Interesting . . . I went to various boards and placed NKOK in search and found this one. I went out and bought a load this little cars, 3-packages of 2-car sets for $11.98 US, that's 6-cars for 12 bucks.
I ended up buying 18 [actually 20, I spent $5.98 for 2-car set, because I wanted an extra set of Mustang/Camaro, but no more trucks] of the things ... less than 2-bucks each. Thought … why not? The Viper and C-5 are not bad little bodies, the Mustang is very nice, the Camaro, well the vinyl roof look was a mistake. The trucks are less than 1/32 scale. One of the sets included a Viper convertible, very decent details. As one poster mentioned the decals are not great, but still not all that bad either, I've seen worse for more money.
I ended up taking the motor and modding the endball to accept brushes and springs. Helps HUGELY on the performance. Since the original brushes are just spring copper wire.
I then took the can and ventilated it thoroughly by removing lots of metal. Now when running them at 14 to 18 volts they get warm … but not hot. Granted we don't run them for extreme lengths of time, but still, I was pleasantly surprised. Got lucky on a couple of them and the [I assume] Chinese made arms are quite good.
Meaning, when running against off the shelf Carrera cars, both only using front magnets, these little modded NKOK's will outrun them … I'm serious. And when taking the magnets out of the back of the Carreras, and both only using front magnets, the modded NKOK's are much easier to handle and so forth. Granted, I did take old metal wheels, responge them and replaced the plastic wheels and lesser tires, but still. Yeah, I had to slip tube brass over the 3/32nd axles to make 1/8th inch axle, then super glued the brass to the original axle, so far so good and the wheels run true.
I probably have 5-6 bucks in them, since my wheels were spares and sponges for responging go for $3.50 set of 2, enough to do four wheels. Okay, need to add a little more money for springs and brushes.
I too adapted the original chassis and found that when running on my Carrera high-bank track, using Trak Mate trans, I had to add one more mod, the one mentioned above, magnet.
I took two-sided tape and placed a magnet just behind the front wheels and flag to help maintain guide flag to rails. They are light and when either accelerating or up to higher speed, the front end tends to lift. My next alternative is placing weight in lieu of the magnet. Since I'm - normally - adverse to magnets.
How long will they last? Time will tell, but so far, actually having a lot of fun with them. Really "bent "one of my buds when I whipped him and his off the shelf Scaly car. Of course, I did make him remove the back magnet, to make things a little more equal. That was a grin maker. After that he put the back magnet back in his Scaly and he then whipped me, but I made it close until I spun . . . so much for magnets … I guess.
I believe the majors use magnets to make up for sloppy engineering of their products, Scaly, Carrera, Ninco, et cetera.
I was going to post in other forums, such OWH … but I feel the more "high brow" types might look down on such modded little cars, such what I did with the NKOK's. I frankly enjoy taking a cheap little car and modding it to run well. What surprised me is how well they run against my Carrera, Scaly, and other cars which retail for 30 bucks and can actually beat them. No, I don't believe they'll measure up against the $50 cars. But still … great fun.
Cheers
I ended up buying 18 [actually 20, I spent $5.98 for 2-car set, because I wanted an extra set of Mustang/Camaro, but no more trucks] of the things ... less than 2-bucks each. Thought … why not? The Viper and C-5 are not bad little bodies, the Mustang is very nice, the Camaro, well the vinyl roof look was a mistake. The trucks are less than 1/32 scale. One of the sets included a Viper convertible, very decent details. As one poster mentioned the decals are not great, but still not all that bad either, I've seen worse for more money.
I ended up taking the motor and modding the endball to accept brushes and springs. Helps HUGELY on the performance. Since the original brushes are just spring copper wire.
I then took the can and ventilated it thoroughly by removing lots of metal. Now when running them at 14 to 18 volts they get warm … but not hot. Granted we don't run them for extreme lengths of time, but still, I was pleasantly surprised. Got lucky on a couple of them and the [I assume] Chinese made arms are quite good.
Meaning, when running against off the shelf Carrera cars, both only using front magnets, these little modded NKOK's will outrun them … I'm serious. And when taking the magnets out of the back of the Carreras, and both only using front magnets, the modded NKOK's are much easier to handle and so forth. Granted, I did take old metal wheels, responge them and replaced the plastic wheels and lesser tires, but still. Yeah, I had to slip tube brass over the 3/32nd axles to make 1/8th inch axle, then super glued the brass to the original axle, so far so good and the wheels run true.
I probably have 5-6 bucks in them, since my wheels were spares and sponges for responging go for $3.50 set of 2, enough to do four wheels. Okay, need to add a little more money for springs and brushes.
I too adapted the original chassis and found that when running on my Carrera high-bank track, using Trak Mate trans, I had to add one more mod, the one mentioned above, magnet.
I took two-sided tape and placed a magnet just behind the front wheels and flag to help maintain guide flag to rails. They are light and when either accelerating or up to higher speed, the front end tends to lift. My next alternative is placing weight in lieu of the magnet. Since I'm - normally - adverse to magnets.
How long will they last? Time will tell, but so far, actually having a lot of fun with them. Really "bent "one of my buds when I whipped him and his off the shelf Scaly car. Of course, I did make him remove the back magnet, to make things a little more equal. That was a grin maker. After that he put the back magnet back in his Scaly and he then whipped me, but I made it close until I spun . . . so much for magnets … I guess.
I believe the majors use magnets to make up for sloppy engineering of their products, Scaly, Carrera, Ninco, et cetera.
I was going to post in other forums, such OWH … but I feel the more "high brow" types might look down on such modded little cars, such what I did with the NKOK's. I frankly enjoy taking a cheap little car and modding it to run well. What surprised me is how well they run against my Carrera, Scaly, and other cars which retail for 30 bucks and can actually beat them. No, I don't believe they'll measure up against the $50 cars. But still … great fun.
Cheers
