ShannonSlide

Time Flies...

2006-07-10T14:37:00.000+01:00

Hey folks,
I can't believe it's been a month since I posted to my blog! Things have been fairly hectic, I've recently become the Editor of the US website, http://us.drccentral.com
I'm responsible for keeping it up to date, and I'm also working on giving it a fresh new look. Take a look and see what's happening, any feedback would be cool, thanks!

BackwardsDrift's E30

2006-06-19T10:16:00.000+01:00

Rouen's R33 Skylines.

2006-06-09T14:33:00.000+01:00

Here are a couple of fantastic looking cars made by Rouen of D10 in South Africa. Great detail, good theme, lots of work. These bodies are pretty rare, so it's good to see that they are been well used!

BEEMER's Beemer!

2006-05-18T09:54:00.000+01:00

Spotted in Limerick #2

2006-05-12T15:34:00.000+01:00

I was collecting my brother and sister yesterday evening when I spotted this.
I had just collected my bother and was on my way to collect my sister form work when passing the Regional Hospital my brother says not to get too excited, but he thinks, thinks, he's just spotted a Cobra. So I double back at the round about, and lo and behold...
Pictures are crap as I was in a rush, and it's a camfone, and the light was fading, and my hands were shaking.... :D
It's a kit, an online RAC check shows the Engine to be a 1989 3.6L petrol engine, and the HPI check reveals:

VRM f******
MANUFACTURER
MODEL
BODY TYPE Convertible
COLOUR RED
FUEL TYPE Petrol
ENGINE SIZE 3528 CC
DATE REGISTERED 01/05/05
FORMer KEEPERS 0

So it looks like it's only on the road a year in it's current state.

How To Set a Tamiya TEU101BK and an Airtronics MX3 Receiver

2006-05-10T08:43:00.000+01:00

Posted this for DriftinRZ on DRC:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last night I took down my Mini Mutant which has this Rx/ESC combo.
1. The Bottom slot has the Steering Servo
2. The Second Slot has the 3 wire plug from the ESC
3. The third slot is for the 3rd channel (not used here)
BEC. The Top Slot is for the Power wire from the ESC. this is a 2 pin plug, but there are 3 slots, use the middle and right hand slots as shown,

Switch on the Radio (I'm using an MX3)
Select a model that you are not using elsewhere (1-5)
Set your throttle trims to neutral. I also had to set the throttle to reverse, but that was because I had used these electronics on another car before.
Switch on the ESC (I have located mine under hte car)
Press the red SET button with something non-conductive (like a piece of plastic sprue) The ESC should start to beep and the LED should flash on and off repeatedly.

Pull the throttle to max accelaration, and press the Set button again.
LED should flash like this:

when the ESC flashes like this , forward is set, and you need to press and hold reverse on the Transmitter then press the set button again. ESC will then stop beeping and your ESC is set!

Any questions, let me know!

Obsessed? Moi?

2006-05-02T09:01:00.000+01:00

After weeks of inaction, mostly due to my own laziness, I finally got off my arse and started work on my second E30 shell. It's about 70% complete, I still need to tidy up the wheel arches (I've put a layer of Duck tape around the inner arches and bumpers for protection). I've trimmed the front for both fog lights and amber markers, and the rear cluster is a mix of Transclucent red and Smoke, I'm really happy with how it turned out! It's almost black until the light shines through it as you can (kind of ) see in the pics below. I trimmed a M3 badge from a Micro RS4 (my 1st RC M3! I knew there was a reason to hang on to all the old decal sheets!)

I also need to add the finer detail such as lights, decals, seat, cage, brake disks. I may even go the whole hog and add a N20 purge like these crazy bastards. Lekker!

Some things didn't go quite to plan though. I'm not 100% happy with the grille, last time I hand painted the grill with silver paint, this time I used some latex liquid mask and Alclad II Chrome paint. Unfortunately the flaky paint and sticky latex make it very tough to get the right look, i'll probably have to try again with masking tape. The rear wheels don't look right, but I'm hoping the adjustable arms from Tower should add some camber when they arrive. The spoiler and mirrors have finished up as a matte inish, I'll have to overcoat them with gloss to get them to match.

Some of the thimbnails are not working, but clicking on them will still bring up the correct photos, imageshack is playing up on me...

Black is Back!

2006-04-27T08:42:00.000+01:00

Philchrome/HKSR32, who did the Lancia Delta before (amongst others), has just published this cool looking Silvia on DRC.
"one of my latest creations hope ya like it, the arches are from a yokomo fc3s for those of u who wish to know! "

Lots of goodies here, most noticeable are the wider wings, though there are a few nice touches about the car as well like the intercooler and thewell tinted windows

Savage E30 32*i Sport

2006-04-26T10:11:00.000+01:00

Johnny Bravo of Team LSM published this 2.7 conversion on E30owners

The engine spec:

525eta bottom end
525eta crank
525eta con rods
325i pistons
325i head

This week I have been mostly...

2006-04-25T20:52:00.000+01:00

... been busy doing other stuff. So instead of posting a progress report in the Beemer, here a list of stuff I've found this week.

Firstly, Flunked/JeBus has set up Ireland's first RC Drift forums at:

http://s11.invisionfree.com/rcdrift/index.php

I recommend everyone sign up and get posting, no point in waiting for someone else to do it! It's still in its infancy, but with a little TLC I'm sure we can have it running in no time! :D

DeutscheDrift! RC-Forum.org a German drift forum, but once you know "Karosserie" is "Body" and "Bilder" is "Pictures" then finding the "Gallerie" should be no problem!

http://www.e30tech.com/
Serious American BMW E30 forum, plenty of info and a few topless beauties!

Spotted another E30 on DRC

2006-04-18T09:12:00.000+01:00

paradox has posted a few nice photos of his E30 on DRC and GroovyDrift. He cites the Azevedo Motorsports Widebody M3 as his inspiration. It's the first RC E30 I've seen that has featured yellow tinted (or French) fog lamps, something I'd been thinking about for my own project. He's also got an air intake where one of the lamps would normally be, á la Time Attack cars. The camber is a bit mental, but it goes with the rest of the car!

The good, the bad and the ugly.

2006-04-11T11:02:00.000+01:00

The Good:
CarAReOK.com E30 M3

The Baad (in the best possible way)
Turbo´d M3:

And the Ugly: Uncle Ben at his finest
In other News, my second (and probably last :( ) package from Walawala arrived today, with the carbon MR2 and Merc Evo II! I also managed to get these put together:

AndI've also been tinkering with this is my free time!

Here's the evolution of it...

Real Ultimate Power - Ninja Tune!

2006-04-07T08:24:00.000+01:00

Facts:
1. Ninjas are mammals.
2. Ninjas fight ALL the time.
3. The purpose of the ninja is to flip out and kill people.

Chris, aka .inc aka DRCCentral's UK Mod, pioneer of bodystyling and creator of some of the finest drift shells ever created, has done it again! For this year's D1RC series in the UK he sourced a rare Tamiya 318 E36 body (a pretty hefty task in itself) and worked his magic all over again. The result, as you see below, is another meisterwerk for the Ninja Tune stable.

There's a lot to like about this body, As mentioned, it's pretty rare, having been discontinued by Tamiya a few years back. Chris has developed this particular shade of pink over the last couple of years, it's not straight from a can, there's more to it than that! He's spent a lot of effort masking it properly, as can be seen from theheadlight area. He's picked decals form a few different sources, including a custom Ninja Tune and sponsor decals. Rims are superdeep Kawada's and rear wing is novel to say the least. I'm guessing the Blu Tac is a temporary arrangement!

Everyone was KungFu Fighting!

2006-03-31T14:18:00.000+01:00

Chinese BMW 3 Series drift Action!
I've joined the new website e30owners.com, it's an Irish site, full of guys and girls who are mad about their Bimmers! They have load of info on all thing BM, and it's a great source of links and stuff, like this YouTube movie:

Driftcursus!

2006-03-26T15:41:00.000+01:00

From the land that brings us clogs, windmills and Heineken, bas-sideways has created this simple, but effective, E30. He's made a sponsor roll from the original decal sheet, and added some custom two tone rims. This is no shelfer though, from what I hear, bas will be drifting the hell out of this shell!
[EDIT]Bas has informed that while he got the shell with a TT-01, he's sold this to a mate, and he's using his Tamiya TRF 414 instead. Some serious machinery indeed!

If I said you had a fantastic body, would you hold it against me?

2006-03-24T13:53:00.000Z

The E30 body I ordered from WalaWala arrived in the post yesterday, I was surprised at how light the box was. Looking at the body, it has "1992 TAMIYA" printed on the edge of it, so I'm not sure if it's the TA01 original, or the TT01 rerelease. I doubt they would be selling the shell for $30 if it was original, though :)

So the wheels are sorted, the chassis is sorted, but the electronics are still an issue. My brother might need to get his own radio gear, or at least a receiver. Up to now, we have used a Mini-Z radio with a Mini-X receiver. Both are 27Mhz AM, but there are problems. The aerial in the Mini-x is quite short (only 6 inches) and the range is only about six feet, so it's useless for what we want. Also we are getting interference running the cars close to gether, even though my own radio is 27 Mhz FM. I might solder on more wire to the aerial to see if it boosts range, if not, then it's time to invest in some 40 mhz gear, though that will probably be further down the road.

Now that I have the body, I need to start looking at colours. Himself reckons that black is the only way to go. I have suggested everything from Blue to Camel Yellow to Flourescent Orange, but it has to be black. I think that while black is a cool colour, it doesn't show off the detail of the body. As I hope to enter this into a BOTM or two, I was thinking of trying something more complicated than a single colour. I'd like to add a pearl effect to the black, or maybe a colourshift, maybe navy to dark green, but keeping the overall colour very dark. I'm filling my ModelSport basket at the moment, I have Smoke and Transluscent Red (for windows and rear lights)so I'm thinking of getting one of the Iridescent paints, and black of course! the more I think about this, the more I realsie that I'm going to end up with something very similar to Turbo-GT's BMW, which has always been a favourite of mine. More of his stuff can be seen at:
http://www.turbo-gt.dk/rcbiler.htm

2006-03-22T15:07:00.000Z

So it seems that ChavezSA/Onyikan has beaten me to the punch with this excellent LED set tutorial, (here on DRC) which was originally posted in Japanese by (D-Craft) I've all the bits bought, though some assembly is required.

Baby's got new shoes...

2006-03-22T11:28:00.000Z

I finally managed to remember to bring home the ABS tyres I bought from choku_wing_star on ebay. 10 quid for 4 sets is the best value I've seen to far. After a few minutes swearing at them trying to get them onto the Pit Shimizu Watanabe rims I have, I came to the conclusion that maybe brute force and ignorance wasn't the best approach. so I boiled tha crap out of them instead!

I bought the rims from Jayswift on DRC a few months ago, but I'd forgotten about them until I discovered them again recently.

After 5 minutes in the hot water the ABS is pliable enought to squeeze onto the rim this far by hand. You can see a little rims is still exposed, as if the tyre was stretched over the rim.

However, I had to resort to the ol' "Phonebook and Foot" technique to finish the job!

2006-03-21T16:04:00.000Z

Mucking about in the garage last night, I got my miniX up and running! Who needs a €160 plus shipping Mini-Z AWD when you can get one of these babies for so much less!

I also bodged up a bracket for the exhausts using a wire coat hanger, it was tougher than I thought, managed to break the wire snips as well.

All your E30 are belong to us...

2006-03-20T14:39:00.000Z

Here is every E30 BMW photo I have located over the last couple of months, mostly form online forums, such as VWVortex.com. I've imageshack'd them all, so I'm not using anyone else's bandwidth. Let me know if there's a problem with copyright etc. I'm not claiming any of these as mine, I've just been inspired by them all!

So Tired, Tired of Waiting...

2006-03-16T16:25:00.000Z

Tired of waiting for youuu…
Racing in Fermoy last night, the turnout was the biggest I've seen there about 15 racers, and as many more interested spectators. I was hopelessly underprepared, which resulted in me only getting one run. That and the fact that people won't by extra crystals, yet demand that they be allowed race. Teenagers!

Such a crowd meant that there was little time between heats for drift, though we managed to get a bit in at the end. Most of the racers had never seen a drifter before, someone even asked if I wanted spare tyres! I was disappointed that there was so little interest, I don't think we'll be back again, not for drift.

Baz brought along his FD3S , I've taken a couple of photos,

Spotted in Limerick

2006-03-15T08:47:00.000Z

Lookie what I saw on the dock road the other evening, looks like a UK registered TVR Cerbera. Now, there's a car that would go sideways for you!

2006-03-14T11:31:00.000Z

Last Night, I thought I would try my hand at creating custom Deep Dish Wheels. Unfortunately, I lacked several things last night, like a proper work area, the right tools, and the necessary patience when trying this so the results were not what I was hoping. Nothing lined up the way I had intended, and my new hot glue gun takes a bit of getting used to. I'm posting this as a warning to you all, take your time or you might end up with a mess!
Here is my first attempt, a pair or Tamiya Mini 8 spokes wheels. I was hoping to create some DD minilites for the BMW, but the diameter is not constant, so the result was less than I had hoped. In fact, they suck!
With an uncut wheel for reference

A while later I managed to slice the back off these old Skyline rims, this being the second attempt I though they would look better, and at a glance they do, but on closer inspection they are very rough indeed. And they stick out WAAY too far on the BMW. I may try to use arms from a Tamiya mini, which are narrower, to bring them back under the body, they look goofy here.

These wheels still need a lot of work, but I'll have to wait for parts to complete them I might try again once I get the ABS rims from Capsule21, at least then I will have a guide to align the two piece up, and I'll be able to polish the rims smooth. And get them to fit. If that doesn't work out then I'll just pick up these from Tower Hobbies

R/C Drifting

2006-03-13T15:49:00.000Z

I'm in to R/C drifting, I have been for about a year or so now, it's more fun than racing, and doesn't get as expensive! The Art of Drifting is not about getting across the finish line first, rather it is judged by the angle, speed and duration of the drift around a corner. There's a growing online community, from all corners of the globe, and it's cool to se how they've all come together online. Some of the forums I'm a member of are:
DRC
GroovyDrift
RCDori
RC-Drift

Part of the reason I enjoy RCDrifting is that the bodies are much more detailed than racing or touring car shells. They are made to look much more scale than the aerodynamic shells favoured in racing. Usually a drift car is a 4WD touring car, with modified tyres and suspension. Many RC producers such as Tamiya , Yokomo and HPI now produce kits that are aimed specifically at RC drifters. Many drifters will also add extra details to their car, for example, adding internal rollcages or dummy intercoolers. One of the most popular modifcations of all is to add headlights. There are many ways to do this, either by fitting a factory made light kit, or by building a custom installation from components.
I have such a home made setup in my BMW E30 M3, which is switched on and off using the 3rd channel on my radio. I removed the gears and motor form a standard servo, and connected a set of LEDs to the motor terminals. This allows me to control the voltage fed to the LEDs using the circuit in the servo, an dmeans I don't have to add resistors to protect the LEDs.

Recently I've been thinking of a way to create working brakelights to an electric RC car. One method was to wire a set of LEDs across the terminals of a motor, but this doesn't work because the Speed controller doesn't apply a constant voltage to the motor, but a series of high freqeuncy pulses, so the LEDs are constantly on. My next plan is to split the signal from thethe receiver to the speed controller (ESC) to run a similar servo setup as I did for the headlights. this will require a Y harness to split the leads, as I dont' have the parts to scarifice at the moment. More details as I think of them!

Call that a Blog?

2006-03-13T15:30:00.000Z

After watching the antics at the Irish Blog Awards I thought I'd take the organisers at their word and start my own, and write about something I'm passionate about my self. I have may have no major cause to fight for, or require a soapbox to stand on, but I'd like to have somewhere to contribute what I think. Back in college I would have built a webpage to do this (good God how many of those are still floatingabout the place, "Hi my name is John, and here is my web page")
but of course blogs have made those a thing of the past!