New Cartrix GP cars coming

A new Lancia and Vanwall Cartrix cars are coming soon to North America.

Photo tour of the AutoArt Lancia Fulvia

New Slot It body kits

Some new Slot It body kits.

CS03b - Porsche 962C Body Kit


CS05b - Sauber C9 Body Kit


CS08b - Lancia LC2 Body Kit


CS07b - Jaguar XJR9 Body Kit


CS11b - Alfa Romeo 33/3 Body Kit


KS01b - Ferrari 312PB Body Kit

Lancia Delta Integrale

A new SCX Lancia Delta Integrale is coming soon.

New Cartrix Lancia-Ferrari D-50

Coming early in 2010 from Cartrix:
965 1956 Portago ( E ) Collinns ( USA ) #4 Lancia-Ferrari D50
966 1956 Fangio ( AR ) #1 Lancia-Ferrari D50

New SCX Lancia Delta

Slot.It Martini-review

The hits keep coming from Slot.It. The newest release is surely a slot car that needs little in the way of introduction, the Lancia Martini livery will be the "one to buy" for many slotters.

There are no breaks in the tampo printed stripes along the sides and top of the body. And none of this will come as a surprise to anyone familiar, as most are, with Slot It's products. There are no blemishes on the outside of the body of this car. Inside the body, near the front wheels, there is a bit of over spray, but you can't see this unless you remove the body. So it's another cosmetically wonderful slot car from Maurizio.

The Martini car has the black paint between the windows that the BP-Malardeau lacked. This detail isn't something that really took away from the first release of the Lancia, but it's nice to see this black tear drop shape around the greenhouse.

Thankfully for everyone out there who's a fan of Slot.It cars, Maurizio is never content to just release another car without trying to improve on his product. The Lancia body was supposed to have been lightened a bit, but both the Malardeau and the Martini weigh the same (22 grams), no big deal, since the real change can be seen when you flip the car over.

And there you have it. Not only the 21.5k "orange endbell" high torque motor, but the cut outs for an angle winder pod.

The changes aren't limited to the pod. The wires are routed under the front axle via the same channel design used on all recent releases. A great feature that is now a standard on new releases. The front wheels on this car didn't turn easily or touch the track on this car out of the box. Removal of the "cups" that are under front fix this with not too much trouble.

The car has the usual 28 tooth crown gear which now has a Slot.It logo on it. One of the very noticeable differences between the first Lancia release and this one is how much quieter this car is than the last car. Like the final black and red Nissan 390 and the McLaren this car is whisper quiet. I have a theory that in addition to a logo being added a slight change might have occurred in the gear mold yielding a gear that meshes just a bit better. One feature that the McLaren does have, however, is larger holes that the heads of the pod screws sit in. So, when you loosen the pod, the heads of the screws have plenty of room to move around. This small change was not incorporated into the new chassis made for the latest Lancia. The benefit of larger holes for the heads of the screws might be doubted by some, but personally, I'd like to see this small change made in future releases. When it comes to pod movement, every little bit helps.

On track performance at the East New York Raceway wood track yielded these times:

6.229 stock tires, tight pod - the car feels too tight and twitchy around the corners.

5.9 stock tires, loose pod - car feels much smoother, and even with the stock tires the car is much easier to drive.

5.5 with the provided S2 tires

5.4 with Technical Editor Robert Livingston driving, in a different lane on the track.

A note about times. Times on this day were slower than normal, cars that normally were sub-5 second racers barely cracked that barrier around the 61 foot track. We'd expect this car to be slightly slower than the 956 and Nissan, and much slower than the McLaren (which still stands alone as the fastest Slot.It out-of-the-box, in testing by Slot Car News).

The new orange endbell-driven car is much faster down the straights than the older 25k powered Malardeau Lancia. Also, the car can be driven much further into the corners, because of the better brakes on the 21.5k. Gear ratio and weight are the same.

You just can't go wrong with any of the Slot.It cars. It's nice that there aren't really any negative surprises with their cars. You put them on the track and they fly around as fast as your driving ability will allow. The Martini Lancia LC2-84 should sell briskly because it's "one of those" liveries that many slotters collect.

Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News

Martini anyone?

Giacomo from Italiaslot and Amazing Shot Slot Car has allowed reuse of his photos of the new Lancia here at Slot Car News.



Maurizio has confirmed that the long-awaited Martini livery Lancia is on the way! I'm guessing that it will come anglewinder ready as well.

Dave

Slot It Malardeau Lancia, Part II

Lots of laps on the new Slot It today. Here's the specifics:

Middle lane at East New York Raceway, 61' lap length. Track cleaned before racing. Driver hopped up on 2 cups of java and a really terrible bagel from Dunkin (trust me avoid these like your life depended on it!).
7.25-stock tires
5.90-S2's (the tires that come with the car as extras)
5.69-Ortmann's-tight motor pod/tight body
5.50-Ortmann's-loose motor pod/loose body
It was found that the interior was hitting the motor pod, not allowing much of any travel despite the pod being very loose.
5.41-with bottom of interior cut away. Motor pod can now travel a bit more. But just for a test we took out the interior. The interior will be replaced when it's trimmed so that it doesn't hit the motor pod. Also there was some flash on the guide mount on the chassis that pushed the guide further into the slot and, in turn, pushed up on the chassis making the front wheels not touch.
5.234-with me driving.
5.10-with Rob driving on his home track.

For comparison my lightly modified Slot It 956 kit car (black gear instead of stock yellow gear and Ortmann's in place, those are the only 2 mods done) runs 4.9 fastest lap with me driving.

Inside my crudely done circle is the stubs that the cups sit on. We removed the cups from under the front axle and the car got more stable since the front wheels were now on the track and could help stability. This was part of the improvements we did that took it down from 5.41 to around 5.2.



I forgot to mention (and photograph) the rear end and show the cool vents in the back and the tail lights. Nicely done IMO.

The chassis inside, lead added to get the car up from it's stock 74 grams to about 90 grams. This weight will probably change with more testing.

Inside the body after the interior was removed for testing.


Someone asked to see this view I think. It's down the side, into the rearview mirror.



Don't get the impression that you have to do any of the mod's I've done here. I'm not for a minute suggesting that you have to cut the interior on your car, it happens that the interior in my car was a bit too low and hit the motor pod. People get crazy sometimes when you suggest that a car may have something that's worth correcting to get the most of the car. Just like real racing, do what you want to and see if you can beat the other guy...

DaveK

I forgot to add the picture of the real car. In this photo (taken during LeMans in 1984 I think) the A and B posts are black. Further all the Lancia LC2's entered in LeMans in 1984 had blacked out A and B posts. If you check out Racing Sports Car's archive you can see for yourself. I'm not sure why it's a detail that's not exactly reproduced on the Slot It model. Don't get me wrong, I love this car. I don't have a problem with this detail not being exact (that is according to this photo, and this photo only...). None of this nit-picking takes away ANYTHING from what is a fine model and a competative slot car.

BTW, I got permission from the photographer, Mr. Paul Kooyman to repost the image here.

It's finally here, the Slot It Lancia LC2

After many long months of holding my breath waiting for this beauty to come out...here it is. A photo tour this today and a comprehensive review soon.

I don't remember this type of packaging on Slot It's before but it's sure a nice detail that may be a new way of insuring an undamaged car during shipping. This bubble packaging is inside the normal case.


No 21.5k on this one it's the same motor that's come with the rest of the Slot It's, so no need to worry about this car having an unfair advantage with a new, very torquey motor.

New braids, more like Scalextric braid. I'm not sure if I like this change but here it is.

This car has such wonderful lines. I love the undulation in the body.

Two things on this car that I'm sure are just a problem with my copy. 1, the tires on the front (shown here) don't touch the track. 2, I can't take the body off to see if this can be adjusted because the front body mount screw is too tightly screwed down and I nearly broke the car trying to take it off to shoot the inside of the body... so that's why no photos of the inside of the car.

Not sure what to do about this yet...


The names on the roof of the drivers are very nicely done. There isn't any misprinting in the tampo printing anywhere on the body.

It's a fantastic looking car. The wheels are a pleasant surprise. I wasn't sure from the pre-release photos exactly how nicely detailed they are, but they're great looking. There are even little disc brakes in there.

Testing to take place this weekend.

DaveK
Publisher, Slot Car News