I received and email from this seller *** TODAY *** so I thought I would show ya...
ULTRA FAST PINEWOOD DERBY CAR. Fast car not Fast talk
Full process disclosed, no surprises at check in. Item number: 270336920629
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Starting bid: US $125.00 US $150.00 Buy It Now >
Immediate payment required
As soon as February 4 (conditions)
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End time: Feb-02-09 16:38:36 PST (2 days 5 hours)
Shipping: FREE shipping
US Postal Service Priority Mail®
Service to United States
(more services)
Ships to: Worldwide
Item location: Watkinsville, GA, United States
History: 0 bids
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Meet the seller
Seller: revmari( 119)
Feedback: 100 % Positive
Member: since May-31-01 in United States
Specifications:Fastest legal car on e-bay. Full process disclosed so that you can know it meets your local rules rather than worry that another builders "secrets" might be against your rules.
Best fit and finish. I take the time to ensure that my cars are perfect before I list them for sale. Look at my photos and compare to the sellers who brag about their feedback. Who’s car looks like more time and effort went in to it? I don't have a five hundred feed back because I do not mass-produce cars. To do the kind of work I do takes time.
3 stage Automotive COLOR CHAINGING paint. black base coat with COLOR CHAINGING mid coat then buried in clear coat.
This paint looks green, blue, or purple depending on the angle of the light. Truly Unique look
Does not look like all of the other e-bay cars. Why be disqualified because your car looks a thousand others. Why take the chance that someone else in the pack bought from a high volume seller.
I spend a huge amount of time on the axles and wheels. Axles de-burred, straightened, then Polished to 2000 grit and buffed to mirror finish
No one works harder to give you the best wheels. Wheels are Lathe turned, mold matched and balanced
The inner bore of wheels polished with one-micron plastic polish
Wheels’ tread surfaces are also graphite impregnated to reduce track contact friction
Wheel inner hubs coned, outer hubs trued and graphite coated
Perfect alignment, tracks straight and smooth. Weight starts the race but alignment wins it.
Axles are lubed with custom graphite molybdenum blend
Length: 7 inches
Width between wheels 1 ¾ inches
***Extended wheelbase (regular is an option on this particular car) check local rules but I recomend extended wheelbase
Clearance between inner wheel hub and body: 1/32 inch
Outside width: 2 5/8 inch
Weight: 4.995 oz (I include more lead to add on race day in case your pack’s scales are different than my callibrated digital scale)
Clearance between car and track: ½ inch
BSA legal
FREE PRIORITY MAIL SHIPPING usualy 2-3 days
1 day Express Mail is avalible for an extra $35
You are bidding on a super fast Rail style Pinewood derby car built to the most exacting standards possible. This car is in my opinion the fastest legal car on E-bay. After many years of building pinewood cars for my sons and others, pack and district winners.
I have even built cars and supplied parts to champion adult league racers. I am offering here on E-bay a car that should be one of the fastest I have ever built. While I cannot guarantee that the car will win, I can say that I have never lost and that those who have bought my cars have had excellent results and report first place finishes. I don't believe in posting their emails because anyone can fake that. I present my process, my experience, my innovation and my time. The cars that my sons and I entered swept their races and were undefeated. Other boys in the pack who had my help in setting up their cars or used my components won their dens races easily, but cars, which I designed and built, simply could not be beaten. Parts are not enough - when I build a car you can be assured that no detail has been overlooked and that I have spent time not only building but also testing on a real track. Often it is these “real world” adjustments, which make the difference between a den winner and a pack winner.
Other dealers on E-bay will tell you they are a racer or a teacher, as if this proves something, but then they tell you that they use secrets to make the car go faster. Me? I teach Art and English, but that has nothing to do with car building. My experience there is because it is my hobby. I do not build cars as a business - if I did, I might become concerned with mass production and trying to make as many cars as fast and cheaply as possible. There will always be those who do a job because it is about profit, and they will do as little as possible. I build cars because I love to. I build them for me because I like to do it. I sell them on e-bay to fund the hobby and to reduce the pile of cars that would otherwise accumulate on my workbench. The advantage for you is that you get more of my time and care than the price you pay could cover.
Other dealers mass produce cars (one brags that he has made nearly 2000) and spin a tale about secrets. If they can’t take time to explain their process then do you think they took the time to do it? Do you think some one who built 2000 cars cares if one isn’t quite right? Do you think you will get the quality you deserve if the builder builds 200 cars a year? Why won’t they tell you these secrets? Because they don’t have them. There is no secret to winning the pinewood derby - the only things that matter are precision, friction, and weight placement. I have been doing this for years and can promise that nothing else matters. If someone hides behind “secrets,” then they have something to hide. Read on, and I will disclose every step I use so that you can decide for yourself if I have done every thing possible and legal to win. I am not worried about disclosing my process because I know that the skills, techniques and precision I have developed cannot be duplicated.
Speed in the pinewood derby is all about the details, which can slow the car by friction and bad design. First, my cars are cut on a band saw to assure a balanced car with a low profile and a low center of gravity. Keeping the weight low makes the car more stable, and by eliminating as much of the wood as possible more of the lead weight can be placed at the back of the car. Ideally, as much weight as possible should be placed at the back of the car, but in reality, some weight needs to be in the front as well to keep the car stable on the track. The lead weight is placed at the rear and is composed of a copper tube filled with pure lead and installed in a linear bore above the back axle to produce a balance point approximately 3/4” to 1" in front of the rear axles. The bore is filled and sealed. Some builders advocate a balance point (COG) of 1 ½ “ in front of the rear axle. The closer to the middle of the car the COG is, the more it will help to stabilize the car and reduce the effects of bad alignment and balance. When building my cars I take great pains to assure that the alignment, shape of the car and layout are such that the car rides smoothly and I do not have to compromise maximum potential energy.
Placing the weight at the back increases the cars potential energy, which equates to more speed. To move as much of the weight back as possible I usually move the rear axles back. (This car can be set up as either standard or for an extended wheelbase. You should check your local rules as most rules will allow this however some require your car to use the factory slots if this applies to you email me with your specific rule and I will adjust the car to conform). The next problem I deal with is the alignment and balance of the wheels. Just like in a real car, if the alignment is off at all, then the car will not drive straight down the track, which will cause it to rub on the center guide strip and will slow down considerably. The slots cut in the BSA supplied block are rarely near straight so I fill them with epoxy and use a machinist drill press to create axle holes which are perfectly perpendicular to the body. Then I use the Stan Pope alignment method to assure that the car tracks perfectly. Look it up and you will see that it takes along time to get right. I have even gone so far as to build a separate alignment track just for this step.
The axles themselves go through a seven-step process. First I cut off the nail point to prevent the axles from going in off center and remove the crimp marks and mold flashing under the head of the nail. I straighten the axle nails (which are usually crooked or bent) in a custom made press, and then I polish them. Other axles you will find online are not straightened and only polished to 600 grit. I polish to 2000 grit then buff with jeweler’s rouge and metal polish until they have a mirror finish. You can’t skimp on time here. In some packs a more extreme axle modification is allowed. This would involve custom milling the axles so that they have precision groves, which would further reduce friction. I have such axles and in some cases and on some tracks they help a great deal. Because they are not good in all situations and are often illegal I will only offer them as an option for an additional fee of $10. If your track is of high quality such as an aluminum track these axles can make the difference between winning and passing other cars like they are standing still. If you have any questions please e-mail me. The final detail is the wheels.
First, BSA wheels are made in many different injection molds, so I match the molds so that the wheels are all the same size shape and most importantly the same weight. Some rules don’t allow much wheel modification so check your local rules. Almost all allow the outside to be sanded some to remove the marks the original mold leaves as long as the tread marks on the side remain. What I do is to subtly turn (shave not sand) the wheels on a lathe to remove just a few hundredths or thousandths of an inch so that the wheel is perfectly round and that the outside is centered and squared to the internal axle bore. It is important not to remove too much material. The internal bore is then polished with one-micron plastic polish to provide a glass smooth internal surface. The inner and outer contact surfaces are then polished with graphite/molybdenum to reduce friction with the track. (Some packs require the use of white Teflon - if yours does let me know and I will switch the wheels and axles for ones that utilize the Teflon.) In almost all pinewood derbies liquid lubes are strictly forbidden but if your pack allows it I offer as an option to lube the axles with Nyoil or sb-10. It is the lube used by some builders in the professional wood car league WIRL Another builder calls this a secret but it is one which could easily get you disqualified and is of questionable benefit. Lathe turned wheels roll without the vibration and wobble of unturned wheels. Also a standard wheel's internal and external hub surfaces need to be squared to the inner bore to reduce braking torque. I do this on the lathe, but I go further to slightly cone the inner hub so that it has fewer surfaces to rub against the body of the car. I then polish the hub to 1500 grit to reduce any remaining friction. This is probably enough, but I also polish the contact surface with graphite/molybdenum to coat and fill in any remaining scratches.
Some people believe raising one wheel will make the car go faster by reducing the friction on the track. This may indeed be true however research shows that the other wheels then receive more weight and reduce this advantage. On the other hand the same research shows that cars that ride on three wheels tend to finish faster and it stands to reason that the advantages gained are from the reduced energy required to start three wheels rolling as opposed to four, the angular inertia of three wheels being less than that of four. I do it on my own cars and offer it here as an option. The front left wheel is raised off the track by 1/32 of an inch - check your local rules to make sure this is allowable. Also consider if your pack has an older wooden track imperfections in the track may make this inadvisable but it is usually worth the risk.
A fast car is great, but one that is fast and looks great is better. So, this car has been sanded, sealed, and then painted with automotive paint.
3 stage Automotive COLOR CHAINGING paint. black base coat with COLOR CHAINGING mid coat then buried in clear coat.
This paint looks green, blue, or purple depending on the angle of the light. Truly Unique look
There it is - what I believe to be a winning formula. It has proven to work, and I believe that by disclosing the full process you will see how much time, effort and thought goes into each car I build. This car is completely assembled and ready to race. Axles are lubricated with graphite and molybdenum and ready to run.
Good luck, but you shouldn’t need it as the speed is built in!
No returns. Remember that no seller can guarantee a victory; while I have made every effort to build the fastest car possible it is designed to fit a fairly strict set of CUB SCOUT rules. This is to ensure that you have a more than competitive car and will not be disqualified before the race. Cheating may be faster but if you can't race you can't win. There is always more that can be done on any car so read the listing carefully and ensure that it fits your local rules. Good luck
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