Trying to Shatter the World’s Fastest RC Car Record

Fresh off a world record for the fastest quadcopter, [Luke Bell] decided to try his luck with something more own to earth, namely trying to tackle the world record for the fastest RC car, with the …

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Fresh off a world record for the fastest quadcopter, [Luke Bell] decided to try his luck with something more own to earth, namely trying to tackle the world record for the fastest RC car, with the current record set at 360 km/h. Starting off with a first attempt in what will be a video series, the obvious approach seems to be to get some really powerful electric motors, a streamlined body and a disused runway to send said RC car hurtling along towards that golden medal. Of course, if it was that easy, others would have done it already. With the quadcopter record of nearly 500 km/h which we covered previously, the challenge was in a way easier, as other than air resistance and accidental lithobraking there are no worries about ground texture, tire wear or boundary layer aerodynamics. In comparison, the RC car has to contend with all of these, with the runway’s rough tarmac surface being just one of the issues, along with making sure that the wheels would hold up to the required rotation speed. For the wheels you got options like foam, hard rubber, etc., all with their own advantages and disadvantages, mostly in terms of grip and reliability. So far speeds of over 200 km/h are easy enough to do, with foam wheels being the preferred option. To push the RC car to 300 km/h and beyond, a lot more experimentation and trial runs will have to be performed. Pending are changes to the aerodynamic design with features also commonly seen in F1 race cars such as downforce spoilers, diffusers and other tricks which should prevent the RC car from (briefly) becoming an RC airplane. I wonder how he is going to claim its official? Does he hire a surveyor to measure the course and a certified timing specialist? Or is he just going to say trust my gps from Adafruit? I will do the record officially with Guinness once I am ready for that. It needs to be done with independent witnesses and GPS data is recorded from the onboard GPS and analysed for average speed of 100m distance. From what I’ve heard Guinness is just an expensive PR company. I’m not sure they are worth bothering with. Apart from the bragging rights that can actually mean a job down the line Luke, You need to get out to ROSSA. You are not even the same ballpark with some of those guys. Even Kevin Talboy does better. 😉 He needs custom metal rubber high performance wheels apart from other things that is true.After 200mph there is more issues unlocked. Completely true. I am working on lots of different custom wheels options at the moment ! If he wants to set the record, ditch the electric motor(s) and use a rocket. Would be a fun engineering challenge.. to get enough downforce at that scale, but without either ruining the wheels and bearings or else having it suddenly and unexpectedly become a bad airspeed record attempt instead of a good landspeed record Been there; done that about 50 years ago. Basically, a friend and I put wheels and electronics from a crashed RC plane on an Estes rocket a la the Blue Flame. Needless to say, the engineering and RC abilities of our 13 year old selves were not up to the task. The result looked like the plane crash in opening of the Six-Million Dollar Man (the M2/F2 crash: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jvGJhJINlc). Never did find all the pieces. Maybe for a future project! There is a specific record for jet engine powered RC cars as well. When I was a teen, I took some electrical tape and affixed one of the smaller Estes model rocket motors to a large die cast car. The kind of car that was a good six inches in length (not a tiny Matchbox or Hotwheels). When I set it off, the thing traveled a foot or two in a straight line, then hit an imperfection in the tar-and-gravel street and spent the rest of it’s journey doing cartwheels. I figured at that point that a rocket car was going to require actual engineering, something unavailable to me at the time, and gave up on the idea. I was mostly just messing around anyway. Most important part of any car is the tires.

He hasn’t come close to maximizing wheel/tire radius. Also: Body has unneeded cross section. Needs rear diffuser for suction. Also also: Not rocket, pulsejet. Pulsejet is always the right answer.

Perhaps you are asking the wrong questions. That’s going to be difficult to keep on the pavement when it comes across a stray molecule of macadam at those speeds. Instead of a an airfoil wing or a spoiler, you might be able to use a flettner rotor to create downforce. This gives a better lift to drag ratio than a fixed wing, and has the added benefit that you can optimize the RPM based on the speed. The flettner rotor can have a secondary use, as a reaction wheel, to keep the car level (in the “roll” direction) if it hits a bump and becomes airborne. If the rotor is split into a left and right rotor, and the speeds can be independently controlled, you can have a different amount of downforce on the left and right sides of the car, allowing you stay level in the pitch direction if the car accidentally becomes airborne. I wonder what the speed record is for an RC two wheeled self balancing vehicle? Best of luck! Great project and I am sure you can do it. Car looks amazing. I assume there is something defining what a “car” is for record purposes. Like just putting a couple tiny wheels on the already fast AF quadcopter and blasting it with the wheels barely dragging. Car, right? Hi, Please be sure to get some videos of wheels exploding due to high rotation speeds! Regards, Dan. Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy) This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

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