Tuesday, June 12, 2007

H&R Brass Chassis - second look


The H&R Racing Products adjustable brass chassis provides an economical and convenient way to go slot car racing with your collection of 1/25 and 1/24 static model cars. The chassis lends itself to mounting wide bodies, due to the wide side pans with pre-drilled mounting holes. I used 4-40 machine screws into #43 holes drilled into the plastic, for a clean, loose mounting. The pans were cleverly designed to provide scale height mounting for American stock cars.

Here is the Monogram '39 Chevy coupe, ready to do battle on the bull ring, thanks to H&R:


A few observations about the H&R chassis: axles are good and straight, but are .122" diameter, a slight bit undersized from the nominal 1/8", or .125", standard for 1/24 cars. Wheels, gear, and bearings are bored .125", so expect a little wobble. I used a pink Parma gear, shown in the photo, and found it ran more true than the blue gear provided. Since I wanted more gear reduction, I used a 35 tooth crown, rather than the 33t. provided, and drilled a 1/2" hole in the chassis pan to clear the gear. A large hole will clear the gear whether it is mounted on the right or left of the pinion.

I also re-soldered the steel wire which forms the upper brace of the gear cage, as one of the joints arrived cracked.

The motor is a hot wind, FK-130 type, close to a TSRF motor. Rating is 40k on 12 volts. It is good there are holes in the case, to keep an eye on the condition of the works, but it would have been nice of the holes were a little larger, for better air movement and cooling. A Fox motor would be an easy substitute for small home tracks; 2mm mounting screws are provided, so the swap would be very easy. The shaft length of the H&R motor is the same as a Fox.

There are no major problems with this chassis, and many strong points, as Harry Wise pointed out in his earlier review. On my 61 foot wood track, I found 5.9 second laps easy to do consistently. The chassis with a '39 Chevy body runs smoothly and has good handling balance. Highly recommended!

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