What to have as a second class

Hi Snurfen,

I can't see the point on agreeing a motor that is not in any of the main makes. The standard Scalextric Mabuchi is designed so the APB with twin transformers can easily cope with 6 cars. As Scalextric cars are an acceptable brand for the Muscle or RallyCross cars I suggest we settle on the standard Scalextric Mabuchi as an acceptable replacement for RX42/RX42B. I picked up 5 of these motors off the bay for £15 all in.

I am sure we will get some significant power variations across makes of cars which is why I am proposing profiling cars in SSDC. I may even sign the motors with a marker to stop motor substitution post-calibration if we get some sudden unexplained performance boosts during the season

Does anybody know if the Pioneer cars are significantly different to Scalextric cars in terms of motor performance?

QUOTE (snurfen @ 3 Aug 2012, 15:25) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Your missing my point Rich - I'm now a bit confused about your statement that RXs were dodgy - did you mean underpowered or unreliable? The scaleauto yellow short cans are a good little motor of similar performance to mabuchis - it's just that I always think of the mabuchi as a horrible little buzzer. The scaleautos are also closed can and can be sealed appropriately.

Six of the yellow shortcans would be easily handled by the APB. As for performance, there are several DIY tachos out there for toy car motors - may be an idea and a fun little project for someone who likes soldering and fiddling. Anyone around Ammanford way spring to mind?

I meant that one of them is documented on SlotForum as being a bit iffy with digital chips and both RX42s are a little short on power compared to Scalextric standard cars. I have found that to be the case with my SCX NASCAR but a sample of 1 is hardly conclusive.

If the Scaleauto motor is close to standard Scalextric then go for it.

I don't know if the tacho will work - it shows top RPM with no load - and a lighter car will go faster than a heavier car with an identical motor. That's why I mentioned a Stig - one driver driving all cars to get the best from them. And somebody else to try the Stig's own car to make sure he isn't holding back with it!!!

QUOTE (montoya1 @ 3 Aug 2012, 15:46) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I always like to look at any threads where 'new' classes are discussed, on the basis one can never tell when an idea might work in HO, but this interested me:

Surely if the list of allowed cars is done well, anything 'too fast' would be down to the skill of the driver, and his/her tuning skills and/or car selection? A tweak down would therefore be grossly unfair, and disincentivising.

There does seem to be a lot of thought given in our hobby along the lines of what to do about the ''problem'' of people being ''too fast''.

Whilst I agree to some extent with your sentiments I believe we have a different case at this club. Over half of the membership of this brand new club are novices that own a single car and don't even bring a toolkit with them to club nights. Allowing free range on tuning and tweaking would quickly discourage them. We will have open classses where anything goes - BUT the digital APB will NOT handle cars drawing more than 1.5 amps each and a current draw much above that fries the chips anyway so that is a limiting factor.

Do you race digital? If so you will know that racing digital with a sophisticated program like SSDC allows fuel simulation etc. and so strategy is more important than top speed. I often win races with fastest lap times 5% slower than the fastest BUT the speed demons haven't sussed the subtleties of pit strategies and the exponential rate of fuel burn between 3/4 and full throttle.

Our best racing comes with cars that lap within 0.3 seconds of each other on an 8 second lap over 30 laps and with fuel simulation (meaning 1 or 2 pit stops). If a car lapped 2 seconds quicker most of our members would not be able to tune their cars to suit and would probably get very demoralised. To compete would mean reaching for the credit card and giving it a bashing. I can guard against that by using SSDC's power increments to keep the top speeds as equal as possible.

The winners will then come from those who can get their cars to handle better and who are better drivers (as opposed to richer drivers).

Once the general mechanical ability of our members has risen to tuning and tweaking we will raise the bar by having a couple of open classes and using the Slot.It chips to up the power levels. But that will be when our members are ready to blow £100 on a car and bits rather than £35 on a standard chipped car.

So yes I agree with you BUT I think I need to wait until the bulk of our club members have well and truly caught the slot car bug

QUOTE (montoya1 @ 3 Aug 2012, 16:11) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I have a better idea of what you are aiming for now, thank you.

To some degree you can mitigate against wallet-racing through your rules, but if somebody wanted to do a bit of blueprinting and/or moving weight around and/or improving their driving & tactics it would be a shame to squash that.

Oh yes - I agree absolutely.

My thoughts were to take the cars as they arrive out of the box and calibrate the motors in software. If people want to loosen screws half a turn, trim the chassis, and upgrade the braids then great - this is a good way to learn about tuning a car without blowing £50 on motor and running gear upgrades.

Any performance gains they make can be measured against the calibrated lap time so they can work out what works and what doesn't. Could be very interesting.

Second class is now settled!

Due to a timely bargain offer from a dealer and some swift decisions from all racers we now have a class based on Ninco 1 American Muscle.

As the motors are slightly less powerful than the GTs we run - this class will run WITHOUT magnets.

As everybody will have the same spec cars this should make for some very close racing.

Fettling is to be encouraged so we can all learn how to make our cars handle better.

Can I suggest we all be honest and run the first race series completely unmodified (apart from magnets removed) so we can set benchmarks for our cars. This will allow us to fully appreciate the performance gains to be had from making adjustments.

I suggest we apply the following rules (AFTER THE FIRST SERIES OF RACES WHICH WILL BE RUN STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX but WITHOUT MAGNETS)

Allowed modifications:
• Light trimming of the chassis to allow free movement of the body should you wish to loosen screws. If you take too much off in an attempt to reduce weight - your car will be banned. You should not need to sand more than 1 or 2mm off the edges.
• Weight may be added inside the body only. No lead. You can use anything non poisonous and non-magnetic to add weight.
• Axle bearings may be changed.
• Any type of braid may be used.
• Rear tyres may be treated with mineral oil only (3-in-one or similar) but must be dry when placed on the track. Hallucinogenics and goop are banned you hippies!
• Front tyres may be treated to make them "zero grip" but they must not leave residue on the track.
• All tyres may be glued and trued.
• Wheels may be trued and flashing removed.
• Paint jobs and decorative personalisation are encouraged.
• Motors and axle bearings may be glued.
• Front axles may be adjusted for height BUT both front wheels MUST touch the track on straights.

Traction magnets MUST be removed.

Things that must not change:
• Guides must remain standard
• Pinions, gears, axles, wheels and tyres must remain standard.
• Motor must remain standard and must NOT be opened under any circumstances.

Tyres:
I am happy to take moulds and make tyres for these cars if we want to agree on this as a club standard. I can make some test tyres so you can see if you like them (who knows - the Ninco standard rubber may be better). It's your shout gents.

What I am hoping we can achieve with this is a shared understanding of what can be done to a car to make it competitive without having to bash our wallets. Running without magnets exposes the flaws in a car and as we all have basically the same car and a limited number of things we can do - it should be quite an interesting series.

Race format:
May I suggest we alternate between Grand Prix and Endurance formats? We can vary numbers of laps and duration.

If this works we may feel it worthwhile applying the same rules to our GTs but WITH magnets. Not yet though - let's see if it is worth it first.

Cars are arriving in time for our next club night on the 22nd August. I am planning to chip the cars for you "live" at club night so those of you who haven't chipped a car can see how straightforward it is.

So 22nd August is probably going to be a "get to know your new car" night - hopefully with some races at the end to set the benchmarks.

We have a mix of modern Mustangs and Camaros (and one rogue Corvette). As there are only 6 different cars and 8 of us there is some duplication but 3 of these are the white Camaro SSX - Rob, Ryan and me. Rob is intending to relivery and so am I so we should end up with 8 easily identifiable cars.

We have access to a few more of these (duplicates I'm afraid) in anticipation of more members. So I am running a thread on SlotForum asking for advice on tampo and paint removal on Nincos.

I'm looking forward to this series!

AMENDED RULES

OK - now we have got the cars, taken them out of the boxes and driven them - here are some slightly amended rules

RULES
>> Magnets must be removed
>> Light trimming of the chassis to allow free movement of the body should you wish to loosen screws. If you take too much off in an attempt to reduce weight - your car will be banned. You should not need to sand more than 1 or 2mm off the edges.
>> Weight may be added to the chassis and inside the body only. No lead. You can use anything non poisonous and non-magnetic to add weight. No external additions to the car. Replacement wings may be used as long as they fit in the standard mounting slots.
>> Axle bearings may be changed.
>> Any type of braid may be used.
>> Rear tyres may be treated with mineral oil only (3-in-one or similar) but must be dry when placed on the track. Hallucinogenics and goop are banned you hippies!
>> Rear tyres may be replaced with alternative rubber or urethane tyres of any make - please no silicones as these de-rubber the track
>> Front tyres may be treated to make them "zero grip" but they must not leave residue on the track.
>> All tyres may be glued and trued.
>> Wheels may be trued and flashing removed.
>> Paint jobs and decorative personalisation are encouraged.
>> Motors and axle bearings may be glued.
>> Front axles may be adjusted for height BUT both front wheels MUST touch the track on straights.
>> Guides must remain standard but may be filed on the leading edge if necessary (to avoid catching on lane changers).
>> Pinions and gears must remain standard.
>> Axles may be replaced.
>> Wheels may be replaced with other plastic wheels (no metal wheels). BUT no ridiculously small wheels please.
>> The track (overall width from tyre edge to tyre edge) must remain standard - no widening to improve handling.
>> Motor must remain standard and must NOT be opened under any circumstances. Motor foil must remain completely intact.
>> Rules may be changed with the agreement of at least 3/4 of current Ninco1 class drivers ("current" = has raced in the class in last 3 months)

I have been fettling my car but won't get a chance to test it until club night.

Just to give you guys some ideas what to do...

I have added weight in the form of blu tack holding a couple of brass rivets either side of the guide - noses were lifting and cars deslotting last Wednesday so weight in the nose is probably a good idea. The blu tack is temporary - once I am happy with the amount and position of weight I will hot glue it instead.

I have not added weight at the rear - let's see what traction is like on the track on Wednesday night.

The chip is now held in with a custom plasticard holder, screwed to the chassis using No.0x6.4mm screws.

The LED now sits in a plasticard spacer so the LED is flush with the chassis underside.

Cables are tied neatly to make things less cluttered.

Rear wheels have been trued.

Rear tyres have been trued and oiled.

The lugs on the chassis side and body side to aid body location have been removed to aid body float. The chassi edges and body contact points have been lightly sanded to remove flashing and make them smooth - no major trimming required on this car.

The screw holes have been modified to allow body float and a miniscule amount of sideways movement (I read up on the science of body float).

All within the rules (the original ones which as a subset of the amended ones).

I am now stripping the paint form the body because I wasn't happy with the finish of my first livery and will try to get a better version ready for Wednesday.

Busy busy busy!