|
As some of you know I have been working for some time now on what modifications need to be made to the current crop of
Euro-cars ( Ninco, Fly, SCX etc ) to make them decent runners on my routed track....
The first car that I tried my ideas on was the Ninco BMW V12 and that turned out to be quite a success on the routed
track...... I was able to cut the lap times about in half over the Stock version..... But the modifications on the BMW
were fairly simple...... Fixing the guide, dropping in a Slot-it starter kit and using real round wheels ( Parma sponge tires
) over the junk that comes on the car......
So over the last few months I have been going over some of the other Euro cars that I have sitting on the shelf....
Not a place for a race car to be :-))
These are the cars that I have been working on...... the Ninco Callaway Vette (front left) was a nice easy conversion
like the BMW... all the same modificartion were made..
The SCX Audi and Caddy were also simple to modify for the routed track.. And they run so smoothly that I have not
even modified the guides on these 2 cars..
The GB track Lancia and the Scalextric NASCAR were also fairly easy to get to run well on the routed track... But
they both needed the guides fixed as well as the other modifications for a normal Euro-car....
With these modification all of these cars have really come alive on my track... And are a joy to drive.......
BUT
the Fly C5 Vette with its front mounted motor is another matter.... There was nothing easy about fixing up this car........
:-(((((
I will have to admit that Fly makes some of the nicest looking cars on the market, the looks and detail are outstanding.......
But the same can not be said for the running gear......... Like all the other Euro-cars I have tried on my track they are
a poor excuse for a slot car with their stock running gear in place..... The car was so bad I couldn't even put 5 laps together
to get and average lap time.....
Like all of the Fly front motor cars the front axle carriers are loose and let the front wheels/tires flop all over and
rub on the body causing the car to dig in and dive out of the slot in the turns........... And of course there is the usual
out of round front and rear wheels that need fixing......
As with most of my cars I start with fixing the guide.. Again with the Vette I added a section of stryene
to the guide, making it deeper and longer like the Parma jet guide I use on most of my scratch built cars... And I also outfitted
the guide with Parma braid.....
Slot-it also has a new guide out that is made for a routed tracks. I have used the new Slot-it guide on the
GB Track Lancia and the Scalextrics NASCAR... And the guide works great and is a direct drop in replacement guide for the
stock Fly guide..... These guides will eleminate the need to add onto the Fly guide..... I just ran out of them when doing
up this car :-))
After the guide was taken care of I moved on to the rear end of the car.... First Step was to pull out the stock
axle/gear/wheel set up and put it in the junk box with the others from the Euro-cars...
Now to drop in a Slot-it inline starter kit...... Replace the Slot-it rear wheels with some Parma sponge tires... I will
use the Slot-it wheels from the starter kit to replace the front wheels later......
I found out after putting the Slot-it rear end in that the Slot-it gear would not fit under the rear endbell with all
the parts and body back on...... So to fix this I changed out the Slot-it gear with a Sonic 64 pitch crown gear... This fit
under the bell housing fine but needed a little work on the right side to clear the neck on the sonic gear..... And of course
the pinion gear was also changed over to a sonic 64 pitch pinion.....
I added some weight to the chassis and gave it a run..... much better but the front end (wheels and axle carrier ) were
still a problem......
Fly must know by now that they have a problem with the stub axle set up they have on all their front motor cars
and some of the rear engne cars as well.... I have heard everyone complain about this set up and after getting and trying
my first front motor Fly car........ I can see why they complain......
The tires flopped around in the loose axle carrier and were rubbing on anything they could find...... It is not bad enough
that they use the same system as before, but they manage to make it even worse by adding a hinge to the front axle carrier
making the whole thing flop around even more.........
I have dealt with this problem before on my Joset Porsche... with that the fix was easy..... drill the axle carriers
out and insert a brass tub, put in a solid axle and Slot-it wheels....... No such luck here...
So the first thing that I tried was to drill out the axle carrier and fit it with a 3/32 ID tub.... And made up
my own stub axles out of a 3/32 axle blanks... This took care of most of the front axle slop.... But out on the track
again I still had a problem with the front tires digging in and rubbing on the body.... That stupid hinge at work :-(((((((((
The first thing that I tried on the hinge was to hot glue it in place with the chassis on a test block....... I fugured
hot glue was better than CYA because I could undo the hot glue with not to much trouble...... I still was not
happy with the set up...... part of the reason being, I couldn't get the front wheels down onto the track...... Cars with
their front wheels off the ground are not very good on my track...... Yes I know what everyone says about the Tripod theory.....
Well I have tested both, and on MY track you need to have all the wheels planted on the track is you want to run fast........
Okay at this point I am not a happy camper.......... So out go the hinged axle carriers and I decided to build my own......
For this I set the car up in my jig... make up some sheet stryene to fit into where the hinge use to be.. Drill
the hole for my brass tubing.. Pop the motor out and set up the new axle carriers with a solid axle inplace of the stub axles
to keep things in line..
Then line up everything being sure the front wheels are now touching the jig plate. and CYA everything in...... Then
a little epxoy on the tubing to keep that in place.......
Okay back to the track and now the car is running lap times in the low 6 sec range...... About the same as my BMW V12.......
Then the motor pops out :-(( Glue that back in place and the rear drive shaft bearing pops out next
:-(((((( Glue that back in......... At this stage I said the hell with it and put in a Slot-it V12 in place
of the stock motor and now we are moving :-)))))))) Okay I am happy again.........................
Enter content here
|
