mini cooper at irp

[ricrush]

Anyone no much about the mini cooper class at Irp I saw the link to their forum. But has anyone on here but running it. Are the guys modding the heck out of them or are they trying to keep the budget low. Thanks Eric

[SixVi6-Camaro]

I think the only person that has one here is Big joe from Hobby town. They handle pretty good on the track. Also since they are FWD they are forgiving to the on/off trigger style driving except they completely blad tires very quickly. I used to see them run at Venture raceway back in the day. If they are setup right with a 19t motor they do really move out well on a carpet track for a $100 non race bred kit.

[DAVEC-NITRO-RS4]

Chicagokenji and his kids are very active at IRP. Contact him at this board. or the IRP forums, for more details on Mini Cooper racing. I thought they were looking at a stock Cooper class to make it more driver skill than mods. But he can fill you in better. He did have a link posted to a video ffom a Cooper race. It was pretty fun looking racing. Like toasters on wheels.

[chicagokenji]

Here's the 10MB .WMV file location:

http://pages.ripco.net/~kenji/mini/

We recently purchased a Mini Cooper M03L to race at IRP. We raced it bone stock this past weekend. We got 13 laps and the guys with the better ones got 17 laps. We met Ken Pepe that day at Intense Raceway Park. He's the king of the Mini's. He's expected to place very well at the TCS race at Trackside in Wisconsin.

IRP is using the same rules as the TCS rules. the 2006 rules can be found here:

http://www.tamiyausa.com/tcs_races/rules.php#mini

Currently IRP is running under the 2005 rules which placed FWD and RWD cars together. That's the only difference.

The TCS rules keep it pretty fair and you don't need to sink a ton of dough into the car to be competitive.

Shane at IRP tallied it up and if you already have your radio transmitter and a receiver it's under 175 bucks to have a car that can be competitive. that's the car and the hop-ups total.

here's what I know that makes the car competitive, anything else is just bling, beefiness, and handling issues:

Do this:

Replace the stock plastic bearings with real bearings

Replace the stock ball diff with either the Tamiya Manta Ray or the TA03 ball diff

Make a paste of Mothers car polish and motor spray, just a wee bit thinner than toothpaste. Use a motor with two cells connected to it and make the stock Johnson/Mabuchi motor a slave motor using fuel tubing connecting each motor together. Jam a bunch of your slurry mix into the motor and run it for 1/2 hour, all the while adding more and more slurry mix. Then when done clean out the motor with fresh motor spray and then blow it dry. Reinstall it.

the difference between the MO3 and MO3L is that the MO3L is less twitchy on long straigtaways.

There's a good forum regarding Mini Coopers at rctech.net

The forum for Trackside in the rctech.net website also has alot of their mini guys posting. Trackside has a lot of mini drivers.

Our new Mini is so fun, I had Shane order me another. I'm also thinking about entering ourselves in the Mini Cooper class at the big TCS race held in March up at Trackside.

I just ordered the TA03 ball diff for mine, I installed real bearings this past Sunday. I did the slurry mix on the comm and brushes too, last night. So I can't wait to get back to IRP to see the performance difference.

with the car bone stock it was difficult to roll it, but I'm geussing next time we run it we'll have a ton more speed and see lots of rolling!

[bandit]

Yeah Bjoe at hobbytown has a very nice Mini Cooper. I'm sure if he races it though.

[BJoe]

Never had the chance to race it, but it runs good and I can hang it sideways if I work the throttle and steering right.

[ricrush]

Well I bought a mini tonight to build. It has the new style body and says a m-03L chassis. I have bearings and ball diff and sway bars too. I look to start coming up to IRP with it. This looks like it could be a blast a nice low budget class. I cannot wait to get out and race at IRP look out though I have no exprience with this. I have been in the hobby 20 plus but I have only raced clodbusters on carpet no cars. Thanks for the info guys. ERIC

[chicagokenji]

well when you are at IRP introduce yourself. I'm the guy with the frantic look on my face and 24 feet of pit space with crap all over the place. Our Mini is blue body with a silver top and black racing stripes:

http://intenseracewaypark.com/photo_...asp?PHO_ID=461

[BJoe]

I don't think I'd be legal there, I may have too many mods on mine


What do you think Kenji?

[chicagokenji]

read the tamiya TCS rules.

What have you done that's not allowed in the TCS rules?

Looks to me from the photos that the chassis is intact, you are using the silver can motor, the tires look stock.

For the M03's you need to not use anything more than a 20tooth pinion, I believe.

BTW.....if you go to Intense's forum there's a Mini Cooper thread there too.

Check out the forums link at:

http://www.intenseracewaypark.com