Cara (previously mentioned girlfriend) decided to give her boy a radio controlled truck for Christmas and asked for my help. Wow, did she get more than asked for or expected. After about 5 minutes of research I decided to recommend to her the Traxxas Rustler RTR brushed motor. Her boy is 8 years old and has no R/C experience yet. And he has a slightly destructive nature. So I figured the brushless would be a bit more power than he should be wielding just yet. Besides that, the brushed version comes with the battery and charger and fit perfectly into the budget she gave me. A later 30 second discussion with a local hobby shop supported my decision. So we had a winner.

My boy was a bit more difficult. I wanted a smaller budget for him as he is only 5 and has almost no R/C experience. So I wanted something strong, cheap, and slow enough to be controlled easily, but not so slow it couldn’t keep up with Cara’s kid’s truck. But I also wanted it to have a bit of expandability in the future. So of course hobby level was in order. I finally decided on a Duratrax Evader EXT2 RTR. It does not come with a battery like the Traxxas, but I figured I could share batteries with him from my old Tamiya Subaru WRC car. Turns out batteries and a cheap peak charger added almost nothing to the cost, so I splurged and got him all he needs. Also worth noting is that Duratrax gives you a 1 year warranty against any part of the car breaking.

Now it was my turn. Motivated by a bonding moment with both kids, and a bit of jealousy for them having the most awesome Christmas ever, I decided to get a truck in the same class so we can all race/bash together. I, being the experienced nerdy type, decided to splurge a bit. Besides that, I couldn’t let the kids outrun the old man. Not yet anyway. So I picked up a Team Associated RC10T4.1 RTR Brushless. I loved my Team Associated RC10 that I got for Christmas over 20 years ago so much, I couldn’t resist reliving that. Besides that, the guy at the local hobby store still says it’s the best choice for stadium truck (I hear this is now called truggy) racing. Granted, mine is the slightly dummied down RTR version. But at least it is brushless. I picked up a couple 40C LiPo batteries which are good for way more than my ESC could ever pull. I also got a DC power supply, which even in my years of previous racing I never had, and a Turnigy Accucell 6 charger. I really wanted to try the Gens Ace i Mars 100W charger, but it was out of stock by the time I got around to ordering. So the Turnigy is just a stop-gap unless it actually works as well as forum monkeys claim.

The numbers for the cars make them all seem fairly similar. I wish we were all the same driver level so I could see them all in a fair comparison.

Rustler        Evader        RC10T4.1

Length                  17.5″             16.1″              15.35″

Wheelbase          11.375″          11.6″              11.34″

Width                    12.25″            12.9″              12.44″

Height                    7″                   6.6″        4.1″ (guessing it’s wrong)

Weight                  3.7 lbs           3.6 lbs          3.87 lbs

Street Price        $195               $120             $250

The only youtube review video I found of any of them worth watching is this:

BTW, for more from the source of that last photo, I highly recommend the egarage blog. They have some awesome stuff over there.

This is a B45P-2/LDM drive unit for FLSmidth Thickeners. It has 160,000 ft-lb torque. It has a 24″, 25 ton lift. It is offered in 6 variants ranging from a single pinion (80K ft-lb) to 3 pinion (240K ft-lb) with and without lift.

Here is the SolidWorks CAD model which is the 3 pinion with lift. As you can see, the lift tube has been beefed up significantly since I made this rendering. IIRC, we changed from a 15 ton lift to a 25 ton lift necessitating the beef-up. Also, the rendering is not 100% complete, some sales guys just needed it before the design was completed.

The AcessPort actually went on before the coilovers. I will not go into details on what the AccessPort is because everyone knows what it is and what it does. And it does so much, that if I were to describe it, I would miss many features. The thing is simply amazing. Install was easy, and fast. Low end power did not seem any different. However, the power about 5,000 RPM or so was a huge surprise. Stock, the engine seems to have severe asthma in that range. With the AP on there, it just keeps revving. You can feel a plateau in the power, but stock, it actually loses so much power it feels like you touched the brakes. My mileage actually went up for the first tank by about .5-1 mpg. That is statistically negligible. But I was glad to see the mileage did not go down.

After the coilvers were on, I finally found time to put on the Turbo Inlet Hose and Intake. The whole process proceeded very smoothly. It took a total of about 80 minutes to install both items. About 15 minutes of that was spent getting a factory nipple, which I had I forgotten about, out of the vacuum hose behind the engine. I got impatient when taking the factory piece off and yanked on it, later realizing that nipple must have been what was holding it in. Good thing the COBB version came with a new nipple. The instructions for the Turbo Inlet Hose only cover the MazdaSpeed3, but it is close enough. Besides that, I have spent hours and hours under the hood of the 3 with that engine. The instructions were looked at once and forgot.

The entire time I was installing it, I kept being reminded of how much I liked the way we designed things at COBB. While I was working at COBB, my wife (now ex) decided to buy an AEM intake for her Mazda3. There was several times during that install, that I told her, “I would get my ass kicked or be fired if I designed something this poorly at COBB.” It was an exercise in frustration. Not because it was worse than everything else out there. But because it was so much worse than what I designed. And just the opposite happened while installing this. I kept telling myself, “There’s a spot I am sure everyone else has fitment issue, but not this guy…”

Power feels a little better on the top end. No different on the low end. But I love the sound on the low end. It isn’t like an NA intake that just has a loud, low, hollow sound to it. And it isn’t a sound like most turbo cars that is just a huge sucking sound. Rather, it is a subtle sucking sound with a very subtle bypass valve release when shifting. It’s subtle enough that I don’t hear it when I have the radio on, even at very low volume. So I usually end up driving around without the stereo on just so I can listen to it. I am sure the novelty will wear off, but it hasn’t yet.

And here is another picture of the whole setup just for good measure:

I went with the BC Racing Type BR coilovers. They have a spring rate of 10K front, 8K rear. Which seemed to be the closest to the stock spring rate ratio from front to rear. It’s not a race car, so that was the extent to the calculations I did for required spring rate. And while the spring rates feel pretty good, so far I am not super satisfied with the coilovers. I will admit, I have done nothing to remedy my dissatisfaction yet, and they may actually be fine.

After reading instructions on how to install the coilovers, which state at some point that you may want to take a sledge to your car out of frustration, I decided to let a friend’s shop do the work. If I had a lift and a back-up ride, I may have attempted it myself still. But Noah at Solid Autoworks gave me the bro discount, so I let him deal with the headaches. Turns out the instructions I had read were not far off. It took about 6 hours to do the job, just over 5 of which was spent on the rears.

Lowering was done to a look, not a spec. As I said, this is not a race car, I was not going to worry about roll centers and such. I just wanted this car to look nice. And it does. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

Now if I could just get some pictures of my car in decent lighting. Anyway… Onto the coilovers. The coilovers have 32 adjustment clicks that adjust mostly compression, like most cheap coilovers. The colors are great. They are a very good looking setup. The adjustment clicks are positive and smooth. and the adjustment knobs have a nice tactile feel to them. Included is I believe 4 different sizes of spanner wrenches for the various spring perches. Everything fit pretty well. No complaints there.

Now for what was not so good: shock length is separately adjustable from spring tension. This is a great thing on the front as you can adjust ride height without pre-loading the springs unevenly. However, on the rear, it makes adjustment tricky. Ride height is adjusted via spring pre-load. And with the shock having adjustable length, it is difficult to determine where they should be set. We left them set where they came from the factory. As it turns out, I suspect it is incorrect. Main bump stops were shortened, and the shock has it’s own small bump stops. The rear feels very over-sprung, or under-damped, you choose your favorite. And on bumps which involve high speed damping, the suspension definitely feels like it is hitting the bump stops. Which bump stop I do not know. But worse than that is after that high speed event, the shock is unable to stop the oscillation of the chassis in the rear.

The shocks had the damping set at 15 click down from full stiff. So pretty much right in the middle. I would try upping the stiffness in the rear to see if it could control the oscillations, however they put the adjustment knob on the top of the shock which once installed is very difficult to get to in order to make any changes. Even if you take the wheels off, you have to have 9″ long skinny fingers to get up in there to twist the knobs. Or you can spend 5 hours dropping the suspension out and putting it back up in.

So not only do I need to sped a ton of time trying to get the bounciness under control, but then I also have to determine if I have the length of the rear shock set incorrectly. And of course changing one, may actually affect the other just a little. Even though they are affected by different suspension events. So yeah. Car looks pimp, I love it. Ride needs improving. I am still convinced the spring rate is fine, but the damping rate may not be able to get right in the rear.

According to ARTYA, those are real 6mm bullets held together with copper wire. The bullets are 6mm Flobert (or Flaubert depending on your location) bullets. Which from quick searches seems to be antique (dating back to around 1842) rimfire ammunition. There was also a great quote in ARTYA’s press release: “Guns don’t always kill people, time always does.”

While I am not a fan of the style of this particular watch, there was another encouraging bit of info in the ARTYA press release: “A complete new line of products incorporating the world of firearms will take shape in the near future.”

The movement is a 25 jewel Swiss made automatic which has 42 hours of power reserve. The case is 316 Stainless with a reticle engraved on the bezel and a width of 47mm. The crystal is sapphire. The back of the case is open with a sapphire crystal. It has what ARTYA refers to a “ballistic style” bracelet. In other words, it is canvas. And it’s water resistant and has a 2 year warranty. No idea on price, but even if it is inexpensive, I’m not buying one. I do however look forward to seeing their future firearm related watches.

Here is a video from Pace Day 2010:

Based on that video, it looks like there was some pretty cool stuff last year. I know a few Mazdaspeeds will be there. And I have heard rumor of that orange Caterham with the SR from the video driving around the Orem area, so I assume he will be there again. So, if you happen to be in Orem and/or happen to be in the mood for checking out some sweet cars, come check it out this Saturday.

On the Vroom front, I got new wheels. Some TSW Nürburgring Bronze wheels in 18×7.5 +45 offset. I wanted to try and fit some 8.5″ wheels, but after thinking about it, it just didn’t make sense for this car. They would be heavier, and theoretically hurt gas mileage a little. Besides that, they would cost more, and require a lot more work to clear the fenders. The 7.5′s I got have about 2-3mm of clearance to the rear fender is all.

I put them on a couple weeks ago. The TSW Nürburgring is made through a process called Rotary Forging. I assume it is the same as a spin casting which pushes out the porosity to create a stronger casting. Therefore they can make them lighter than the stock wheels even though they are wider. And I think the bronze is perfect with the silver car. I wish the center cap was more of a smoked look or even carbon fiber. But it doesn’t detract too much. And the spoke design is one of the best choices for the body style of the Mazdaspeed6. So far, very happy with my choice.

The tires on the other hand… Not so stoked on that choice. I went from having Sumitomo’s best summer tire (HTR Z III) to having Falken’s highest performance all-season tire (Ziex ZE-912). Huge difference to the negative. The sidewalls are soft. Turn-in is slow to react. Braking seems marginally better, acceleration is equal between the two. I just hope they make up for the handling cost once Winter hits.

The lower I bought is a PCF (Plum Crazy Firearms) polymer lower assembly. A guy at work told me about these lowers a couple months ago. I did some research on the forums. And it turns out that they are about 1.2lbs lighter than a typical forged lower assembly. If I remember correctly, that weight is actually compared to a Bushmaster lower assembly with the same style stock. The way they make it light is by having almost the entire thing (including the trigger and hammer) made out of polymer. The only non-polymer parts are the springs, buffer tube, capscrews, and pins. Also, my research told me that people were very happy with them. Well, it turns out a guy that has an office out of his home about a mile from my house is the only dealer in town that carries them. And he was expecting a new shipment in just over a week. So I decided to take the plunge and begin my first AR build. I guess it isn’t much of a build since I was planning to build it from 2 completed assemblies. But I checked on doing a true build and it would have cost me significantly more money. So I did not go that route.

For the money, this is a great lower. The entire assembly is cheaper than what some companies charge for a stripped lower forging. The trigger has a crisp feel with about the same pull weight as a Bushmaster that I played with. The mold is very uniform and obviously manufactured to great tolerances. All parts can be replaced with any of the AR15 pieces made to fit a mil spec lower receiver. Worth noting is the fact that the hammer spring is stiffer than a normal AR15 hammer spring. I assume this is to compensate for a lighter weight polymer hammer. Also worth noting is that the lower receiver is made to fit very tightly with a mil spec upper receiver and does require a good smack with a rubber mallet to install. But this is a very good thing as not only does it eliminate the need for a wedge to fill a gap at the rear like most receiver combos, but it also makes it so that some force is being transferred through mating surfaces rather than only through the pins thereby making it theoretically a stronger more reliable setup. Another thing I noticed when shooting is that the recoil spring seems to make slightly less noise than the couple other AR15′s I have shot. I have no guess as to why that would be since the tube is still metal, as is the spring.

My only criticisms of the lower are:
1- The butt stock to buffer tube fitment is pretty loose and rattles more than I think it should. I have been told this is common with this type of butt stock pretty much no matter what manufacturer it is. However, I cannot confirm this.
2- A friend of mine bought this same lower and used it with a 5.7×28 upper and due to something being too thick on the lower as well as the upper, the bolt lock function doesn’t work.

Now onto the rest of the rifle…

So this leads us to last weekend when the gun show came to town. I went to the show with the intent of finding a 7.62×39 upper. I figured this would give me the advantages of the AK47 round without having the burn-your-eyes-out-with-a-fireplace-poker looks. Or the spray-and-pray accuracy that the AK47 is legendary for. Well, a couple dealers had such an upper. And they wanted 50% more than what I had found them online for. But then I came across a dealer with a variety of .223 uppers, they were interesting enough to make me look again. Now, being a .22-250 nut-swinger, I have a learned distaste for the .223 as it is everything that a .22-250 does better, except for cost of course. But the price was right. For $100 less than the 7.62 upper I had been looking at online, I essentially got the same features (other than caliber) only with a 1.06″ diameter, 20″ long stainless barrel and a snazzy looking free float tube.

While at the show I also picked up a case of 55gr ammo. BTW, next time I will get 62gr minimum as the barrel has a 1:8 twist so it can stabilize the longer heavier bullets. I also picked up a couple Magpul PMags which it turns out I paid full retail for at the cheapest booth in the show.

As soon as I got home, I started putting the pieces together. It all went together smoothly and without a single issue. That night, the roommate needed some stuff at Walmart so I decided to tag along and look at scope rings, and walked away with a scope instead. I picked up a Centerpoint 4-16×40 with illuminated mil-dot reticule. I thought the whole setup looked so sexy I had to snap a couple photos…

Obviously those 30 round PMags were a bit long. So for lunch the next day I ran to Sportsman’s Warehouse and picked up a cheap 20 round magazine for $5.  It fit much better but the quality difference between the $5 one and the Magpul PMags was very obvious. Overall length of this setup is 35.5″ – 38.5″ depending on stock position.

The range was closed Monday and Tuesday. But I was able to escape from work an hour or so early and head to the range on Wednesday. With wind varying from about 15 – 30 mph, the gun was able to still maintain pretty close groups. What variation there was in groups may have been due to the scope. What a pile of shit that thing is. It shot 3″ right and 1.5″ high without any bore sighting or anything. So I clicked off the appropriate amount of clicks that should have made it 1″ right still but correct elevation. Yeah, not so much. It was now 1″ left and still 1.5″ high. Clicked off the number of clicks that should have brought it to the center, but no, point of impact didn’t move. After maybe 30 rounds I got the point of impact close enough to the center that I no longer cared. The scope will be going back as soon as I decide on a suitable replacement. That was honestly one reason I got the scope. I figured it would be crap, but there was a chance it would not be. And if it was crap, I have 90 days to return it for a full refund. In the end, it was shooting (at 50 yards due to time constraints) a 1″ group. But again, I have a suspicion that some of that is due to the scope moving around a little. Also, the target was moving quite a bit in the wind.

Overall, the entire gun build experience has been a positive one. I like the components that are on it, other than the scope. I like the way it fits, I like the way it feels, I like the way it looks, I like the way it shoots. Win, win, win, win, fuck you scope. The only things I would still like to add to the rifle are: New scope, improved grip with finger grooves and palm rest, and a bipod. And yes, for any of my friends thinking of building an AR15 (or better yet AR10) I highly recommend it. It’s easy, fun, and not nearly as expensive as it was a couple years ago when Obama first took office and everyone thought he was going to take our guns.

I get mail: German physicist Peter Heller wrote a passionate plea for a return to science on the nuclear power issue, published in German here: http://www.science-skeptical.de/blog/fukushima/004149/ With Dr. Heller’s permission, I’ve translated it in English. But having gone over the content, I think his plea is worthy of a much wider audience – more than what NTZ can offer. So I send this to you with the kind request that you consider publishing … Read More

via Watts Up With That?

BTW, here is another good read on the subject. One of hundreds in existence. But one I singled out nonetheless. http://depletedcranium.com/panic-and-madness-in-a-radiophobic-world/