John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

I have been running touring cars lately on a large 280 x 70 foot 1/8 scale outdoor track. In the summer it gets quite hot with track temperatures of 140 F or so here in Houston. At this temperature, with LiPo packs, touring cars eat motors. You are stuck with a gearing quandary. If you gear tall, the brushed motor will tend to overheat. If you gear the motors low, you will lack top speed on the long straights and the motor will tend to throw a winding due to the high speed. My motors work good for a half dozen runs or so while the comm is nice and thick, then at about .278 diameter or less, the comm tends to overheat. The wire gets thrown off of the comm tabs. This is a little less than half used up. If you are sponsored, and have a bucket full of new motors to run with, this is just fine. I don’t mind the rebuilding every run at all, just the negative cash flow from premature failure. Todays brushless motor tends to have a thermal shutdown in the heat so it is not well suited either. I imagine when they get serious about cooling these this will improve.

For this reason, I am looking for an electric car that would run well on this track (it must be as fast as the TC) without overheating the motor, and a car that can handle a reasonable amount of unevenness in the surface (it’s not carpet). I seems that 1/10 pan cars, although out of fashion, might be just the ticket. The only question I have is whether I can get it to hook up reasonably well on the medium grip asphalt. The track is treated with sugar water on occasion; I know I can get it hooked up then. I have had quite a few Nitro and Electric RC cars, but this is my first time driving a pan car, although I have helped set them up just a little.

This thread is not meant to replace the good on-road pan car thread that seems to be misplaced in the oval car forums (It seems that there are still pockets of 1/10 pan car racing, both oval and on-road still in the US). This thread is just meant to condense the pan car information just a little and continue my reports of testing with LiPo batteries and brushless motors that I began on The Losi LCD Thread. I also will add a touring car vs pan car test later in this thread.

See my latest touring vs Pan car discussion here 1/16/2008.

Here are some suppliers that I have found with the help of several pan car threads. If you have additions or corrections to the lists below please send me a Private Message or e-mail and I will edit the new information into this post. This will keep this info condensed.

Cars Road Cars and Oval Cars More Oval cars to come.

CRC
Calandra Racing Concepts (CRC)
(Makers of the Carpet Knife and Bloody Carpet Knife)

Battle Axe 200 mm
Oval Pan Car

GenX Pro 10 200mm (or convertible to 235 mm)
Road Pan Car



Wide Pan Conversion for the Pantoura or RC10L3T
Powell Racing Components
New graphite chassis, bottom and top pod plates available.
"The top pod plate is one that I offer for the 10L2 to convert to a tri-shock setup." Picture.


BMI Racing
DB10R 200 mm- Road Pan Car


Hyperdrive
Pro 1/10 on-Road
Second View


Team SpeedMerchant
Street Spec(solid front end)


DarkSide Motorsports
1/10 on road pan wide (narrow) adjustable, now available
large photo


Corally
Corally CCT
1/10 Narrow (190-200mm wide) Entry Level Pan Car

Corally C10 X
Top level wide pan car

Associated
RC10 L, RC10 LS (wide), RC10LSS, RC10L2 (wide, 220mm), RC10 L3T (narrow)

Various Associated 1/10 Pan Cars are still popular on the used market. These include both early wide 235 mm 1/10 pan cars and later model narrow 1/10 pan cars 190-200mm. Some parts are still available from Associated. Some of these kits and possible conversions are described at the link below.

MLP
Models to be announced July 2008




Foams

GRP Gandini tires

Great tire. Hard to find in the states now.

Trinity

These tires are made by Jaco now. Older TRC tires on a yellow wheel were made by GRP

Jaco

1/10 pan. Four hole mount on rear tire. Black wheel. The pink compound has slightly less grip than a GRP or RC4less tire.


RCforLess Tires

I have seen recommendations for outdoor oval. I have tested these tires on orange wheels and they work great on road. I am told they are the same compound as GRP tires on an orange wheel.

BSR tires
These tires come on a black wheel. The pink compound has more grip than the pink GRP or RC4 less tire.



Axles Hubs Bearings, Ride Height Adjusters, Springs

Irgang Racing Service (IRS)


RC4less.com

Lefhander-RC.com

Niftech

Murdoch Racing
Wind Tunnel, Long travel front suspension, Progressive rate Springs, Heavy duty front axles.

Silva Concepts



Associated Electronics

Very good drawings and manuals for the discontinued cars are available online.


Bodies

VansInvent.com
A nice broad selection of GTP (open and closed cockpit) and F1 bodies with front and rear wing that will fit both narrow and wide pan cars.
a couple of examples are posted in this thread

200 mm Bodies
These also fit 200 mm Nitro Cars

Serpent
Lola

GTP


Pro-Line Protoform

Lola T 530 Body

HPI

Peugeot 1/10 GTP body

This is a wide body for 10 L or C10X. It's back in stock. Get the .030 body for outdoors. Very nice looking body with a proper pan car wing with side dams.


McAllister Nissan
Here is a wide pan body I found in stock at Stormer. Works really well on my Wide Pan

Spur Gears (Associated Diff Gears), Servo Saver
Kimbrough
RC10 L2 parts at Tower Hobbies



Shore chart Compliments of Trinity the harder the tire, the bigger the shore hardness, the less the grip.

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Calandra Pantoura 1/10 Pan Touring

I received my car in a small heashrink sealed box today.

Contents: Kit in multiple sealed bags. Screws are phillips head stainless steel. The Associated screw driver kit phillips fits very well, instructions for Bloody Carpet Knife which is a similar chassis, addendum for Pantoura with color photos, no wheels tires or body. The kit came with an 86 tooth 64 pitch differential gear. No motor screws. I cut some about 3/8 inch long from longer metric screws. All of my Motor screws were too short.



I have the rear pod semi assembled. There is a photo below of the front of the rear pod and of the bottom of the chassis. The kit seems to be well made. There are some burrs where the holes which are drilled from the bottom of the chassis break through the chassis. Bevel these with the X-Acto to insure proper mating of the parts that screw on top. Make a fine pass with a tiny file on the sharp edges of the graphite chassis.



Here are some specs on the car with GRP foam tires.

Width Rear 200 mm
Width Front 185 mm
Wheelbase 255 mm

The car takes narrow 1/10 pan car, with non offset pod, replacement axle and hub parts.
Rear axle is 5.205 inch long by .2485 inch diameter (nominal 1/4”) + 8 x 32 threaded stud. Looks like fiberglass.

The left hub is not the clamp on style. It is held with a large set screw

The diff rings are large and not the D type.

Some assembly tips. This is not my first ball diff, so I will use the method which is easiest and which I think will produce results as good as any. I don’t sand the diff rings. As soon as the diff is run, any surface treatment that you or the manufaturer puts on the rings is gone. The balls cut a nice little groove in the diff ring. At the speeds this car will run, any excess grease will just be thrown out of the diff as there are no labrynth type seals to hold anything in. I won’t be concerned about putting on too much grease. After assembly I will run the car in the air for about 30 seconds holding one rear tire. This will produce the nice groove. Then I will check the diff for slip and retighten if neccesary.


I have found on graphite touring cars that after a month or two they start to tweak as the chassis screws get loose and start to work the holes bigger. I will put a little blue LocTite under the heads of the screw that go through the chassis and motor plates. This will pin the chassis. I have never had any trouble removing these later. This will prevent problems from the start. If you do have trouble removing a screw, just heat the screw head for a few seconds with a hot soldering iron tip. Then remove while hot. The Loctite will liquify and the screw will come out easy.


More photos to come as parts arrive. Exciting days.

Pro ten Holland

iTrader: (1)

Have no fear of not getting that car to hook up. I run 10th pancar on tracks without any sugarwater without any problems.
It's the easiest when you're allowed to use traction compound, but even without it you can generate as much, or more traction than any sedan.

Get ready to slay any sedan in the laptimes, with more runtime, less motor wear and way lower running costs than you're used to.

If you need any setup advice, feel free to ask. I'll help.

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

I'll be sure to ask plenty of questions. Thanks for the help with the gearing. I can use traction compound. I have several flavors on hand. I have seen the Trinity zip grip II (not the odorless type) compound recommended on your thread. I am starting with Pink front Pink rear GRP's. Trimmed large. These are on the soft side for middle of the week testing. I will need something harder for when they treat the track with sugar water. 1/10 gas cars on foams were traction rolling with shore 42 tires with the treatment. Suggestions please for both conditions.

kufman

iTrader: (6)

From my expierence with my RC10-L3T, the pan type touring cars tend to drive better with a harder tire in the front than in the back. Indoors I ran purple fronts and white or grey rears.

RED-LINE M03

iTrader: (127)

He speaks the truth...............

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Kufman-Thanks for the tire tip. I have seen many times to use purple fronts and grey rears inside. We will have an indoor capet track soon as well. I'll run the car outside and decide which tire or tires to change.

Roll Control
Here is a pic of the partially assembled rear end. The side damper tubes are dry at this point. Do you guys run goo in this type of setup. The coil springs and tweak screws are set at a light spring tension at this point. The graphite football that holds the center pivot ball assembly is setup so that it can slide fore and aft a bit and also so the ball pivots freely. After the side links are attached then tighten the top nuts on the football to secure it in place.

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Battery Strap Mod for LiPo 2S pack

My Lipo packs are shaped like a stick pack. It looked like the center front shock ball stud nut would interfere with this type of pack. I countersunk the bottom of the strap and used a flat head screw and Losi female ball stud instead. The part number is visible in the photo. The #4 82 degree countersink with the attached drill bit was available at my hardware store.

nf_ekt

iTrader: (115)

What are some good sources for gtp style shells without alot of hassle? Thanx.

AdrianM

iTrader: (4)

eBay and the clearnace rack at old hobby shops . These bodies are not made any more. Maybe you could import them from Japan.

John - Be careful with that thing! With a 27T and 6 cells or 2s Lipo your Pantoura will be considerably faster than than a really good 7T Mod Sedan

John Stranahan

iTrader: (27)

Adrian
I will be careful. There are no people on the track when I run a practice. I have plenty of stock motors and 19 turns as well. What I was after with the 4.5 is maybe a little less shock to the rear tires from the lower gearing when I applied the throttle. My 6.5 has a really strong bottom end. I can run the 1/8 scale course. The long straight is about 220 feet long.

I have seen the flying car video and read about the cancelled nationals incident because of the flying car. I have seen plenty of 1/8 scale buggies airborn as well. Now that is a really heavy beast with a lot of kinetic energy on board. I used to run one of those with the hottest motor available.
John

azmio

John,

With 1/10 pan car, the car is stable even at high speed. I run mine with 4.5 GTB, geared at 6.3 and powered by Platinum lipo. It's faster than nitro cars on straight with roughly half the weight.

Just dont be afraid to keep on pushing with more and more powerful motor until you run out of suitable spur and pinion.

Pro ten Holland

iTrader: (1)

You are incorrect here.
Protoform still makes Peugeot's for Stormer Hobbies, and Hot Body's Toyota is still available from Stormer as well. The only problem is that they order 'em every once in a while, so they tend to stay on backstock for some time, then will be available for a week or two, untill they're sold out again.

I've seen some Associated Nissan's from Tower Hobbies as well. Partnumber 6128.

If you need other bodies, I have a german adress who can sell you some more bodies as well.

Pro ten Holland

iTrader: (1)

I run 10th pancar modiefied every week on our 1/8th scale track for 5 years now. The only incident I have seen on our track was with a 1/5th scale car hitting a corner marshall's head in midair after a colission. Luckily, no harm done.
We rarely see 10th pancar taking off. And if they do, they stay low.
Keep in ind that a 10th pancar has no signigicant more top speed than a similar powered sedan!

With this in mind, cancelling a national event because of a 1/10th pancar flying into the crowd sounds really weird to me!

vtl1180ny

The Pantoura uses standard 190mm bodies. Any body that'll fit a TC will fit the car.