I have been doing a fair amount of reading on other forums and it appears that most people that run non mag cars do so on wood routed tracks. There are a fair number that run on RTR (plastic) track but they usually paint/coat the track surface for more traction which I don't think Randy is willing to do. It is my opinion that high speed non mag cars would be too slippery on stock (unpainted) track. I'm afraid that going from blistering fast Slot.it cars to low voltage non mag might short circuit my we little brain. Anyone for some sort of transitional step: mildly modified stock mag cars? That way the transition will not be so drastic.
Rico
1,401 August 7, 2008 8:52 am
Topic: BSCC Poll (11 replies, posted in BSCC)
1,402 August 7, 2008 8:30 am
Re: Track Design Contest (39 replies, posted in Track)
That's because it is. He saw the one posted on that link I sent you (Under World Tracks) and stated that it didn't look right. I think his is better than the one posted, but I might be kind of bias. I guess now that his is posted here we can let the rest of you decide which is better, if you choose to.
Rico
1,403 August 6, 2008 10:07 pm
Re: Track Design Contest (39 replies, posted in Track)
Buy him track.... He still owes me for the last car and I can't afford any more track for myself.
DAD aka Rico
1,404 August 6, 2008 5:21 pm
Re: Track Design Contest (39 replies, posted in Track)
Bill- Here is the link for the track design I was telling you about: http://ux5490.us/ You can go to tracks by either width or length and select what your dimension are and check out the layouts. I liked several of them.
Rico
1,405 July 11, 2008 10:58 am
Topic: Ferrari 312 Roll bar (1 replies, posted in Cars)
Bill- My roll bar was completely destroyed and lost last night. I was thinking about copying your bar and was wondering how you attached it to the body?
Thanks
Rico
1,406 July 4, 2008 12:21 pm
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
I agree on the endurance racing, it provides a certain element of realism and the opportunity to change drivers etc. I also agree that a some peoples opinions seem to be valued more than others, but that is always the way lfe seems to work out. Still, change has to start somewhere...
Rico
1,407 July 4, 2008 11:38 am
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
Actually, in days gone by you could change to another drivers car at Indianapolis, LeMans and maybe other series as well. However, I believe the practice has long since been discontinued.....
I believe the rules could be tweaked some but they are never going to get changed by the posts here only by voicing concerns to the group at the races or at a special meeting like we had before. I wonder just how many people really want fuel and tire management? These races are essentially sprint races where in 1:1 racing if you stop in the middle of a sprint race, you are going to lose. F1 cars can go over 40 laps depending on the track before pitting. The same applies to Nascar. Racing slot cars is not just like 1:1 racing and no matter how hard one tries it will never be the same. 1:1 race cars only stop by necessity not because they want to, so why do we feel this is needed, if we do not have too?
Rico
1,408 July 4, 2008 10:24 am
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
Bill- I might be out of line, but you seem to be taking my comment on aesthetics as speaking for the entire club, I do not speak for the club, just myself and I stated so in the post. If you haven't noticed, my cars always have the wings and for that matter, even the mirrors, in place when I show up to race. I sometimes even polish the paint so they look nicer. At the last race the wing on the McLaren was damaged during practice and I repaired it for the race and then it got broken further during the race. I now have a broken wing I cannot replace except with an ugly black tear proof one. After the race was over the rear wing on my Thetford Lola was destroyed beyond repair and once again it is not replaceable. The way I interpreted the rule on wings is that the club was trying to protect people from having irreplaceable parts from being broken on their cars. I guess I should have raced with a tear proof wing and changed back to the correct wing when not racing. I am not a fan ot the fuel and tire management systems and I let my feelings get the better of me and I left a race because of it. After cooling off, I came to the conclusion that I am not hurting anyone but myself by not racing. If you truly want to find fault with something then you probably will. When you state that a boken part must be repaired for the next race do you mean the next event or the next heat race? 90 seconds between heats is not much time to effect a repair, it is barely enough time to switch lanes, stickers and driving stations. I agree with Monte that cosmetic damage has little effect on the outcome of a race and should be left alone. I also agree with you that mechanical failures should be fixed before continuing thus necessitating the need for a back up car or a loss of laps just like in real racing.
Once again just my opinions....
Rico
1,409 July 1, 2008 9:41 pm
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
Oh, one more thing, with the Alfa due out on July 15, you could run a red Alfa just to be a little different........
1,410 July 1, 2008 9:25 pm
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
Bill- Check out the HRS2, the other feature I liked is the front axle runs in the same type of spherical bushings the rear axle does. In addition, I saw on Slot Car News or Slot Car Illustrated that Slot it is coming out with a independent front wheel set up that looked similiar to the set up you had. As far as the motors, the people with the yellow motors were as fast or faster than my car with the red motor down the straights, but I might not be getting my magnet setup correct. Cost escalation has been plagueing all forms of racing forever, as you well know, and it appears it is no different in slot car racing. I guess that's why most clubs run some sort of spec motor which eliminates this problem. I do understand how you feel, the orange endbell had been slot it's best for quite a while, but it became quickly apparent that it was not up to the task against the yellow motors. So, when I saw the red motors were available in the UK, I bought some of those instead of upgrading to the yellow endbell saving a step.
I guess my opposition to the o ring tires is that I'm kind of a purist and since this is scale racing I just like my cars to appear more realistic than the o ring tires look. Anyway, just one persons point of view. I guess we will catch you on the flip side.
Rico
1,411 July 1, 2008 5:21 pm
Re: Wheels & Tires (23 replies, posted in Cars)
Bill- I agree the choices are limited and I don't see a real competitive advantage going to a slightly smaller/narrower wheel/tire combo from BWA or others. I still think O ring tires/wheels is too much of change of direction from the current rules. I recently purchased a Fly Ferrari 365/GTB and the wheels are not round or true. I have been looking into BWA replacements and cannot find any wheels that are the same size as the originals that will also fit the BWA Ferrari wheel inserts. Further complicating matter is that everyone is out of the wheel inserts. It seems that Fantasyworld has quit carrying BWA all together and other vendors seem to have a hard time stocking as well. I'm guessing it is a cottage maufacturer and is having a hard time keeping up with demand. Getting back to your original post, I'm kind of gathering there are other issues besides tires involved as I have not seen you at the track. You could always run (Yah, I know, no points) what you brung for the fun of it.... Anyway hope to see you and some of your projects soon. One other solution might be to try a HRS2 chassis as they are slightly narrower than the original HRS chassis. I had to put spacers on the front axle to fit the front wheels on the Spirit/HRS2 car and I was forced to use 17 X 8 wheels to comply with the rules and for aesthetic reasons.
Rico
1,412 June 29, 2008 9:58 am
Re: Slot.it HRS2 Project (2 replies, posted in Cars)
Bill- I only have one sidewinder offset pod at this time and it is installed in my Ferrari. I am going to play with the magnets as it seemed a little slow down the straights and very stuck on the curves. Kind of a slippery slope situation....
Rico
1,413 June 27, 2008 9:46 pm
Topic: Slot.it HRS2 Project (2 replies, posted in Cars)
This car started life as a Spirit Reynard Sport, a car that never lived up to expectations, at least on Scalextric Sport track, but I always liked the look of the car. Bill's experiment with the HRS Lola got me thinking and here is the result. A Slot.it HRS2 chasis kit and a offset motor pod were the starting point with the intention of mounting it in a Fly Ferrari 512S body to counter Bill's Porsche 917. The body and chassis were not really a good fit so on to plan B. The chassis fit perfectly in the Spirit body and the rear body mounts lined up fairly well. The front body mounts did not line up at all so some creativity was in order. A central mounted post seemed the best solution and I just happened to have a melted Jag chassis (boiling water is tooo hot to use to straighten a warped chassis) so out came the Dremel. I cut the front post out in a square that was sized to fit in the HRS2 frame rails and epoxied it the the guide flag mount. It was positioned as far forward as the body would allow. Since this is a HRS2 with a separate mount for the guide and the front wheel it was now just a matter of positioning the front axle to fit the wheel well. Next was fitting a post to the bottom of the body, a spare chunk of model sprue and some more expoxy were all that was needed.
After fitting the front I used some 90' styrene and made brackets that screwed the chassis in two spots and to the body posts. I elongated the holes for the body so some movement was possible.
This pretty much left fitting the slot.it 29K red end bell motor, slot.it 17 X 10 rear wheels and 17 X 8 front wheels. Stock gearing was used due to the fact it was all I had (9p X 28c). Only one part was left, how to fit the rear wing. The original Spirit wing was damaged during shipping and is mounted in the chassis. I had previously purchased a spare Spirit wing that was supposed the fit the Reynard but it turns out that it fit the Spirit Dallara instead. I fitted some styrene between the mounting post for strength then used some lexan to mount it to the chassis using a screw through the HRS chassis rear body mount whole. I also added some sheet styrene to replicate the splitters that were part of the original Spirit chassis which gave it a more finished look. The project is now finished. 
I tried the car at BSCC on Tuesday and it ran pretty well, but the rear kept wanting to come around, so a Slot.it racing magnet was added along with a different set of tires. The car was competitive 4.4 to 4.6 seconds but not in the same league as Monte's Ferrari.
1,414 June 26, 2008 9:43 pm
Re: Speed Secrets of the Insanely Fast (5 replies, posted in Cars)
I was a witness to the wicked speed of Monte's Ferrari and mine will soon have similiar mods. I have also built a car with a HRS2 chassis and thought I might try to share some pics but I'm not quite sure how to add them if some one could guide me.