Car
Ford Bronco
The Ford Bronco is a tough SUV that people love for driving off-road, like on dirt trails and rocky paths. It was first made a long time ago and is famous for being strong and adventurous, which is why it comes up in conversations about cars.
Car
Toyota Camry
The Toyota Camry is a popular car that many people drive because it's reliable and gets good gas mileage. It's a comfortable sedan, which means it's a four-door car that's great for everyday use, like going to work or running errands.
Part
control arms
Control arms are parts of a car's suspension system that help keep the wheels connected to the car's body. They help the wheels move up and down while keeping the car stable.
Part
strut
A strut is a part of the car's suspension that helps absorb bumps in the road, making the ride smoother. It also helps keep the car stable while driving.
Car
Toyota Corolla
The Corolla is a small car made by Toyota that is known for being reliable and getting good gas mileage. It's a popular choice for many drivers.
Term
odometer
An odometer is a part of the car that shows how far the car has driven. If it stops working, you won't know how many miles you've put on the car.
Part
cruise control
Cruise control helps you drive at a constant speed without having to press the gas pedal. It's useful for long drives on the highway.
Term
transmission
The transmission helps your car change speeds and gears. It's an important part that connects the engine to the wheels.
Part
c-clip
A c-clip is a small metal ring that keeps parts from moving around too much. It's often used to hold cables in place in cars.
Term
speedometer
A speedometer shows how fast the car is going. It's important for driving safely and following speed limits.
Car
Staryon
The Starion is a sporty car made by Mitsubishi in the 1980s. It's known for being fast and having a unique look, which makes it popular among car fans.
Car
Chevrolet Camaro
The Camaro is a well-known sports car made by Chevrolet. It's famous for being fast and stylish, often associated with muscle car culture.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Mustang is a popular sports car made by Ford. It's known for being fast and stylish, and many people enjoy working on them as projects.
Term
fuel pump
The fuel pump helps move fuel from the gas tank to the engine. If it stops working, your car won't run properly or might not start at all.
Part
fuel hose
A fuel hose is a pipe that carries fuel from the gas tank to the engine. It needs to be strong and safe because it handles flammable liquids.
Term
fuse block
A fuse block is like a safety box for your car's electrical system. It holds fuses that stop electrical problems from damaging your car's wiring.
Term
starter
The starter is a part that helps your car's engine start. When you turn the key, it makes the engine spin so it can start running.
Term
alternator
An alternator is a part of your car that makes electricity while the engine is running. It helps keep the battery charged and powers things like the lights and radio.
Term
circuit breaker
A circuit breaker is like a safety switch that turns off the electricity if something goes wrong, preventing damage to your car's electrical system.
Part
bus bar
A bus bar is a metal strip that helps connect different electrical parts in a car. It allows power to flow to multiple places at once, making it easier to manage the electrical system.
Part
relay
A relay is like a remote control for electrical parts in a car. It lets a small signal turn on or off bigger parts, like the starter or lights, without needing a lot of power.
Part
wide band O2 sensor
A wide band O2 sensor checks how much oxygen is in the car's exhaust. It helps the engine run better by making sure the fuel and air mix is just right.
Term
gauge
A gauge is a tool in your car that shows you important information, like how fast you're going or how much fuel you have left. Some new gauges can even connect to your phone.
Company
Performance Electronics
Performance Electronics makes special electronic devices for cars that help you keep track of how well your car is running. They often connect to your phone to show you important information.
Company
PLX Devices
PLX Devices makes electronic tools for cars that help you measure things like air and fuel levels. They are popular among car enthusiasts for their quality and reliability.
Part
coil
The coil is part of the engine's ignition system. It helps create the spark that ignites the fuel in the engine, allowing it to run.
Car
Infiniti G20
The Infiniti G20 is a smaller luxury car that offers a nice ride and some fancy features. It's a good choice for someone looking for a comfortable car without spending too much money.
Car
Audi RS4
The Audi RS4 is a fast and fancy car that is built for people who love to drive. It has a strong engine and looks sleek, making it a fun choice for those who want a mix of luxury and speed.
Car
Hudson Hornet
The Hudson Hornet is an old car that was popular in the 1950s, known for being fast and stylish. It’s a classic that many car lovers admire because of its cool design and history.
Car
Toyota AE86
The Toyota AE86 is a small, sporty car from the 1980s that is known for being fun to drive and popular in racing. It's often used in drifting and has a strong fan base.
LIVE
One thousand cars sir you have a thousand cars I don't think I'd attempt to try this
stunt or we owe this horsepower to Uncle Sam's too big a car like I put my beer belly on
it you can't immediately tell somebody how many cars you have you'll really give those
up in a yuffy something to think about stay on the bar don't go off the bar with your Bronco
1980 Volvo horns what's right man's coolant he's like oh I thought I'd be small it's for a
small car and oh yeah but it's still an automatic transmission they're never gonna be light it's
definitely gonna have to crash starting off with Brad by another car that's the west
internet she knows this is Nigerian oil print I also wish you drove a tan Camry anyways
that's a very horrible podcast content very inside just love to be driven hard
there we go what it looks like all right we're recording so give this a beat
I don't know I can we can include that in there who cares here we go we're always off the cuff
welcome to auto off topic what's up Brad oh not too much Andrew what's up with you yeah we're
just discussing what the screens look like so a little bit of inside baseball there yeah we're
just you can know if you want to be a guest it's just a white void that you speaking to
honestly it's a white void with my initial and your initial in the middle of it it tells me
when you started to stop recording and that's pretty much it yeah no secret sauce here just us
winging it every time and if you didn't know that already you haven't been paying attention
yeah but speaking of which speaking of which I have been increasingly frustrated with general
things in life in the world and everything becoming a scam and becoming what we call it
the in shitification of things yeah so I just want to I just want to thank everybody for sticking
around with something that's been shitty since the beginning so there's no chance of disappointment
so thanks for sticking with us we will continue to be the same level of in shitified that we
have been since 2016 2015 2016 2016 and nothing is changing everything is staying the same there
is no charge for this every week and there is no bonus content behind a paywall and there
won't be because I am mad about everything in life being behind a paywall so therefore it will
never happen here we're just going to give it away for free even if it's not that good you can
complain and because it's free if you complain we'll just ignore you so it's fine actually
that's not true because we have made improvements because of constructive criticism so yeah don't
complain constructively criticize that's probably the way to do it I'm just I'm just super annoyed
we were talking before the podcast started about what people are charging for things and how much
about an Audi dealer here in town that was trying to get me to pay them 30 hours to replace front
control arms and strut so that $295 an hour so just frustrated today that's where that comes from
so anyway everything's getting crappy we started there we'll stay there and we appreciate everybody
who comes along for the ride yeah I'm trying to set a goal for myself to actually come up with some
topics again yes for at least next month or the beginning of the year
but yeah I we do appreciate people sticking around it is we are just very much this used to we used
to do topics quite a while ago now it just turned into sort of a an updates just kind of
yeah low risk easy to make and that's why we don't charge anything for it because it's that's
silly we don't want to and I don't like when I don't know it's just not our vibe so at the end
of the day we are doing this as a hobby and we're not trying to profit off our hobbies and you
shouldn't either yeah we don't need to brand I are not trying to put our day jobs over this so
we're just going to keep doing it to be fun and have fun and meet other fun car people
which we've met a bunch of fun car people by doing this uh so that's been worth it to me
at least I think it's been worth it to you as well join the discord yes exactly um which
got a revamp I kind of reorganized it I think it works a little better thank you ask to have
to find a little easier to find what you're looking for yeah especially a move so fast
sometimes it's easy to get lost and now it's easier to keep up the conversation
but all right um little project car updates and then in this episode after that we'll talk
I haven't really talked much about drifting in one tenth scale um so you know if you don't want
to listen to that you can tune out to the end or if you do keep on keeping on I have I have
questions because I am deep a little bit um I'm not deep but I'm I'm waiting in the shallow end
of the okay in your world so I have questions but we'll get there all right um you didn't you
said you didn't have too many project car updates so why don't you why don't you go first then I'll
cover a bunch of stuff I've been working my dad and I have been working hard on the Volvo
trying to get it to the point where we can start it excellent um I have not been working hard on
anything I did a full couple of evenings of reorganizing tools and whatnot from working on
the Corolla I think I mentioned the fact that I had moved the Corolla out of the service bay I
guess we'll call it and put the Mercur in there and I had done the door handle in the Mercur
uh the one other thing I needed to finish on the Mercur was for some reason the odometer stopped
working and I have not been driving the car because I don't want to put a ton of miles on it that are
not recorded and have somebody look at it and say oh it's got 88,000 miles on it and then see it
again in two weeks and be like oh I was interested in buying it but I don't know if it still has 88,000
miles on it and that means that that's not a true mileage which to my knowledge it is
so I didn't want to screw that up too much um so I maybe put you know 30 miles on it with no
odometer but I did get some time to put the car up in the air and kind of dig around and see what
was going on there uh there are two distinct cables that operate the cluster it seems to be
there's a cable that goes from the transmission into this black box underneath the hood and then
a second cable that comes out of that black box and loops around and goes into the firewall
from what I can tell that black box is something to do with the cruise control
so everything is cable driven including the cruise control it sounds like
which is interesting because most cars I've dealt with have vacuum cruise control
um but are electronic cruise control and newer cars obviously but uh this one here is a couple
of cables and I traced both cables I was almost to the point where I was going to start taking apart
the cluster and see if it was something in the back of the cluster um but I did finally notice
that where the cable went into the transmission it did not seem tight and then I noticed hanging on
the cable at the lowest point so thanks gravity I found the c-clip that holds the cable into the
transmission it's all it was um there was a c-clip that holds the cable and transmission at some
point it worked its way out of the groove in the transmission and just it didn't disappear it was
just dangling on the cable so I was able to get a pair of pliers and kind of manipulate that back
in there there wasn't a lot of room to work with it but there was enough um it was my time
investigating and fixing uh not including the time cleaning the garage or lifting the car was less
than I don't know an hour and 10 minutes so that is to me a perfect win so the car now has an odometer
and a speedometer again uh super simple fix I haven't driven it far since I have fixed that
so my hope is that the fix works and it's not like something worse that's making it actually
pop out but I don't think so I think it may just wasn't properly installed at some point and it's
working its way out because there's a a pretty deep ring inside the transmission that the the
c-clip kind of fits fits into and once it hits there it it's sprung like you know how a c-clip
you close the end of it together and when it seats itself it springs back open again you know it's
sprung open a quite a visible amount so I don't think there should be any any issue and then I
spun it there's a little slot in the side of the transmission and I spun it so that the closed
the open portion is not where that slot is nothing can get in there and like flip it so hopefully it
works um long term we'll see the car is going this weekend to a big event down in Fountain Hills
and uh I'll be promoting the crap out of it out there trying to get that thing moved along so
is any listener of the podcast knows hit me up and I'll give you podcast listener deal
but anybody else the car is on the market for I'm asking 13 podcast listener deal is
a good percentage less and uh at some point that deal will be for anybody but right now it's a
podcast listener deal so yeah hopefully uh I can get hopefully at least get back out of it what
I'm into it for and that will make me happy because I have to spend a little bit of money on some
stuff for the garage and then the rest of that money is going to go back into uh the Camaro
in the Staryon so I need to uh be smart with my car money here I'm not going to buy another car
with it I'm going to be reasonable and uh fix some things I need to fix so that's that and
we started or Naomi started working on the Mustang again so nice updates from that will
happen as well now the weather here is finally breaking it was it was actually for here it was
cold today I think when I left the house at 11 this morning it was 52 degrees so it's definitely
cooler weather is come and it's working on car weather and driving car weather here so that's
excellent oh talking about weather real fast it's been insane weather here actually we had like a
huge hailstorm yesterday we've been raining since last weekend I feel like I'm in New England
except for the hail part but not damaging hail just like accumulating hail the grounds here
look like snow if you look at the google is hail phoenix you'll see videos from yesterday of the
highway looking like a snowstorm absolutely insane so anyway yeah that's my project car updates I have
that on tender and got that all started I'm gonna change the oil and start riding that again too
because summer is over here and it's the opposite of New England here where fall and winter and
spring are car season so getting back on it out of my seasonal affect syndrome depression
which is summertime here
yeah no other oh one one quick down date do you remember I had an issue with the fuel leaking
in the white truck yeah well fuel leak oh no uh we talked about the fuel pump that failed
well before if you remember before the fuel pump failed that same day it probably was overshadowed
fuel pump failure there was a hose under the hood that the clamp had tightened itself into
and it cut that line well for some reason that hose is leaking again and I don't know why that hose
is leaking again it's cracked on the end and I had initially put that hose on I put the the hose
clamp on it when I tightened the clamp I wasn't paying enough attention apparently and the tail
of the clamp dug into the hose and cut a slot in the hose is what I thought that that slot was
caused by the tail of the thing so there was enough length there that I took it off cut it off put
it back on was careful with the tail to make sure I didn't do that and it's been I don't know a couple
months a thousand miles or so and it started leaking again from the same spot and I was like
that's weird so I I was backing into the driveway and I smelled fuel and I was like huh so I'm looking
at it same hose the same place the tail is not in it the hose is just cracked it's a hose that I
replaced when I put the carburetor on the truck with a brand new hose from a rallies it I double
checked it again I made sure it's a fuel hose it's definitely says fuel right on it but it's leaking
again so rather than just cut it short I bought some more hose from a different supplier a different
store because I was going to go back to a rallies and buy more hose but then I was like it's probably
the same spool of hose that was there when I did this six months ago or a year ago now almost
so I'm not gonna go there I'll go get hose somewhere else so hopefully maybe the hose is just bad
maybe the hose has been sitting in a warehouse for 30 years somewhere I don't know for some reason
the hose is not good what frustrates me more is I use that same hose on the entire fuel system in
the truck so hopefully it's not a problem somewhere else and only up there where it's
warm maybe I don't know I don't know what's causing it doesn't make any sense I took the hose off
there's no like sharp metal on the barb that goes over like everything smooth it doesn't
there's no reason for this hose to have broken again so thankfully I caught it with a truck
burnt down but frustrating nonetheless yeah those are my uh my updates yeah it's weird it's very
weird I don't understand it all right well Volvo here um been working on the wiring
you know that fuse block uh well it's a relay block of fuses in it cut that mounted in you talked
about that uh I used a couple existing holes that were drilled for the awuga horns to mount a battery
post well like a positive post under the hood and you know the way this car was set up I think I
talked about before the main terminal of the battery the large battery cable to go down to the starter
and at the starter was a junction for the interior power and also the alternator that's where everything
junction was right on that starter post so we basically just because we wanted to run some other
stuff moved that junction point up onto the fender well with this positive post and then
also added in a circuit breaker from the alternator so the alternator doesn't anything funny starts to
overcharge um it'll trip the circuit breaker and not blow out anything else and now all fuse block
thing you put in there is really neat looking like it looks yeah it's not bad for a well I mean it's
like a 40 amazon part that's pretty decent quality um my dad ordered this little extra like tiny bus
bar thing that I screwed into the side of it because it's just plastic and I just used some
self-tappers so that little extra part you saw is added bus bar because we basically had the
ignition power that would normally go to the coil we sent that out to this box and it powers
three relays well it triggers three relays the relays are picking up power directly from the
battery of course so it turns on ignition so it's the coil turns on my wide band O2 sensor
so we can help tune the car and turns on the we put the starter on a relay so the starter
signal on a relay um so yeah it's um you know we had all that wired in wired up the O2 sensor
that worked bluetooth connected to it it's funny yeah I say bluetooth O2 sensor it means it doesn't
have a gauge it just goes to your phone your phone has the gauge so that's kind of a cool thing
that's kind of a stealthy setup um it paired like super super fast it's uh performance electronics
it was not inexpensive um it was like 300 bucks for that setup but the other I think the only other
company that had a setup similar is PLX devices which I when I've had in the town for a lot of
years it's worked really well they were out of stock when I was buying an O2 sensor so I ended up
with that one um it seems to hopefully it works pretty well um it's certainly connected pretty
easily uh what else yeah basically just kind of set up all those uh fixed grounds um I have those
new headlights I have to swap in I still have to fix that with a marker light I didn't waste time
doing that yet I'll probably work on that this weekend at this point you just run it with one
light forever it's just the car's personality you know no uh because technically when you go to
sticker they all have to work here all the lights have to work just tape over it they can't see it
I'll fix it I just wanted to do other things to move the project forward um but I know I'm
I'm just giving you a hard time so if I should have some time I can go back and fix it um
yeah it's going pretty well that's I've got the coil wired up everything is pretty much ready to go
uh I'm gonna try to put the radiator in it and set up the electric fan that has its own separate
controller and we were gonna we're gonna turn the engine over a couple times by hand make sure it's
nice and free nothing jammed up you certainly don't want to hit that starter and have the thing jam
into a valve or something that'd be real bad um and you know we're gonna put oil in it and
squirt some oil up top in the valve train and make sure it's good to go put the plugs in wires coolant
it's not it's probably you know five or six hours of work maybe away from running
elite like not driving but like starting the engine up uh because there's other stuff
I want to go through the wiring inside the car a bit uh it replaced the fuse panel under the dash
because it's got the old ceramic fuses so I had a new fuse block for there
and I also have to clean up myself into not doing that and doing that on the colt since I bought it
yeah because it also has the old ceramic fuses and they're they're not reliable unfortunately
no my dad was saying that to me uh they'll they'll sit and just corrode he's like yeah we used to
have to go in like you'd spin them and clean the corrosion off yeah when I when the colt was
parked in the garage I used to rent in Haverill Massachusetts um I would have that problem because
it wasn't you know completely it was a pretty weathertight building but it wasn't completely
weathertight it was not um climate controlled at all and it was a metal building so the building
would sweat and you get moisture inside the building and those fuses would corrode in that car
all the time and I'd have no lights or no starter or something weird would happen and I'd go in there
and take the fuses out clean them up also I've been told that the modern fuses like the replacement
fuses are not very high quality anymore and a lot of them don't have the correct fuse you know
amperage rating that they say on them so that's also a bit of a concern with those older fuses so
yeah I think the colt only has like seven fuses in it it wouldn't be hard to replace that fuse box
I just I'd never actually done it I'll I'll send you a link after uh because it's a it's a bus man
brand fuse panel and it's set up well at least in the Volvo it's got spade connectors on either side
and the fuse in the middle so the same panel is set up that way so it's got male spade connectors on
each side and then you can put the fuses in the middle uh strangely it's got annoyingly it's an
eight position factory so your options are like four six eight or ten so I ordered one for ten
and have a 12 maybe minus wall then you can you can add things to it well it would have been cool
to have a 12 I wanted to add like three more positions but I'm only gonna add one more so
anyway that's the way it is that'll be all right I there's not like much else I'd want to run uh
because obviously if I run a bluetooth like a head unit or whatever adapter whatever the heck
I don't know was it like receiver or something some sort of stealthy thing right uh to run the
speakers that's just gonna run off the radio circuit I have a bluetooth yeah bluetooth amp
in the roll that runs out the factory radio circuit yeah so it's not like yeah it's not
gonna need to add anything really um so yeah I want to work on that wire in the inside of the car a
little bit um but the issue that we had we were like we didn't have we don't have the starter
because we don't want to turn it over but we like sent the signal wire down to the starter
to the solenoid and it's not engaging it's not clicking which is kind of concerning so
my dad messaged me he's like I looked at it more today and he said he thinks it's just not grounding
for some reason there's a broken ground somewhere in it which is weird because the starter worked
it's the same starter that we were the car was getting turned over with
and we did all the compression testing with and it seemed we're fine I literally took it out put it
in a home depot tote and put it in the trunk of the car I didn't spray it down with anything
I think I put like I think I took a rag and wiped it off and put it back in
you wiped the last electrons right off of it I guess so yeah so there was a spare one that
came with the car I don't know why like is that one bad I I never tried it it's it's spray painted
red like with like like a duper color red so it was is clearly on there this prior owners obsession
with spraying everything red so and the one that's in there is not sprayed red so I'm like well
was this one in there and it died and they they took it out and they put a regular one in and
didn't paint it I don't know so we're gonna find out I might have to bring it up to the
starter place have rebuilt which is mildly annoying because it well you just died in the box
works fine yeah it's like I don't need to buy a new starter for this car it's fine I'll save you
know a little bit of money because yeah I was like sure I'm sure it's some aftermarket part that he
bought and as all aftermarket parts are nowadays it just has a limited lifetime use use and doesn't
matter if it's you can use you're not just expires one day it's like gives it up yeah yeah because
it was like y'all later was totally wrong so I had to replace the alternator with the correct one
so you know it's just like little things that you're like oh I can I'll save a little bit of money
it already has these things I don't need to buy them nope sorry but whatever it's just like a
this is just like project car stuff it's not like you know the luxury here is that it's not my daily
driver and I don't it's a good thing it's not anywhere yeah you would not have gotten to work
in the past year and a half yeah I'd be walking a lot but yeah it's it's getting there I really
I think I'm gonna use some it's this time of the year I gotta do all the snow tires and the
cars on Saturday but so that's the plan it's like snow tire Saturday and cranking out the rest of this
there's only a few more things to wire at least for the engine coolant yeah well I have fresh coolant
going there so yeah all the cars test all the coolant and all the cars oh all my all my cars run
coolant they don't have anything with water they're all 50 50 sure but you still you don't you don't
check it every every fall no because I know it's good because I I use high quality it's one of those
things that's one of those things that we've always done even though all the cars have coolant in them
it's one of the things that my dad does every year and I learned from him to do that every year is
just use his little coolant tester and make sure they're all up to snuff no I never test them
but I mean pretty much everything I have I've gone through the coolant systems like recently
so like it's not it's these things haven't been sitting for 10 15 20 years with the same coolant
in them so you know I can think yeah because literally in the last five years I did like the
aluminum radiator in the town the aluminum radiator in the glut uh the Montero got a new
radiator and it's also had like heater hoses burst in that time period so it's had new coolant put in
several times uh it's one of those things that different people have different different routines
and one of my routines always in the winter time in the east coast was check the coolant and all
the cars yeah let's see g20 got uh because I took the the radiator out to do the header so that got
new coolant and a new uh thermostat so yeah that's I have I have high confidence my my coolant's okay
they do need to get uh they should get washed at least the g20 in the in the in the truck
Montero I don't have a cover for it anymore yeah we're drifting away from the the Volvo here
yeah the Volvo's pretty much I think I was wrapped up with that story so it's uh
just kind of kind of try to work on it a bunch this Saturday get it really really close and
oh that's I ordered um so we're going to run it off a jerry can because the gas tank is the gas
and the tank is bad you can smell it if you're near the tank um or we open the gas the gas uh cap
so I gotta siphon that out I'm not gonna worry about it right now we're gonna run off a jerry can
I did buy the recommended electric fuel pump that everyone was recommended
I'll just have that extra we're gonna just my dad was suggesting just uh we're just gonna run the
electric pump from the jerry can into the mechanical pump just to make sure it doesn't
struggle the pull fuel out of the jerry can I don't know just make sure it stays primed
and I got some interestingly uh you know the you really gotta be careful running those
plastic fuel filters right because they can melt you ever heard of that having them melt
no no yeah my dad was saying the a lot of people will run them on volkswagens and when
they are in volkswagens they'll end up melting and then you'll have the you know they'll have
the cargo up in flames because all the fuel comes out so uh dormant actually they're pretty inexpensive
sells a uh replaceable element fuel filter that is also glass so you can see it but it's glass
and metal so it's not gonna melt unless you got like insanely hot so you're saying the plastic
fuel filters melt yeah like the plastic see-through ones the ones that I have in all my cars yeah well
as long as they're not near a header um or a manifold but that's yeah I guess that's an issue on
like vintage volkswagens is people use them and they're up somewhere where it gets hot yeah I guess
it makes sense on like a setup like yours it does not have a cross flow head where you have the
exhaust and intake on the same side so there's bound to be some interference over there yeah I
don't think I have anything it does not have a cross flow head on it so all my stuff is pretty
pretty far away and I feel like I would see because I with cars that have one of those
clear plastic filters on them I feel like I've had it long enough that I would have seen
some sign of it melting before before it's too late I mean they probably have to be really close
to like the exhaust but yeah I was like I'll just I mean I do genuinely like that glass filter
you have it's very pretty well yeah that's I'm talking that one's for the fuel pressure regulator
but I'm gonna put one before the pump yeah well even when I'm running the car I'm gonna run one
before the mechanical pump you know after the tank before the mechanical pump because you don't
want to grind up that pump but also I'm sure even after I siphon that tank there's still gonna be
some junk in it so I want to see what's getting in the filter before the pump and then I can
change it that'll be like probably part of the break-in period after you know five or six
hundred miles I'm going to change the oil and change that fuel filter so but anyway so yeah
that's uh yeah that Volvo's coming along slowly but it's it's getting there and I hope to have that
that sweet sweet sweet first start video maybe it'll be a second start but we'll see
the good news is is that while it sucks it's the end of the driving season there
at least it means that you have all of next driving season to enjoy the car hopefully
yes and I can still work on it a little bit during the winter uh clean up other stuff
take it with it yeah you can make it nicer for its debut drives than it would have been
this year and yeah I'm gonna I'm not gonna use the phone I'm gonna bring over my nice camera
we'll set up to take a video of it so yeah and then everything else needs to get washed
and I've got a cover for the G20 yeah I was gonna say on the cover for the Montero got wrecked so
uh I guess I should order another cover for that but I finally bit the bullet and I ordered some
sonax from fcp Euro the wheel cleaner because I couldn't find it anywhere locally at all yeah
nobody sells it local here either um I'm trying the plus version because I haven't
cleaned the wheels in the Volkswagen in a little while other than the touchless car wash
just been too busy so it's like eight dollars more than the regular but it says it's stronger
but still not acid I don't know how this stuff works because it works better than everything else
I've ever tried including acid yeah yes it works even better than the purple power acid based
wheel cleaner um so I don't know what kind of magic they're bottling in it but it works
we're not and this is not we're not sponsored by them we are paying for this
stuff a lot it's not cheap yeah it's not it's 28 dollars for a normal size spray bottle
yeah and and I tried the turtle wax cleaner that seemed like it was pretty good it's kind
of a purpley cleaner uh garbage sucked uh so I don't know about that but the even the
we've had such good luck with a lot of chemical guys products they're a Diablo wheel cleaner
not that good like it just like I mean so it worked okay here's you gotta scrub it I'm not
I'm not doing this to defend chemical guys because again I have no allegiance to them
whoever makes the best product I'm gonna use but what I will say is they have the best easily
available wheel cleaner and it's good for regular maintenance of wheels it's not good for really
dirty wheels see I really like the Diablo wheel cleaner on my not daily use cars like the cars
that are garage all the time you know take that out and clean the wheels when the car is not dirty
I'll use that stuff and it works really well for that but yeah you do still touch the wheel
unfortunately see I prefer the I find the purple power works better than that stuff
but it's acid-based you have to be careful with it that's why I don't use the purple power because
it's acid-based and most of my cars have aftermarket wheels that are clear coated
yeah I don't know that's the one I use it's well it's the clear goes usually not the problem
it's when you have the raw any raw aluminum is bad it'll dull it oh I just don't want to use
acid-based wheel cleaner on anything that's not bare metal yeah so yeah that's that's
what I get going on and the the mega problem is that the the all-track the brake kit I bought
dust like crazy so um yeah anyway let's talk some uh that's all regular size project cars
I think uh I want to talk some scale RC project cars and RC drifted but uh I don't know real quick
cleaning RC cars because they do get dirty I was looking into that and like there's different like
RC washes and where some people use like bike wash and I'm like thinking to myself I'm like what
are these things most likely is that they're just like a mild soap and in a spray bottle so
I just took some don just soap and just diluted it in a spray bottle and you know you don't soak
a lot of the modern electronics are actually pretty well waterproof yeah most of them are at
soak anything but um you know just kind of lightly spray it if you need to you can take a microfiber
kind of wipes up down but then compressed air I did that to all the ones that were dirty from
like the buggies were dirty from being out in the mud and the dirt uh they came out really good
they look great and you know that it's like coast I figured you just don't go in the ocean yeah
I mean you know it's it's don just soap so it's not going to like it's not going to wreck your
hands it's not going to wreck the plastic because to my plastics are kind of soft you have to be
careful with them you don't want to use anything abrasive because it'll miscolor them I'll etch
them for badly so that was my solution for that that's a little tip the only issue with using
dawn dish soap on things is that anything you have shiny or coated in something it's a grease cutter
and it will take off any kind of like waxes or coatings or anything like that so
yeah I'm not really waxing my RC cars but yeah
it's an open thought process I don't know what it does to like grease and the diff cups and stuff
oh well I don't like like I said I don't soak stuff like just kind of lightly spray it
it kind of helps you give it like a good compressed air blast gets most of the dust off and then
this is just kind of a light spray and then just spraying it off and you're not like soaking and
scrubbing it drive my RC cars more before I worry too much about that but yeah because it's car
driving season here I think it's also RC car driving season so hopefully I'll get more of that done soon
yeah so let's talk about the drift chassis here so I uh found out where you get to into it yeah
I have been watching your videos and listening to you talk about it and seeing all the links for
things you've been sending me because you're an evil human being and I was looking into
drifting here because I kind of want to get into it but it's not cheap and I don't want to spend
the money on it if there's not a consistent place to use it right that's always the thing with this
kind of hobby stuff like it's cool to have the thing and to build the thing and to have the
cool thing in front of you but ultimately you want to use it and the only drift track I could find
was about an hour away which isn't the end of the world it's just way less convenient than your 10
minute away drift track so doing a little digging you actually sent me a link to an oddly named
drift team team bubble milk here in Phoenix yeah and they were drifting at a different track than the
one that I know of the one that I know of is tandem rc raceway in mesa these guys it looked
like somebody's backyard but they were always like 30 or 40 people there doing it and I was like
it can't be somebody's backyard so I reached out to one of the one of the guys who post the most
yeah and uh chatted with him a little bit you know through instagram uh and it turns out that it is
100 somebody's backyard okay they do drifting every Tuesday and Saturday I think Tuesdays is like
five to ten and Saturdays is like five to question mark yep so he was like yeah if you want to come
check it out he's like let me know he's like and uh I'll just make sure the guys know you're coming
you'll give the address and you can come hang out and I was like all right cool so I haven't done it yet
but it's on the tip of my to-do list so um and I just want to once again say that you're a horrible
influence because I did purchase drift bodies and my thought process with that was the bodies
that I wanted are not always available I've noticed you can always run them on a tq2 if you want
and this shop had both of them in stock the two that I wanted because one is a starion
and one is a e7 corolla quad head light station wagon so obviously I have an affinity for both
those cars for obvious reasons so this one site that was based in the US so there was no shipping
or tariffs situation um had both bodies in stock at the same time so I was like you know what
I'm gonna buy them and yeah worst case scenario I could run one on my old rs4 pro and I can run
one on a tto2 but I was also looking as a company that sells display jazzy's yeah and they're like
20 bucks and you can build a detailed body and throw a set of wheels on it and put it out this
display jazzy under it to put it on your shelf yep and you can get if you like because the drift
wheels have a lot of style and they're vintage some are vintage looking you can get drift uh display
tires so you they have tread on them and they're the right size and they'll give you a little
stretch and poke look but you just don't drive on them for display only all right because then they
don't want it you know they don't flat spot like the yep actual rubber tires because I've noticed
that most people with a collection of rc cars don't throw them on their wheels no they have
stands for them yeah anyway that's where I'm at so I I have as I said earlier I'm not in the deep
end but I'm definitely waiting in the drift pool here um and I'm gonna go check out one of the two
racetracks before I dive headlong into this because it's going to get expensive quick and I don't
want to spend the money for something I'm not gonna do so I have a strong feeling that once I go to
all right time to burn down the credit card so anyway yeah that's carry on Andrew how you doing
that's pretty much I did I we were talking about it and I was like man it's really cool because
it's super scale that's what we're into and it's like it's reminiscent of when we got into touring
cars it was all about being scale and then it ended up being like people just made it into
more performance and it's racing and it's like yeah it's that's kind of when we got out of it
in the mid early 2000s like batteries were going like oh 203 yeah battery technology was changing
and getting expensive and we were just in other other stuff we just kind of got out of it and I
think we had mini z's at the time because we like the scaleness those are changed a bunch too we're
like well we'll save that for another podcast um well there's also other 128 scale rc cars out
there now yes and there's one that's fairly inexpensive yeah that has adjustable width and
length that takes all of the mini z wheels and tires and uh I may or may not purchase one of those
to try to mount a scale rc car body on but anyway my scale plastic ball plastic model body on
there's also as I have the space in my garage to do a 128th drift setup yeah there's also yeah
small scale drifting too um but right but what I'm talking about is the traditional rc scale
one tenth so they're about I don't know about the size of a shoe box I don't know a little bigger
14 inches long I'd say yeah so that's what we're dealing with the wheels are are they one inch
that scale yeah one to one and a half depending on the scale size so um yeah I we were trying to
know rc car one tenth is the scale yeah um yeah I was talking about it with you and I was like
you know what I it's kind of a bummer I feel like it's you know it's it's kind of been around a long
time I remember when they came out in the early cars it was like a tamaya uh it'd be like a t-o1
or something and now it's like tt-o2s and they'd have like a drift thing but they'd be full drive
they basically just put hard plastic tires on them and you could drift around and like pavement
um that's it wasn't much drift technology it was just it was just take take the rc car
remove traction car slide yeah because you could full drive drift the ones on dirt
and people just wanted to do that on uh pavement so apparently in the last you know 10 15 years
this is really advanced to now most places will only let you run tool drive chassis
but I'm getting a little bit ahead of the story here so I was talking to you about it I was like
this is really cool I like to get into it and I was just like googled drift tracks and Massachusetts
and that was the mistake that I made because it turned out there's one 10 minutes from my house
and I was shocked that there was 10 minutes one 10 minutes from my house because I just did not
expect that because there is one down on the cape come to find out but that's like an hour and half
away without traffic so uh it might as well be the other side of the earth for me uh because you
go through Boston and stuff in the wintertime there's not going to be that traffic it might be
fun to visit it once in a while yeah maybe um we used to drive all the way to lee new hampshire to
do mini z racing so yeah uh it might be uh maybe on a on a way back from a a revival donut meter
something swing through there uh because there's another reason to be down in that area um but
anyway 10 minutes from my house I was like all right uh I don't want to buy a car just yet because
uh what if these guys are terrible and I don't actually want to be there so I was like let me
just go pull up their website it's very basic it's actually the one in your house called tandem
right this one's called tanemonium okay I mean it makes sense it's a play on drifting words right
yep so excuse me I was like all right let me let me just cough
yeah a little bit of have some of my silks are here everybody coughs everybody
poops life is fine um as long as I don't poop on the podcast that would be a first for our podcast
I'm sure somebody's podcast has had an incident no boy not ours anyway the uh yeah so
I was like let me just go for like a little vibe check here see what see what's like
so yeah it's up on it's route one in danvers it's in the sports complex the sports
let's try it it's in the sports complex that's up there and uh it's kind of like tucked in the
back and you know up these back steps and what did they're like oh you found us I was like well
yeah I follow the instructions on your website I get here bless them from the area all right cool
all right that's they're excited that somebody found them so
um it was only like I don't know maybe it was like six or eight guys there drifting but they were
super cool I met both the owners um they kind of showed me people showed me their chassis and stuff
and I was kind of talking about because I had done a little bit of research before and looking
into beginner chassis's and I kind of already had settled on the okamo uh already so it's a rookie
drift 2.0 so it's their second version of their rookie drift chassis um had really good reviews
a lot of good videos on it a lot of people said this is a really good chassis to start with
it's all plastic but the kit version they have a ready to run version that comes electronics
yeah maybe it's worth it I really like building kits so I grabbed the kit um
and actually when I was there I was kind of looking at what people were running and I sort of went
all right everybody's running hobby wing ESC's basically hobby wing motors the matching combo
lot of Yokohama chassis Yokomo chassis's
oh they also run a spec tire it's a p-tile track so it's basically like a lullium tile
so everybody runs the same tire which is not really a tire it's just a hard plastic
cylinder the tire is really a wear they do wear uh they last about a month depending on how much
you drive um and uh yeah so but they're only like I assume they're they're inexpensive if they last
for a long time usually people if people are going to do a comp those you throw a fresh set on um
but um the guy pat that one of the owners he was like I was asking him I was like how long
it lasts he said about a month but you'll see he's like you'll see they'll start getting like
scratches over scratches over scratches and then you just kind of you know just they had like a box
so maybe they recycle them or something just buy another set so anyway um I was like all right I'll
you know there's like different levels electronics uh I got kind of spending on the electronics
I bought the nicest electronics you basically get which are the hobby wing drift combo it's pretty
good I want the more expensive yokomo servo their drift servo which is programmable I don't have
the programmer for it but and I went with the yokomo gyro that's so that's the other interesting
thing about these the the drift innovation is that they switched your all-wheel drive and then added
someone had the idea to add a gyro to the chassis and what it does is it will actually
counter steer for you so as the the yaw of the car changes it will counter steer in the opposite way
so it's like it has active yaw control kind of it's weird and yeah it's very strange I notice when
people display it working they'll hold the chassis in front of them and like twist it back and forth
and the front wheels will just go the opposite way other opposite yep so and the other thing
it's funny it turns out I have a futaba radio that I bought because I used to have a futaba radio
back in the day but now the new ones are 2.4 gigahertz you don't use crystals anymore
but I bought one just brand recognition I always liked it come to find out basically everybody
runs futaba they're like everybody else seems to have trouble with everything else they just work
really well I was like oh that works out well because I have the entry-level futaba I'll stick
with that for a while a lot of these guys have the fancy 10 channel ones because you're gonna
adjust a lot more stuff on the fly oh that was the other thing some nice gentleman there I can't
remember his name right now he's like let me let you drive one of these I was like all right
I mean knows me like five minutes let me drive the thing around I was like oh I get this this is
cool so it definitely is like a learning curve to it but let me talk about the the chassis basically
so it's it's all plastic RTR version comes with friction shocks and kind of base electronics so
brushed electronics kind of a regular battery regular you see the kit comes with nothing
doesn't come with wheels or tires but it does come with oil filled shocks that's like the main
difference everything else is plastic it does have a differential it's not a spool so it's a
gear differential like a four gear planetary differential and it's not standard to my style
diff yes and it's not so it's not a ball diff so it doesn't act like an LSD so it's basically an open
diff but it's very very tight and it's not a spool and it's actually oil filled there's 50 weight
oil in it which is kind of interesting that's new to me that's a new thing yeah because normally with
that to my kids you build the three or four gear diff and you just grease the gears at the surfaces
nope this is actually filled with oil and one of the things you get to check for maintenance
after a while is they do start to leak and you just change the seal it's interesting because you
would think that some sort of a spool or a limited slip style would be what you need like a real car
yeah some chassis use a spool some use the gear diff like this because it supposedly helps them
drift and transition easier because the car needs to change direction so yeah slightly different
than a real car yep and they've got the way the suspension is set up is it actually puts tension
on the CV axles in the rear so they almost you know sometimes like in the to my kids they can
rattle around in the drive cups yep these have no rattle in the drive cups like they're basically
tensioned in there the way the suspension is set up so you have like constant there's no
slop in the drivetrain so it's like constant traction I was watching um some build tip videos
before I built that hornet kit yeah and it has the typical you know constant velocity shafts and
drive cups yep and all the guys were like you can take the kit comes extra o-rings for the shocks
and you put two o-rings in each drive cup and it tightens the distance but it makes a tighter fit
for the axles so does the same kind of deal yeah this is just done with the engineering of the way
they did the the suspension arms and um oh the kit also came with full bearings and even though it's
all plastic every suspension arm is a turnbuckle so it can all be adjusted so uh it gave you
in the instructions very straightforward it gave you all millimeter measurements of the length so
just because I knew the alignment on this was going to be really important it's not just going
to be for bashing I actually used a mic or a yeah a caliper a digital caliper and I just made sure
everything was within like a tenth of a millimeter so because everybody said that out of the box these
are set up really well really well engineered from yokomo and it should drift pretty easily
so um you know it was just pretty much typical you're cutting it off the parts trees
trimming little pieces um typical japanese quality no flash the thing went together super easy
I didn't have any trouble with it I did have the whole thing together I missed up the front control
arms I had them swapped and upside down and the front was super high and I was like it took me a
bit I'm like sometimes uh Formula D drift cars have reverse rake but this feels like a lot
and then I was like I better double check this and I pull out the instructions again I'm looking
I'm sure enough I had them upside down the lower control arms so not a big deal flipped them over
and the ride height was much better I was like all right and the only other thing I had to do
it's a little weird is you adjust on the shocks um basically I adjusted preload
and that kind of raised the rear yeah it's got screw it's got coil over bodies you can
plastic but you can screw them or throw them down and I did I had to thread up the rear because
there's a ton of weight on the rear as you can imagine the the ESC is actually mounted it comes
on a plate there's a plate that you mount to the rear bulkhead ESC being electronic speed control
for the non RC people listening and so that's mounted all the way out in the back it actually
has a cooling fan on it so that's the other thing so this ESC setup is uh and this motor are
censored and they're brushless um so brushless means it does not have the commentator brushes like
an old school yeah motor it just uses magnets right I guess I actually don't know so what what
does the sensor do that's one thing I'm not clear with I think the sensor helps with the throttle
fidelity of how how good the throttle response is because some are censored some are censor
censorless depending on the cost and the more expensive ones have sensors like the
uh the like less expensive brushless setup I just bought for the crawler is not censored
so I think that's what I think that's what has to do I know the three phases you've got three
wires ABC now I actually didn't look up that much information on how a brushless motor works I just
kind of trusted the process and just I mean most but in most commercial electric motors now are
brushless it's the modern way to do things it costs more which is why you know most kids RC
kids don't come with them but it certainly is more efficient I guess for sure yeah um I had to I had
to solder in the soldering I had to do was the pins for each motor wires three motor wires
and then they go into each uh plug on top of the motor case um it's interesting the motor talks
about in the literature it's got a cooling fan on the end of the armature and it's like the cooling
fan makes a significant sound like a kind of like a turbo you know like and listen to it I'm like not
really but there is some debate in the RC drift world about which motor sounds the best I guess
and people will do stuff to like make them sound cooler I'm like whatever it just sounds like a
course it sounds like a winding electric motor which kind of to me here are our cars yeah sounds
kind of cool anyways but um yeah I did do that soldering and then I had to solder on this is new
to me too like almost like banana clips or banana pins for the battery so the battery doesn't have
like a traditional like tamaya connector which would be like the most ubiquitous plug in RC
it's got two pins so a positive and negative and the battery has two ports so this battery's I got
a four millimeter so I have two four millimeter pins they go into the massive headphone jacks yeah
basically um you have to be very careful that you don't reverse polarity because there's a
capacitor pack on the ESC that you will blow up ESC has reverse polarity protection but not
fourth but the capacitors are sacrificial so they're on the outside of the ESC and I would have to
talk about soldering I remember doing soldering on some of the non-kit motors yeah back in the
old days like if you bought like a or the companies like speed gems was one of them
Trinity if you bought a speed gems motor it didn't have um connectors on it you had to solder the
wiring to it and you used to have to solder capacitors to the motor as well which is probably
along the same lines as like what a sensor does now where the capacitor would you know control the
throttle more than just on off so yeah I actually don't yeah I now I remember doing that I remember
I remember having to solder the ends to that yeah you never had to do it when you had like a standard
540 can from Tamiya but you bought an aftermarket motor like I guess I think I have a I have an
old Kyosho Grand Prix motor here and an old speed gems here from back in the old days um and they
both have soldered on ends that I remember doing the soldering on the ends especially the speed gems
one yeah forget whatever motors in my HPI is also an aftermarket I forget what's in that yeah I had a
10 turn triple in that in the uh FFO 2 which I kept that car that's the speed gems I have it's a green
and yellow I know the 10 turn trip I had a purple one for about three and a half minutes of runtime
yeah I had a purple one somebody was the sapphire um but yeah the thing would rip for like 10 minutes
tops um 10 minutes that'd be that's yeah that's good yeah 5 10 minutes a thing would rip
um yeah so now uh I mean that was with like 1500 2000 mAh batteries 2000 mAh was like whoa
miles a milliamp hour yep again for the on on RC people here yeah well that's kind of a that's
actually turns out a universal battery measurement I found out no it is but I mean it's not a common
term that everybody knows either so um so these that's the other thing this as a child I thought it
was bigger hurts yeah so this chassis is set up for a two-cell lipo pack so like there's little
little squares uh they have two cells they're two s that's what that means uh the 3500 which is
decent size they were I mean there's maybe they're 45 no the 3500 because there's I could have spent
more on them and got larger but um these seemed like a mid-level battery pack um
and uh yeah so the runtime is like 45 to 50 minutes which is crazy like you're like more than used to
be you're like I'm kind of getting tired here um it makes practicing worth it you can actually get a
lot of trigger time as they say um so yeah in general the kit was very easy to assemble if you
if you've assembled a kit before you won't have trouble if my advice is if this was your first
time ever building an RC car I wouldn't recommend this kit it's like you might struggle with it
like smart with a grasshopper yeah buy a Tamiya kit to build first like a cheap TTO2 and you'll get
the hang of building a kit um but this kit itself actually wasn't too bad it was like 200 bucks for
the rookie drift they they go up you can buy fully optioned Yokomo's that go up there's like master
drift one it's like a $900 kit with no electronics which is kind of crazy comes with all the carbon
and aluminum stuff you can upgrade this chassis with a bunch of carbon aluminum stuff I think
at this moment I am just going to drive it as long as I can as stock as I can
to try to push it as far as I can just like in the real world of drift people say you know seat
time over mods right exactly get out there and use the car enjoy it learn it figure it out and
don't make changes to it until you are 100% sure you're ready to make changes to it and the only
reason why I bought the better electronics is so I don't have to change them later it was like a one
time purchase because I could afford it I was like I'll just buy the better ones I am having a hard
time going back and forth because they're ready to run version is $400 yeah yeah so the only thing
that's keeping me from doing it is I think I'd probably want to run the brushless setup because
it runs longer yeah and that would be probably more money to that uh because I already on the radio
I'm at probably 800 bucks
yeah it's not cheap I don't read you as well I don't have a futaba but I've had a lot of I have
a mid a mid tier uh flies guy and I don't have the cheapest cheapest one I have a decent one
and they've pretty decently reviewed as well and I've had no problems with it with my stuff
so I probably would not upgrade that unless it turns out that it does have problems but
so to use that it's interesting um so like things I added like I added the magnet mounts for the
body those are kind of pricey but they're really nice ones and they have replaceable magnets
that other cheaper ones don't have uh and like the bodies were I bought were kind of expensive
because it's just the way they are right now getting them in the country
the other thing would be uh I understand like the the server was not inexpensive
it's probably the nicest one you'll come home makes there's all different ones that you can try
they have different feel I I get it now like uh all these years we've always bought like and all the
current cars I've built because I'm just running them around the yard and just having fun with them
I just put the $20 servo in them because it's whatever um and they're kind of loud
they have plastic gears and plastic case this one's aluminum metal gears uh high voltage super
fast and you're like oh I get it like it's really responsive and really quiet um and you're not
going to overheat it or damage the gears because the you're counter steering a bunch of times
because the gyro is trying to turn it one way and you're turning it the other way so
that's the other thing so that you have to have at least a three channel radio now
I don't even think they sell two channels anymore and three channels I think mine is four yeah
because you can adjust you can set you set up the gyro and you set up your end points
so that's how far it steers and counter steers um and then you'll set up your on the radio you
can actually set up the percentage of how much it works so basically like what we did um I built
the whole car I did a nice job building it um and I went to the track and I talked to the owner
um basically you know he's basically like the track pro right and he runs the place pat
he had me set the you set the gyro up to 100% and then on the radio you assign the third
channel button and you turn it back down we've got it turned down to like 70% so you can actually
adjust it on the fly how much uh action it does I guess because that kind of determines how it
drives so just for beginner setup we just kind of set it up 70% it seems to be working fine
so I haven't touched it been trying to do like one thing at a time and so you don't mess up stuff
too much um as far as the alignment the only thing uh I had to once I centered the servo
you know you power up the first time you get to center it and put the servo horn on
I had to do a little adjustment on the little turnbuckle there to get the wheels straight
whatever the factory setting wasn't quite right for their adjustment but you know every servo is
a little bit different um and then when I got to the track I had pat just check it out he added
some toe out to the chassis he's like they just run better with a little bit of toe out
so that's pretty much all it's had I adjusted the ride height a little bit
I'm actually gonna adjust it again later just make sure it's all even
one guy gave me a tip he's like I like to do like five millimeters all around
ride height so I'm gonna just double check that it's there I did a nothing bolt check earlier
nothing was really loose spur gear was a little bit loose um
that's the other thing it's got like it's an open spur gear opinion so you can actually
adjust the gearing really easily which is nice um oh I didn't just mesh goes you mean yeah well I'm
as far as the ratio the gear ratios you can easily okay it just accepts universal opinions and
universal spur gears you're not you know we're limited with like some of the tamaya stuff because
the gearbox is what your gearing choices are sure this is not limited you can adjust it
most enclosed gearboxes it's like if you use the stock opinion gear which you can't really
change because it's built into the yeah um so that's the differential yeah I'll use certain
sized pinion or spur gears paying years whatever that's really the it's true that up now yeah
that's really the difference here when you go to like the yokomo here is like a competition
design chassis like it's made for performance it's not made to just like bash around
and so the other thing so the trend some some different chassis use a belt drive
which is kind of interesting this one is all geared it's a fully geared transmission with
like planetary gears or intermediate planetary idler gears there's like three gears in it
and even just assembling it I was I was shocked at how smooth it was it's um it's it's really a
nice chassis like I was I'm happy I went with a Japanese chassis um and come to find out they
have a giant facility in scuba in Japan so that's on my list the next time I hopefully I get to go
to Japan again sometime I'm gonna go to that giant RC no they have cars you can rent there
they have uh stay here but yeah they have like a drift track an on-road track an off-road track
it's kind of cool but um yeah so building it's really fun that's my favorite part but driving
these is also really fun so yeah you go there you get your spec tires uh this little track fee
it's 20 bucks but that's not it's it doesn't matter it's open or close so if you get there
when they open you can run all the way till whenever they close and it's like you said it's like
it's not really like a hobby shop um it's more like like a chill space just you give me 20 bucks
you can run on track that's your track fee and then you know they kind of like
they run usually Friday nights Saturdays it's kind of like you know six till
whatever right question mark question mark um well it's funny because 20 bucks at the end of the
day it's gonna cost you more than that to go to the movies anyway and it's the same kind of thing
like and they're not a store they're not making money by selling stuff other than tires which
they're probably breaking even on yeah and it's just one of those things where it's like
yeah I get that that's the cost just to have something to do it because these people are
rent this space it can't be cheap rent like a space you know in the north shore of Massachusetts
for something so I'm sure it's a pretty big spot so yeah and I cover thousands of dollars a month
in rent so yeah I try to like run as much as I can because I'm usually there for like two
two and a half hours but like I was running I ran through the last time I ran through
two battery packs basically right so almost two hours of track time which is pretty good
yeah two hours of track time in a real car would cost you a thousand dollars yeah
but yeah it's definitely there's definitely like uh it's definitely interesting there's
definitely a learning curve uh you know it's like we had oh that was the other thing so
this ESC also has a bluetooth tuner so you plug it in it hooks your phone and you can like tune
all the parameters so like the iPad did a little bit of tuning to it because these there's also
boost and turbo in the motors like quote boost and turbo so like it hits a certain rpm and it
increases the power like it would be a going to like a turbo boost um yeah it's kind of interesting
because it helps like with uh if you're competing right so you have to you have to do lead chase
so if somebody takes off you got to catch that lead car you need the power to get up
on the straight and get some traction and get up close to them to keep your distance right
you don't want to let them gap you um and then uh it also helps with like transitioning so you
as you're going from one drift to the other drift you can pull the trigger and get like a lot more
wheel speed and help you rotate the car the other way so it's it's interesting um but anyway just
like beginner uh at least I've like driven RC cars before if you've never driven RC car
before you might have trouble with this but um or it might not hinder you because I was not used
to driving with a gyro I'm trying to the car's getting sideways I'm trying to counter steer it
and you know the people there kind of let it ride yeah they're just like now you got to kind of like
just let the gyro do it you don't want to you don't actually counter steer as much as you think
you need to so the first couple like hour or so of me just practicing was uh they've got like a
little circle area and I was just like doing donuts in the circle and just trying to hold
a steady donut around a center point like going one way and then I'd switch go the other way just
try to get used to it um and yeah I started to get used to it and it's like it just kind of and then
the other good thing is too when you go there let's like watch watch how other people are doing it
and listen to the car what's happening because you can hear the motor spinning up right so
the the big thing is like uh I was definitely at the first I'm still a little bit am now I'm
like too rough on the throttle like too much on off and too rough with the steering so as with
anything even driving a real car fast smoothness is king so as you come in you kind of uh get the car
you can kind of faint the car a little bit you know like an initial uh literally what initial
drift means like you faint um or um skinny name and flick would be in round maybe in flick yeah um
in japan now that's called a faint so you go the other way you go one way and then the other way
you kind of do that and then initiate your drift and then it's all about holding
getting a nice steady throttle and you kind of get that angle people in the modern days are
familiar with that from the movie cars you have to turn right to go left yes so yeah you can once
you get it and you start to get the feel for it you can hold the trigger on the controller right
where you need it and to keep that wheel speed and you barely have to counter steer you may make
slight corrections but the gyro will help you hold that angle uh and then uh one of the things
I was doing was letting off too quickly and uh it was upset in the car so you have to just kind of
let off a little bit uh and but but also you want to keep some wheel speed so that's what I'm saying
when you go and you watch people doing it listen to how the throttle is on the car and watch how
the wheels are spinning so you can hear the car kind of spin up the wheels go faster and then as
they're kind of going through the curve they might the motor sound might go down a little bit but the
wheel speed is still keeping up um yeah it's it's interesting and then you can you know the you do
have brake on the trigger so sometimes uh you you can hit the brake to use it like an e-brake
um so does the dynamics do sort of work like a real drift car so if you don't have any front brake
I did I did make some changes on mine a little bit to the throttle curve so that as you're
kind of off of the initial you kind of you know pulling the trigger a tiny bit I kind of flattened
the throttle curve so that there's like a small space where it's kind of even it's not ramping up on
me so like the like the default is linear right so the more you pull it the faster it goes so I
have it set so it's kind of like you pull it up like the first 10 to 20 percent actually gives you
the same amount of throttle so it's easier for me to modulate and I had to do that in the
ESC software because that's that's the advantage of having these more expensive
radios is you can adjust the throttle percentage on the radio on the fly sure and I can't do that so
I have to do it through the ESC which is fine if it works that way I can do it on my radio but not
on the fly yeah um and then the other thing I added was a little bit more drag brake which we
know that comes from the crawler world so drag drag brake is literally using the motor as a brake
you know it's it's using the voltage to sort of lock it up the rotor so it's not turning as much
and in crawlers they use it as you're going down a descent so the thing doesn't just roll down the
hill it's a car controller yeah yeah it's it's very cool I don't RC cars are very very cool
and they're I you know I think once people start to realize like full-size EVs can be
kind of cool too because there's a lot of crossover but anyway sure I don't want to go to that but so
anyway I said this every year more real full-scale RC or full-scale RC full-scale EV stuff comes out
that's cool like Toyota just built that AE86 with electric motor and a five-speed yep and it's is it
a little bit gimmicky it is but everybody who's driven it has been like this thing is amazing
I saw that car from G-speedway that was in the the area where we're playing with the
micro four drives or whatever the mini four drives that's cool um yeah pictures of it um
so yeah I set some drag brake so it actually acts more like compression braking from the engine so
like if I let off the throttle all the way the car will sort of nose dive as the weight transfers
that's the other thing the suspension is really soft so there's a lot of weight transfer yeah I've
noticed that watching videos there's a lot of dynamic motion in the body yeah more so than a
real car yeah but well more it's I'd say it's more so than what's normally in an RC car
uh for sure it's more closer to what the way a real car weight transfers yeah I guess I guess a
real car it it's exaggerated a little bit because of the less weight yeah it's probably what I mean
like a real car you know the the weight of the car and the stiffness of the springs obviously
has a lot to do with that but these here it's designed to mimic that like a soft sprung drift
car there's a lot of guys in real drift cars are running some softer springs now than they used to
because they want that body roll so yeah and you can adjust the way the motor is in this chassis
I've got it up high at the stock position but you can adjust it you can roll it forward and change
some weight um but I'm just going to run out the way it is for now and and this is like the most
mild entry level chassis that just kind of drifts easy out of the box for you to learn drift chassis
is coming to find out get really really wild into some names I've never heard of just completely
random manufacturers that people have been been engineering these chassis but even Yokomo has
ones that like I don't know if they still make it but they had one that was a load transfer
special they called it so like they had the battery mounted up high and I think it would
like slide a tiny bit and move under a weight transfer and help transfer front to rear weight
which is kind of crazy yeah I've been learning a lot of stuff about this by watching this guy on
YouTube Shredcraft RC pretty good yeah one one one of the cars he has is a front motor
yeah so it's set up like a real car with a drive shaft I was like that's rad yeah so one of the
guys there that initially when I went um when I he was he was like oh you like Tamaya stuff all
right let me show you this so it's some super crazy rare chassis he was actually running at the last
time I was there um he's like there's only like 50 of these made um it's like dual deck carbon
the rear axle is actually from a Tamaya CC01 so like the it's a solid axle with a watts link
yeah and at front motor so yeah he was running under like an old Toyota I think it was yeah I think
he had a hatchy body on it so yeah like drivetrain accurate to the body
yeah um yeah that that was pretty cool so there's like which we love you built your crawler like
that so yeah so yeah so so you can get basically what they're and so apparently the deal is um
what's cool about this is that as far as like drifting and comps go um the tires are the only
thing that's spec because that depends on the surface that you're running on but really they don't
really care about the chassis like you can run any chassis in any configuration as long as it's
cool which is kind of cool so it opens up this insane amount of creativity for all these different
chassis's and there's if you're you know if you people were in the cars usually we're in a
customization there's tons of stuff you can do these if you want I'm just kind of going to run
this one as is like I said I do already have some plans to try everybody said don't convert to
my chassis uh of course I have to try because there's a Japanese company that sells these
conversion kits and their videos are pretty convincing of how well they can drift them
yep I'm going to try to convert a new mini chassis to a drift car because it can run a
front motor setup so that's already my next project I'm thinking about but it's it's definitely
very addicting because once you you're doing it and you'll start to get in that flow state
and you start to get it and you'll pull off some really long links of drifts and then the next
like corner you'll just understeer into the wall um but especially just I've probably got like three
or four hours into this now I'm really starting to pick it up I mean I'm not going to go win a
competition but it's definitely rewarding as you get it and it's like fun and dynamic and so
fiber is very nice and if you bump cars everybody's like oh it's just happens like you know you try
not to if you spin out you try to get off the line as quick as you can or it's actually funny if
if you spin out and you can't get it out of the way you just yell car like you're playing street
hockey or something yeah um but you know it's you know and you're not trying to like smash
into each other's cars so you try to be careful but it's the other thing it's like their their
toys it's not like a real car and also their lexan bodies so yeah they bounce back really well
that's the other thing so like yeah I've filmed this in the wall several times uh nothing is broken
so yeah that's a win right so like if it was a real drift car and I throw it in the wall
a couple times I'd be pretty sad yes the worst thing I've did in your first in your first three
hours of driving yeah yeah so the the worst thing I've done so far is I've got you uh I use aluminum
tape to tape the magnets inside the body and sometimes after a while I've had to replace the
tape a couple times but I'd rather have the tape rip than damage anything else so if that's the only
maintenance I have to do every week that's not a big deal well it's rad and I am pretty sold like
I said I'm still gonna do what you did and go visit the drift track before I do it yeah
like it's a little less convenient for me because it's not 10 minutes away but I'm uh
well it's closer is it closer than the tandem on the tandem one it's about a half hour versus
45 to an hour all right so it's not it's not super close but I mean a half hour drives out the
world the way I don't have so I don't have a work commute like I yeah I don't any miles it'll also
give me a reason to drive my real car somewhere yeah I don't use my cars enough because I have a work
car this is my other thing in the warmer weather I'm like all right this is now an excuse a couple
times a week I can take a car out for a little ride uh and uh you know it's like also um the way
it's kind of like you know we have a discord member that's really into bowling um it's like
going to the bowling alley or something if you're a couple of discord members that are into bowling
but yeah if you're adult bowling week like it's the same kind of deal it's yeah it's just a hobby
to go out and enjoy it's non-destructive it's the cost of entry is a little bit high but once
you have everything it's not a ton of cost to keep doing it there's not something sitting there you
have to maintain if you're not using it like it's not the end of the world it's a it's a perfect
like I said it's it's doesn't cost any more than going to the movies and if you're doing it for
two or three hours the same kind of length so I like to meet I wanted something that clearly
obviously from this podcast we're very much into cars I like doing the scaleness of them
that's the other thing everybody there is like real into like or not everybody but a lot of
people are really into making like nice bodies uh several I've seen several people have done
really nice paint jobs and some bodies and they'll like my paint job they're like oh wow you
painted that I was like yeah I did we have background with this stuff yeah I'm not exactly new
but I'm back in it um it's so yeah it's like a little excuse to get out of the house a little bit
like not have screen time not watch sit home and watch tv on the week night sure uh and just like
do something that's like in the real world
and well the cool thing is is that one of the nights that they race here is Wednesdays and
Wednesdays is one of the nights that Naomi rides her bicycle so it's like perfect we both have our
thing on Wednesday night style right like something to do yeah that's what I'm looking at especially
here it's getting cold now so you know not away on the weekend it'll be really cool here too in the
summertime when it's 120 degrees it'll give me that like car thing that I need to keep my
brain happy because I get so upset when I just work every day and drive my work
camera and don't do anything fun with cars it's like it hurts it'll be nice to have something
like this the other thing I want to do too is I want to bring my camera and when they they do do
competitions I like take some pictures of people competing I'm like this is a lot easier than going
on a racetrack I'm not out in the sun I don't have a four thousand pound car that might smash into
me it's just a 10 pound RC car and I bet nobody's doing that for them and they'll probably appreciate
it yeah it's just fun I don't yeah I just want to do it for fun so sweet that is scale drifting
that is a good rundown yeah there's also a really good American scale American
drift magazine for scale drifting so it's called dark mag darc so it's like drift america rc which
I think is a it's put out by a hobby shop in dallas or in texas um it's darkmag.com so you
can actually read each issue for free online or uh the printed version kind of is spending
10 bucks but it's printed media it's cool because it's independent support that um and the picture
I'll send you a screenshot of this one the picture on the cover of this the july august one
is an actual 110 scar scale car but it looks super real in the picture it's cool
um but anyway yeah that's a podcast I think I think so I'm into it I'm sold you jerk yeah
I think you have fun with it or um you know I don't know if you come visit here I'll take you
I don't know the next time we're gonna come visit well I'm not gonna be there for a while my
fam my parents are coming out here in january so um my hope is that I'll be into it enough
the next time I visit there I'll bring my rc car with me and go around that your place yeah yeah so
all right cool all right so yeah definitely come hang out on our discord we don't charge extra for
it you can just talk to us all the time we don't charge any extra it's uh it's crazy right you can
just you can just do stuff and not charge people for it it's wild sorry we're being salty again
we came into this podcast as we leave this podcast angry about the state of the world
so you spend a thousand dollars on an rc drift car yeah exactly um hey you gotta spend a thousand
dollars on bullshit anyway might as well spend it on fun bullshit yeah at least at least I'm getting
something for my money I'm getting entertainment uh and some activity some brain activity I have to
you know that's why I want to put the kit together myself but anyway yeah come join us
come hang out the discord uh follow us on instagram my stanger that's me out off topic I've been
putting pictures of the drift car on scale out of cast um and brow where can I find you
I don't know they can find me at tsi ss 350 on instagram and the same two other places you've
already listed as auto off topic and scale out of cast all right cool as always keep cars analog
and aim for the roses
About this episode
A lively discussion unfolds around the world of RC drifting, with hosts sharing their personal experiences and insights into building and tuning drift cars. They dive into the technical aspects of their setups, including the importance of electronics, suspension tuning, and the unique characteristics of drift tires. The conversation also touches on the social aspect of drifting, highlighting the camaraderie found at local tracks and the joy of learning new skills. Listeners can expect a mix of technical advice, personal anecdotes, and a light-hearted take on the challenges of the hobby.
Original notes
We cover some project car updates, Andrew is getting really close on the Volvo to starting it. Then spend some time talking 1/10 Scale R/C drifting, because it's Andrew's new micro niche obsession. Please Rate, review and subscribe to the podcast on your favorite listening platform. Comments, Questions, complaints; email us at [email protected]
Join the Discord, message us on the socials for a link.
Keep your cars analog and Aim for the Roses!
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