I bought into a few Pioneer cars..

A 68 Notchback. Only 3 of these were sold as they are Test Mouldings. I also bought a Mustang 1 of 4 produced.

These are J-code series cars. Not the normal "P" code.

I can't believe I missed out on this one..
A Scalextric Ford Falcon C2520 ... Dick Johnson's Shell Helix.. This is the holy grail of Aussie V8s

Here's the real heart breaker .... It sold on ebay Germany 9th Sept. 2011 for 40 Euro ! Aahhh !!

Where was I !! Now i see another for sale and current bid is 240.00 euro !

i purchased this kit about two weeks back. i am now a little worried what I will find inside... as the box is shrink wrapped.

Here's what the seller depicts as being inside. The kit was bought in Japan. My girlfriend is bringing it home on a flight tomorrow.








I am so nervous.. i am expecting the worse case scenario.. that it will be missing parts or has been put together by someone.
My girlfriend said if she shakes it she can hear lots of little pieces inside so i guess that may mean it is not glued together.

The suspense is agonizing !

Purchased a new machine today... don't think she'll be hitting the track much.. perhaps never.

A Range Presentation Mustang .

So any suggestions which car will compliment the start of my Mustang collection ?

24th Oct. Well a few months on since I posted the original message .. Now I have 2 R.P Mustangs

Looks like I've been hit hard by the Vintage Virus....

I started out pouring over the vintage collector area of this forum and ended up throwing some cash down on my first true vintage car... a black Bentley C64 & today a green Lotus M54 . (check my album for pix)


Both cars are in great shape.. not cheap though I think I got myself into a bidding war on Fleabay.. next time i seriously gotta pull out when I feel it is just a bit over the top.. but gee did i want that Bentley !!!

Now where can i find me a Chaparral E2 !

The past few days I've been scouring a few Japanese web sites too.. My girlfriend helps out a lot as she`s Japanese.... she types in key words.. We found that by simply using Google translate or any other translator just ain't cut out for it.

I`m also dabbling in creating my own molds. I have a few designs I am creating.. perhaps I`ll sell em on Fleabay if they look the part.. we shall see.

I design using a an industry standard 3D application called MAYA. Awesome piece of software. I read last night, that I can use a plug-in that will aid in exporting 3D models in preparation for Prototyping.

Purchased a `Blue Monster` (Mclaren) body a few days back. I plan to rebuild it but have just discovered that the chassis is very unique.. so I could be waiting some time to gather all the parts.

Yipee .... I'm a fully fledged PLUS member ... which means I can upload photos directly to the forum. Also allows me to start selling some of my JGTC cars.

COOL ! so where should i start.. hhmm

Sure would like a few of them Aussie V8s ....

I'd like to try one out magless... see how they really perform.

The most sort after is C2520 The Ford Falcon driven by Dick Johnson.. an Aussie Legend. The car sports the Helix logo. Currently going for around $250

the other car that is currently stirring the slot pot.. is the new C3161 VE COMMODORE driven by Craig Lowndes. "888" Seems this car is only available in a track set. So if you are keen you'll have to wait till one surfaces or break a set up.


16/7/11 .. hmm still searching for some Aussie V8s . the cars I am searching for a scarce... might even move onto Pioneer cars .. love the detail and era of these cars.. Steve McQueen, how cool is that !!!

Here's a few tips to help any novice like myself get pace cars up and running quicker with SSDC v5.1

Pace cars are a fidgety thing to get running smoothly around a track.


Choose a car that runs well.. in that i mean not a car that stops and starts a lot. I was using F1 cars as pace cars and I now find that these cars are very unpredictable. they are hard to set a good even speed for your START SPEED as the car is very twitchy and highly powered which means you will need to reduce the power of the car to around 40% which means the start speed will probably be even less around 20%
This in comparison to a stock standard car such as the Audi or Porsche which are so much easier to setup as pace cars ... I'm not saying you simply can't use F1 cars as pace cars.. but it's much easier to comprehend whats going on when trying to understand the basics of a Pace car setup. You really need to eliminate as many variables that may be contributing to factors associated with pace cars over or under speeding or simply not responding properly.


Issue: Pace Car editor window not displaying data you just recorded. You've just finished recording your favorite car but when you go into the Pace Car Editor and hit Refresh Chart... nothing appears.

Make sure you have the correct track selected in both the Tracks tab but also within the 'Race Manager' table. If you have more than one track layout, you will need to make sure you have it selected in the Race Manager... i often forget to change it over as i have 4 different track layouts saved in SSDC. Best you start out with one track layout only & make the track as simple as possible.. an oval is a good idea. just until you understand the ins and outs of SSDC.

Once you have your pace car recording and the car is now selected as a pace car. place the car on the track at least one meter before the start finish line. This will allow the car to build up some speed before crossing over the start finish sensor which records your lap times. If you don't there's a good chance your car will simply fly off the track at turn one.

When fine tuning the START SPEED / Target LAP Time / make sure you let the car settle to a comfortable pace.. this may take several laps.
then slowly adjust both the Target Lap Time & Start Speed until you get a good balance. (Leave both Lane change & variable throttle off until you are happy with the cars action around the track. ) The best way to feel how well your pace car is progressing is to watch the lap times the car is doing.. if the car is -1 add a second to the Target Lap time keep watching the lap times your car is doing and either increase or decrease the START SPEED &or the TARGET LAP time until you are happy with the results.

THE FREE PRACTICE BUTTON:
If your car is simply not moving after you ID it or the car is not responding properly there is a good chance you may not have the FREE PRACTICE button turned on. or you have set the Power Limit for the Driver too low.. i have found that sometimes I either have the Free Practice button in the wrong state as there is no way of telling what mode you're in. Also make sure the Driver variables you are adjusting are in fact the correct driver. I have on numerous occasions wondered why my car is not reacting to my changes in Driver setup.. i had the wrong driver selected for the Driver / Car setup in the RACE MANAGER window.

in the Race manager area .. Clicking the Free Practice button changes the state of the lights on the power base. You really need to understand how this effects the state of your car... it goes from PowerBase control mode in which your car will be controlled by the Power base only which means your car will have 100% power but no way of adjusting the power eg. throttle mappings and power limitations that are available within SSDC. hit the FREE PRACTICE button & notice the powerbase light changes to one green light (the red light is off) and then when you hit the Free Practice button again you have two lights.. (one green, one red) . you need to be in this mode to ID your car. Its this RED & GREEN light mode in which the power base is controlling the car not SSDC. when you hit the FREE PRACTICE BUTTON again one green light will be on and the red light is off.. you are now in SSDC mode so you can begin to alter driver power limitations and throttle mappings found under the CAR tab. but you must understand that simply having one green light on does not necessarily mean you can now adjust the driver settings as you also have to ID the car (if you have not already done so)

(I believe a lot of confusion is based around the vagueness of this button.. Perhaps changing the button colour state once depressed might help alleviate such matters... just a thought )

RESET POWERBASE & SSDC:
The sequence in which you turn on both the Power Base and the Software is crucial. make sure you turn on the software first & then turn the power base on... this allows the powerbase to recognize your SSDC software. Occasionally I'm not getting any response from a car.. it is simply not operating...Dead. hhmm.. strange ? only 10 seconds ago all was fine.. now I have no power to the car, simply try turning the power off at the wall and wait several seconds and then turn it on again.. this resets the Power base. You also might need to restart SSDC. Making sure you have one green light in the lower right hand side of the screen after restarting... if you don't you might have issues with the COM port setting. (refer to the SSDC manual available for download at the site )

Note: if you your pace cars are already actually running around the track but you`re having issues with them constantly de-slotting or running too slow then the biggest tip of all that I`ve learnt after spending weeks of trial and error .... is simply tyre condition. Sand those tyres down with a fine grade wet and dry sandpaper, P240 is a good grade paper. Tip: I glued the paper to an old credit card.. this way you can spin the tyres on the track keeping the car low and evenly weighted to ensure a balanced even roughening of the tyres. use a rubber band on the throttle trigger.. this will let you have both hands free to hold the car and sanding card in place. Make sure after you have completed the process that you then wipe of the rubber dust on the tyres.. use sticky tape to clean the tyres between races.. it is amazing how much dust accumulates on a track surface affecting pace car performance.. try it, you`ll be surprised. Since sanding the tyres, my cars now stay on the track so much better.. it has allowed pace cars to increase in performance and overall handling by approx. 40% ! that`s a massive improvement.

hope this helps ... ENJOY

Hmm.. seems my SSD track layout is slowly shrinking.. the girlfriend is slowly taking territory back in the hallway.

Living on a canal boat is hard enough but having a 30 foot SSD track down the corridor is pushing my luck...
She's been very liberal about the whole thing so far, no complaints, but ... last night I sacrificed a chicane so she can get into the bathroom without nay major issues.
My track is starting to resemble a Nascar track... I still have the pit lane though.. cool

17/07/11 ok.. I thought I`d add an update.. The girlfriend is sort of ok with my track layout.. I have even extended it into the living area, strategically laying it out around the perimeter of the room. I have it going under the sofa so she can still relax without needing to jump over bits and pieces... I`m guessing the track`s now approx. 50ft long. 6 lane changes + pit lane.

TIPS for "SSDC" DIGITAL RACE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

INTRO
I'd like to share a few experiencess I encountered setting the Race management software SSDC v5.1 with a C7042 PB.

SSDC v5.1 running in conjunction with a C7042 power base is a very powerful piece of software that really ups the number of combinational car & driver settings which can make the initial learning curve of SSDC a bit confusing.

Two days ago I finally received my Track pieces from a delivery driver that can only be described as Mr Magoo.
Three days in a row he managed to miss my address... the pain of waiting waiting waiting.. AAhh!! I would also like to mention that I live aboard a narrow boat on the Thames river in London so I can understand the delivery driver was probably alittle confused tracking down which boat. The other issue living aboard a narrow boat is my track layouts are rather limited to mainly long narrow runs, so I downloaded the free Scalextric Track Design software.. This helped to design a layout that fits perfectly in a confined area & get this, I had to create a few short corners so my girlfriend is able to open the bathroom door and still walk relatively easily down the passageway to the bedroom... I initially set-up the track in the living area but a bad idea as we spend 80% of our time in the living area. I'll upload some photos of the track and boat later.

So, now I have a half decent layout running smoothly.. no dead spots in the track, borders in place etc... It's also advisable not to use pit-lane at this early stage.. wait until you have the cars up & running properly & then move onto fuel related issues later... Also since you're setting up SSDC for the first time it really is advisable to design a simple layout.. maybe just an oval until everything is running correctly. I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that the software works great so the problems you encounter will mainly be due to the cognitive learning process.. ie. getting to fully understand the ins and outs of the SSDC rms.

Configure SSDC
So, time to configure the SSDC software.

Loading the SSDC software is a fairly straight forward process. Read the instructions if you are not sure available for download here http://ssdc.jackaments.com/download.shtml
Connecting and recognizing the APB (C7042) was also fine. Just remember the start sequence is important. eg. make sure the USB cable connecting the APB to the laptop is secure & nothing is turned on.

* Never connect the cable to the APB while the APB is on.. NEVER !

After starting the APB you should see a steady green light on both the APB & the lower right corner of the SSDC software being displayed on your laptop. If you see both a red&green light it means there is no communication or some other issue. Often you get a red&green light when you are in practice mode. I found that simply changing to race mode ie. click the practice button which prepares you for a race removes the red&green lights on both the console & in SSDC.

PACE CARS
I had a few issues trying to get a pace car running so here's a few settings I`ve tried that seems to be getting some positive results

* note: Fuel is not used in Pace Cars
Track Call = OFF. (until you get things smoothed out )
Throttle should = Linear
Driver Start Speed = approx. 30. this will stop a pace car suddenly taking off and smashing. If you car is not moving at all you might have set the driver start speed to low.

Start Speed needs to be adjusted or a car will simply de-slot on the first corner after the start. I also notice that you will need to find a happy balance where the car travels around the track at a comfortable pace without de-slotting.

2 PACE CARS.. wow now we're talkn !!!
I am now trying to get 2 pace cars running together on the track. One car is functioning well but the 2nd car at the start is powering off and de-slotting even when I set the start speed to less than 20. OK I believe may have fixed the problem. I am not sure if this was the culprit, but it works for me .... I physically I.D each car using the Power Base eg. press and hold enter button for 2 sec. & when the green light blinks let go the enter button & place a car on the track. Now you need to push the brake button on one controller. Repeat these steps with each car & a different controller.

Today I will try running 2 pace cars & one human driver (me) I'll update my progress shortly.

Ok.. I`ve just tried running two pace cars and one human. I believe this is not possible at the moment as I believe I need extra hand controllers for each car on the track.
I only have two.

I`ll pick up a few more on Monday...

ENJOY