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.
