would gold coated foil work to retard the heat or would it just catch fire and or interfere with the electronics? because I know nasa uses a type of foil similar to this, a better grade of course:D . just a thought. good luck!

The foil could cause a short if it connected the antenna with the motor can, metal heat sink, or any exposed hot wires.

Step one's out of the way... sort of:( I called my LHS and asked them if they had the A10-PT engines, the guy said no! He checked in his little catalog thingy, still none! Can you order these things online?

I asked if they had pinion pullers for slot car motors (really want to put my Tamiya mini4wd motors in this thing). No luck :(

But, the good news: They have aluminum tubing, and it's about the same diameter of the engines (half inch)! Foot long tubing, and only $2.75 per tube. I am so lucky :)

Well, they're fairly new (been out 2-3 months). This is a website you can get them from: http://www.discountrocketry.com/prod.itml/icOid/790

But can also get them from eHobbies.com, as well as other sites, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

(BTW, discountrocketry.com can be trusted, a few of my friends have ordered from there)

Actually, you may want to get it at eHobbies, because they are in California near you. I'll look for the exact link and post it in this thread.

http://www.ehobbies.com/rk-est-1505.html

They're out of stock right now, but they have a better price and you'd get it faster since they are in California too

OMG lol, the description says A10-PT, but the pic shows 1/2A3-2T

Good news everyone! Well, for me at least. I went down to my local Walmart, and started browsing in my usual areas. I noticed the new Estes Rocket cars, and found that they also sell the rocket engines for the rocket cars, and they happen to use A10-PT's! This is great. 4 for $5. I bought a pack, and some purple paint (highlight my xmod :D ). Too bad I just ruined my BCG's PCB and my Xmods PCB as well :( It will be awhile until I get to test anything, but in the meantime, who says I can't make this car rocket-powered independently:D

am i the only one who sees how stupid this is? not to be mean but its not a good idea. first of all the bit charge cars pcb has a very limited range compared to the xmod so you would have to be close to your car. second you would have to have both rocket tubes comming out the middle because they would want to turn the car if they were on the sides. third the heat would probably melt the tubing or your PLASTIC car.

something about a flaming xmod makes me wanna say woo hooo

I'm planning to hook up all the four AAA cells (in parallel) to a cheap BCG clone's PCB, and then hook it up to the antenna on my xmod. For the controller, I will be using 3-4 cells as well as a telescoping antenna (If I don't use a clone with a telescoping antenna0. This should help to increase range, and if it doesn't extend it all that far, I'm only going to be using the boosters on a drag race, and I'll be standing like halfway between start and finish, which means I'll be plenty close when I ignite:D

I plan to have both the rocket tubes on either side of the car, and ignite them at the same time by hooking up the igniters in parallel (Yes, I realized the thrust-steer after thinking about how I would like one boost after the other.

As for the tubing, I will be using aluminum, and the exhaust gases should be diverted out the tubes so no heat build up will melt it. I will be sure to extend the tubing past the rear bumper so no hot gases will ever even touch the car. And hey, if it doesn't work, it's all in good fun;)

well its your car but if i were you i would make sure that the tubing can stand the heat. one way to do this would be to take a piece of it and ignight the rocket and point it right at the tube.

a bit char-g can have just the same range of an Xmod, all you have to do is put a longer antenna on it. I've stripped the top of my antenna on my BCG once, and I attached some thin-gauge copper wire (about 12"-14" of it) to it to experiment with range. I could control it from my room in the 2nd story of my house all the way to the basement...

OK, I'm just sitting here thinking again. Sawhit4, you are wrong about having the rockets side-by-side in the middle of the car b/c THAT is what would cause a spinout/Major Catastrophe (even a small wrong measurement would kill the car that way). However, EETOI is wrong about the aluminum tubing. Aluminum has an extremely low melting point (lower than the rockets will put out) so steel tubing with plenty of heatsink-fins (just like in the motor pack) would be much less likely to melt. Eetoi, you are on the right track about having the exhaust stick out a bit from the car, as well as having the rockets on the outer edges of the car. Hrrmmm..... Phsyics! :o Like I said in my last post, having the exhaust tubes pointed slightly upward (say 3 - 5 degrees above horizontal) would greatly help keep the car ON the ground, rather than OVER the ground (aka in the air). Having the exhaust perfectly level would cause the car to be the highest flying XMod ever if you hit a bump, or the most smashed up XMod ever if you hit a big enough "pothole". You would have to do lots of measuring to make sure that the exhaust is pointed exactly parallel to the line of the car, and that they are pointed upwards the exact same amount. All of this technical "garbage" will help you keep your XMod in a fully funtional (well, semi-functional since you already blew the PCB) condition. If you really don't want to do all this, slap on some motors, stick some exhuast tubes on the end, and blow that lil XMod apart ;) Haha... The best "experiment-not-measure" method would be to construct some time of "Faux" XMod ... something the same size, shape, and weight as an XMod, but made out of .... maybe metal for durability, or cardboard for cheapness, with weights added inside to mimick the XMod as closely as possible. I personally would go w/ full Metal chassis/body (unibody, perhaps?) with some lil model wheels or something attached to it for movement purposes. Now for Q&A/FAQ: Q)"Are you some technical genius or something?" A) "Yes. I have a very technical mind, which sometimes gets me into 'trouble' or 'hot water' because I tend to over-analyze and over-engineer things." Q) "Will you please stop posting your analyzations and engineering designs in this Forum?" A) "No, I'm afraid I cannot stop. If I do, I will not know what to do with what little spare time I have (between 2 jobs and Nite Classes for College), and fear that my mind may explode." Q&A/FAQ is now over, Thank You. BTW: Sorry for rambling on sooo long here, but it seems like Eetoi doesn't want his XMod to disentegrate, so I am just posting my related knowledge on the subject to help guide him along and give him ideas.

Come to think of it, I just came up for a great way to have the rockets in the center (for mass-centralization ... primarily a motorcycle thing) with the control of outer-mounted rockets, if you have time and skills. Think of a car exhaust system: (In a TRUE dual exhaust) It comes from a center-mounted engine, H-Pipes or X-Pipes together for equalization and keeping back-pressure the same, and then (typically) exits on opposite sides of the car (driver- and passenger-sides). ... How this system relates to the Rocket-Powered XMod idea ....

Have the rockets mounted together, they blow into an "exhaust system" (best to have a single cylinder surrounding them, preventing back-flow into the car)... The Collector shown below will help ensure equal pressure coming out of the dual exhaust (absolutely necessary if you want the XMod to live a healthy, long life). Here's a rough design to start your brain-gears:

EDIT: Removed due to errors of sorts with text, see image below instead. I made two different designs, mix & match as you wish. ;)

Just another nice, complicated method for you to ponder over ;)
EDIT: I just posted this, and the design came out all messed up, so I redid it as a JPG in Paint

Here's the JPG image for all y'all