1. Minimize friction

This is unquestionably the most important step for designing a faster Pinewood Derby car. An increase in friction could slow down your car enough to prevent you from winning. In particular, check where the wheels contact the axle, the body of the car, and the track’s center guide rail. These are the most important areas for decreasing friction.

2. Add weight whenever necessary

The key is for your car to weigh as closely to the weight limit as possible, but without exceeding it. Create ways to add weight to your car that you can easily remove on the day of the Pinewood Derby. This can include items such as coins, screws, and so on.

3. Maintain straight axles and wheels

This will prevent your wheels from sliding, and from contacting the center guide rail. The process begins before you start shaping the car. In particular, the time to make straight wholes for the car’s axles is before you start shaping the car–rather than afterwards. One method for creating axle holes that are straight is to use a drill press to pre-drill them.

4. Add lubricant to the wheels

Various types of lubricants are available on the market, so do some experimenting until you find one that suits you. Determine which lubricants are permitted, and then learn which one you’re most satisfied with.

5. Keep the car off the center guide rail

This is crucial, as contact with the center guide rail could actually halt your car. There should be enough clearance underneath the car, to avoid contact with the center guide rail. Another way to accomplish that goal is to ensure that the wheels aren’t too close together. If your car’s design is particularly innovative, then you should do some research to determine if it will fit properly onto the track.

6. Do a test run

You can experiment to determine where you need to improve the car’s speed. Roll the car straight down a long board with a minimum incline. Keep making minor adjustments until the car rolls down the board smoothly and speedily.

7. Refine the wheels

The wheels’ casting process could cause abnormalities on your wheels. Remove them, and then use emery paper to smooth out the wheels.

PRO BSA Speed Axles

8. Polish the car’s axles

This process is most effective if another person can help you. One person should operate the drill, while the other person should use (wet) emery paper to polish the axle. It’s important to keep the emery paper constantly moving. You should also polish the interior of the axle head, and the axle shaft.

If you want your Pinewood Derby car to be a speed demon, then you’ll need to take steps to make your car faster. These are some of the most effective ways to reach that goal-and the finish line faster.

The Derby is a benefit for the Bay Area Women’s & Children’s Center, which heads up operations from San Francisco’s Tenderloin District. Doors open at 6:00, races start at 8:00.

The Hell’s Belles are celebrating 10 years as a car club and with your help, they want to make this year’s Derby the biggest success yet. Last year’s derby raised over $2,000 for the Women and Children’s center, and Belles club member Jamie O’Keefe hopes to raise even more this year. “I was actually pretty impressed by it when it was all said and done, especially in this economy,” said O’Keefe of last year’s auction.

The Belles are currently accepting artist donations for entry in the silent auction. Some big names in the Bay Area and Hot Rodding art world have already pledged donations, so there should be some really cool stuff to pick up for that barren living room wall.

But no matter what your usual style, this is your chance to get down with classic car culture. This means pinups, tattoos, tikis, pin striping, hot rods, and most importantly: vintage. Anything and everything retro will fly, so take a stroll back to the 40s, 50s and 60s for inspiration. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Women’s and Children’s Center.

You can also race your own custom Pinewood Derby car on the track or show off an art car! Prizes will be awarded for both the race and show categories.

All art pieces donated for auction must be ready for hanging, so please contact the Hell’s Belles in advance for large pieces (over 3.5′ square) or if special consideration is needed for display. Submitted artwork should include your name, contact information, and title on the back. Every medium is welcome, as past auctions have included watercolors, photographs, giclee prints, oil paintings, woodblock prints, t-shirts, pinstriped purses, customized Chuck Taylors and more. Artists are welcome to retrieve any artwork that does not sell within one week of the event.

For more information, including how to purchase your official Pinewood Derby car kit to enter into the event, check out  http://www.hellsbellescarclub.com 

 Published in examiner.com

Ford decided to develop and build the engine after disputes with Navistar over warranty costs and payments led to a mutual agreement to end the 27-year relationship after Dec. 31.

Adam Gryglak had what seemed like an impossible task: deliver an all-new Ford (F) diesel engine in 36 months. Ford was way behind schedule, so the time frame was a year faster than usual. Gryglak, the chief diesel engineer, knew he’d never meet his deadline without short-circuiting the usual development process. So he put together a team, moved off campus, and kept his second-guessing bosses at bay. Gryglak called the project Scorpion (after the heavy metal band the Scorpions) and came up with a logo featuring a menacing mechanical insect.
In mid-September, on schedule and to strong reviews, Ford unveiled the new Super Duty pickup-powered by Project Scorpion’s engine-at the Texas State Fair. Gryglak had shown that the classic skunkworks model pioneered by Lockheed Martin (LMT) in the 1930s could help Ford protect its flank, in this case the highly lucrative market for contractor-grade pickup trucks. “We have a good product-development system,” Gryglak says. “The key was to respect what we have and the people who run it, deconstruct it a bit, and make it better to suit our target.”

Gryglak’s task was doubly difficult. For one thing, Ford had previously outsourced the design and manufacture of the engine, known as the Powerstroke, to truck and engine maker Navistar (NAV). What’s more, the Powerstroke brand had eroded in recent years because of quality problems. Gryglak didn’t just need to design and build an engine in-house from scratch-he needed to vastly improve it if Ford were to keep dominating the market for large pickups, which in good years have generated much of its overall profit.
Beyond the Bounds

Like all big companies, Ford has a strict product-development hierarchy. It works well enough nowadays that the carmaker can get new models from blueprint to showroom as fast or faster than its rivals. Going offsite inevitably made executives anxious. But Gryglak’s pitch got a better reception than it might have, say, five years ago, when turf-obsessed managers tended to look unkindly on heterodoxy.

In October 2006, Gryglak began recruiting his team of engineers. He discovered that not everyone was eager to work beyond the bounds of Ford’s familiar environment. Some engineers craved structure. “We had people self-select out because they weren’t comfortable working outside their comfort zone,” says Gryglak. But others couldn’t wait to be asked. Ken Pumford, an engineer from Ford’s Kentucky truck plant, moved from Louisville to Dearborn, Mich., to join the project.

It wasn’t long before the benefits began to emerge. Specialists used to working only with their own kind became more familiar with what other engineers were up to. “We saved months by knowing hourly what the other guys were thinking and what their problems were,” says Pat Morgan, a veteran Ford engineer. “The result was that the engine fit into the truck perfectly the first time, and that almost never happens.”

The team also let go of certain Fordisms. The company has long forced suppliers to adapt their technology in hundreds of time-consuming ways to Ford specifications. Engineers, after all, justify their paychecks by coming up with engineering tweaks. With time short, the team learned to trust suppliers more. For example, Ford let the German company Bosch work on the engine’s antipollution device with minimal reengineering for its own sake.
Fun and Games

Freed from the rigid atmosphere of Ford’s tech center, the engineers let themselves have fun. They played jokes on each other, building full-size snowmen, decorated with machine parts, on one another’s desks. Gryglak also encouraged friendly competition. In August 2007, after months of R&D but before starting to build the engine, the team organized a Pinewood Derby competition. Design and mechanical engineers, of course, weren’t about to whittle cars from wood the way Cub Scouts do. They milled cars out of aluminum. Some had remote controls and electric motors.

As the team worked in isolation, Gryglak’s bosses had a hard time staying in the background. Bob Fascetti, Ford’s chief engineer of big engines, forced himself to check in with the team only every four to six weeks instead of the usual weekly or biweekly intervals. “It was tough for me to do,” he says. “But to keep [the project] on track, I convinced my bosses it would be better to leave them alone.” Fascetti says things got tense when Team Scorpion decided to build the engine out of a lighter material that would make the truck more fuel-efficient. Doing so was more expensive, with a greater risk of failure. By the time Fascetti and his own bosses found out, the decision had been made. Gryglak faced some tough questioning, but he got the green light.

The new Super Duty truck goes on sale in the spring. Ford says the engine will be the first of its kind to use state-of-the art antipollution technology that meets new federal regulations. The truck also will have the best fuel economy in its category and won’t need significant maintenance for 300,000 miles. The best part, says Tony Hudson, a Project Scorpion engineer, is that the team pulled off what initially had seemed impossible. “That,” he says, “will give us license to do it again.”

DerbyMonkey@gmail.com

The 12+ hour drive from Tyler, Texas to Somerset, Kentucky was well worth it.  Now we’re spending the next several days at Jelleystone Park Mammoth Cave.  Right now, the wife and the kids are at the pool and I’m chilling out in the cabin trying to recover.

Thanks guys for putting on a great show.  We’re looking forward to next year!!

The decals are the wet type. They’re very easy to apply and are very durable. After a clear coat, they have a great shine and they will not come off.

These photos are not good quality but the decals are very crisp and clear.

Any photo editor will work. Microsoft PictureIt 9 is a discontinued program but you can find them very cheap on eBay.http://cgi.ebay.com/Waterslide-Inkjet-Pa….1742.m153.l1262 But you can get it at most hobby stores and many places online.http://www.decalpaper.com/category-s/3.htm

On my photo editor I set the canvas dimensions at 1.75″ wide by 2.5″ tall. I then fit everything within that canvas. Then I used the Google image search to find all of my images. You have to be the judge on which images you can comfortably use without some type of copyrite infringement.

For example: For the Derby Monkey car, I first did a Google image search for “monkey clip art”. I found the monkey I wanted. I had to buy the image for $9. There were others that I could have used for free but wanted the 9 dollar one. I wanted a checkered flag in the background so I did a “checkered flag background” Google image search. I found the flag and simply copied and pasted it into my project free. My editor allows me to ad text. So, just working with it for a while, I came up (with the help of my son) the final decal.

For the other cars, the images were all free. I just copied and pasted to my photo editor.

I then printed the decals directly from the photo editor. You must make sure the decal is printing actual size.

I bought mine on eBay:

Now, it come in clear sheets and white sheets so you must decide which ones you want… perhaps one package of each. Clear sheets work great if the decals are going on a light colored car… white, yellow, etc… White sheets work best on darker car bodies.

With the white sheets you must cut out everything on the decal that you don’t want to be white on the car. White sheets will not allow the car body color to show through the decal.

On clear sheets, it does not print the color white at all. The white parts of the decal are actually clear and will only be white if you put the decal on the white area of the car body.

I personally like the clear sheets the best. They are easy to work with on light colored cars. On dark bodies, I paint the decal area white before I put the decals on. For example: On the Derby Monkey car I first painted the body black and then painted the sections where the decals were to go white. Then applied the decals on the white. It worked great.

Here is a great FAQ on decal paper: