Lou's Speedway & Hobbies

Well, I had my first outing with the A700 yesterday, and all I can say is WOW!

I started off with Tom Maquel's high traction carpet setup, except I ran the dampers with the symmetrical setting, 1.3mm sway bar on the front and 1.2mm in the rear, and 800cst in the gear diff. Within the first battery pack in practice, I was within 2 tenths of my fast lap on this layout that I had set with my 417. Near the end of practice, I was feeling more comfortable with the car, but made a big mistake and broke a ball cup (P01). I also made an error in a fairly high speed chicane and the car tumbled end over end, and was still fine (some setting had been tweaked, but nothing broke).

In my first qualifier, the car felt really good. I managed to beat both my personal records (best 6 min race and fast lap), and managed to get TQ by a second which at our local track isn't easy. Racing against top drivers like Martin Crisp (team Serpent), and Andrew Hardman (many sponsors, although he wasn't there this week). In the final, Martin managed to get in front of me on the 3rd corner and hold me off, but I'm really impressed that I was able to stay as close as I did to him.

Here's a video of the main (my car is orange/blue/white)

With the same Tekin RS settings, motor timing, and gearing as I ran in my 417 (coming off at 170-180*F), the motor was coming off closer to 140-150 thanks to the super efficient drive-train. It was also quieter then I expected based on prior experiences with shaft drive cars.

For minimum weight we run 1380 grams, and the car out of the box with my electronics (picture below)and the body, it weighed 1325. It was nice to be able to add all the weight to the center line of the car under the shaft.

All in all, a very promising first outing with the car. Next week I plan on trying some thicker oil in the gear diff (1000cst), running with less rear toe (2.5*), and some different shock settings (although I was very happy with the setup today, I just want to get a better idea on how to use these dampers over the conventional TC dampers). Can't wait to get back on the track with this car!

Steve