i’ve always considered myself a dnano ‘purist’ because i championed the aspect of ‘realism’ because each car is designed to be a replica of its full size counterpart. unfortunately, racing had slightly altered my view of things since many of the available choices just aren’t race cars. their stock setup would get you killed in a race with guys who ‘know what they’re doing’ so don’t be afraid to ‘play’ with things a bit. the first photo in my gallery is of the underside of my Lamborghini Gallardo. it has some serious battle scars since this chassis started as a Porsche 911 GT3. after finally realizing that car is just too narrow to be competitive with the GT type dnano, it’s been a Lamborghini Countache LP500S and a Ferrari F40 in its’ previous ‘lives’. the custom body we made proudly wears more scars, none of my four (4) dnano are shelf queens so they all have felt the pain of bumps and crashes in the heat of a final. i’ll be tossing the Gallardo into the fires of F1R on Sunday for the next club race but i couldn’t do it without a few small changes, here’s what i did to make it perform just as well as my Mazda 787b (which is no small feat for those who know about the Mazda):
the stock setup for the Gallardo is extremely narrow but there’s room underneath the shell to modify a few things but first, you’ll need a Kyosho Friction Shock as the other damper kits can’t fit under the body without cutting a hole (the mount comes into contact with the shell eliminating suspension – not gonna work!). now that your Gallardo still looks great, lets move on to tech specs. i’ve added some small box cutter blades for additional weight at the bottom/center of the chassis which helps hold the car down during high speed cornering. 2nd, i’ve created negative camber by switching out the (4) lower front suspension plate to a (5). this increases stability in cornering with a wider track width and reduces roll by changing the angle of the front wheels. fast cornering speeds are critical to fast lap times which -of course- are critical for the win. if you do this, its best to use the stock plastic upper plate and ‘dremel’ the kingpin holes to allow for an angle, preventing excessive rubbing or binding. 3rd, the rear of the car is just too narrow and instead of the standard (3) aluminum rear wheel hub, i’ve added a (4) which add even more corning stability. your suspension plates and front shock springs will depend on the surface you’re racing on, i use PN Racing soft on both F1R and F2L. i use 25° front tires and 10° rear tires + 18-size racing wheels all around (X-Power). the tires will break-in after a few laps and give excellent overall grip for the long, 30-minute final. my power plant? the X-Power ‘HOT’ for F1R and Kyosho X-Speed or stock on F2L with 32T/7T – spur/pinion gearing. the idea isn’t to have the fastest car, but a fast car that gives you the easiest, most reliable handling for a consistent performance that will take you from start to the checkered flag in first place. do you have a special setup for your dnano? post a comment here on the blog and share your experiences!
while we’re dicussing customs, i decided to go with an LP640 Auto Scale body for future races because the Reventon Type Shell is a bit top heavy and though it looks good, lacks the racing attributes that i need on Sundays. Joom and i added a Spoiler Kit + X-Power Stickers which give it that GT feel. we now have both of these items in stock at our online shop so if you’re looking that racing feel to your murcielago, get them both while supplies last.
this week, we welcomed a new member – Ryan from the (USA). he’d found our shop online and needed a hobby to help him relax while here working in Thailand. this is his 2nd visit, and like many others, decided to support our efforts to maintain the best mini r/c racing facility in the world. unfortunately, he’s already on his way to another project in Southeast Asia but we’ll miss him and his excitement for the hobby dearly!
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i’ve been busy with other little projects in addition to our custom body project(s), here’s just a quick list of what’s going on: 1 – Nissan Fairlady Z - i’d changed my Nissan over to 20′ size wheels because its shell has very low ground clearance and would snag on uneven tiles and drag during high speed cornering. resolving this problem meant sanding away the ‘skirt’ spoiler from the shell (i hate to do this cuz the body is absolutely beautiful! (DNX407MA) but its necessary for peak racing performance). X-Power sent some samples of their Foam Tire-Wheels over for testing but unlike other brands, theirs come installed on a black racing wheel already. for those who have raced dNano, you know occasionally the tires can get pulled off the wheels and strong adhesives aren’t ideal for use with dNano, so pre-glued foam tires is a major plus. the wheels can be re-used by removing the foam after extended wear and used with normal tires and that’s another bonus. performance-wise, the grip is outstanding! on the F2L Power Slide layout, there were no longer any ‘sliding’ issues as Soft (S) front and Very Soft (SS) rear combo had my Z on rails! these should be in stock sometime in late August. check the online shop for info on the most recently added items available for dNano including the new Optional Spoiler Kit for the Reventon Type Shell (see photo).
2 – Racing Stickers – X-Power recently sent some racing stickers over as well, they allow you to turn a plain, lifeless dNano shell into a decked out, racing livery. i needed a hobby knife to cut the stickers but the adhesive is strong enough to hold on slick, clear coat bodies. unfortunately, over handling can cause the print to rub off so its probably best to apply a clear coat if possible. while water decals will be thinner, these make creating a custom livery much easier. they provided a pack of 10 sheets, each with a different assortment and more than enough stickers to create a nice livery for 1 or 2 shells. these should be in stock by early august. 3 – eAsy Adjust Differentials - i’ve converted all my installed dNano diffs from their original shaft to the XP Easy Adjust Diff (if you already have a ball diff, use the conversion kit here). when racing on a low grip, endless curve layout, the diff has to be loose for efficient cornering. high grip, high speed layouts allow for tuning the diff to a tighter setup for better straight-line speed and acceleration. having 2 circuits with varying surfaces in the shop means a lot of work with diffs and the change has reduced the time it takes for tuning & maintenance. consider making that change if you’re like to ‘tinker’ a lot like i do. speaking of maintenance, i’ve got to do some for Hugh before he gets back from his vacation to Kon Kaen (North Thailand) so i’ll review my step-by-step process in my next post. see ya then!
the past few days, Joom and I have been working on our custom livery project. after extended discussion with several members, we all agreed that it would be really cool to have racing liveries for existing dNano since we haven’t seen anything new since XP’s release of the Reventon and Kyosho’s most recent release in February of the C6-R. with this in mind, i located Patto’s Place for decals, ordered a few sets and Joom skillfully installed the Brummel #8 livery on my Ferrari F40 (see gallery). it turned out pretty good but the auto scale models already have a clear coat which makes it difficult to install permanent decals. if we wanted to install decal sets on completed models, that would mean starting with a fresh, blank body or finding a way to strip the paints without damaging the plastic. since we’ve already got blank bodies for the 911 GT3, Gallardo and R8, we found a nice livery that matched a set of decals we picked up and went to work on our ‘from scratch’ project.
my task was to paint the base colors using an airbrush. this lays paint smooth, even and secure with no mess as long as masking is done properly. after the base colors, Joom‘s task was to install the decals. she’s a professional nail stylist so applying tiny stickers to small objects is already an easy job for her. while she installed decals, i built a spoiler and mount that would suit our needs for this project. Joom entered the final stage by attaching all the detailed light fixtures, our home-made spoiler and other model parts with acrylic. we both feel it turned out well for our first project but i almost wrecked it when i added a final clear coat and tried to wipe off the excess paint with a tissue. take my advice, paints and tissues don’t mix. we were able to save it but of course it wasn’t as pristine as we’d like it to be. i think we’ll keep this one but will probably add a ‘custom livery’ service to our online shop if we can perfect the process. have you done custom livery for your dNano? send a photo to qon@nanotrax.net and i’ll post it on a future blog update with your name and location included. i’ve got to do maintenance to prepare for upcoming races so i’ll share my technique in my next update.
i got a few new goodies in this week including the new, limited edition Perfex KT-18 ‘Black/White’ 2.4GhZ Transmitter for Mini-Z & dNano. just FYI, “limited edition” means that they are in limited supply permanently. i know they’ll sell out, then someone will ask, ‘hey, when are you gonna get more of those in?’ – DOH! i also, got a few samples of new items from X-Power + the latest version of their Aluminum Rear Wheel Hubs which now sport a snazzy, forest green hue. check for new items at the shop, but outside of that i don’t expect anything special to arrive anytime soon. otherwise, another relatively slow week in the shop but things are starting to pick up a bit now that Ian is back and other members are scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks. we maintained our new member intake average for April but club races went silent for the time being. so overall, things are ok in nano-ville. btw, i’ve opened up the comments so that you don’t need to register or sign in to post, hopefully that will YOU to share YOUR thoughts a bit more.
sorry i’ve been ‘missing in action’ for over a week but i have good reason(s) and i’ll enhance your life by listing them here: 1) my laptop blanked out on me. most of my blog posts and general day to day ‘stuff’ is done from my portable and everything that normally happens during the day on a computer pretty much ran into a brick wall at that moment. 2) Songkran. if you’re not familiar with Thai holidays, this is one of the biggest and longest with celebrations and vacations lasting nearly 9 days. many local ‘farang’ (foreigners living in Thailand) find a way to get away from Pattaya as it turns into a virtual mine field of places to get soaked from giddy revelers who stand streetside waiting to drench any oncoming vehicle including unwary motorcyclists (which most of us are). so, its been pretty quiet in the shop with little ‘new’ traffic and only a few regulars stopping in to chat.
there is good news though: we got our first Thai adult member! his name is Tic and he’s from Bangkok. granted, he grew up in the USA and spent a few years working in Singapore before re-settling in Thailand but… hey, its a start! we’ve heard NanoTrax is considered ‘high-so’ (aka high society, upper-class, expensive, etc) so the average Thai doesn’t feel comfortable even walking into the shop let alone joining as a member. i’m not sure why though. i do speak Thai, Joom is Thai and we welcome everyone equally, but we just haven’t figured out how to get more Thais to come in, participate, join and support the shop. anyhoo… Rome wasn’t built in a day. we also had a visitor from Germany who races Mini Z at home. his name is Willy and he brought several of his cars but was disappointed because our layout this season is a bit too small. he seems to think dNano are a bit small for him but perhaps we can convince him to get a rental and join us for a club race when everyone gets back in town?
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speaking of club races… this week’s F1 Sunday was quiet and, as i’ve said, all our members have either fled Pattaya, are stuck in Europe due to the volcano eruption or just went home for a few months to work and save some money to come back. no race report, no pretty girls, just me and my new red Ferrari F40. i’ve been running with the yellow body but figured a Ferrari isn’t a Ferrari unless it wears red (sometimes). i’m considering replacing my aluminum with the new X-Power Racing Wheels for the next race – lighter is faster, faster is better! as usual, if you need to contact me just drop an e-mail to qon@nanotrax.net, its always great to know you’re reading – l8r!
as we get deeper into the Formula One Racing Season, our lounge is slowly becoming a known venue to watch the Grand Prix for racing fans in Pattaya. last sunday, we opened early for the Australian Grand Prix and welcomed three visitors from Italy. not only did they come in to watch the race, but one of them brought a few samples from his personal car model collection. our club members joined them for an exciting race and later, had an exciting race of our own on F1R ‘Strata’. as stated in my race report, it was a little messy but that was expected on this new layout. we’ll be competing again on a consecutive weekend of F1 racing action for the Malaysian Grand Prix this sunday so if you’re in the area and wish to watch with us on 3 big screen monitors in our lounge, please stop by or call for more information (phone number, address and map are just to the left on the main page of this blog).
Birthdays!
Marlowe had his birthday on sunday (March 28) and Joom celebrated hers on Tuesday (March 30). tears and ice cream cake flowed for 2 days ruining any efforts to stick to a weight loss program. everyone had a great time on both days and we also discovered that eating ice cream followed up by cold beer is a perfectly acceptable thing to do once a year. Doug came thru for his first club race on that sunday but had to run out quickly so he wasn’t able to fully participate. he’s been in this week working on his Lamborghini Gallardo custom paint job and its turned out very well. all black, slick and tricked out with all the trimmings… i think he’ll put this one into competition this weekend instead of the ‘Z’ cuz win or lose, he’ll still look good!
Thai New Year
today is the final day to get free shipping at the nanotrax online shop so hop over there for more info. the shop will also get a backend software upgrade in the next few days so if you see the site behaving strangely, no worries, we’ll have all the dust cleared by April 5. the offline shop (in Pattaya) will be officially closed from April 15-18 for the Songkran Holiday but we’ll be around so if you need to stop by, just call in advance. as usual, please send all questions & comments to qon@nanotrax.net and i’ll get back with ya ASAP.
