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  #61  
Old 04-23-2008, 02:32 AM
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Sorry, alfred, I forgot to respond to your last question a long time ago. But, I did look at the auto parts store and other stores and haven't found that kind of tape anywhere. I also looked online but it was hard to ever know if I was looking at the same thing.
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  #62  
Old 04-23-2008, 02:50 AM
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Harnois Racing Formula DVD Released!

Well guys, I have graduated from the little online clips...

I have produced a 90-minute DVD that is 100% on-board open-wheel 1/18th scale on-road racing! It is available now. Go to harnoishobby.com to watch a preview and read all about it.

This is my first announcement about this DVD, here on yourmicro.com!
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  #63  
Old 04-23-2008, 07:25 AM
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cool man.....might just have to put in an order.....i will make sure that i see the preview as well.
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  #64  
Old 04-23-2008, 12:55 PM
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I have always admired this track setup in your basement since I got into Micro RS4s about a year and a bit ago.

I like the webpage redesign as well and have checked out the preview also.

I like how Alfred was mentioned on the "most wanted drivers list" .... ROFL!!
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Last edited by Nerve; 04-23-2008 at 01:05 PM.
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  #65  
Old 04-23-2008, 01:39 PM
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heyhey, now that wasnt funny....lmao.
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  #66  
Old 04-23-2008, 03:27 PM
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Thanks Nerve, I've spent a lot of time on the new track and the web page, and mostly the DVD.
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  #67  
Old 04-24-2008, 07:51 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harnois View Post
Thanks Nerve, I've spent a lot of time on the new track and the web page, and mostly the DVD.
This may have been mentioned somewhere and I don't think I saw it listed on the webpage, but what kind of specs are those cars running? Are you guys running a stock class of micro? How many cells and what type?

Just curious because they seem to drive fairly smooth w/o getting "too fast" around the track like my micro does on carpet racing here.

We run in the basement of a Candian Legion, so we have a larger area in which to run and have the room for brushless.
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  #68  
Old 04-24-2008, 08:37 PM
Fajita Dave Fajita Dave is offline
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Hey Nerve,

This is a lot longer than I expected it to be :-p. Our cars are very basic but the details are what make them drive the way they do.

We are running stock 180 size motors and four AA Energizer 2500mah batteries. Our top speed is 12mph at the end of our 25ft straight away and it takes about 4.5 seconds to go from 0 to 10mph.

The chassis on the M18 and RS4 that we are racing are basically stock but on the M18 there was a whole lot of modifing to fit the open wheel body on it.

The M18s needed to be modified a lot of make the open-wheel body to fit. It moved the weight bias towards the rear a lot which helped it drive smoother. Even now my steering exp is at 70% to make the steering less sensitive. Even with that much exp it takes very tiny steering adjustments down the straight away otherwise you oversteer. There are a whole lot of changes done to the chassis but its about a page worth of explaining. Still its a stock chassis with a stock motor, AA batteries, and hard front foam tires.

The RS4 bottom chassis is completly stock but the upper chassis needed to be lowered a bit to fit the open-wheel body. The RS4 tracks straighter and the steering is less sensitive. We haven't figured out the entire reason for this yet but we have some ideas. The M18 has some slop in all 4 tires because of the indipendant suspension where are the RS4 has the straight axle bolted to the chassis. Less slop in the rear end means the car tracks straight better. The overall alignment makes a huge difference too (camber, and toe mostly). On the M18 we try to get the toe at 0 degrees front and rear.

The only things that really makes our cars drive smooth is tires that we are using along with the slick surface that we run on. We are running the XRay foam tires with the hard compound on the front and soft compound on the rear. The track surface is only wall paint applied with a paint roller so there is a whole lot less grip than the normal RC track surface. This forces the cars to push a lot which smooths out the steering and gives us a larger margin for error. Usually with the normal RC racing that has high grip surface and high grip tires along with crazy speeds for a small car makes things so fast its impossible to react or be accurate enough for the car to feel like its smooth to drive.

We have tried faster motors and bigger batteries in practice before and it just ruined the close racing. Pretty much anything faster on our track makes things to fast to react to. We are already doing 1 turn every second so there are only tenths of a second or less to react especially when you have 5 other cars you're racing wheel to wheel with on 22 inch lanes.

We have ran on concrete with about a 50ft straight away before which really made the steering faster because of the added grip. Still we kept the low HP setup because the cars were more drivable. Dispite the long straight away and pretty much double the space the racing was still more fun because the cars were slower than the average RC. Of course all of us have been racing with each other for a very long time so we are always racing close. These cars are only fun if your racing close on a track with tight turns. Otherwise they really are to slow and to easy to drive the have fun with.

Last edited by Fajita Dave; 04-24-2008 at 08:40 PM.
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  #69  
Old 04-24-2008, 10:22 PM
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Wow! Now that was a reply.

But you know what, you answered my somewhat vague question perfectly. That was exactly the reply I was looking for. You gave enough detailed iformation that it made perfect sense.

You guys really have dissected the micros on making them run perfectly and have put a lot of thought into the setups of your micros/m18s. Where as myself, fire in a big block motor (or brushless), 2/3a 6 cells, make sure it goes straight and hope for the best. I really haven't gotten too worked up over tuning my setup for the optimal settings. I found that running hard foams and medium rears was a setup (with my chassis that is) worked the best for me. I found that soft foams on carpet was slower and sloppy feeling.

I will eventually tear down my micro (again) and rebuild and clean it up before the racing season starts up again in the fall.

Thanks again for that great reply!
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  #70  
Old 04-25-2008, 12:26 AM
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It is funny to me sometimes how what seems like a simple concept takes so many words to explain in writing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerve View Post
This may have been mentioned somewhere and I don't think I saw it listed on the webpage, but what kind of specs are those cars running? Are you guys running a stock class of micro? How many cells and what type?

Just curious because they seem to drive fairly smooth w/o getting "too fast" around the track like my micro does on carpet racing here.

We run in the basement of a Candian Legion, so we have a larger area in which to run and have the room for brushless.
Part of the goal of our “formula” is to create that smoothness that you are talking about. So it’s awesome to me that you made that comment.

The smoother handling cars enable the drivers to run much closer together, which is not only fun, but it keeps the action up-close in the camera. The smoothness of the cars also means smooth camera movement, which makes the on-board footage a lot easier to watch and actually understand what is going on.

The super tight track is another part of the formula that keeps things up-close in the camera. In order to keep it smooth on such a track, we need to keep the power down, among other things. So we run with 4 AA batteries and stock 180 motors. With that setup we get over 60 minutes of runtime.

Due to the narrow lanes, sharp turns, and low-traction, we still have to use the brakes 4 or 5 times per lap, so the cars are plenty fast relative to the environment. The brakes are audible in the preview if you listen carefully, especially in the “Close Racing” section. A short portion of the DVD is done with no music so you can enjoy the sound of the motor and braking… and impacts. For the next DVD we’re looking at having brake lights on all the cars so you can see when all the cars up ahead are braking for the turns.

If we ran on a bigger track with more traction and faster cars, we’d probably have just as much fun racing, but I don’t think it would work as a DVD. The competing cars would usually be too far away from the camera and each other, and everything would be too shaky and fast to see what is going on.

The tight track, smooth handling cars, and good drivers are what keep things action packed, up-close, and coherent. And as you can see from the preview, crashing is never ruled out!

As you can see we’ve really put a lot of thought into this DVD, so I hope you guys like it.

Most importantly, my response is shorter than Dave’s!
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  #71  
Old 04-25-2008, 07:04 AM
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If its like all the other short clips that you guys have on your site then im sure this is going to be awesome........
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  #72  
Old 04-25-2008, 08:28 AM
Fajita Dave Fajita Dave is offline
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We both have 8 paragraphs Adam .

The DVD is actually a lot better than our short clips. Its just like watching real racing. Even though I was driving the camera car the whole time I found myself rooting for a certain driver to win. Especially the ending... it was a great last few races. The bonus features are a lot of fun to watch too.

I have some other RC videos that were professionaly done but they were just a bunch of clips strung together with music. With this you get to see the racing go down and you get the feeling that you're actually in the race and its a lot more entertaining.
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  #73  
Old 04-25-2008, 08:40 AM
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cool man, hope to get my copy for sure.
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  #74  
Old 04-25-2008, 09:02 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by harnois View Post
The smoother handling cars enable the drivers to run much closer together, which is not only fun, but it keeps the action up-close in the camera. The smoothness of the cars also means smooth camera movement, which makes the on-board footage a lot easier to watch and actually understand what is going on.
Yeah I think if you strapped the camera to the top of my micro you would want to keep a bucket near by... LOL. It is interesting that with lots of speed these cars can be fun, but with slower speeds they become more techinical as well. I would imagine that also the slower speeds would mean that parts dont get damaged as fast as they do on my micro (ie spur gears every other race).

Quote:
Originally Posted by harnois View Post
The super tight track is another part of the formula that keeps things up-close in the camera. In order to keep it smooth on such a track, we need to keep the power down, among other things. So we run with 4 AA batteries and stock 180 motors. With that setup we get over 60 minutes of runtime.
I would like to be able to give that track a whirl, but I highly doubt I would be down in the states anytime soon.. heh.

Have you considered mounting remote cameras to the sides/uppers of the bridge and around the track in certain spots to give close up side track action or a birds-eye view of the race?
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  #75  
Old 04-25-2008, 12:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerve View Post
It is interesting that with lots of speed these cars can be fun, but with slower speeds they become more techinical as well.
In ROAR they have a 1/12th scale 4-cell class, when you know those cars could be made much faster. So surely we are not the first to recognize the value of keeping the cars down to a smoother speed.

Since the cars have less momentum and less speed difference between them, it is possible for them to nudge each other around a lot more without knock'n each other out of the race, thus staying in the battle. And the fun is in the battles.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerve View Post
I would imagine that also the slower speeds would mean that parts don't get damaged as fast as they do on my micro (ie spur gears every other race).
Yeah we hardly ever break anything. We do wear things out, mostly the suspension joints.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nerve View Post
Have you considered mounting remote cameras to the sides/uppers of the bridge and around the track in certain spots to give close up side track action or a birds-eye view of the race?
We have experimented with that a lot. Probably in the next DVD we'll incorporate more camera angles, but noth'n beats on-board.
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Last edited by harnois; 04-25-2008 at 06:25 PM. Reason: left out a word
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