| PinewoodProfessor.com |
This website is for serious Pinewood Racers. |
| HOME | BODY DESIGN | Weight Placement | Friction Reduction | Axel Modification | Wheel Prep - Tuning |
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See Exactly What seperates a District Champion from all the rest! You can build a competitive car just by looking at this website - BUT to WIN the Trophy, you gotta have the whole Story - The Science behind the car! And put it to work in YOUR car! |
With Pinewood Professor's Speed Secrets Digital
Download The Science of Speed VIdeo is a Windows Media File CLICK HERE TO TEST COMPATIBILITY Feel free use the links above to access specific information regarding
BODY DESIGN, Weight Placement, Friction Reduction, Axel Modification
and Wheel Prep - Tuning. |
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See Exactly What seperates a District Champion from all the rest! You can build a competitive car just by looking at this website - BUT to WIN the Trophy, you gotta have the whole Story - The Science behind the car! And put it to work in YOUR car! |
SECTION ONE - The Design of your car body, and the ratio between the amount of Pinewood and Lead Weight as well as the Position of it’s Center of Mass is THE single most important factor in taking full advantage of Gravity (which is the only, I repeat -ONLY-- positive force you have Pulling you down the Slope of the Track. You MUST take extra time and thought designing your pinewood body to take advantage of Every Ounce of potential energy available to you. Other Racers are trying to squeeze every bit of performance out of their cars and they will leave you in the dust and they will walk away with the trophy if you don’t fully explore this critical aspect of Body design fully. Now with that said, Lets look at the following analogy |
| Potential Energy = Mass (weight of your car) x Height (how high your center of mass is on the track) x Gravity. The In the video you will see just how moving the center of mass on the car affects the performance of the car. Hint = It's not-- JUST-- 'in the back'--. So don't assume anything. Our tests show you everything. And with this important info YOUR car will gain that extra energy edge the other wont have! You've gotta remember that even the smallest detail can seperate the Winner's from all the rest. Fractions of an inch usually determine going to Districts so We take the extra time to show you in Live Video and with Computer Generated Graphic animations exactly what's going on! Why? Because we want YOU to WIN ! | |
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We show you step by step how to eliminate or improve the friction areas on the axel shaft and inner nail head. We also show you advanced axel modification techniques which you can do yourself such including machining the axel shaft and properly beveling the inner nail head for HUGE reductions in friction! You can see it in the picture - but we SHOW you HOW TO DO IT and MORE!
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SECTION TWO-- Lets Identify Specific areas of friction on the axels of the pinewood racer. As your car moves down the track, friction between the axels and the wheels slow down your car. Of course EVERYONE uses graphite to reduce friction, but if you want the fastest car possible, you need to take it a step further! And we show exactly HOW TO DO THIS! As you can see the largest friction area is the axel shaft it’self, the other area we can work on is the inner nail head. Since the axel shaft is the largest contributor to friction, a change here would do the most good. First, look at your axels and find the small raised grooves. Now because these are “NAILS” and not perfectly machined axels, they are not really round and also have all sorts of imperfections due to the process of making the nails. But since that’s all we have to work with, We we show you step by step how to improve and modify them to their full potential. Here's a FACT you need to know - If anyone tells you to use emery cloth to polish down your standard axels - they dont know what they are talking about ! We will show you why, and you will know what effect this -Unscientific- method will have on a car! Of course we will also show you the proper way to polish your axels and MORE! Our tests have found that the Small raised grooves are the High Spot on the axel. We have measured this with a micrometer. Now Look at your axels and find the small raised grooves. These grooves must face up when you install the axels on the car. Gravity in general will be forcing the axels (which support the weight of the body) downwards onto the wheels and by facing these grooves upwards, we can essentially eliminate them from the friction equation. |
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The solution is similar : reduce the area and we will reduce the friction. Since you can't eliminate the wheel from hitting the body a few times when your car moves down the track, lets’ minimize the friction impact on the area that will actually rub against the body by reducing it’s size. This is the science of speed. But everyone pretty much knows this stuff. We go Way beyond this - - We Show you WHAT OTHERS DO NOT KNOW. For example, by using our advanced wheel Techniques, we show you exactly how you can |
When your car is moving the wheels can also cause friction similar to a caliper brake on a bicycle. The inner side of your pinewood wheel causes braking action when it rubs against the body of the car. We have already reduced this ‘torque braking’ on the outer side of the wheel by modifying the inner nail head of the axel so now lets focus on how to reduce this braking action against the body. The solution is similar : reduce the area and we will reduce the friction. Since you can't eliminate the wheel from hitting the body a few times when your car moves down the track, lets’ minimize the friction impact on the area that will actually rub against the body by reducing it’s size. This is the science of speed. But everyone pretty much knows this stuff. We go Way beyond this - - We Show you WHAT OTHERS DO NOT KNOW. For example, by using our advanced wheel Techniques, we show you exactly how you can. When your car is moving the wheels can also cause friction similar to a caliper brake on a bicycle. The inner side of your pinewood wheel causes braking action when it rubs against the body of the car. We have already reduced this ‘torque braking’ on the outer side of the wheel by modifying the inner nail head of the axel so now lets focus on how to reduce this braking action against the body |
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You may need more than one to correct the alignment. Keep checking . If you still have an air gap, you need to add another shim and check again. |
SECTION THREE-- Final testing and tune up. If you want your car to take off line a rocket, you’ve gotta fine tune it! First lets make sure your axels line up at a 90 degree angle to the body. This “squaring’ procedure insures that your axels (without the wheels) line up both horizontally AND vertically at 90 degrees. Once the do, we will install the wheels for the FINAL time and Fine Tune it each of them individually. The important thing here is to take your time.You can use a tire to determine the correct depth for the axel, which should be the tire width + 1/8 “ or you can just use 7/16” without the tire. We have made up a Square, although you can probably purchase a plastic one separately. But since we custom make most of our equipment, this is what we use. It is 7/16” wide, and has a 90 degree angle at one end. Now we want to look to see if it’s square. By lining up the square, you can tell if it’s perfectly 90 degrees or not. You may have to Shim it with paper. Be sure to shim the opposite direction of where you need it to go. Shim about 1/8” into the hole. If a shim is required, Carefully remove the axel, Place a shim acting as a wedge into the hole. |
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After squaring your axels. We move on to the final alignment. We show you the specific adjustment situations and exactly how to correct each of them. Again, we examine each situation one wheel at a time. When a wheel needs adjustment, you will have to shim it to correct for the misalignment. Now, these shims are ADDED to any shims you already have installed and it does'nt mean that you did anything wrong when you set up your axels. It just means that you are fine tuning a COMBINATION of parts to act TOGETHER with the least amount of friction possible. (This is a GOOD thing). We have set up all four examples (and there are ONLY FOUR ! ) for you with the Alignment problem you may encounter and the correct placement of the shims. Note that we Show these examples in CGI animations AND in real time on an actual pinewood racer so you fully unerstand exactly what to do. This is the FINAL stage of your alignment. After this you can add graphite and you will be done! But, this is super important, so You want to try your hardest to get it perfect. |
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