THUNDER SLOT DISCUSSION

Clarification to 12298, previously I was regularly getting 3.8s that eventually creeped up to 3.9s (but the handling was superb) as the tires wore down. With the fine-tuned front-end setup the 3.8s were significantly more frequent (with reliable handling) on a range of worn rear tire sizes.

Thanks Shawn! I followed the tuning advice you gave to John last Sat about keeping the front tires close to the track and hence keeping the CG of the rear relatively 'down' to prevent rolls & fishtails. By tuning my guide height and "flying" height I got back more consistent 3.8s that seemed to grow to 3.9s as rear tire wear increased - and yet I am still Not porpoising out in the green hairpin.
Again - Thanks!

ANOTHER 'TIRE' SERIES
The T/S stock tires wear quickly. I am on my 3rd set. When new and minimally trued (some tread barely visible) the larger diameter resulted in a "taller" (aka. higher) gear ratio and hence faster times (3.8 regular, occasional 3.7s) from the longer roll-out.

Now, my chassis is hugging the track, obvious by the scruff marks on the motor-can. Handling is great b/c of the higher magnetic-downforce (and lower CG), but I can barely creep into the upper 3.8s :(
Looks like for this weekend I need to true up some new shoes!

Eddie-you may want someone to walk through each aspect of your car to determine where the 'drag' was that was slowing you down. With minimal tuning your car should be turning 4.1-3.9s easy.
Slot.It tires are Non-Spec - I have some ThunderSlots if you need a pair.
You cannot change the guide, but about 3gm of weight and a 1mm spacer may help prevent the flips and rolls in the tight corners. You may need spacers on the front posts - see previous posts about flexing the front axle carriers when they press against the body.
Other flips and rolls are just you getting use to the braking spots in the corners.

I had a great time doing my first race today, even with a wonky car. Tight body screws, tyres need a little more truing. All thd club members are great, welcoming and very very helpful. Its a learning experience and I am looking forward to the next race and growing.
I appreciate it very much!
Thank you y'all

She's stock plus lead weight up front behind the guide.
She tends to flip or fly off.
I have a stock guide and I do have a famous slot spacer that can fit the post of the guide. I'm not gonna install it.
Tried to fit slot rear tires off the slot it matra, fit well will bring it just case.
Can race the first half tomorrow

I have only 2 feet of that one Russ

I bought it at the slot car department of my HEB

Always fresh

Motor wires can be replaced with any wire; it does not have to be Thunderslot.

(I recommend the new graphene NanoWire from Beaugus Slots)

Just as a provision I bough 1 mm diam Thunderslot wire and I was planning to change the original.

I was waiting to ask Russ if I can do that once I show him the wire

I have 1 meter of that thing, if somebody needs and is approved by the race manager  please let me know

Please Russel let me know where  and when can I show you this wire

And Thanks

PD. TO Russel did you check the clear paint yet???

Regards

MOTOR/GUIDE WIRE PROBLEMS
Heads-up, the motor wires are susceptible to breaking at the eyelet/ferrel. Thunderslot flattens normal size ferrels, then secures them against the pickup-braid with fat grub screws (2.5mm, 3mm?) much like BRM guides. **The flattening creates a sharp edge that cuts the sparse strands in the thin (1mm?) stock wire. Similar to a solder-break or lose eyelet the only symptoms are periodic power loss followed soon by complete lack of response to the controller.

SOLUTION-You must replace the wire (since they leave very little slack in the stock wires).
Using a large size ferrel (2 to 2.5mm) will work; and if used the grub screws are not needed and in fact cannot screw in deep enough to stay in the guide.
But if you again use normal/small ferrels, they require flattening so that the grubs can grab enough 'meat' in the threads to hold the braid and ferrel in the guide. Obviously this continues the risk of the wires being cut by the ferrel.

Very cool, thank you so much. I plan on coming, Thursday late afternoon. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone hopefully

Hello everyone
Eddie here, my thunderslot white kit just arrived with missing body mount screws. I need a resource on where to find the right body screws. Can I used fly body screws because I have extras on those. I have not test fit those body screws. I'm debating on the livery on my Lola coupe. I'm leaning towards this from 1968 sebring race.
I'm going to keep my tires stock and trued. I'll be testing it this Thursday evening then will make necessary rules compliance adjustments. Looking forward to racing

I am using the correct wheel - the smaller 14.5mm wheel wont hold the SlotIt Nogrip tires tight. I typed the wrong size.

Marty, sorry about the issue with the motor pod.  I have a spare motor pod if you need it.

As far as the clearance issues, I am fine with racers putting whatever spacers they want on the front body posts, but, as I said it is unnecessary if you use the front outboard grub screws on the chassis.  Screwing these inward raises the front of the body above the chassis by 2mm or more and you can adjust it as needed without having to fiddle with spacers.

And Mark, I am not sure what front wheels you are using, but the ones we spec'd were the 15 X 8 (Part #1508215A) wheels.  I measure 13.6 mm at the wheel lip and 15.93 mm over the rib.

In putting my spyder back together tonight I realized another reason why Thunderslot may have been talking about putting a 1.5mm spacer under the front body posts.

As you can see from the pictures below the front axle mounts come in contact with the body before the chassis makes contact with the front body posts.  I'm guessing but I would say that the space is about 1.5mm.  The chassis is flexible enough that it will easily bend to mount flush to the body posts but the chassis is then pressing hard against the front axle posts which cancels out the body float.  I believe we should allow the 1.5mm spacers under the front body posts to allow the chassis more float.  Thoughts?

SPYDER FRONT CLEARANCES
-- On my Spyder, the spoiler hits the track in two spots- the climb out of the esses (mild power loss is noticeable) and in the Green hairpin/button where it will porpoise out. I added 1.5mm nylon spacers under the body posts, 1.5g over the guide, and slightly sanded the spoiler. Braking spot also has an effect in the Green hairpin, a very late brake spot (last section of the fence) results in power-up at the actual turn-which pops the guide out. A slightly earlier brake spot (end of tree) results in earlier power up and less chance of porpoise.
-- Front wheels/tires - a Slot.It 14.5x8 alloy hub with Slot.It NoGrips works better than the stock wheels/tires.
TYRES
Replacement slick rear tires-these seem to be softer than Shore-30, maybe 25-7? Like the soft NSR tires they crack easy with ever-so-slightly 'too much' tire glue (even with rubberized slow drying glue ...) Honestly I prefer the OEM treaded 30s with the tread trued off.
FLOAT
Fairly tight body float, with most of the float in the pod seems to work; prevents tire rub.
WEIGHT
In addition to the guide weight, my car handles better with 2 tungsten slugs mid-pod.
PERFORMANCE
I have not hit the 3.7s that a few people have hit, but yesterday had many 3.8s and 3.9s were the norm during about 250+ practice laps. !These are my first 3.8s in any car - thanks Russell for sponsoring this series!

BUSHING MOUNTS:
Looks like a molding issue or heat somewhere in the storage/shipping process before assembly. As you were remarking yesterday the QA/testing certainly sucked and the car should have never been packaged!
p.s. the bushings appear to have sleeve pressed into the Oilite main bushing- a pseudo ball bearing effect. They also need to be firmly held in the Pod, with the spacers and spur - does not appear to be enough room for a spacer - except maybe inside on the right/non-drive side.

I was working on a new Thunderslot spyder car last night and noticed an issue with the motor pod.  I reached out to the good folks at Slot Car Corner about it and they told me they have seen a couple of issues like this.  You may want to check your car and make sure the motor pod is correct.  The issue is with the moulding of the bushing holders.  The one on the left side of the car was angled out and not in alignment with the other side.  This caused a lot of friction and the rear wheels would not turn freely.  See the images.  Something worth checking out on your cars.

Yes Russel thanks a lot for all your effort in creating this series as pure stock as possible

Please don't hesitate to ask us all anything that we can do to make it  better

With your passion on the liveries and on the car performance  you really create a high standard in our club

Thanks

Russell,

Thank you so very much for this great write up on the differences between the coupe and spyder body performance.  I can't wait to run these cars.

I did some testing today with three Thunderslot chassis in both the spyder and coupe bodies.  All three chassis had trued original front tires on stock plastic wheels.  One chassis had trued original treaded rears, the other two had trued Thunderslot slicks.  One of the latter chassis had a small weight in the nose, the other two had no weight added.  I made two runs of 10-15 laps with each chassis in the spyder, the coupe, and the coupe with the rear track widened about 2mm to fit the wider coupe body.  I recorded fastest lap and median lap in each run.

The first chassis with the trued, treaded rear tires was not optimized and there was some tire chatter.  This was the slowest chassis with the least amount of track time.  The median times and best times between the spyder and the coupe were virtually identical.  After widening the rear track, both the median and fastest time improved about .1 sec.

In chassis number two, the times were just about the same in all runs and variations.  There were slight time variations between runs with the same setup, but all the differences were so small as to be considered testing error.  There was little difference if the rear track was widened.

In the fastest chassis, with the nose weight and the most practice laps, the spyder's fast lap and median lap were both about .1 sec. faster than the coupe.  After widening the rear track, the coupe narrowed the times to about .05 sec. behind the spyder.

These tests were done by just swapping the chassis, setting the mounting screws to about the same amount of body float.  No tweaking was tried to optimize setup.

My conclusion from this is that the cars are close enough as is, especially if the coupe runs with wider rear track, so I stand by the rules as written.  When new cars come out, they will need to be checked against existing cars.

Russell,

I did some digging last night and discovered that the reason for the 1.5mm spacers under the front body posts was due to how close to the track the small front spoiler is.  This is not an issue with our track but apparently is an issue with plastic tracks where the track can come in contact with the spoiler.  We should not have any issues at all with the spoilers and should not have to install any spacers under the front body posts.

Marty

I have not noticed an issue with tire rub with the original wheels and tires.  It could be possible that the Slot.it tires and wheels are wider and might rub.  The chassis to body spacing can be adjusted with the outer front grub screws, pushing the body upward from the chassis.  I would like to check further to investigate this, but my initial feeling is that spacers would be allowed, but unnecessary, on the front posts.

The coupe track can be widened 2mm from the spyder track.  As the coupe is ever so slightly slower than the spyder, this could be an equalizer.  If it gains too much advantage, the maximum track width could be specified but my initial inclination is not to spec it.  I will test this also.

The best of  last Randy's post is where you can read that somebody's sister is making 65 bucks an hour working on her computer

THAT'S AMAZING

AND ALSO THE LIVERIES !!!!!!!!

For those of you selecting a custom livery for your Lola:

Russell,

in light of the rear being slightly wider on the rear of the spyder will those cars have to run a narrower track that matches that of the coupe?

Russell,

I noticed on Thunderslot's home page that they are running a spec series with rules very similar to ours.  The one thing of note was the following:

8) is allowed the shimming of the front columns of the coach of the Lola T 70 CAN AM (Spyder) with spacers / shims up to a maximum of 1.5 mm.

Has anyone noticed anything about the spyder where it needs a 1.5mm shim under the front body mounts?

RULES CHANGE:  THE THUNDERSLOT SERIES WILL BE RUN AT 12 VOLTS

After the RevoSlot race today we tested the Thunderslot cars with multiple drivers at both 11 volts and 12 volts.  The cars were stable and driveable at 12 volts and the decision was made to run the series at 12 volts.

I was able to run a lap of 3.740 seconds at twelve volts in my #21 spyder.  I took the chassis out of that car and put it in my coupe body and ran a lap of 3.744 seconds.  It was slightly more difficult to run regular laps as fast in the coupe.  Regular laps were 2 to 4 hundredths slower in the coupe.  Try to measure .04 seconds with a stopwatch!  David ran a lap of 3.798 seconds but had not yet added weight to the front.

My chassis has the original, treaded front tires which had been trued on the original plastic wheels, with tread still visible.  The optional, slick rear tires had been trued on the original rear wheels.  I adjusted the front axle height, installed grub screws on the edges of the chassis to adjust chassis to body clearance, and added a small weight between the front axle and the guide post.  With the testing, it appears the spyder and coupe were very close in time.  A little tweaking of the chassis to the coupe body may have helped.  The coupe body is slightly wider at the rear, which would allow a rear track 1 or 2 mm wider.  Driver skill should make more of a difference than choosing between the coupe and spyder.  Speeds on the various cars running were close.

Expectations are that this will be a fun series to run.  If you have not purchased your car yet, there is still time!

Detailing the interior of the Thunderslot Lola T70

I detailed the interior of the Thunderslot Lola T70 Spyder white kit.  The back panel of the interior should be body color, so I masked the interior and painted it with the same DupliColor paint as the body.  Then I painted the rest of the interior with Model Master Non-buffing Aluminum Metalizer.  The restored Gurney car was dual black seat inserts but most of the cars in period only had a driver's seat and the other side was left bare aluminum.  I painted the driver's side flat black.  The filler covers on the top of the side fuel tanks are just blobs on the vacuum interior, so I cut some .002" Stainless sheet to the oval shape, dimpling around the edges to simulate the bolts, and using a hole punch in the middle where the filler cap is.  The stainless was a little too shiny so I brushed a coat of flat clear on top and then glued the covers in place.  The "dash" cross member is painted in some of the Lolas; in others it is left in aluminum, so I painted it with the metalizer.  I painted the instrument panel flat black, then used a #11 blade to scrape the paint off of the instrument bezels and the numeral bumps inside.  I topped it off with some red detail paint and a drop of canopy glue for the dial lenses.  After painting the driver figure, I decided to make some seat belts.  I put a length of blue masking tape on a piece of glass, cut it into narrow strips, and blackened it with a Sharpie.  I cut small pieces of the stainless sheet and bent it around the tape, and putting a drop of black in the middle with a Sharpie.  The strips are glued to the back side of the bottom of the driver's torso, run up over the chest, and into holes in the back panel of the interior.  None of the roll bars in the kit were correct for the #21 car, so I used a bent paper clip.  Finally, I added some wiring to the front of the instrument panel, using some wire from an old wired "mouse".

What times are everyone running?  Are the spyders running any faster than the coupes?

Marty