A year in the life of a shepherd

2010-04-08T08:45:00.000-07:00

I made the trip up to halifax track on bank holiday monday, it was still raining as i arrived unfortunately, but the rain soon stopped and luckily when the track dried it remained the same all day.
The main purpose of getting to the track was to pick up the long awaited new oneway/spool axle and this seasons new motor, the IDM picco based p1-r evo4 and matching pipe, i fitted the oneway and decided i would run the motor in after the meeting, when practice started the track was wet, and having no damps this was a problem, do i stay or do i leave? well my good friend martin had just had delivery of the new enneti damps from rc-direct on 220mm rims and did i want to try them! why not, i had used the old enneti damps in the past and to be honest they wernt great, but on getting them out of the box they were nothing like the old ones, so bolted them in place and went for a run, the setup had been left exactly the same as the last time i ran the car with the addition of the oneway, as i hit the track i could see 1/8th cars and the like sliding about and had my reservations, but after a couple of warm up laps i thought to my self 'actually theses tyres are pretty good' which was a nice surprise, worked very similar to microsystem aqua's that arnt the easiest to get hold of, but found i could actually push the car without it biting you back.
So i left them on for the first round, the track had a few dry parts, now the tyres didn't work, i think the track had reached the point where only rubber tyres would work! so with the track being not much used i decided to fit the idm motor and get it run in, got it all fitted then took the car to the tyre truing area, warmed the engine up with a heat gun and turned it over, it stuck up instantly and sat there idling away, idm recommend running a full tank through at idle then onto the track.
So the next heat i bolted a set of 35's on, then had 5 laps just taking it steady, then proceeded to take it alittle faster so the motor just changed gear then backed off 1/2 way down the straight, and continued to blip the throttle on the infield, and at bout half way thought the heat started giving alittle more throttle then backing off for a couple, then disaster struck i had an electrical fault and while i had my finger on the brake at the end of the straight the car went off on its own and hit the fence hard, on inspection the extension lead from receiver to the battery pack had failed, nice.
Onto the last qualifier, with the electrical problems hopefully sorted i started, i ran the car steady till the start buzzer, fueled up and away, now i started revving the motor more but still not race pace, surprisingly still managed to catch and pass the other cars in my heat, half way through i felt the motor free up and get quicker, at this pace the car handled nice and felt good, i did a 17 in 312, that's about a lap off race pace so to say i wasn't running at full pace i went away happy at that, the engine had been run with pretty much factory settings till then and still running rich, so the final it would be time to lean it out!
Unfortunately the final didn't go to plan, did my warm up and started the race only for my 2nd gear to go. it looks like the next time i will get to try the car will be the 2nd round of the nationals at Cotswold's, so fingers crossed for some good weather and i shall see everyone there!

2010-03-28T13:51:00.000-07:00

hello again, i havnt writen anything for a while, but made my way over to halifax track today for a practice day! the first time i ran the car i wasnt really ready, i had a butchered 235mm shell thrown on the car but since then i have the body im intending on running at the nationals, i also have a floating rear body mount fitted, but unfortunately im still waiting on the front oneway needed to run the class legal, these are still in the production stage, but i have managed to get a pre production version from shepherd but unfortunately only arrived at horizon late last week, i was hoping to run it today but not to be am afraid.
anyway i arrived at the track nice and early, the first run of the day it was evident that the car has absolutely loads of steering with the new shell fitted, and having to turn the steering rate down to 50% to get round the track, and the back end being really loose to the extent of the car swapping ends, so for my next run i need to dial in some rear end grip.
first of all, the rear shocks were layed as low as they could so stood them up one hole and gave that a try, it was better but still a handful, then mid run i last 2nd gear, so back to the bench for inspection, and on taking apart the pin that holds the 2 speed had fell out, this may end up being an annoying problem because the only way to keep it in place is to take all of the slack out of the shaft by pushing the pulley on the opposite end up tight, to me this cant be good for the bearings and needs to be addressed!
anyway all back together, and this time i added another 1/2 deg toe in, so now running 3 deg, on the rear and removed 1mm of droop on the rear, then back on track, now the car was starting to feel good, we now have rear end grip.
then for my final run i decided to alter the front caster, i set this as per kit, 2mm at the front and 1mm at the rear, on ic cars i tend to run very little castor, so i moved all clips to the rear to run the minimum castor, now i was able to start pushing the car without it snapping away from me.
I think there is a lot more to come from the car, but it was pointless going any further till i have the oneway installed, but overall the car went really well, i will be back at the track on bank holiday monday for the club day, unfortunately i wont make the 1st national at stonehaven next weekend for a mixture of reasons but everyone have fun!

1st run with the car

2010-03-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

i took a trip upto the halifax track yesterday for there last round of the winter series, i had been keeping an eye on the weather all week and seemed to take a turn for the worse on saturday, but arrived at the track nice and early to fine a blue sky overhead and a dry track, was bloody cold tho!

Anyway i fired the engine up and made my way for a practice run, i have to say i was really impressed, i put near enough the set-up on the car that comes in the instructions and it worked really well, only thing that needed a bit of adjustment was the clutch, my digi calipers dont work at the mo, so might be my setting thats out, so just nipped it in 1/4 turn to sort.

then out for my 1st round, again car felt really good, but was loosing out to a couple of cars on the tighter infield section of the track, but at the moment i will put this down to not having the right shell on the car, i had to butcher an old 235mm gt1 shell which to be honest are nothing like what i will be running in the nationals, and also i havnt yet got a oneway for the front, but hopefully that will be here soon. the other thing we noticed, the car seemed to be in 2nd gear all the time, so nipped this in 1/2 a turn and bobs ya uncle were sorted.

on my third run i borrowed a freshly run in IDM evo4 motor and pipe off Pete Hastings to give one a go, really nice motor, seemed to have plenty of bottom end, top end one car had the legs on me but i think a play with the gearing and my 2 speed the engine wouldnt be far off the pace of the .15 motors in the gt class. the IDM picco evo 4 based motor has ironed out all the problems the earlier motors had too, the crank pin has been made smaller and the rod has been beefed up, spoke to a guy in the state and he reckons his has 2 gallon on the 1st rod and still going strong. thats good enough for me, so this will be the motor of choice for me this year, very well priced too!

so overall for a first run out of the box the car performed alot better than i was expecting, im really impressed, hopefully for my next run the car will have all the right gear on and give it a proper run. cant wait!

tune in for the next exciting episode of a year in the life of a shepherd, lol

also a quick congrats to the guys at the pre worlds thats just finished, 3 shepherds in the top ten and Danielle IaIasi took a very good 3rd place, well done guys.

2010-02-21T11:21:00.000-08:00

Haven't had chance to post for a while, car is all finished now except just waiting on a floating rear body mount to arrive, so what have i been up to....

Well one of the main obstacles was finding a suitable battery pack, the 2 shepherd cars have limited space for a battery pack, just 65x35x18mm, shepherds own NiMh pack has 4 cells in a line with the last cell fastened on the side at one end, has a small cutout milled into the chassis to accommodate this! i have decided to go the LiFe battery route over the LiPo and NiMh packs, the NiMh are quite heavy and LiPo are rated at 7.4v which is too much for the servos in the car unless you use a regulator to bring the voltage back down to 6v, where LiFe packs are only 6.6v and nothing else needed, i found a zeppin racing 1500mah pack at nearly the size i was after, was just 3mm over length of the proper packs, i had to file just a tiny amount off the front edge of the battery slot and jobs a good en.

Next up i fitted the clutch to my old novarossi plus 12-3sct i ran last year, have to say the flywheel is tiny, the fly weights come in one peice and have to be cut, did this with a stanley knife, got all this mounted in place, have to say the clutch spring is really very strong, now with all this screwed in place i followed the instructions to the letter, and shimmed how the book says looks about perfect.

this afternoon i have set the car up, nearly as the set up that comes with the kit, so were about ready to go!

As a build note, when inspecting the car the rear wheels had alot of play in them, on further inspection it turned out to be the outer bearing on the rear hubs, the bearing isnt a snap fit as most are and just falls out, i took a small amount of masking tape, wrapped it around the bearing flush with the inner edge and pushed the baering into place then trimmed the excess tape off, when built back up nearly all the play had gone!

You may notice i have been quite critical of this build, but none of the things raised have been serious, i know of another kit out there with alloy bulkheads with alot worse wrong with it that put me off the car as soon as i found out but enough of that, lol. So yes overall im really happy with the car so far and with the shepherd company willing to listen to what the drivers have to say, then we have our small team with most of us within a reasonable distance of eachother and using halifax track hopefully we can all work together and get the best out of the car.

2010-02-14T10:19:00.000-08:00

Having been really busy at work not had chance to touch my car for a week, but this afternoon have got round to fitting my electrics, fitted the throttle servo first, trial fitted the top deck and found the servo to be to low, to be honest i had read on the forums that this happens, easily sorted with a 1.5mm shim either side, the steering servo fits in the laydown position, again this has to be shimmed to line the servo horn up between the top deck and fuel tank, again no drama's, only issue so far is the 2 servos are close together and not much room for the throttle servo wire to bend, maybe just down to the servos I'm running.
now the part i don't understand, there is no servo horn included for the throttle servo, my nearest decent model shop is 40 miles away and have to go just to buy something that as far as I'm concerned should be in there! i have fitted a serpent one for now that i had to remove from another car.
I think that the new receiver box should be included in the kit too, the receiver is alittle exposed in its position, managed to get all wiring done nice and neatly too, i don't have a battery pack for it yet, a different shaped pack to normal is required, i have decided to go the LiFe route, this hasn't been easy to find a pack at reasonable money to fit in limited space, but managed to find a zeppin racing 1500mah LiFe pack and here in the UK at demon power products, it hasn't arrived yet but hopefully will fit perfect, and only being 6.6v there is no need for a voltage regulator as needed with similar LiPo packs, and the fact there half the weight of nimh packs.

Were getting there slowly now! just the clutch to fit now, first test session with the car is 2 weeks away.

2010-02-08T13:12:00.000-08:00

and no your not seeing things, there Reed 44mm rear 32mm front tyres, i will be running the car in our new GT class in 220mm form. Have to say so far the car has been a joy to build, i have listed a few niggles i have had, but niggles is all they are, have yet to build a perfect car, so up to now have been really impressed and cant wait to finish off and get to the track.

2010-02-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

well have just built the shocks up, they go together really well, only slight drama was those tiny e clips, one went flying across the kitchen, my big fingers and those tiny bloody things do not go together. Now the best part of the shocks is the VRS system or velox revolutionary shock system for short, lol, what is this you may ask, arnt all shocks the same nowadays, well usually yes but shepherd have had there thinking caps on again and come up with this-so what you get is your normal shock build but instead of the rubber diaphram normally found you have a floating alloy piston with an o ring to seal it and a narrow spring seated in the middle that also fits inside the shocker cap, built up with no oil inside on full compression the shock piston is clear of the floating piston. this system is said to help the car absorb small bumps, keeping the tyres on the ground, could be quite effective on some of our uk tracks! they all bled up nice with the supplied oil, the only thing i didnt like is tightening up the base of the shock to seal it, seems you need a special tool, gota struggle till then i guess.

Well car is basically built now, shocks bolted on, battery plate fitted, and chucked a set off wheels on her too, to say it hasnt been run yet everything seem supper free too.

2010-02-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Just got back from sunny manchester and have added a few pics of the kit so far, got the top deck, tank ect fitted, now its starting to look like a car! the roll over bar/handle also doubles as the brake cable mount where you attach the solid bar that runs to your servo through a simple alloy tube with a grub screw either end, the whole braking system is so simple but seems to work so freely with no binding unlike the disc brake systems seen on all other cars. as a note i did run a file over the back edge of one brake pad, but only very slightly, to be honest once the engine had been struck up it would have been sorted. you find on the other side of the roll over bar is the center belt tensioner, another simple design, screw at the top and slotted in the middle with another screw holding it firmly in place, so tensioning is done by just rotating the carbon mount then just retightening.
the tank is a strange design, really quite long and not very tall, one thing i did notice, the spring is very strong, the lip is always going to be firmly closed but i think they could of backed it off alittle! just my opinion. the tank sits on a pin either end with an o ring then a r clip, but there is alot of movement up and down, im sure i read somewhere they had done this to alter the height of the tank for clearance, but havnt included extra o rings to take the slack out, not a big issue.
Anyway everything bolts into place perfectly and all looking good, just the shocks to build now, which im looking forward to seeing how they feel with the floating pistons in the top instead of the normal rubber diaphram! Then just the electrics and motor to sort!

2010-02-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

Time for the next installment, now i have light again, no fun building by candle light, lol.

Have now moved on to the rear suspension, the lower hinge pin mounts are the common plastic inserts with 3 different options, but the top hinge pin mounts are as seen on the v10's 1/8th big brother with an elongated hole and a grub screw top and bottom, so your roll center adjustment has a good 10mm of adjustment, and these can be altered in a matter of seconds, handy for pit lane fine tuning.

The driveshafts on the car come with cvd's all round, they are slightly different from the norm, firstly they slide though the hub from the wheel side and are held in place by a circlip, but also have 4 .25mm shims to alter your offset from 0 to +1, my only issue with the driveshaft is the pin holding the cvd together feels alittle loose and a fraction short, but hopefully this wont be an issue. and lastly instead of the normal m4 nut holding your wheel in place there is an m4 bolt.
the frontend was similar to the rear with all the same adjustments.

Ive moved back to the rear again, to the brake linkages, this is definitely a new one on me, and have to say looks very impressive, firstly you have those large disc's then you have 2 alloy brake levers with pads bonded to them, they fasten at the rear though plastic bushes, then a brake cable passes though the front with a spring inbetween, seems to work flawlessly, and very strong braking effect, i will add a pic later, it sounds complicated but is actually really simple!

Its becoming very apparent as i build this car that alot of thought has gone into its design and where they haven't found a new innovative ways they have tried to atleast better the norm! from the alloy pulley adapters which are lightened and also have 4 grub screw holes in the event of stripping threads will be handy too the steering linkage which has 6 different ackerman positions altered by just a couple of screws.

im away now for a few days, but will add some pics when i get back, then hopefully finish off the build.

2010-02-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

I finally got my hands on my shepherd v10 yesterday, Mr Hastings was kind enough to meet me at a indoor race meeting, I like my indoor meetings but couldn’t wait to leave and get building.
The first thing you notice when looking thought the box, bag 1 the chassis and lots of blue alloy bits, bulkheads ect, all looks really impressive! Where the alloy bulkheads fit on the chassis has been milled out and everything lines up as you when expect from a top end kit. Next comes the shock towers, have to say the rear tower looks mighty strong, at 4mm thick, seem shepherd have listened to customers gripes on other cars over the years.

Now on with the diffs, the front on is as small as I have seen, diameter wise is roughly the same as a 2p piece, I built this up as per kit with the supplied 100,000wt oil and went together smoothly, now the rear has the same size body as the front but obviously has the larger rear pulley attached same as any other ic car, until you come to the brake disc’s, I have to say 2 huge brake disc’s, wow, this is part of the main features of the v10, which I will get to later. On a building note, don’t do as I did, I built the diff up then tried fitting the disc’s, the diff seal sits ever so slightly proud and the disc doesn’t slide over.
I now have the diffs fitted, another well thought out part of the car, the eccentrics are nothing new to rc car diffs for tensioning your belts, but these bolt on the bulkheads either side with 2 screws, remove these and the diffs lift out, meaning its possible to change/tension a belt easily and very quickly. Then you install the layshaft with its 2 speed gearbox, the best part of this assembly is the fact there is no brake disc flapping about and brake pads falling out as you build, I think we may find that fitting/removing engines will be a lot easier too.
Thats all for now, had a power cut here and stopped play, typical.

2010-01-26T13:48:00.000-08:00

Hi, welcome to anyone or everyone who takes alook though my blog, not much to say at the moment, i will be picking up my shepherd kit this sunday, twiddling my thumbs till then.
This blog will start with the build of my new car, then take us through testing/practice by myself and my team mates, then finally the 8 rounds of the UK national ic series.
I have joined the guys at the newly formed DH Modelsport, set up by Pete Hastings and Neil Diver, horizon team drivers, who will both be running shepherd V8 and V10 at this years nationals.

Looking forward to this years racing, roll on sunday!