Is there a basic Car Prep guide anywhere

QUOTE And "tuning" is the act of physically altering the existing standard parts to make the car go quicker/last longer whilst staying within box standard club racing rules.
. . .
It is the "tuning" thing that I am not keen on as it is race fixing.
. . . "tuning" is in my mind rule bending and straying outside the spirit of box standard racing and is cheating.
It IS a grey are and, I think, will always remain so.
One good reason is that cars sometimes arrive with minor flaws/faults that can be fixed quite easily without materially improving over 'theoretical box standard'. ie, are simply brought back up to the state which another 'box standard' car might well have already enjoyed on delivery. For instance, if a contrate gear is a little bit mis-shapen or an axle is bent etc. And who could possibly know if someone had simply swapped around a whole pile of 'box standard' motors to find the best performer, yet without actually altering a single motor in any way?
I generally applaud idealism in the pursuit of fairness and equality, but almost by definition, there will always be aberrations that can be taken advantage of. If one owns two theoretically identical cars, but reality shows that one motor is markedly faster, only an idiot would choose the slow one. If the fast motored one has a slightly bent axle, again only a very silly person would hesitate in combining the good axle with the good motor in a single car. Etc.

QUOTE This is all very murky stuff.
The web sites refered to above don't really make it clear what is murky and what isn't. Maybe they should.
Yes it is a bit murky but I think unavoidably so and articles dealing with 'tuning', at whatever level, are simply there to impart knowledge. It is not their authors' function to dictate your club rules or your personal morality.

QUOTE not the advice which ends in ...off!
No, indeed, most of the advice is aimed at helping you to stay ON!

the "guv" as asked a question "how do you do the basic stuff" from that i gather he has noticed, as 90% of us that the so called "box standard " offerings are mass produced although looking quite good, most of it runs like a bunch of junk, flash on plastic wheels,non round tyres, ill fitting bearings,motor and other bits,if we where only alowed to run these things, most of us would be buying train sets. take 2 cars, run one out of the box, take a second car, without any mods but put together correctly you would get blown away every time, this i think is what "guv " wants to do, as difflock said who wants to bobble around a track knowing you could have more fun by having your car set up in the right manner, now when you get to this stage you may think of entering some of he open meetings,this is another ball game, dont get the two mixed, if you wish to stay with club racing, thats fine,a lot of people just want 1 evening racing there cars without too much pressure, others wish to compeat on a bigger playing field, in each case there are things that cane be done to give a more reliable smother running car. mac p

I think Mac has rumbled me. That pretty much covers it as it happens.

For me it's more about just making sure the out of the box car isn't a bag of bolts, rather than race-tuning them.

I would imagine that even in a race where cars have to be out-of-box untuned it would be acceptable to make sure the bearings and so on were fitted correctly?

I make a distinction in my head between making sure the box car is put together right and substituting parts to make it go quicker, but perhaps I'm wrong?

I'd imagine if you had a pure box fresh car then each racer would run the risk of theirs being a bag of bolts against a well put together one?

Difflock - thanks for the kind words, perhaps if I ever attend a race meet with you and I a-hole one of your cars due to my ineptitude I'll be able to get you to tell me to %[email protected]! off Not that I'm kinky or nothing mind... arse -- anyone got a shovel?

By the way, I love the way you lot always put Guv in quotes

I think if i re-read the thread about 100 times I'll probably get it

Applying it mind....