"getting up to speed...slowly

John: Thank you for the note on helping you with car (chassis) suggestions. Please note that as you noted my "wealth of knowledge" came from the other club members helping me with my cars to able me to be somewhat competitive with them, and they are the one's that deserve the thanks you kindly directed to me. I am happy to equally share what they have shared with me.

Goose

So I have figured out this slot car racing is a lot like racing full scale...buying the car is just the first step. Now the process of getting all the things you need to actually run the car and be able to work on it and tune it and maintain it begins. OK so maybe building a box to carry my stuff in instead of a paper sack isn't quite the same as having to have a trailer and tow rig but a task none the less. Then there's the tools and again the same- better to buy quality once, and the lubricants, oh and spare parts, tiny set screws, braids, guide flags, good controller,...and of course tires! thankfully these little guys aren't  $650.00 a set and they don't go away after 5 heat cycles but.....I need a database to keep track of the sizes ! Enough rambling .. to tell the truth I am having fun shopping all the sites for the cool stuff. When I was actively racing the U.P.S. guy was delivering tyres from Goodyear in Akron and parts from Carl Haas several times a month and always offered to put them in the garage for my wife just so he could look at the car....maybe he wanted to look at my wife...anyways we got to be on a first name basis.. now I am getting packages from professor motor and ebay just about every week! as to getting up to speed I had some fast laps last thurs. so now I just have to keep working on consistency and mental focus, Thanks again to everyone for their help- can't wait till next Thurs!.

Another great night at the Too Bad motorplex, Really enjoy everyone's company, help and humor!. Well due to a little bit of success its time to remove the magnets....yup back to square one!. Actually the trans am scalex mustang was the only thing with Magnetic traction and its pretty limited on where you can stick it but I'm totally in the dark as to how much and am trying to minimize the adding or removing process as track time is so limited. So what I did to start is cut some stick on lead sheet in the same thickness as the bar magnet to the same size and snapped it into the recess where the magnet was...didn't seem like nearly enough and there are 2 other areas same size just in front of that one so I added 2 more. Less than half of the stick on lead that was in place on the ninco 56 vette I bought used that seems to work pretty well but the Mustangs got wider tyres so I,m thinkin maybe I can get by with less..any ideas ? . My second project was to add a little to the slot it Nissan gt..problem here is the anglewinder motor pod is set up to float in the chassis and the chassis is floating in the body..this car handles real well as is but just needs a little more bite. I'm thinking the weight should be attached to the motor pod only otherwise it kinda negates the floating ,damping, unsprung weight concept that seems to work well on these things. Problem is theres very little room on the anglewinder pod, again a couple of empty recesses for magnet bars but they are pretty small. Any ideas or stories of success would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again, John.

Fantastic info Rico ! I especially like the idea of hanging from the guide post to determine bias side to side -Kinda like a plumb bob!. I think I'll have to make some measurements, start a log book and then make incremental changes and record results. Has anyone ever tried setting the car on four identical scales on a surface plate to determine corner weights? I have a small digital scale that seems pretty accurate and repeatable that wasn't very expensive and I've been thinking of setting some up like the race scales we use for the Reynard, with a little math you could determine balance, bias and perhaps most importantly it would show a "tweaked" chassis...my driving isn't good enough to determine by observation--I don't think I drive the same corner the same way twice! anyways if I try I'll keep you posted- thanks again for the help!

Hey John, You need to be there at the next Odd Thursday. We will be racing the Proxy cars and it will give you an opportunity to see what other racers from all over the world are doing to their cars, plus be able to run them and see how they perform!!!

Look on the links page.

Chassis Weight Placement Guide

Looks like there is only one left at 4:45pm Wednesday the 15th..............

Nice score John!!!!

Welcome to the BRM Madness!!!