RC Drift QD - Short

 

A short session with a big smile. A lot of fun!

Veil Side Fortune FD Rx7 Debut!

 

The ABC Hobby + Addiction RC Veilside Fortune Madza RX-7 FD3s is 99% complete.

The LED are soo bright that 1% will be to tone down the underglow. 

I needed to add a driver back to the car. They just look much less RC when the chassis is populated.

Met up with some friends... 

The fortune in this spec is a cruiser. the heavy rims and heavy driver in YD2-RX Rear Motor config means you need that power a little earlier in the range. 

Still an awesome thing as I threw it in hard. 

It's long so on 90 degrees angle it covers half the track but the driver is staring at you...  

On the complete other end of the world, my YD2 ZX +Yaris high battery machine transitions in about 1/4 the time it takes for the RX to. 

Makes it an ideal match for short cars like the 370Z etc.  

Always a shame I can't stay at the track for 10 hour sessions. but good. 

Fortune Build #4 - Glow Time

Getting it onto the bench... in a final form

front underglow is not matching and the car is sooooo low. it's hard to see.

But still looks good. 

Dual tails on the FD. peeking through the Veilside bumper 

I hate the wiring but I love the lights. this was another checkpoint in the build  

the intention was always to match the alloy wheels with a blue underglow . this also matches friends cars. 

the test fit was difficult to see the result and they still may be a bit bright , but I'll adjust that later with some different tapes.

Time for Debut!   Off to RC Drift QLD for a run. 

Fortune Build #3 - Assemble

 

Getting the body to a point where all the panels and parts are GOOed in is another benchmark

When you can start to see how it fit's in the collection

You may notice I didn't run the Veilside wing... it wasn't a great design piece in Lexan, so I went with a combination of my favourite Mark X blade and Rocket Bunny 86 Upgrights. 

The result as the rear is awesome. and because the front is an expanse of white and the body is longer there, it helps to balance the proportion well, which on this one the body is a little out. 

But I'm very happy with the result... 

Fortune Build #2 THE PEEL and REVEAL

 

The first time you see the colour and potential is awesome!

But it's a hard slog... Cutting....Washing

Masking... and not getting confused inside outside upside down.

Then the first layers. 

And eventually after many many hours.... 

THE PEEL

And then the excitement kicks in... What will it become. 

Fortune in the making

 

Finally ... I have my hands on an ABC Hobby+Addiction Mazda RX7 Veilside Fortune FD. 

When I lived in Japan, I had the experience of working with the Ex-Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift FD and other cars brought back to Japan by Newera imports. 

The hero cars from veilside and the stories behind them were part of real life. 

So why didn't I buy the real Veilside FD. Well I wanted to build my own RX-7. 

And that I did. a couple of times. 

and now those days are pretty far behind. the RC build can start. 

Can't wait to get this to a point where it can be bolted together. 

 

RC Drift QLD on a ROLL

 

So the YD2 with weight shift was on debut!

Stance is still very low

But you may notice the rear is a little higher depending on my start point for body mount

On track the effect is pretty crazy

massive left and right body roll especially at the rear. 

If anything the front monshock may be a bot limiting, so i will try the normal "soft" shock layout up font in the future.  

Body >Rolling< Again

 Its time to reset the YD2 for some ROLL action.

The YD-2 ZX is becoming an RE-X

Roll centre changes and high battery mount really going to get this moving. 

I had a spare upper deck so I cut out the back end of the plate and simply used some body mounts to locate that part. Now it's totally adjustable.

I also had a mono-shock mount laying around for a trial.  previous attempts were good for roll recentring.

Movement left right is "Quite Substantial"

squat and droop is additional to the roll. 

How will it go? 

RC Drift Bible - 2024 Styles

 

Since my last post in the drift bible on Styles in 2018 a lot has changed in the last 6 years OMG has it been that long. 

The main things that changed are GRIP GRIP AND MORE GRIP and this means driving style changes at more tracks than we think, we have reached the point of full entries on throttle. RIGA is one such place where there is now only one decel zone.

• TYRES with GRIP 

Compounds have become crazy with Valino banned by some competitions like Formula Drift Japan. But there are new ways of doing grip. 

Increased tyre circumference is one such way of prolonging tyre life so you can run harder. 

A Naoki Nakamura style 285/35/R20 on the rear offers 2223mm is around the same with sidewall of 100mm thick

A 315/40/R18 such as an RTR team rear tyre offers a 2228mm circumference with an increased sidewall of 127mm to dial in sidebite and other items as pressures drop. 

compare this to a 285/35/R18 with its' 2060mm circumference (a general performance car size) means you get about 10% more contact patch rubber and 30% more sidewall to play with the larger tyre. Run time is key. basically you go 10% harder before the tyres die. 

Punching the same revs , you are also getting a faster car with less revolutions required per speed. 

All this is a no brainer for serious users that have the power 1200hp to push these grip monsters.  

• Handbrake less

The handbrake is a tool but not used so much due to the above mentioned track changes. the urge towards big smoke and close battles means that for a spectator, keeping the cars close and taking away the inconsistent big entries should result in close PROximity  

• Brake more

Left foot brake is allowed and now the norm for maintaining more angle. Rather than handbrake power handbrake power handbrake power previously used. 

Remember the Formula D brake light rule, that's gone replaced with an accellerometer style due to this.

(But not possible in RC. this is still a setting option.)

• Setup for Speed at Angle

With more focus on Setup and Ackerman settings that have been used in RC since forever. The cut knuckle solutions and driving around poor car setup are nearly gone. Anyone not running fdf/wisefab etc is simply limited in setup and performance. 

Parallel steering angle at lock is mandatory for car speed and when cars are off setting , like Noback E36 at irwindale. it's more than noticeable and simply creates a poor spectacle and forces top teams to operate below the bar.   

• 
  No Seat time is eliminated.   

Thanks to Assetto Corsa. Simulators mean line and skill is maintained even if you don't have real time experience. PROs already have a lot of seat time, but when they can dial in the track before reaching the circuit, they can concentrate on the fine details rather than the major things. 

One major thing to notice is that skill is up across the board and there are many less driving mistakes. I believe this is a result of simulator action. 

• Power is only limited by the tyre grip. 

So with Skills and Setup on point, when we add "ultimate tyrepower" as being the determining factor, everyone knows that the more power and grip, the faster it will be. Sure it maybe harder to drive, but thats the knife edge of any competition. 

So what does this mean. 

When a pro car is sooo much faster than a street car, it rewrites the mid level competition also. 

Now we have a new level as the spread of power 

                        D1 / PRO 1000+

New Level *** Pro AM / Pro2 800+  

                        D1 SL 500+

                        Street 350+

                        AE86 180hp

When this happens, it creates a divide and more segregation. But disregard that and the main PRO cars are amazing to watch. And luckily online streaming gives us access so we also have competition in Series. 

The series with them most grip seems to be Drift Masters. America has the big ovals

and Japan has the big entries still as there is a bit of focus remaining on corner entry. 

Relating to RC PRO

There is a key difference in the way the Japanese RC Drift PRO class has maintained a big fast entry and fast exit track. 

Japanese drivers and competitions are therefore still focused on large entries and fast exists. 

Japanese are the RC Car designers with Yokomo and Overdose leading this push so we shouldn't really expect this to change unless there is enough influence outside Japan. 

Weight is over the rear for traction and Overdose even tried to get more grip into the cars with the 50mm tyre size. 

Maybe next time or still in progress. That depends on the track owners and acceptance of what more grip brings. 

Torque Transfer is the new grip maker of RC. 

as we come to terms with PRO grip, we must be getting torque transferred through the contact patch for ultimate grip. 

Front end bump steer is eliminated leading to more contact patch on both ends. 

For now the pro RC cars are FAST!

Even My YD2 Rear Motor is a speed weapon and now too fast for new local tracks. 

So as we are still bound by the track ... Lets explore this next. 

The focus changes to where we can drive and where agility is favoured over speed and how that impacts our setups. 

 Lets see how this year progresses.