt arm should pick it up a bit.
I have had no problems running protracks I believe Mark's fast Magwinder that had run at Mike's has gone under 1.10 on protracks & one of Floyd's neo built cars had run under a sec on them the Germans are fine I have some on my Ramboochie street car but once you start putting power down the protracks are more trouble free.

With ratios I run 2.38 to 1 on my car with a 6 volt arm & it does 1.29s pretty easy geared 3 to 1 it does 1.5s.

 

Thanks, Tom!  

 

Changing the drive ratio from 3:1 to a 68T / 24T spur / pinion combination or 2.83:1 ratio is definitely on my list of things to do.

[Alan Draht]

"Hairy" braid and, to a lesser extent, vintage drag racing pick-up guides are a royal pain to deal with.

 

The braid itself is unruly and requires constant grooming/ brushing to stay put.  The guide's tiny blade cannot prevent the +/- braid strands from touching and shorting out.

 

Mike Swiss, who had a better viewing angle of the car than I did standing behind the starting line, said that there was a lot of arcing at the pick-up guide on every run.  (And still, the car's elapsed times dropped steadily).

 

Anyhow, by the end of the day, replacing the vintage pick-up guide and "hairy" braid set-up was near the top of my list of changes to make to the car before its next test session. 

 

While working on the motor and nose weight revisions, I thought about the vintage pick-up guide/ "hairy" braid set-up and, in the end, I decided to give it another shot, but with "improvements". 

[Alan Draht]

Both the Husting and Maldonado dragsters went to their first test session equipped with identical Cor-Ben pick-up guides, and every +/- guide terminal provided with a single strand of vintage International-brand drag racing braid, folded in half and set-screwed into place at the front of the guide.

 

The Husting car ran 5 - 6 times at various voltages and, while I wasn't thrilled about the "Very High Maintenance" aspect of using "hairy" braid in general, the car did run decently.  Still, a significant amount of braid was burned off in the process.

 

The Maldonado car ran at the higher end of the voltage spectrum and in two runs it burned off the (-) negative side braid in its entirety.  I had to put the car away for the day.  I had not fully uncoiled the +/- braid strands, thinking that would improve durability.  I was wrong about that.

[Alan Draht]

So, in preparation for the next test session I doubled the amount of "hairy" braid both cars' pick-up guides receive.

 

Instead of a single coiled strand per guide terminal, I installed two strands per terminal, folded in half and set-screwed into the front of the Cor-Bdn guides.

 

 

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[Alan Draht]

I'll report in more detail in its own separate build thread, but here's a photo of the Maldonado dragster's revamped Cor-ben pick-up guide/ "hairy" braid set-up, ready for its second test session:

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[Alan Draht]

It's hard to see in post #437's photo, but when it's magnified, you may notice the outline of a Scotch tape shield which I applied to the guide blade, extending back a 1/4 inch from the blade's trailing edge.  The objective is to separate/ insulate the +/- braid strands from each other, prevent shorting, and hopefully, improve power delivery.

 

Now, all of this time and attention to preserving/ optimizing vintage Top Eliminator mag rail drag racing technology is noble, but it's unsustainable...

 

... I just ran out of the special International and Associated soft, coiled, copper-wire stranded material.  

[Alan Draht]

The Husting dragster's revisions are complete and it's ready for its next test session: 

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[dc-65x]

Hi Alan

 

Your project is looking great!

 

For what it's worth, here's how Mike Morrissey of Team Russkit set up their "hairy braid" for their road race cars in early 1966:

 

[Alan Draht]

Thanks, Rick!  

 

The Mike Morrissey/ Team Russkit article is helpful.  I'll have to do something similar for the next "hairy" braid set-up I prepare for both dragsters.

 

I also snagged a few batches of 1960's Tradeship - brand "hairy" braid on eBay a while ago. 

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[Alan Draht]

Here is a comparison of final curb weights for both the Husting and Maldonado dragsters...

 

Maldonado dragster:     7.4 oz.

 

Husting dragster:     7.2 oz.

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[don.siegel]

Good luck with your hairy braid Alan!

 

I got some many years ago on ebay, but it quickly proved to be very unpractical for vintage road racing - always getting snarled up, etc. I stick to regular Cox, Classic or similar braid, just combed out a bit at the ends...

 

Don

[Phloidboy1]

Awesome dragsters Alan, & great pictures

[Phloidboy1]

any updates on recent time trials?

[Alan Draht]

Hi Floyd!

 

I posted details of test runs for both the Husting and the Maldonado replica 1965 Top Fuel Eliminator class dragsters in the "Manuel Maldonado's 1966 Top Fuel dragster" thread earlier today.

 

IIRC, the Husting dragster's best test run resulted in a 1.16 second elapsed time.  This was on 22 volts and it finally stopped just short of hitting Chicagoland Raceway's drag strip end wall.  Both of these replica vintage dragsters weigh close to 7 oz. and the modern voltage reversing strips and glue traps of today's slot car drag strips don't do much to slow these monsters down.

 

To the best of my recollection, the Maldonado dragster's best run produced a 1.24 second elapsed time.

 

Following two separate test sessions in the Spring/ early Summer of 2021, I disassembled both cars and rebuilt them with 3 volt Ram arms, reduced nose weights, replaced vintage guides and braid with modern equipment, changed gear ratios from 3:1 to 2.83:1, installed up-stops on the guide flags, and so on as described in my 2021 posts above in this "Replicating Husting's 1966 Top Fuel Eliminator magwinder" thread.

 

For a variety of reasons, I have not been back to Chicagoland Raceway to re-test both replica dragsters with the modifications made following their initial test runs.  The rebuilt cars are pristine and ready to set improved elapsed times, but the occasion to re-test them hasn't presented itself yet. 

[MSwiss]

I thought it was a little closer to 1.100.

 

I think the vintage rubber works well except maybe doesn't seem to slow down as quickly.

 

Looking back, the padlock record stands at 1.089 @51.81, by Mark Mattei.

 

That was a 100% vintage motor with Protrack tires.

 

I think the biggest issue is time.

 

I think to achieve a sub-1 second time, it will require a lot of testing and doing mods on the spot.

[Alan Draht]

Finding time to "...test, test, test and test some more..." (to quote one of today's top Retro racers) is always a major factor in achieving consistent, improved results in just about every form of motor racing.

 

Gene Husting methodically tested and tuned his dragsters over the course of many test sessions and drag races.  In the mid-1960's he was a slot car racing innovator and a Pro (he later became a pioneer in R/C car design and  founded Associated Electrics/ Team Associated with Roger Curtis).  Testing and experimentation with both full size race cars and scale model auto racing was part of Gene's DNA.

[Tom Katsanis]

With Neo magnets a car Floyd built for his friend went .998 on 16v.

My car has gone 1.13 on 16 v.

[TSR]

Just for the record, Husting's car held the record at 0.93" in 1966...

"The fastest drag race of the Classic Era took place at J&J’s in Long Beach in 1966. There, Gene Husting set a record that would survive 21 years, at 0.93". The motor on his car was fitted with a full-ring ceramic magnet from a Chrysler windshield washer motor and a Ram armature driving the wheels through Weldun gears. The motor was bolted in a sheet-magnesium frame with 0.010" aluminum skin body. Rear tires were Rekord Elastik “German spongies” epoxied over large aluminum setscrew wheels, while front wheels were polished Model Rama ball-bearing items."

 

 

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