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Well there are more photos of the pretty parts of these two cars posted about, so I thought I'd take a look at them from a slightly different perspective, that of what's 'under the hood' of each of these cars.
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The chassis on the left is from a Slot.It Lola B09/60 and the one on the right is from the Sideways Capri. While both are similar, there are some very large differences between them.
Overall length on both chassis is very close. However the wheelbase and distance from the rear axle centerline to the guide post center is about .500 longer on the Lola. From what I have learned from many years of designing and building chassis is that a longer distance from the rear axle to the guide post center makes a car a bit easier to drive. When the distance is shorter, the cars is typically quicker in the turns, especially if they are tight turns.
Now I have set up the Lola and done a whole lot of testing with it. At present it holds the lap time record on our club track at a 4.17 second lap. We do run magnets and the Lola has a set of 1408 SuperTires on the rear wheels. I had moved the magnet to the rear pocket on the Lola and I had to add a couple of grams of weight in the front of the car to keep it from trying to wheelstand coming out of corners. Without the weight, I guess you could say it 'pushed' when applying power out of the turns as it simply went straight and the nose hit the wall rather then the rear of the car.
With those few extra grams on the nose of the Lola, the tale of the scales shows the Lola to be a whole .1 grams heavier then the Capri. Of course I have not yet had the Capri on a track. It just came in the mail this morning as Bruce from CincySlots promised it would. I love a merchant that lives up to his word in this day and age. After calling several vendors and asking if it could be delivered and hearing some mumbled words, when I asked Bruce the same question, it was, "It will be there on Monday, I promise." A man of his word and that is important to me.
Okay, now back to the cars. The Lola weighs 80.1 grams and the Capri 80.0 grams. We see the wheelbase is longer on the Lola and the width the same on both cars. Appearance wise, I'm not giving either of them an advantage. That would be like picking a winner at a beauty contest were all the contestants are rated at an 11 on a 1 to 10 scale!
After taking a look at the drive on both cars, I see a lot of similarity and also a lot of differences - subtle, yet they are there. The Sideways Capri comes with 0.0 mm offset, but includes both a .5 mm and a 1.0 offset rear axle mount. On the Sideways car the magnet is held in place with a cover rather then just 'snapping it' in place. I do not know if there have been any changes in the mounting of the motor, but from what I saw, the motor is securely fastened in place. There is a small piece of plastic that slides over the brush end that has a protrusion on the bottom that slides into a slot in the chassis. Once you slide this in place, then settle the motor into the holder and attach the screw on clamp on the other end, there is no movement of the motor. Very nice engineering job!
One thing I did notice was the gear mesh was not what I like. My gauge for setting gear mesh on an anglewinder setup is to use a piece of cigarette paper. If the paper will stay in the mesh, yet roll out when the rear wheel is turned, the mesh is just right. You can still buy cigarette paper at the local convenience store without having to fill out any paperwork for any government agency.
To get the gear mesh correct, I had to put 3 pieces of 3/32 .010 spacers between the gear and the bushing. Once I did this, there was literally no gear noise whatsoever. Here is where I installed those spacers.
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I also removed the motor so I could use a gear puller to bring the pinion gear out from the motor so there was full engagment of the spur gear to the pinion gear. I want all of the surface of the plastic spur gear to be used rather then less then 100% of the surface to be used.
After I did the 'cigaretter paper' check of the gear mesh, I put some power to it. As I expected, nice and quiet. I had to do this on my Lola as well and it made a huge difference in the running quality of the car. When I went to full power on my power supply of 13.8 volts, I saw something and I wanted to share it with you.
Please do not get dizzy when looking at this photo:
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This next photo will show you why I spun the rear tires so fast.
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If you look at the upper right of the above photo, you will see that the tire actually moved on the rim at the high speeds it was turning. If you have a car that runs really strong and sometimes it just goes away, this might be one of the reasons. On cars capable of this type of performance, you really need to think about gluing then truing the rear tires. Just my opinion of course.
So the hot question at this time is, "How does that Capri compare to the Lola on the track?" I can't answer that right now. However tomorrow is our club meet and I'll get there a bit early so I can find out for you.
Check back for some comparison times between the Lola and the Capri.
Later y'all.
The chassis on the left is from a Slot.It Lola B09/60 and the one on the right is from the Sideways Capri. While both are similar, there are some very large differences between them.
Overall length on both chassis is very close. However the wheelbase and distance from the rear axle centerline to the guide post center is about .500 longer on the Lola. From what I have learned from many years of designing and building chassis is that a longer distance from the rear axle to the guide post center makes a car a bit easier to drive. When the distance is shorter, the cars is typically quicker in the turns, especially if they are tight turns.
Now I have set up the Lola and done a whole lot of testing with it. At present it holds the lap time record on our club track at a 4.17 second lap. We do run magnets and the Lola has a set of 1408 SuperTires on the rear wheels. I had moved the magnet to the rear pocket on the Lola and I had to add a couple of grams of weight in the front of the car to keep it from trying to wheelstand coming out of corners. Without the weight, I guess you could say it 'pushed' when applying power out of the turns as it simply went straight and the nose hit the wall rather then the rear of the car.
With those few extra grams on the nose of the Lola, the tale of the scales shows the Lola to be a whole .1 grams heavier then the Capri. Of course I have not yet had the Capri on a track. It just came in the mail this morning as Bruce from CincySlots promised it would. I love a merchant that lives up to his word in this day and age. After calling several vendors and asking if it could be delivered and hearing some mumbled words, when I asked Bruce the same question, it was, "It will be there on Monday, I promise." A man of his word and that is important to me.
Okay, now back to the cars. The Lola weighs 80.1 grams and the Capri 80.0 grams. We see the wheelbase is longer on the Lola and the width the same on both cars. Appearance wise, I'm not giving either of them an advantage. That would be like picking a winner at a beauty contest were all the contestants are rated at an 11 on a 1 to 10 scale!
After taking a look at the drive on both cars, I see a lot of similarity and also a lot of differences - subtle, yet they are there. The Sideways Capri comes with 0.0 mm offset, but includes both a .5 mm and a 1.0 offset rear axle mount. On the Sideways car the magnet is held in place with a cover rather then just 'snapping it' in place. I do not know if there have been any changes in the mounting of the motor, but from what I saw, the motor is securely fastened in place. There is a small piece of plastic that slides over the brush end that has a protrusion on the bottom that slides into a slot in the chassis. Once you slide this in place, then settle the motor into the holder and attach the screw on clamp on the other end, there is no movement of the motor. Very nice engineering job!
One thing I did notice was the gear mesh was not what I like. My gauge for setting gear mesh on an anglewinder setup is to use a piece of cigarette paper. If the paper will stay in the mesh, yet roll out when the rear wheel is turned, the mesh is just right. You can still buy cigarette paper at the local convenience store without having to fill out any paperwork for any government agency.
To get the gear mesh correct, I had to put 3 pieces of 3/32 .010 spacers between the gear and the bushing. Once I did this, there was literally no gear noise whatsoever. Here is where I installed those spacers.
I also removed the motor so I could use a gear puller to bring the pinion gear out from the motor so there was full engagment of the spur gear to the pinion gear. I want all of the surface of the plastic spur gear to be used rather then less then 100% of the surface to be used.
After I did the 'cigaretter paper' check of the gear mesh, I put some power to it. As I expected, nice and quiet. I had to do this on my Lola as well and it made a huge difference in the running quality of the car. When I went to full power on my power supply of 13.8 volts, I saw something and I wanted to share it with you.
Please do not get dizzy when looking at this photo:
This next photo will show you why I spun the rear tires so fast.
If you look at the upper right of the above photo, you will see that the tire actually moved on the rim at the high speeds it was turning. If you have a car that runs really strong and sometimes it just goes away, this might be one of the reasons. On cars capable of this type of performance, you really need to think about gluing then truing the rear tires. Just my opinion of course.
So the hot question at this time is, "How does that Capri compare to the Lola on the track?" I can't answer that right now. However tomorrow is our club meet and I'll get there a bit early so I can find out for you.
Check back for some comparison times between the Lola and the Capri.
Later y'all.
