Informal New Cars Time Trial

 I thought I would put together a basic time trial between the new cars to see where each other them would roughly run in competition here. Each car has had varying degrees of NO SETUP. Only lube/oil and a little tire sanding. Not even a complete tuneup or adjustment. There were a few little things that I'll list with each car. 

I made a simple test track, consisting of a few straights, some mild esses made out of R2 and R3 curves, and two 180° 1/60 curves. I wanted a fast track so I could get through the cars in time and keep on my daily schedule. 50 lap main event.

Of course, to figure out where they stand, they have to run against a proven track competitor. I gathered myself together and decided on a candidate to post the benchmark time:

Slot.it Matra Simca 670 B

If I'm going to pick one car from Slot.it to race, this is the one.

Results:

Car                   Time        Lap

Matra             3:29.27     4:18

A respectable time. You can be guaranteed the Matra is going to deliver the hot laps. A tuned Slot.it car is a very good car. No complaints with this run, although a strange event happened. While running laps, it got a little wiggly through the esses and came out a little loose. Parked nearby was the Ferrari. The Matra clipped the back of the Ferrari, sending its magnetically-attached wing flying. Cars and wing were unhurt. 

Good driving, Matra. 

Up next is the NSR Porsche 908

What I like about this car is it's always telling me what direction to drive.

Usually on my track layouts the Slot.it cars run at about 40% power. It sounds slow, but it isn't, especially for light cars. But for this car and the other two new ones I upped the power to 70%, only because they could handle it much like the Slot.its handle 40%. It's more of an adjustment to meet the car's potential than it is a limiter. If I ran the new cars at 40%, they'd run slower than the Slot.it cars. 

Results:

Car                   Time        Lap

Matra             3:29.27     4:18

908                 3:33.00     4.26

Hey! Check that out. I don't know whether to be excited that they're running in the same general time zone as each other or to be depressed because the 908 didn't blow the Matra away. I think I'll go with the former. To the 908's defense, it hasn't had any tuning yet. I'm still just running them and seeing what they're capable of. I'm sure once I get this car tuned it's going to lower its lap times. It, like all the new cars, will go by the standard that I'll get it tuned as well as I can with what it's got right now, no fancy replacement parts. Moving on....

Porsche 917K

Sorry. I'll take more pictures soon. I promise.

Lets see what the slightly more planted NSR car does through this layout.

Results:

Car                   Time        Lap

Matra             3:29.27     4:18

908                 3:33.00     4.26

917                3:25.14      4.10

So if I left the NSR cars in their current state and don't do any more tuning, I could drop them right in the with Slot.its and have some good competition. The Alfa and the Chaparral will both run those times, so there's good cause to try. Of course there are things I have to do to the NSRs and it'll likely mean increased lap times. The challenge then will be tuning the Slot.its to match the NSRs. 

Next up:

Revoslot Ferrari F333SP

Hi big sexy.

Results:

Car                   Time        Lap

Matra             3:29.27     4.18

908                 3:33.00     4.26

917                3:25.14      4.10

333SP            3:13.34      3.86

Since I reset this car to it's default setting and did a slight motor adjustment to pull the gears off each other a little, I taped the bottom of the car to prevent vibration and away we went. I'm not too surprised by the lap time, but I think I can tune the NSR cars to get there. It's a pretty fast lap time. I don't think the Slot.its can catch it. 

So there we go. Looks like I could have a plastic chassis class without too much trouble. The aluminum chassis class, however, will need to grow a bit to have some form of representation. Otherwise it's going to be an anomaly on the track. A freakin fast anomaly. 

More New Cars - 2020

 Alrighty, the second wave of cars has arrived, so let's get on to it. 

From world renown slot car manufacturer NSR come two wicked hot rods:

Porsche 908/3 Escuderia Montjuich Champion Montana 1973

Look at that thing. Will you just look at it?

Of all the cars I picked up this year [we're not done yet], this was the first pick and the inspiration for my decision to branch out among other slot car brands. I have wanted a few cars in particular ever since I can remember, one of them being a Porsche 908. There's something about that short, snappy design that makes me nuts. The Alfa Romeo 33/3 shares a similar design, which makes for a very nimble, extremely quick slot car.

Before going any further, let me explain my line of thinking before buying any of these cars. I was planning on expanding further my Slot.it Classics line, as well as getting a few more Group C cars. Problem was, of the 5 or 6 online companies I frequent, there was very little stock to choose from. Originally I was looking at the McLaren M8D, but just couldn't convince myself to pull the trigger on it. I really wanted a 908, and started looking at other brands. NSR was naturally first as I had read so much about them. I couldn't resist. They had a couple of versions and I picked this one. 

This car is a superb challenger to the Alfa Romeo 3/33. They're very similar. The difference is in the straights, which the 908 belies its size and acts more like the Matra. I definitely want to race them together. I might do this after this post.

I've run the car now about 1000 or so laps, and it's getting nicely settled in. This car loves the Carrera track. 

NOTE: I would recommend an adjustable controller or power supply when running higher performance cars. They respond much differently to a standard analog controller. To truly get the best out of them, consider getting something that lets you adjust power. And it's not like I needed to turn the power down on this thing. On the contrary. I turned the power UP because it could handle so much more juice before going grazing in the fields.

This car, as well as the other cars I have coming, will be covered in more depth as we go. 

Of course, I'm a believer that one is the loneliest number that will ever be, so this beauty needs a running partner. Enter trouble:

Porsche 917K Rothmans Limited Edition

Dude...

The other car that I needed in my collection was the 917K. In my opinion the most iconic race car in all of racing. I've had dreams of a 917K since I was a kid. It seemed like a no-brainer to pick this car up. It just looks so good!

If you read about NSR slot cars, you'll see some opinions of people that their cars aren't to realistic scale specifications. Okay. So what? Does it look weirdly mutated? No. Do I measure everything using a micrometer? No. So do I care? No. Besides, if someone were to point out what wasn't right about this car, I probably wouldn't remember and wouldn't really care.  These are toys, and if you're going to hand me a slot car, I'm not going to be particularly interested in whether the gas cap was chrome or not. And that goes with all slot cars. Unless a huge transgression was made, I think companies should be cut a little slack. That's my opinion about that. 

This car drives like I wish the 962C did. It's just got great balance and absolutely flies down the track. It doesn't suffer from wobbly butt syndrome, and can handle itself with aplomb through the twisty parts. When I was shopping for a 917K, I saw this one in a bunch of about 4 of them. It was the most interesting, so I picked it. To be honest, I wasn't all that stoked about having any kind of white car, although it had enough going on that I could get over myself. Once it came and I got it out of the box I was blown away by how much better it looked in real life compared to the pictures. Holy crap it looks good. So between that and the driving experience, I'll say this one's looking best right out of the gate. I haven't had to do anything other than lube/oil. I haven't even done a complete tire sanding yet. The tires STILL HAVE TREADS! 

The early word on these two cars is yes yes yes. I recommend them to anyone with a home track that has an adjustable power supply or adjustable controller. They are insanely good cars and totally worth the money. For the record, I paid 72euros a piece for them.

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. 

___________

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. 

Holy Crap. What Have I Done?

 Short backstory: I just got surgery a few weeks ago. I had spent money on some of it and got it back through insurance. So I took that money and bought slot cars for myself for xmas. 

If you've read my holiday posts in the past, you'd see a familiar pattern: me giving a wishlist to my wife and she buying a few cars for xmas. It was so regular that I even made posts that were guesses on what would arrive. Well, since we're not together anymore, all bets are off. I'm in charge of my own destiny now, and that's the way it is. 

So, three new cars are coming. That's all I'm going to say about them, except this: none of them are Slot.it cars. 

This has been something that was long researched. I have wanted variations of these cars for quite some time, and decided that I needed a little boost in my life, and this was exactly where to get it. Some people buy clothes, some trips, some fancy dinners. I buy slot cars. And I'm going to continue doing so.

And I know that I've been saying that I'm not finished rounding out my collection of classic Le Mans Slot.it cars. I'm just taking a slight, and too frequently put off, detour. Also, availability online at my shops didn't have all that many Slot.it cars that I wanted. So my eyes naturally wandered.

One thing that already has me thinking is how I'm going to have these different brands compete against each other. They very well may, and it could be pretty close, but we'll have to wait and see. If it comes down to it, I can always separate by class if the new cars blow away the Slot.it cars. I'll tell you, these three new cars are all race cars. I will race them. No shelf queens!

One of these cars is going to stand out, and may end up in its own class. I already know this. But there's are reasons why I got the car, which I'll get into when it comes. It's also going to be different from all the other cars in one very significant way. I'm not going to say more. 

Stay tuned for full coverage of all the new toys.

edit:  did I say three cars.....?

Quick Update: General Stuff

 I haven't posted lately, mostly due to personal things that have come up. My wife and I broke up, so I'm in the process of moving out. I also have been going through a ridiculous amount of dental issues, which have thrown a wrench in everything. 

I'm going to get right back into it after the move, which will happen January 1. Until then I'm going to focus on getting moved and re-established. 

Lots of changes in my life on the horizon, including here. I'm planning on expanding here as well. 

Thanks for your patience.

Couple Quick Things

 I'm pretty stoked! /r/slotcars has hit 2000 members. Pretty crazy considering when I took it over there were only about 100 or so pretty inactive members. It's taken awhile to grow, but it's doing well. Good people hanging out there, and I think it's great.

I also got back onto Facebook, mostly to reconnect with friends I hadn't talked to in a long time. I joined some of the slot car groups on there, but I only just started with that. I'll have to search and expand my slot car subscriptions/joins/whatever. 

I haven't put together my track painting video yet, mostly because of all this life change that is happening now. As it stands I probably won't get much time on my track for the next few weeks. I have one or two things I want to do, but those are little and require very little time. And neither involves me being in my pajamas racing race cars all day. 

But it's challenges that push us to be better people. And I'm ready for a challenge. And I know that the day I set my track up once I move will be a good day. I'm looking forward to it very much.

Summer Leftovers Race Pt. 2

 When I said that I was going to be able to break down races into smaller sessions, I wasn't expecting this. I've had any number of things come up that have made it impossible to get upstairs, much less run any races. But I'm going to finish this one. Five more cars to run. Here are the results so far:

Summer Leftovers Race Results 

Car            Time            Lap           Offs         

#65          5:42.55          6.84            0           

Matra      5:29.73          6.58            4  

962C       5:32.42          6.64            1   

The Matra has a comfortable lead, running a 6.58 lap time, which is almost as fast as the Alfa in the Summer Salami Race, which ran a 6.5 flat. So let's run some cars.

__________

The Ford GT40 #8

It had been awhile since I was on the track, so I wanted to start off with a dependable car. Need that when it's been awhile. The last thing you want is to start a session with a troublemaker. 

It ran a very smooth race, and felt quite fast. It's always been the kind of car that felt like it was in the running even when it wasn't. 

Summer Leftovers Race Results 

Car               Time            Lap           Offs         

#65             5:42.55          6.84            0           

Matra         5:29.73          6.58            4  

962C          5:32.42          6.64            1   

GT40 #8    5:30.81          6.6              1  

I love that the GT40 cars aren't afraid to get in there and mix it up. Very respectable lap time out of the #8, and right on the Matra's tail. The grouping of the cars is looking real tight so far, with 3/10ths of a second separating the field. Gotta hand it to Slot.it for making quality race cars.

__________

The Alfa Romeo 33/3 #2

When you're running as well as this car is, it really doesn't take anything to get it going. A quick wipe down of the tires and it was good to go. I was looking forward to this race as this car is probably going to set the lap record. 

It ran a great race, completely glued to the track. Every time I drive this car, I get sucked into the whole short-is-better thing. It almost always feels better to race with a shorter wheelbase car, even when you'd think it wouldn't have an advantage. Let's see how it did.

Summer Leftovers Race Results 

Car               Time            Lap           Offs         

#65             5:42.55          6.84            0           

Matra         5:29.73          6.58            4  

962C          5:32.42          6.64            1   

GT40 #8    5:30.81          6.6              1  

Alfa            5:22.69          6.4             1

Such a fast car. I would be hard pressed to believe that any other car will beat it. It's 2/10ths ahead of the next car. That is dominance. 

__________

The Chaparral #66

I'm am equally as interested in what the #66 is going to lay down as I am the Alfa. Not that I think it'll be necessarily faster, but it's improving all the time. Should run a fast lap.

Summer Leftovers Race Results 

Car               Time            Lap           Offs         

#65             5:42.55          6.84            0           

Matra         5:29.73          6.58            4  

962C          5:32.42          6.64            1   

GT40 #8    5:30.81          6.6              1  

Alfa            5:22.69          6.44             1

#66             5:21.68          6.42             0

Well would you look at that. It didn't run as smoothly as the Alfa, but it still ran faster. Unbelievable. I had a feeling that this car was something special, even in the beginning. It was still a little twitchy in the corners, but that may be due to tires not being adequately clean.

___________

Alright, I'm going to call the race. I have two more cars to run, the #11 and #5 GT40s, but I haven't had  the time to run them. And I don't think I'm going to get the time. I have to start considering tearing down and packing up everything. I'm going to wait as long as I can on the track, in case I somehow do get the time to run those last two cars, but I really don't see it happening. I hardly got any time this weekend and the next two weekends are completely booked.

So I gotta hand it to the Chaparral. Extraordinary performance, taking the field. I'm going to break down the layout and set up something small to goof around on until moving day. Unless I get super inspired and somehow run in to time, it'll just be up for fun. I might come on here and do a couple of things, though. I can do these in spurts here and there and it's usually fine. So until then, good racing!