Coming soon...Sloter Kit review

A review of the Sloter/MB Slot kit cars will soon appear here at SCNews.

DaveK

New Ninco sets

From "Ninco Bob"...
The Trophy Series 20132 is available now! It contains the fast, brand new NC-5 anglewinder Megane Trophy "Tepac" and Megane Trophy "Frutta".

The MT 900 R set 20133 contains The Mosler "Gulf" (NINCO's "hottest" car ever) and the brand new Mosler "Daytona" - I hope to have this set by the end of this month.

The Rally Stage set 20134 contains the new 4WD Ford Focus and the 4WD Subaru WRC "Wales Rally"

Also,.... the very successful 20127 ProAm set (31 feet of track) has been upgraded.... same price.... now contains the 50428 Mosler "Gulf" racing against the brand new 50435 McLaren F-1 GTR.
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Thanks to Ninco Bob for the news.
DaveK

Slot.it Porsche Challenge

With the Slot.it Shootout Summer Series Proxy Race coming in June, I figured it was time to have a Slot.it Challenge using my favorite race cars, the Porsche 956 and 962. The Slot.it Porsche Challenge is a 20 lap sprint in all three lanes of the targa for fastest overall time. The cars used for this race were a Kenwood 956, Rothmans 956, Blaupunkt 962 and a green 962. All of the cars are very close in set-up with the Kenwood 956 and the Green Machine 962 having the most modifications of the four.
Car Specifications:
Kenwood 956
21.5k in-line
9/28 (3.11)
77 grams
19x10 S1's
Rothmans 956
Early 25k in-line
9/28 (3.11)
79 grams
19x10 S2's
Blaupunkt 962
Early 25k in-line
9/28 (3.11)
82 grams
20x12 S1's
Green machine #7 962
Early 25k in-line
8/28 (3.50)
82 grams
20x12 S1's Trakmate timing software was used to time the race. Track voltage is set at 10 volts. A Professor Motor 2048 controller was used to run the cars. Track preparations consisited of wiping the track with a micro-fibre cloth then running five silicone tire cars for 10 laps each in all three lanes. Needless to say, the track was very clean for this race.
Results

Red Lane-1. Rothmans 956 3:49.259

2. Kenwood 956 +4.963

3. Blaupunkt 962 +5.605

4. Grenn Machine 962 +7.612

Yellow Lane-1. Blaupunkt 962 3:49.101

2. Kenwood 956 +1.832

3. Rothmans 956 +5.559

4. Green machine 962 +7.234

Green Lane-1. Blaupunkt 962 3:38.729

2. Kenwood 956 +6.473

3. Green Machine 962 +8.565

4. Rothmans 956 +13.643

Scoring

Points are awarded as follows.

1st place /4 points

2nd place / 3 points

3rd place / 2 points

4th place / 1 point

The finishing order- 1st place-Blaupunkt 962 (10 points), 2nd place-Kenwood 956(9 points), 3rd place-Rothmans 956(7 points), 4th place-Green machine 962(3 points).

The Blaupunkt 962 was a solid feeling car right from the start. This car builds confidence with each lap and is very predictable. The Kenwood 956 had 19x10 S1's which became slippery causing odd handling woes in the green lane. 20x10 S1's would have made this car a run away winner. The Rothmans 956 was the only car with S2's and did surprising well finishing 1st in the red lane and then fading badly to the back of the pack. During the post race inspection, the rear motor pod holes were found to be stripped out and both screws missing. The Green machine 962 never really had a chance against the other three cars due to being geared 8/28 (3.50). The cars was either full throttle of full brakes which made it difficult to complete consistent laps w/o deslotting. 2006 RAA LMP entrant and crowd favorite, "Green Machine" 962 had a poor showing during the Slot.it Porsche Challenge and is looking forward to a rematch.

Slot.it McLaren F1 GTR Lexan Cockpit

McLaren F1 GTR owners rejoice! The lexan cockpit for the McLaren is a nice add-on to reduce weight and provide additional underbody clearance. Is this light weight interior any indication of how serious a race car the McLaren will be? Is this a start of a trend from Slot.it to produce lexan interiors for past and current Slot.it models? We'll have to wait and see.
photo courtesy of Fantasy World Hobbies.

Spirit Silhouette Peugeot-review

Do you like big fat fenders? How about a slot car with a motor that's got torque enough for 4 normal slot cars? Well then the first Spirit Silhouette Peugeot may just be a car you should check out.

The Motul Peugeot is the first in what promises to be many more Peugeot 406 Silhouette's to come. The finish on the body, while a bit on the busy side livery-wise, is well done...but does not appear to have any clear coat on it.

The body's molded very thinly and fits perfectly over the chassis. I've checked every inch of this body and there's nothing ill fitting, nothing squeezed, nothing bent, nothing warped, it all fits. There is no snap fit here. Spirit are continuing to make bodies with hard core racers in mind...nice and thin!

The interior also is quite thin. And also it's a half-pan, which clears the motor/gears nicely. I'm very glad that Spirit have chosen NOT to go the super-detailed route with their cars with regard to the interiors. Also model of the car's motor (in the back window) is part of the back deck of the interior, and is not a separate piece.

The front axle mounts feature the set screw adjustment that has been seen before on Spirit releases. But when the car is on the track there is no upward play left to adjust out even with the set screws only threaded in place and not actually touching the axle.


The hugely powerful SX3 motor, without a wrapper again in this latest Peugeot, is mounted yet again as an angle winder. In front of it is a small bar magnet which, coupled with the open can motor, provide surprisingly little magnetic down force on my Carrera test track. With the stock tires in place you can EASILY spin the tires the entire way down the straight whenever you'd like to and the car doesn't pick up that much speed as a result of the extra throttle. The tires, as you might expect from that comment, don't stick terribly well on my plastic track.

The story was a bit different on the East New York Raceway test session for this 90 gram car recently. The stock tires stuck surprisingly well...odd I know. But when the stock tires were replaced with Ortmann's (which fit well enough even though there weren't designed to fit specifically for the Spirit car) made this car come alive. Times on this car dropped from around a 6 second lap to a 5.20 second lap on the 61 foot long track. This was with nothing done other than some lube and a few turns out of the screws on the motor pod.

There are no holes in the motor pod to screw down the long can motor. This motor seems to be the way most companies are going for their "serious racer" motor. On the recently released Spirit BMW 1600 there are holes to screw down the motor to make sure the tremendously powerful motor is held down securely in the pod. In this car, however there are no holes in the pod to screw down the motor. There is a great deal of flex in the pod and, personally, I'd like to see it braced a bit more. Having said that, there was no "high torque hop".

As it is this car is quite fast. We managed to get it going very fast without much (or really any) work. On this car everything is working the way it should right out of the box, the wheels are worth noting as being just as round as you could hope they'd be from...yes I'll say it...Scalextric. Ok, ok, before you say I'm falling off my chair with giddy excitement here by saying it's really race-ready (issues of magnetic down force aside for a minute)...well it is ready to race. Just like the quality you've come to expect from Scalextric and Slot It. Recently Spirit had some quality control issues with the BMW, they're not present on this copy of the car I have, I'm hoping that your experience with the Spirit Motul Peugeot is the same.

Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News

Carrera gives you wings.

The Red Bull BMW looks like it will be out soon. Carrera posted this photo on their website and it sure looks like a slot car to me and not an artist's interpretation of a design.

The real BMW for comparison, photo used with permission from Red Bull Photofiles.com. No reuse of this photo without their permission.

DaveK

New SCX GT set

SCX is announcing a new GT set which include a Corvette and an Aston Martin.

Coming soon...Spirit Motul Peugeot

A review of the Spirit Motul Peugeot will be published soon.

New Spirit BMW photo...here first!

Well...we're all waiting for this one I think! What a beauty.

Thanks to Spirit for the photo!
DaveK

Slot It Nissan "Unisia Jecs"-review

The Unisia Jecs Slot It Nissan 390 GT1 is the third (and final) black and red livery made by Slot It of this popular slot car. The Nissan's are know to be quite fast and this car, with its new 21.5k motor is no exception.

Years ago I raced with Maurizio Ferrari of Slot It when he visited the club I belonged to then. While we were at the track that night he brought out the prototype of the Nissan body. We all marveled at the detail, especially the engine in the rear window. At that time, this level of detail was a rarity. Now the detail Slot It puts into their cars is the icing on a very, very fast "cake"...er... I mean slot car.

As you would expect the paint and printing on the car is flawless. And the red details over the black paint is well done and opaque.


The finish is very shiney and there are no problems with extra mold flashing on the body to be seen.

Slot It makes a light set that is user installed, with this car more than others I'm kinda feeling the lack of lights. I'd love to see the front lights and those beautifully modeled tail lights lit up as this car whizzed around the track.

Under the car we see the angle winder ready chassis, offset motor pod and orange endbell 21.5k motor.

Here we see inside the body and chassis (notice the intercoolers have been removed because they made contact with the chassis in previous models):




In the photo above you can see the channels for the wires now guide the wires under small brackets that don't allow the wires to foul the front axle, a nice feature.

While we're inside the car here, why is it that Slot It is the only company that's figured out how to make channels for the power wires that actually hold down the wires? Those channels are a great design and firmly hold the wires in place. I know this is nothing new but it struck me recently that Slot It have a great design here that no one has yet to copy.

A little grease here and oil there and it time to race the 76 gram car. The S2's went on the car and the car went on the track... and turned very quick 5.1's on the 61-foot East New York track. The car was very quiet and zipped around the track easily.

We had a set of NSR tires/wheels (#9010- 20x10 Ultra grip tires pre-mounted on wheels) on hand so they went on the car (along with a TSRF axle that fits the wheels a bit better than the Slot It axle...where's that standardization of 3/32 when you need it, eh?). With the NSR's in place the car did 4.9's and after a bit of truing to the tires it then dropped to a speedy 4.861 fastest lap. Nice and fast! The car had a very different feel with the NSR rubber, it seemed maybe a bit less predictable than the S2's. Going into the corners the car slid out a more in the top of the corner (under breaking) than with the S2's which tended to grip more at the top of the corner and then slide out at the apex of the turn.

The Nissan's, with their centered greenhouse, short wheelbase, and wide body just may be the speediest out of the box Slot It I've driven. And since we can't leave things as they are around here at Slot Car News this can will soon undergo a conversion to an angle winder open can 20k...more testing to follow about that soon.

Thanks to Fantasy World Hobbies for the car for review!
Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News

New Artin DTM's...only $16.95 each!

Holy cow what a bargain at $16.95 each! Slot Car World and other Artin dealers are selling these cars now.

Hobbico acquires Revell

Champaign, Illinois, May 2, 2007 - Hobbico, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Revell-Monogram. Revell will continue to operate from its Northbrook, Illinois headquarters and will be led by Jim Foster, the company’s President since 2002 and a hobby industry veteran for over 40 years.

Revell is a world wide leader in detailed, scale model kits including cars, trucks, ships, and planes. Founded over 60 years ago, the company markets under the brands of Revell and Monogram which were combined in 1986. In September 2006, Revell’s European business was sold to a group led by Revell GmbH management.

Hobbico is the world’s leading manufacturer, distributor and retailer of model hobby products, including radio controlled models, plastic model kits, trains and other hobby products. The employee-owned company sells products through hobby shops, toy stores, chain stores as well as its retail subsidiary, Tower Hobbies.

“Revell has had seven different owners over the last 37 years,” said Jim oster, “but this new combination with Hobbico represents a unique partnership that provides stability for the company’s dedicated staff and the resources they need to create exciting new models. Hobbico understands what’s mportant to serious modelers. Joining the strengths of the two companies will lead to products that modelers will really appreciate.”

Revell’s research and development staff includes many talented professionals who have been with the company for as long as five decades. They will continue to manage the creation and manufacturing of all new and existing products from their facility in the Chicago area.

“Many modelers who fly or drive R/C got their start in the hobby by building a plastic model kit,” said Wayne Hemming, President of Hobbico. “Plastic kits are the foundation of model building. We are committed to giving Revell the support it needs to continue its 60-year tradition of quality and excellence in plastic models.”

The Revell and Monogram brands both originated in 1945. Revell started out with plastic toys. Their first plastic model kits sold in 1951 were a series of vintage cars called Revell Highway Pioneers. The first model was a 1913 Maxwell, a car made famous by comedian Jack Benny.

Monogram started with wooden ship models and progressed to flying control-line and free flight airplanes as well as CO2-powered cars. Their first all-plastic kit, a midget racing car, came in 1954 and sold for 98¢. Next came a Hot Rod and a Racing Speedboat which both were sold as “Snap-Fit and Press-Fit for Jiffy Assembly.”

“Both Revell and Monogram have produced literally thousands of different models over their long history,” said Jim Foster. “Every effort has been made to preserve the production tooling for possible future re-releases.

Over the coming years, we will work to not only create exciting new releases, but also bring back many classic favorites from years gone by.”

Links:

www.hobbico.com

Sloter tires on a Scalex?

This was sort of an "ah hah!" moment the other night. While I was looking over my selection of spare tires I came across my Sloter replacement tires I bought a while back. And they sure looked like they might be just large enough to fit my Scalex TransAm Jaguar...sure enough they fit!

The stock Scalex tires on the Jaguar.

There is a bit of the edge of the wheel showing, but a nice fit in general.

The Sloter tires are almost exactly the same width but the sidewall height is about 1mm lower on the Sloter tires as opposed to the Scalex tires. The Sloter tires do crown a bit on the Scalex wheels but since the compound Sloter uses sands down every easily this should be easy to fix.

I've done some testing on this car with the new tires and it's much stickier on my new plastic Carrera test track than it was with the stock tires. It's lost none of the driveability that it had with the stock tires.

You can see the tires crown just a bit.
The best part is if you're familiar with Sloter tires you know they stick like crazy on wood and plastic tracks! So if you're looking to keep the stock wheels on your Scalex TransAm Jaguar this might be a good choice for replacement tires if you're in the market for them.

DaveK

Coming soon...Slot It Nissan review

How does this new Nissan perform with the new orange endbell 21.5k motor? You'll have to wait one more day...

Scalex Street Pursuit set

A clarificaton from Scalextric:

There are two chassis' for each of the Range Rover and Lamborghini cars, as follows:

Set Street Pursuit: Essentially, think 'NOT DIGITAL'! The chassis' of the set cars are not Digital Plug Ready. Though the Range Rover does have the posts/hole to take a retro-fit chip (not that Hornby Hobbies is suggesting that the car should be converted to digital - this is a customer choice), the Lamborghini doesn't have any digital provision. ‘Drift’ cars should not be used as digital cars.

Solo cars: Both Range Rover and Lamborghini Gallardo are both DPR cars with standard guide blades. These can be used as digital cars on digital layouts.

Thanks to Scalextric for the news.
DaveK