Slot cars - something to do in Winter.

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Close to finishing it. Just have to mount the LEDs and wires into the guide, etc. Otherwise I think it came out pretty good!

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This motor is really, really smooth in comparison to my other cars. (held the wires on the track to test).
 
Close to finishing it. Just have to mount the LEDs and wires into the guide, etc. Otherwise I think it came out pretty good!

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This motor is really, really smooth in comparison to my other cars. (held the wires on the track to test).
Heck yeah, it came out pretty good!
 
Tried out the LEDs. Man they looked cool. But, drain too much and it was too difficult to stuff all the wiring in there. So, ditched that idea, lol.

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So, I got it wired and the guide shaped, and the magnets in. Ran it a bit, and it worked ok, had to mess with the guide a bit to get it right and run the best. Motor is definitely smoother than the other cars, but maybe lacking some punch. My magnets are definitely too small (I had 10mm ones in front and rear). Lotta fishtailing still, and front pops out too easily if not on the juice and getting the full motor magnet effect. So I have some 25mm ones on the way, which is more like what's in my other cars. Overall, it ran smoothly though, and it's definitely got some potential.
 
Tried out the LEDs. Man they looked cool. But, drain too much and it was too difficult to stuff all the wiring in there. So, ditched that idea, lol.

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So, I got it wired and the guide shaped, and the magnets in. Ran it a bit, and it worked ok, had to mess with the guide a bit to get it right and run the best. Motor is definitely smoother than the other cars, but maybe lacking some punch. My magnets are definitely too small (I had 10mm ones in front and rear). Lotta fishtailing still, and front pops out too easily if not on the juice and getting the full motor magnet effect. So I have some 25mm ones on the way, which is more like what's in my other cars. Overall, it ran smoothly though, and it's definitely got some potential.
You can get some really tiny ones that are pretty bright. These are so small the wires are like paint brush bristles.
 
You can get some really tiny ones that are pretty bright. These are so small the wires are like paint brush bristles.

Wow, yeah those are tiny as hell. I also saw these kits where it uses a coin cell to power the lights, and a switch to turn it on when juice is flowing, but space contraints are too great for a 1/32 car with an interior section.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/275325237688
 
So I got my magnets and tried it out. The car held much better to the track, but I was having an issue with the motor being really difficult to control. Like it took a lot of juice to get it going and it would just bog down in spots. Then give it a little more juice and it would spin out really easily. Kind of like it had a very narrow power band. So I got another motor to try. Note, I just basically sat the new magnets on top of the old ones, they aren't fastened firmly just yet as I'm still experimenting with them.

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I think I can actually move that rear 25mm magnet in front of the body post and closer to the axle, and it might hold itself in place there. There's a 10mm magnet under it that I glued down that can stay where it is. That should give it better balance as it might be pulling the rear of the car down too much at times. I also put some lube on all the bearings and gears and noted that it spun much more freely. Was time to test :)

It was much, much better. The car really felt smooth, and much easier to drive. Felt confident enough to let it rip pretty good and turned in a really respectable 5.7 second lap time (My record is 5.3, in the RevoSlot Viper). I compared it to my other cars and out of the four it had the second-best time of the evening (Got a 5.6 in the RevoSlot). It's definitely the smoothest of my cars, especially when free-revving it, the others vibrate and rattle quite a bit, this one purrs. Tonight I'll move that magnet and get some more laps in.

The underside of the car:
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Gonna put longer brushes on, I definitely cut those too short. Otherwise came out really clean.

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Put the longer brushes on and tried moving the magnet. Magnet wound up being best where I had it, so I double side taped it in place to keep it from moving. The longer brushes helped keep the car steadier for sure. I did notice that it seemed that the brushes need to be "broken in" some? They come with a copper coating, but once you run it a bit and that wears off some, it runs much better. Overall, the car is tracking excellent, and is very smooth.

I ran all four cars a bunch again, and this time I pushed the "Invader Jr" harder. Got a 5.1 lap time, which was the second fastest. The red Revoslot Viper still got the best time at 4.9 seconds. All of these though were my best times yet.
 
After making a bunch of 1/10 scale parts with hi impact printed resin, I got the wild hair again, and thought maybe I could print out a custom slot car body. I really didn't love the ScaleAuto one and how it came out, and also because it wasn't an ACR version of the Viper so I found a pretty good 3D model to print that was specifically for making a model car. Little bit of scaling, tweaking, and modifying the interior part for accommodating the motor, I got something printed.

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The wheelbase was a little off - but that is the fault of the chassis, same problem with the ScaleAuto body. It's just a mm or so on both axles, so I'm going to cut a new plate soon. There were some changes I needed to make anyway for the magnets so not a big deal.

Painted it last night...
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Slapped on some automotive clearcoat, and will let it sit a few days before touching it.
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Interior will get a nitrous bottle and fire extinguisher for some more detail. Maybe some rollcage parts too.

I just scaled down the BittyDesign decals for the headlights and will print out them and all the other decals on waterslide paper. Should be a pretty close replica of my 1/10th race car.

The body seems very tough, durable, and flexible. Really loving this high impact resin. So far, it's held up extremely well on my 1/10th cars.
 
After two days of clearcoat hardening (and really I should wait even longer, more like a week before it's fully cured to diamond like hardness, but I'm impatient, lol) - I started putting on some of the waterslide decals. Did the ones with white backing first.

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Printing out the clear waterslides tonight, and some more solid ones for some things I forgot for the interior.

Speaking of the interior...I made some more details.
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Added the nitrous bottles and extinguisher, just need to put the labels on them. I need to print and paint the driver this weekend.
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Windshields are cut and fitted, after I get the driver done, and labels for the bottles finished, I'll glue them in and put the whole thing together.

I also did cut a new chassis and got fatter rear wheels/tires. Ran the car last night and it matched my RevoSlot car times, which was my fastest car so it's right on with that. Should be even faster with the body on it.
 
Finished this thing up, along with the new chassis. I tested the chassis out a bunch without the body on while it cures for a week or two and worked out a number of "bugs". Figured out my guide mount had too much slop and it was causing the guide to tilt and not make great contact. Also figured out having a magnet in the rear, just behind the axle was causing the front to lift and make it come out of the slot. Wound up ditching the rear magnet and going to just one magnet in the front. Car ran so much better, so I even went back to the more powerful NSR motor. I also put on the new rear tires which were much grippier and thus no longer needing the rear magnet at all. This little thing really burns around the track now. Can't wait to see what it does with the body on it which with the extra weight gives it a lot more momentum.

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This was definitely a lot of fun to do. Next time after I inevitably wreck this body shell I think I would vacuum form the windows instead of just using some thin poly that I cut to shape. It would fit more easily for sure and maybe even add side windows if I did that, though I left them out on this one since most of my other slot cars don't have them, I guess so you can see in interior details more easily.
 
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Started this layout last winter. It definitely needs to be on a table. I also bought a basic set and just bought add on track.
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Hell yea man that's awesome. I do the same thing. I also run 1/24 and 1/32 slots with group 20 motor and wing bodies. Slot car racing is alot of fun. Nicely done bud 👍👍
 
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