Sloter and MB Slot have teamed up to release a pair of high performance kit cars. The Lola T280/T290 and Ferrari 312 PB are the same bodies used on the standard Sloter RTR cars, so no suprises there. The parts come in a small bag so you can either choose to or not to use them on your own build-up of these kits.
In the above photo I laid out the parts for the Ferrari... lots of little bits here and there on this car.
The chassis is the same at the RTR Sloter car, so alas...no motor pod.
The vac-formed interiors are thin...how thin are they? Well while trying to remove the interior from the body (gently I might add) I tore the interior on the Ferrari just a bit. If you hold it, it feels like it weighs nearly nothing. I'm sure the drivers head attached to the interior pan is the bulk of the weight. The fit of the interiors in both cars is not great, a few slices with a knife fit is improved a bit but still it's tough to seat the interior in the body without gluing it in.
The rocket engine that these kits come with is the KRAHS-23 the 23k motor (at 12 volts) is a wicked fast power plant that, in these small cars, is a bit too much power in my opinion. But I'll be readily admit that high-torque motors aren't my cup of tea.
The MB Slot compenants are perfectly smooth. The axles/gears/wheels/motor have a good quality, solid feel to them. This is my first experience with this brand of parts and I'm very impressed with the parts...now if they were just imported to the US...hmmmmm..... The Sloter cars stand on their own as excellent racers models. The just-a-little-bit-hotter-than-average motors are great and a favorite of mine, the tires are also excellent replacements for wood track racing (though sadly they're not used on these cars). For some reason the marriage of the two companies doesn't come together as it should though.
The bearings that hold rear axle don't fit terribly well in the uprights. The motor isn't held tightly in the motor cradle. Because of these two things there is some "high torque hop" that's really a problem under heavy acceleration. The motor (while not a problem itself) is too much motor for these very small bodies. Cornering speed and coming out of the corners this is especially evident, cornering speed is slow, this limits overall speed. Straight away speed is high, but because of the "h-t-hop" getting up to that top speed is tough.
Similar cars like the other Sloter Lola and GB track Chevron's aren't tough to drive despite being same small body. By comparison we found the blue Barclays livery Lola T290 much easier to drive and faster lap times because of better driveability with a 5.451 fastest time (on 61-foot East New York wood track) but much easier to drive. With crowned SuperTires the Barclays blue Sloter did 5.351 time and was very sticky and easier to drive despite the ill fitting tires.
The Ferrari did a 5.45 fastest time (with the stock tires) and is much easier to drive than the Lola. Car is hard to drive fast around corners but better balanced than Lola. This time was at 12 volts, at 13.8 volts car is extremely difficult to drive.
The MB Slot parts are excellent, the Sloter cars are excellent...there's just something lost in the process of the two coming together.
Thanks to Sloter for sending the cars for review.
DaveK
