I didn’t know that Ary had already replied to your questions. I have answered them as well in case you want to compare our notes. Anyone else can chime in as well.
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Mark, you ask a great many questions. I will try my best to answer them but would welcome feedback and input from anyone else.
The first thing I will say is the most important – there is usually more than one way to do something and the way that works best for you might not work well for someone else. Michael Schumacher was a brilliant driver but the Ferrari’s he drove were designed around his style and were difficult for anyone else to drive at even a similar pace. Its all about what you find that works best for you.
1. Driving Techniques – Holding the Controller
– Holding the controller (just like golf, tennis and women – what’s the best grip?)
– How much throttle/trigger, and when. e.g. do you punch it out of a turn or ease into the trigger?
– Braking; when; and full-off or coast or feather?
– Controller settings – how do we setup the Brake knob for various car characteristics – what behaviors do we look for, and then how do we adjust the brake control based on those behaviors? Throttle sensitivity – same question.
Answer
Yes, always make sure you hold the controller. There is no right or wrong way there is only the way that works best for you. I would suggest not holding on with a death grip as to fatigue your hand and don’t hold it so loose that it can fall out. In cycling they say you should hold the handlebars as if you are holding a dove. You don’t want it to get away but you don’t want to squish it either.
As far as settings go, its personal preference. The brake setting varies more depending on the car and the lane where the sensitivity is not moved that much once you find your comfort zone. The brakes need to be increased with a heavier car or in a lane (green) that has a very specific and tight bread zone.
2. Motor Types and Mounting options
– Advantages and challenges of boxers and other high-torque motors
– Anglewinders, besides allowing a boxer/fk130 to be used, and accomodating some body styles, what are the Pros/cons?
– Sidewinders; Pros/Cons compared to inlines and anglewinders.
– Inlines allow FK130s and other large motors, but also impart torque that can lift the left rear wheels. They also have more range in gearing options as compared to AWs and SWs. What are the other Pros/Cons?
– Other than increased wear, whats the risk of using a SW spur for an AW setup (assuming thats the only spur type I can get with the tooth-count and pitch, until my order comes in from a WWW vendor?)
Answer
High torque motors have not really been that effective on the ASCC track. The ones that have been effective have been run in the in-line configuration. In order to get a motor in some cars you have to run a boxer motor but they are very difficult to get to work properly.
Anglewinder set ups are the same as boxer motors as far as the ASCC track is concerned – very few people have ever got them to work properly.
In-line set up’s seem to be the best for our track followed by sidewinder, both with a s-can motor like a Slot It orange end bell. You can find a few high torque FK130’s but you don’t necessarily need that much torque with a normal car. If you are loading it up with lead you can use that torque or better yet, you will need that torque to get the car out of the turn quickly.
SW spur (crown) on an AW set up? I don’t think that’s even possible.
3. Guides, Braids, Wires
– Eyelets -vs- grub-screws
– How long and deep is your love? Other than using Slot.It wood guides, are there any other guidelines we can use?
– Is soldering the bare wire that goes into the guide (as an alternate to eyelets) a good idea or trouble?
– Using wires to make a natural “centering-spring”
Answer
Eyelets vs. grub screws – whatever works best for you. I still use eyelets and have had no issues with them and see no reason to change. One of the big issues with the grub screws is how they frey the ends of the guide wire making it almost unusable in the future.
Braid is simple, buy Slot It or NSR copper braid. Both of these brands have thin copper braid that is very supple and will be easy to work with and allow you to keep the guide as deep in the slot as possible. A thick braid will act like a spring and not allow the guide to ride as low as possible in the slot.
Guides are easy. The Slot It wood guide works great on our track. There is really no need to run anything different unless you are modifying a car that has specific guide requirements that cannot be met by the Slot It. You can also use the ScaleAuto universal guide as well. They produce it with two different shaft diameters depending on what car you are using it in. They work very well. Professor Motor also has their own guide that looks very similar to the ScaleAuto. Some club members have had issues with these guides so at this time I would not recommend them.
Wires are easy as well. The Slot It wires are good and transmit very well. NSR and Slot Car Corner also produce guide wires that are both very thin and very flexible. Both work well.
Don’t solder the end of the guide wire. The solder will break up and make the wire difficult to use after that.
All your cars should be set up so the guide moves free and can be auto-centered by the guide wires. You want to make sure the guide wires are long enough that they don’t bind as the car slides sideways. In chassis that don’t have a guide wire holder built in you can hot glue them down so they don’t more around or interfere with the front axle.
4. Optimum RPMs
– I hear some people suggest 7000rpm is the optimum rear wheel speed, but in some races I can swear that the leaders are not limiting their cars to 7k ….. whats the real sweet-spot …by car style, torque, motor-type, tires, weight, etc. Why does my car thats tuned to 7500rpm get left in the dust by others who (in theory) are also tuning to 7-8k?
Answer
Somewhere between 7K and 8K but no more. This off course depends on how stable your car is to start with. Have a car that bucks like a bronco and you will find that even 7K will case you some control problems. The key here is to focus on building/setting up a stable car and then work on getting the wheel RPM up.
There is more to having a fast car than just a 7K wheel RPM number. Your competition could be leaving you behind on the straights for many other reasons than the wheel RPM. Your front axle could be too tight due to the motor wires rubbing on it or the front wheels binding on the chassis. Your rear axle could be binding due to the motor moving in the holder, the bushings moving in their holders, the axle being bent or the bushings not being well lubricated. The gear mesh could
5. The Pods are coming
– What’s the deal with off-set motor pods? I know they are necessary with certain spur/pinion combinations, but what are the guidelines? The vendors dont seem to offer any clear docs on what to use when….
– Inline mounts – why do they need an offset mount (to accommodate shallower motor bodies on some of the boxer motors?)
– End-bell drive vs bushing drive. What are the Pos/Cons?
– On a sidewinder, why are some cars driven on the drivers side and others on the right side? Doesn’t left side drive force the tire downward and counteract the natural tendency for right fishtails …isn’t this beneficial and therefore what Pros are there for right side SW configurations?
– Motor screws, tape, glue, straps? what’s the best per chassis type, motor type etc.
Answer
Off-set motor pods allow the driver to adjust the center of gravity and change the way the car behaves in the turns. To my knowledge there is no chart on what motor pod to use for a specific set up. I have tried different ones depending on the car and have used each and everyone. Thursday night test and tune sessions are great for this.
Slot It makes inline boxer motor mounts in both zero offset and 1mm offset. I have seen both used but once again the boxer motor is tricky to get set up correctly. If you are going to use one the inline mount is the best one to use.
End-bell drive vs bushing drive on a motor – ? No idea what the pro’s or con’s are for this one.
6. Brands
– Is NSR any better than Slot.It? What about the other “premium” brands?
Answer
Slot It is the best bang for the dollar. The cars are designed in Italy but are manufactured in China. NSR makes some nice cars that are based more on performance than scale accuracy or ascetics. All NSR cars are designed and built in Italy and cost more than a Slot It as a result. NSR cars work best on plastic track. We have not been able to make them beat a Slot It car on our track. Those that have had any success have modified the cars with almost all Slot It parts and a stiffer chassis.
There are other brands on the market that cost more than Slot It and most are made more for show than real racing. These would be LeMans Minatures, Racer, Proto Slot and others. Most of the bodies used on those cars are made of resin and weigh significantly more than a plastic car. They are fun to look at and run occasionally but they are not the best for racing.
7. Bodies
– Scaleys and Carerras have great bodies, but poor tech. What are the best ways to marry a high detail, high mass body from these vendors to a Slot.it or generic chassis?
– Scaleys and Carerras have high centers of gravity, whats the best way to counteract the imbalance, without making a lead-sled? Do we need to use geared-down high torque FK130s to move these beasts at competitive speeds
Answer
The most common way to do this is with a Slot It HRS2 chassis conversion. This is also one of the best ways I know you can convert a Scalextric body to run well. For Carrera cars/bodies there are a couple of options – there is an Italian company, PRS, that produces an aluminum chassis for a selection of the Carrera cars or you can purchase a Slot It designed and Shapeways 3D printed chassis for a select group of Carrera DTM cars. These chassis will allow you to use all Slot It parts with a Carrera DTM body.
The Carrera and Scalextric cars high center of gravity can never fully be overcome but you can load up the chassis with weight to help counter the effects of it. You will need to run a higher RPM motor to help overcome the additional weight you have just loaded into the car. The more weight you add the higher the wear rate is on the tires. This is something to consider when running our current Trans Am series where the BRM Shore 30 tires can wear out quickly due to the additional weight of the cars.
QUESTIONS FROM E-MAIL
— Gearing for Anglewinder and Sidewinders.
Gearing depends on the motor. Even the same motors will exhibit very different RPM and torque characteristics. The weight of the car and how stable the car is will also play big roles in determining the final gearing you choose.
— What are the specifics about Offset of motor pods? Why needed? What gear combos work best? What is the difference between a 0.5 and 1.0 offset – what are the situations (motor and chassis combo) when they should be used?
Offset motor pods allow you to adjust the center of gravity in any Slot It chassis. Some cars, depending on many factors, work better with zero offset while others will work better with a .5mm or 1.0mm offset. Depending on the car I will try different pods to see what works the best. Thursday evening track nights are great for this type of testing.
Gear combo is relative to the motor more than anything. You can have two of the same motors and both may exhibit very different RPM and torque charteristics. In order to compensate for those variances and still have a car that is quick AND stable you can use gearing to find the perfect mix. Having said that, there are some gears combinations that should not be used due to their poor mesh quality in the in-line configuration. See Ary or me for more information on this point. These limitations do not exist in an anglewinder set up but there are other issues with the anglewinder set up that make it less desirable.
— Anglewinders and boxxer-type high torque motors – advantages and disadvantages (for the ASCC track).
For our track there does not seem to be an advantage to the anglewinder set up. They are used a lot in Europe on plastic track with the hope that putting the motor across the rails of a track will increase the downforce of the car.
Boxer motors are a choice of motor you can use if you cannot use an S-Can motor like the Slot It orange end bell motor. I have had little to no luck with these motors and have found the only people that have had any luck with them are using them in an in-line configuration.
— Weight guidelines; front/back 40/60 distribution; how much over stock weight is ok w/o affecting acceleration;
Majority of racers will run either a 40/60 split or a 50/50 split or somewhere in between but rarely outside of those guidelines.
— Is there any guidelines on how much Torque is needed per Grams of car?
Can too much torque be bad (too much fishtailed out of corners as acceleration is added?)
There is not a calculation that I am aware of. Too much torque will make a lighter car difficult to handle because it will have too much brake and will be hard to handle under acceleration.
— Magnetic or sprint suspension – are they worth it?
Neither. Suspension was designed for plastic track that had seams between every section. Suspensions do not work on a smooth club track like ours. All they do is add weight and a level of complexity that you don’t need.
— What is the ‘real’ story on rear-wheel RPM? Your setup video mentions 8,000rpm (which it seems like some of the leaders are tuned to) and yet I keep hearing advice that 7000rpm is the optimum speed. My cars tuned to 7250 -7500 get passed in the straights, but my cars turning 8500+ (cars I dont race yet) are hard to control.
The answer to this question lives in the information below under Optimum RPM.
— If I have a boxer (long can) motor turning 20,000 – 22,000 (7-8000 rear wheel rpm) with 300gm+ of torque, is that useful on the ASCC track? Is a slot.it short can orange-bell with 170gm torque still the optimum motor for cars with a stock weight less than 90gm?
300 grams of torque is too much for our track with a 90 gram car. A stock orange end bell motor works great for a car with that weight.
— NSR – are they worth the additional cost as compared to Slot.It? What other brands are worth looking at – AND legal for ASCC?
NSR cars are not necessarily worth the extra money over a Slot It unless you want a car that is 100% manufactured in Italy. NSR cars are legal for ASCC.