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Sloter Opel Corsa S1600


Review by Bleep

 



Oops.... hard on the tail of my last Sloter, this one arrived in the post today. This one its totally different to the Zytek but then so is the 1:1 we are talking a totally different classes of car. I don't want this to be a comparison with the Zytek either but a look at this car in it's own right.



Opel have a long history of sporting events through all the different genre in particular with these smaller rally cars, this is the one this one is based on.

 

Again the car comes in the crystal case its displayed at a nice angle, which is the same as what SCX use. Oh yes and out falls another "Sloter" sticker for my race box ,well actually this may go on the shed wall.


First off the car is the White version so I can't talk about the decals though it does have number plates front and back they do look like number plates too, not just decals on the bumpers but they are sat on a plates so they protrude slightly. With a nice Opel logo on the front of the car bonnet in silver. Other than that paint work wise it is very basic, though it has lots of little touches that show some care has gone into the making of this model:


Bonnet vents, windscreen wipers are fixed which saves them falling off when racing, Grills, the rear bumper houses red rear fog lights, a little chrome exhaust protrudes nicely out the back. On the roof of the car there is the now mandatory air intake at the front, and what seems to be a well secured rear spoiler (time will tell on that one). The mirrors have a mirror finish and seem to will flex slightly under pressure so hopefully that will give them a bit of a chance to survive the first off. All the windows have a neat black surround which makes them look complete it's touches like this that make this that bit special. The headlights are chromed with some clear plastic but they are well made you can see the individual sections for the different bulbs, though they don't have lighting they somehow seem bright.

 

The rear light clusters consist of orange Red and silver sections which round off the rear of the car well. The car feels solid and much to my liking doesn't rattle at all. Overall the car has a nice shine to it and seems well proportioned.
 
The interior has a roll cage with rear-view mirror attached, (It's also a little too low I'm sure it can be pushed back into place once the body has been taken off). A spare wheel is easily visible in the rear. Both the driver and co-driver are complete, the co-driver is holding his pace notes, both have simple white fire suits and a black racing harness. There is a red fire extinguisher under the co-drivers legs, though the Dash is not decorated in anyway it is shaped and you can see the cones that cover all the dials.
 

 

OK time to put it on the track Oh No! It's back all that noise,  two laps was all I could bare, then the top had to come off. Which entails removing four screws these may explain why nothing was rattling as they where all reasonably tight the two in the front are shorter than those at the back as the rears also go through the motor mount.
 

 

The chassis for this little car has a semi-floating motor mount, which also has the option (with the supplied adaptor "cuna") To fit a long-can inline now that's something that is certainly unusual especially in such a small chassis.
 

 

Please note that the interior will require modifying to do this. I haven't tried this yet. I may come back to this later.

The rear of the chassis has additional supporting members these are to help with the rigidity of the chassis and certainly seem to do a good job, I have friends who spend hours creating miniature feats of engineering to solve this exact problem on other cars. Just to point out here, removing the two screws at the front of the motor pod and the whole thing separates really nicely its a handy little touch because of the design of the screw fitting it is a lot less fussy than other motor pods I have played with, I know it sounds strange, but I like this because it is so simple and it works. 
 

 


Something that did give me cause for concern, is the give in the rear axle it has some play which almost moves the gear off the pinion I checked the wheels to see if they are completely in place, only to find that left hand wheel rubs on the chassis, this can't help though it is easy to rectify with some small washers just to space the axle and prevent the wheel making contact with the chassis (a certain lollypop stick can come in very handy here).

 

The wheels themselves are very neat authentic looking plastic wheels that fill the arches well ,though they are a touch on the thin side and I'm not sure even with moving it to inline if any wider wheels could be fitted, at the moment they do not protrude from the body which has been a criticism of some of the other manufacturers in this field. I may come back to this later.

 

The front of the car has a small row of rivets which could have been painted black to emulate the 1:1 on first glance they are not noticeable, but as Sloter have gone to the trouble of putting them on, it's a job that they could have been completed. I didn't mention the jack points either another nice little touch.
 

 

The Guide see for yourself the cable eyelets are too big they protrude out of the top of the guide they can't be pushed in anymore or else they stick out below the car - I think these will be cut down to size.

This review should have ended here, however I found it hard to put this car down so some-time later, I've been able to work on the car;

  • I have replaced the eyelets with some shallower ones =  a two second job.

  • Initially I fitted some washers on the right side rear wheel to stop the slop! =  a two second job.

  • I added 5gm of lead to the front as it lifts under hard acceleration.

  • I then found another problem the tyres though soft enough to provide a decent level of grip they actually separate from the wheels at top speed. All they needed was to be glued to work well. I must mention all the wheels are well balanced and round. 

  • Just to show how much I was enjoying this car I even built a plexi slot track just to test it with the magnet in = It works well in this and is competitive with other 2 WD1600s I have such as SCX.

  • To try and give it that bit more edge, I fitted some alloy wheels and gears on the rear which made it much better and it was getting nearer the performance I wanted.

  • I had just had to try the long can option it's not something you get every day  = This is really easy to do, the magnet section just pops out and the adaptor simply clicks into place, the adaptor has two screw holes to hold the motor firmly in place, I found one screw was enough. Because of the larger wheels I swapped to a Slot.it rear axle slightly shorter than standard to keep the wheels within the body. I just happened to have the Spirit motor sat on the bench but it worked really well. Unfortunately as stated before to fit the body back on then the interior needs to be cut away. So I removed it totally and fitted a layer of black card in its place just fixing the Driver and co-drivers upper torso in place with some glue - This makes the car much quieter and lowers the C of G too. Now we're talking the car really is handling much better.

  • At this point I replaced two shorter screws in the front of the chassis and the two in the front of the motor mount just to  give a bit of extra slack and allow the option of more body rock.

  • SSD Chipping - Yes I haven't chipped it but there is plenty of room to do so.
     

The Verdict: this car is already available in several different attractive liveries, with at least one more to coming later in the year. The car is certainly well detailed and is an appealing car. The Mabuchi type motor works well and drives this car very nicely as a sidewinder, however the long can option gives plenty of scope to upgrade the car to boost the performance. It has one or two minor faults which can be easily corrected as shown above, its "fun value" outweighs these minor hiccups. I know it may seem as though I've have done quite a bit  of work here, but if it was a race car for my club I'd do a lot more. I only worked this because I had options to play with, something not every model gives you. 


   

August 2009

 

 

   Lo-Fi Version Time is now: 19th June 2013 - 20:02
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