HRS II Review

There I was  working on my latest slot project, A white bodied Carrera body kit, when out of the blue A PM arrived from a SF moderator, "Would I mind holding off completing the Bentley for a little while ?"

Well, that opening line intrigued me, so I read further, "If I can get hold of an HRS II chassis for you to test on it, would you be interested ?"

Needless to say, I was. So I waited (almost) patiently and in due course one came through the letterbox.

The Slot.It HRS II comes in 2 versions, one using either sidewinder or inline motor pod configuration, and the other being able to use sidewinder, inline or anglewinder.

Like me you are probably thinking why the 2 versions if one of them covers all bases ? well the answer is simple, the AW version needs to be a little wider, so for those bodies that require a narrow track, the SW/IL version would be the weapon of choice.

I was sent the AW version so any measurement related to width in this review will only apply to the AW HRS II chassis.

The picture below shows the components and they are broken down as follows:

• 1 - Main chassis.
• 2 - AW blanking plates for use on non AW set-ups.
• 3 - Guide and front axle assembly.
• 4 - Secondary front axle assembly independent of guide.
• 5 - Side body mounting parts.
• 6 - Alternative side body mounts.
• 7 - Front axle spacers.

The chassis offers greater flexibility over the original HRS. With adjustability for  narrower track and shorter wheelbase, as well as the option to locate the guide independently of the front axle. In addition to the spacers for the front axle height, there also looks to be provision for grub screws. 

Below is a picture of the HRS II with the original HRS above for comparison.

The chassis completed with an inline motor pod (motor pods are standard Slot. It fitment) :

The figures are:

• Minimum width between inside edge of wheels 36mm, Maximum would be determined by your axles.
• Wheelbase (centre to centre) 64mm to 91mm
• Distance from guide flag hole centre to rear axle 84mm to 111mm
• With 20mm diameter rear tires on 15mm wheels, the chassis sits 3.8 mm above the track (I have been informed the production chassis will have a further 0.3 mm on the motor cradle mounts. This will raise the motor and rear axle, making the clearance 0.3mm less than the review chassis).

Here we have the chassis mounted to my Bentley (I have removed some plastic from around the contrate so I could run it the opposite side to standard, to suit the clearance recess the Carrera body has).

With the chassis fitted to the Bentley, off I went for a few non-mag test laps round my Scalextric Sport track.

The chassis certainly worked well, turning in a good performance and kept the Bentley driving predictably. The pace was consistently a fraction faster than my P3 shod Slot.It Mclaren GTR on a twisty track.

I wanted to test the chassis in its AW configuration too, so I decided I would run it without a body in both configurations. I Used the same setup as the Bentley just swapping complete pods with the same rims and tyres (20x11 P3's).

The IL used the Slot.It V12/2 23k rpm motor and AW used the 20K Boxer2. 

All configurations were well mannered, with the AW just having a little more tendency to snap slide when pushed too hard (probably due to the extra weight of the Boxer motor). The difference is very subtle though and this didn't stop it actually being faster although that could be down to gearing and motor torque.

I highly recommend this chassis, an excellent ,easy to use, and great performing bit of kit. I can see some of my favourite looking, but sub-par performing, cars getting one of these fitted soon !

Many thanks go to Slotforum and Slot.It for giving me the opportunity to test the HRS II.

Savage