New Car 2020

 At first I was thinking I would hold back until I've gotten all the cars I ordered, but they're trickling in, and I'm impatient. So we're just going to post about them as we get them. 

First, this car was my fourth pick. Yes, I know I said I bought three cars, but I ended up adding one more. Doesn't mean I didn't like this one or didn't want this one, I just knew about the other three already and one needed a partner. So without further ado:

REVOSLOT Ferrari F333SP Challenge World Finals, Daytona 2016

I was so excited to get this thing on the track that I barely gave myself time to take a few pictures.

I know I said that I wanted to stick with Le Mans Classics, but as I was racing one day not long ago, I thought that maybe I put a bit too much of a restriction on myself. I've got a lot of change going on in my life right now, so why not a little change in my attitudes towards this? How about I treat myself right for a change? Makes sense to me. I see loads of cool cars and too often dismiss them for not being in the class I run or costing ten bucks more than the car I end up settling with, but why? I should just get what I want! Doesn't matter where it ran, what place it came in or even if it was ever a real car. I'm going to buy what I like. 

Revoslot is a company that I guess worked with 1/24 manufacturer BRM and made a scaled down version of their slot car design. I'm not sure if BRM owns it, but they supply parts. Revoslot haven't been around all that long, a few years, but they've already started showing up at club races and in more popular online shops. 

The Ferrari F333SP has a 21k anglewinder motor [my first anglewinder!], has an anodized aluminum two-piece chassis [my first non-plastic car!], aluminum wheels and brass nuts. It's got 3mm axles, ball bearings, an extra guide flag, among other things.

The body is stunning! Gorgeous paint job that really shines. Nice strong body with not very many breakable details, yet detailed nonetheless. You could tell this car is meant for hard racing. The stickers all look very nice and don't look sloppily laid on. They even give a small bunch of Ferrari stickers you can add to it. They probably do that because of licensing. 

My first thought when looking at the car was that the wing would last about 30 laps and end up in a parts box. What sold me was that this wing is attached via a magnet, so it'll pop off the moment of impact. The plastic is strong and thick, so I'm not worried about breaking it. Revoslot is pretty confident as well, since they don't add an optional soft wing for racing. That's cool. I don't think it's going to break. 

In fact, I don't think anything on this car is going to break. There's hardly any plastic on the chassis. 

So I took it up to the attic to do a little test driving. I oiled and lubed the car in the usual places, did a quick tire sanding and put it on the track. First impression: dang this car is fast and locked down. Holy crap it's got good grip. One thing: it's kind of noisy. I mean, an aluminum car is going to have a little clicking and clacking, and that can be worked out, but this sounds more like gear mesh. I've heard of a nylon pinion for a replacement, but there also seems to be a motor adjustment I can make. I'll have to dig up that info again. 

I love the clean simplicity of this car. Very straightforward.

One thing I'm not particularly keen on is that there's no way to adjust the front axle height, as far as I can tell. The car comes default with the tires not making contact with the track, although something tells me that it would sit perfectly on a wood track. In fact, this car is meant for a wood track. I think it would perform best there. With the weight and construction, it's easy to see where this car would shine. Get it on a smooth, big track and it's going to be a screamer.

I've run it a bit more and it seems to be settling down. I'm going to get under the hood and see if I can't make an adjustment to the spur gear, or the motor holder. Either way, once that issue is past, there's just a bit of other setup to do. 

The pod system is pretty nice, with brass fittings holding it all down. It's a strong system, but I don't think there's much in the way of flexibility like you have on a Slot.it car, for example. There's like the "right way" to set this car up, and loads of wrong ways. I can tell that already. But that's okay. I wasn't expecting a different brand to be the same as what I'm used to with Slot.it. And that's cool. It's not that it's different-bad, just that it's different.

So I guess the question is, what's a car like this going to do against the other cars? Will it compete? I've read varying responses ranging from it's not as fast as a Slot.it or NSR car to that it'll blow them away. I guess it depends on where you're racing and who you are. It feels to me, at this stage of setup, to already be as fast as my other cars, but I can't be completely sure about that until I've got this thing satisfactorily setup and have my stopwatch out. That'll happen soon. 

Solid yet simple design.

It's got a 21k motor, which is right along with the power of the other cars, but it is pulling considerably more weight. So I'm going to have to deal with this car differently. Once I've got it dialed in I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot of tuning from my controller with this car. 

So there it is, and I can't even tell you how excited I am about it! Not only a new car, but this thing is really high quality. You can feel it when you drive. It handles better and runs smoother than my Slot.it cars do, and it might likely outrun them. We're going to find that out, by the way. And as I said this was my fourth pick and a running mate, that means another car of this caliber is coming. 

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THE MORNING AFTER

I ran the car this morning for about 1000 drone laps or so after doing another full lube/oil. I also dealt with the gear mesh by pulling the motor back a bit via its motor mount screws. It got smoother and smoother as it ran, and is much quieter now. I also put a piece of tape on the underside to control the vibrations between the pod and chassis. Seems to have helped. 

I also spent some time up the controller and dialing it in with the racecar. I think this car needs something like that if you're going to run it on a home track. There's only so much tuning you can do to this car before you need to control things about its behavior externally.

So I'm doubly pleased with this car. So far my branching out experiment is working.