What was the first thing you improved performance on?

noquarterMember

When I was approx 8 years old, I got an electric plastic non-remote speedboat. It was powered by a small electric engine and one 1.5V AA battery. It would go around our small round pool in approx 30 seconds. That was fun for a while.

At age 12 I took it out of the cupboard, I found 2 more AA batteries, taped them to the boat, taped wires so I now had three batteries in series (and more weight). It was faster. I felt like a magician...

It evolved, more batteries, more speed. My dad tought me to solder, better than tape, and I spent some money buying big flat 4.5V batteries. I ended up around 20V of power, now it was very fast, including a small rooster tail.

Strangely enough the engine never broke.

Since then I've never been satisfied with current performance...

11/25/111:30 AM

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kidMember

Myself

11/25/113:27 AM

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lastpushbuttonMember

I tied a string to my dad's riding mower carb governor and made it run faster. It was like turbo boost until it BLEW.... My poor dad. I'm the reason I don't have children!

11/25/115:00 AM

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ahudsonMember

H.O. Scale cars were the rage when I was about 8 until say 12.

We modded those cars a ton -
1. Cut fenderwells for wider tires.
2. Snatched the top small gear off and used it in the driveline to drop the rear end ratio.
3. Added 'springs' instead of brushes where they contacted armature (my friends idea) which DRAMATICALLY increased performance.

And other stuff I've forgotten. Me and a friend would play with those things for literally hours at a time. I had a purple/mirrored finish Ford GT 40 that was my favorite of all time, ever. Still love those cars.

11/25/115:59 AM

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noquarterMember