[slotmadmac]

I posted this on another forum a while back - and thought I would share here.

I always thought the old Scalextric C134 Renaults had potential.

They are low, with a flat chassis and wide wheelbase. With a few minor mods I now have these running as fast - or in some cases much faster - than my Group C Slot Its.

The chassis / guide mount comes like this

but needs to be trimmed and the extra plastic that sits proud of the chassis removed.

A standard Slot It guide will fit perfectly now. Next glue in the motor - then more dremel work to get the body to float. The channels that hold the front axle also have to be widened to fit an axle tube. The stock front tyres are trued and the front axle is put in 1/8" tubing that has been reamed a bit and oiled to make sure the axle spins freely. The solid front end is essential for good handling.

Rear tyres are NSR 20 x 13 Formula 1 Ultragrips that are glued and trued on the stock Scalextric axle and wheels. The rear bushings are then superglued to the chassis. Setting up the front end is easy - just put the guide in a set up block, and the glue the tubed axle in place, ensuring it's square. This technique ensures maximum guide depth.

The chassis now has some float. I like to drill out the chassis screw holes a bit and then use Scalex Sport screws for extra body rock.

And that's it. The car now sits a lot lower than the original.

This job took me less than a hour to do.

On the track this set up is a joy to drive - incredibly stable with very fast cornering ability. With a new standard Scalextric motor (GBP 2 on Ebay) this set up will do 6.8 secs on my 95' gloss wood track. (Very few cars break 7 secs - I only have one Slot It Group C that does.)

Using this set up, SlotJockey (our New Zealand National 1/32 champ) pulled a 6.6sec with the Brabham Parmalat below on my track. (My outright track record is 6.35s.)

We are all amazed that this essentially stock Scalextric set up with some NSRs on the back can be so fast. All the cars pictured below are now set up this way.

They are as cheap as chips to buy. I got the Renault in this post for GBP$2 The NSRs are about GBP$5. The guide and others bits were from the parts bin but let's say GBP$3. Not bad for a ten quid build considering the performance.

At our club nights these have been a resounding success with guaranteed close, fast racing.

Here is some video:

Mac

 

[DJ]

Great work, a bargain bucket rocket, not as pretty as a Slot It though.

Love the track on the video, nice fast flowing layout, love to have space for something like that.

 

[thestig514]

Love it!

Cheers,
Chris

 

[Julian_Boolean]

I've got one of those with a Revell 25K motor araldited in, it's very good and the only parts I actually paid for where the rear wheels, tyres and axle, the rest was all bits I had laying around in the parts bin.

 

[Phil Kalbfell]

QUOTE have these running as fast - or in some cases much faster - than my Group C Slot Its.

IMO there must be some thing wrong with your Slot Its!

 

[AAWSCC]

Have you thought about running them as standard? We did a while back and they are a hoot like that too. Great little cars.

 

[honestjudge]

An F1 car versus a group C car........don't seem right to me

 

[Guest]

and there was i thinking of racing one on the 20th

 

[Mr Modifier]

Is somebody a little peeved that a scrapyard special is better than their fifty quid Slot.It ?!?

I think these little retro F1's are GREAT. Blinking well done that man!!!

 

[slotmadmac]

QUOTE (Phil Kalbfell @ 30 Oct 2011, 01:35) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>IMO there must be some thing wrong with your Slot Its!
Don't knock it till you try it. It's the cornering speed that makes the difference.

(The old Scalextric Parmalat Brabhams and the Saudia Williams F1s are the fastest.)

Mac

 

[Phil Kalbfell]

Not peeved, I have some of the old Scalex cars set up with modern running gear,good wheels,tyres gears and motors and the best is 6 tenths behind a Slot It around our track.
Just being realistic! That these cars are fun but are just not as fast as podded cars.

 

[slotmadmac]

QUOTE (AAWSCC @ 30 Oct 2011, 03:30) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Have you thought about running them as standard? We did a while back and they are a hoot like that too. Great little cars.
I set up some as standard - but got frustrated. Unless you can get the front down so the guide is in deep and stablise the front axles they deslot too easily.

Mac

 

[slotmadmac]

QUOTE (Phil Kalbfell @ 30 Oct 2011, 07:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Not peeved, I have some of the old Scalex cars set up with modern running gear,good wheels,tyres gears and motors and the best is 6 tenths behind a Slot It around our track.
Just being realistic! That these cars are fun but are just not as fast as podded cars.
Interesting. I have one of the renualts in this thread set up with a Slot It orange bell, slot it gears and NSR Vanquish wheels on the back. It does 6.3s on my track. By way of comparison your Proxy Lola for the Auslot series with the NSR chassis did a 7.0s. Jazzbells Slot It Chappy in that series (that was fastest on my track) did a 6.6.

Maybe these cars just suit my gloss track.

Mac.

 

[Mr Modifier]

QUOTE (Phil Kalbfell @ 29 Oct 2011, 20:37) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Not peeved, I have some of the old Scalex cars set up with modern running gear,good wheels,tyres gears and motors and the best is 6 tenths behind a Slot It around our track.
Just being realistic! That these cars are fun but are just not as fast as podded cars.

Fair enough.

SlotMadMac seems to have created body float in his versions. I had a couple of these old cars and the chassis is so flat and small it's probably the same weight as a motor pod (certainly about the same as my MRSLOTCAR.CA motor pod and not much heavier than the Slot.It HRS motor pod. The old Ferrari I had was made from very rigid plastic - more rigid than modern plastic chassis - I expect the Renault is the same. It seems to me that SlotMadMac's approach has created what is effectively a motor pod with integral guide with a floating body on top. It's actually a chassis-less motor pod!

Perhaps you guys should have a race! (Or send your cars somewhere for a proxy face-off).

What a shame I put the back end of my Ferrari chassis under a transit - it would have been fun to pit Enzo against Ernie Mosetti

 

[slotcrazy]

There is a bit of work getting them to go as quick as that.
On some models you have to dremel a little into the front axle mounts to enable some reamed brass tube (as axle holder) to sit at the right height.

Front wheels glues and trued, the guide mount modified and a Slot,it CH10 fitted, and the guide sitting full depth, the front wheel touching but splitting the weight with the guide, and the body only 1mm ground clearance.

At the back, "collar" the slop in the scaley axle bush with super-glue in the time honoured way, ensure the wheels are sitting on the axle to make a outer track width of 66 - 67mm, the wheels need a buff to roughen the surface before gluing on NSR ultra-grips or Slot.it F22 "F1" tyres.

give the body a little float to compensate for not having a floating pod.

Everything needs to be put together nice and square and flat of course, and the motor glued in.

What you end up with is a car with good guide lead, light weight, looooooow COG and wide track - and grippy tyres.
Allt he manufacturer's vaguries have been removed, you have a tight little rocket.

The video was a demo, they are actually running that track much faster. 91? feet in under 7 seconds with a mabuchi motor.

it is just the physical dimensions combines with low COG and light weight that gives them such sticky cornering.

Phil, our tuning isn't too bad, we have places 2, 3 and 4 in the NZPR CanAm proxy series out of the same club, and these are only 0.3 slower a lap than the best proxy cars on the same track - and Jazzbell (Adelaide) is running a flat-6R in his chappy, I have a yellow-bell in mine in P2, and kennedy-rd and slotmadmac are about a sheet of tissue behind me with the Slot.it Alfa and that insane Spirit Ferrari that Mac built.

It gives us a fun, pretty indestrucible class, and it teaches the newcomers what tricks can be done to make any car fast - a good tutorial.
Mac and another guy have built about 20? of these plus and sold them at cost of parts to everyone, especially the newcomers to club who are faced with cost of many classes and learning to build to club standard, so it helps in many ways.

I have now built 4 more up, and they are simply fun to set up.

AAWSCC - running them stock would probably drive us a bit nuts. We run very smooth wood tracks throughout the club, and all our classes are tuned - even when no swap out parts are permitted such as Ninco pre '65 which only allows for a "control" tyre change. Anything which bobble aloing with unpredicitable deslots or very slow corner speed would probably drive us a touch nuts. I tried setting one up pretty stock, and it wasn't a lot of fun to drive in our environment.
We're not total speed nuts though, for some classes, and some tracks we knock back the volts to make for "civilised" driving. Eg Fly trucks at 9V on one track, on my track 10V for them, Slot.it group C, etc.

Variable voltage is no problem, all the controlers can handle down to 9. Slot.it, Carsteen, DiFalco, 3rd Eye, and Professor motor (we have a line in custom built PMs, which Andy Smith produces for our market with the V range officiallyset as 10 - 15 but actually working right anywhere from 8V upwards)

Mac - you should publish your safety pin trick here somewhere too.

 

[Guest]

QUOTE (Mr Modifier @ 29 Oct 2011, 19:49) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Is somebody a little peeved that a scrapyard special is better than their fifty quid Slot.It ?!?

I think these little retro F1's are GREAT. Blinking well done that man!!!

Well i am not "peeved" in the slightest. Perhaps somebody needs a sense of humour.

Interesting that these "scrapyard" specials are using Slot It parts though.

Full marks if you are getting such good results.

 

[Martyn_]

Great looking track and they really shift. as they leave the corner nearest the camera and go down the bridge, they look like they are in one of those heavily pixalated 8-bit console game!

Is your track called "Thunder Road" ? My cousin has a motorbike shop called that. I've got loads of old T-shirts with that on, even got one with Slighty's autograph on it, from the days when he was WSBing on an SP1. He even signed John's baldy.

 

[honestjudge]

We run these cars at our club, lowered, modified hornby F1, etc, the best lap times are around 6.3 secs. The open pan Brabham, ferrari 312t, are much better than the closed pan cars.

The slot.it sportscar class are doing around 5.6 secs.

Our G.T class can do 5.4secs.

These are facts, we been running these classes for about 3 years now.

 

[slotmadmac]

QUOTE (fw14b @ 30 Oct 2011, 08:36) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Interesting that these "scrapyard" specials are using Slot It parts though.

Full marks if you are getting such good results.
The cars at the start of the thread only use the original scalex parts - with just some NSR tyres and a piece of K&S tube. I used a Slot it guide in the how-to, but have had equally good results with the original scalex guide.

If you use the original guide, the plastic collar at the base of scalex guide shaft needs to be dremmeled off so it sits flat against the chassis (like a Slot It guide) and it needs a washer or collar at the top to remove vertical movement.

I can post a pic if that doesn't make sense.

Mac

 

[slotmadmac]

QUOTE (snurfen @ 30 Oct 2011, 09:46) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Is your track called "Thunder Road" ?
Yep. It's named after a favourite Springsteen song.

Mac