Which tyres to use on a Ninco track.

Have been testing the Ninco Pro Race Shore A25 Tyres this week on a few of the Ninco GT Cars. I can say so far I am very happy with the results. The Pro Race tyres are over 1/2 a second faster over my 26m track. Out of the box they have loads more grip then the indy grips. In the corners is where the biggest difference can be seen as the Pro Race tyres carry a higher speed into and out of the corners. But it is after about 15mins that the tyres really start to behave nicely with progressive drifting. A fast lap still needs to be tidy but a little sliding is needed to prove you are on the edge. My lap times are at 10v without magnets. The car used was a Mosler Lightened. In fairness another mod was also performed on the car. This was shortening the front alxe by 2mm to remove the sideways movement which made the front end more stable at the higher cornering speeds. The shortened front alxe was worth 0.2 of a second. The tyres are worth about 0.5+ seconds a lap. I also tested a Lamborghini Gallardo and Lotus Exige with similar improvements. Making these cars as fast as my NSR's.

On Indy Grips - 9.593 secs

On Pro Race Shore A25 - 8.785 secs

Lotus Exige motor upgrade

Earlier this year one of the cars that I had marked as a must have for my collection was the new Ninco Lotus Exige GT3. In the looks department I would say that it is one of the best looking slot cars around at the moment. With its short wheelbase and big wheels It creates the impression of a modern hotrod.

Unfortunetly in one area it real lacks the one thing that makes any race car a great race car, SPEED. Although the new NC-9 Spanker is not a bad motor it really gets left behind on the straights by the other Ninco GT cars running the NC-5 Speeder motors.

Overtime I thought about how it would go with say a 22,000 rpm or 23,000 rpm motor. To give it just enough power down the straights to keep the other cars honest. Then I realised the new Xlot cars that came out this year also had the same size motors. So with the new XL-1 Xlot motor rated at 25750 rpm motor in hand I decided it was time to do some testing.

To keep the test simple I would run the Lotus with the NC-9 first and then test my Mosler Lightened with a NC-5 before finally testing the Lotus again with the XL-1. Both cars would be non magnet at 10v running on Ninco pro race tyres and the Lotus would be equipped with a pro race guide.

  After a 30 minute run with the NC-9 Lotus around the 26m Oran park layout I achieved a best lap time of 9.404 secs. This time was the best time I had did in this car so far. Apart from having the time to read the newspaper down the straight the Lotus was not too far off the pace over the back half of the circuit but still lacked punch out of the corners. Next I ran the Mosler lightened around for a best time of 8.785 secs. This too was my best time so far for the Mosler. As you can see the Lotus was being left for dead by the Mosler which was able to be driven without much trouble at around or under 9 secods flat.

The next step involve a motor change for the Lotus and tune up. After letting the motor run in for 15 mins or so it was time to put the new XL-1 motor to the test. By this time I had my eye in already and I was impressed when on my first flying lap I managed to do a 9 sec flat pass. From there the times came tumbling down. 15 mins later, by the end of the test my times had dropped to a best lap of 8.522secs and with a good percentage into the 8.7's. On best lap times the XL-1 had delivered a 0.9 seconds a lap advantage over the NC-9. All of a sudden the Lotus was now faster then all my other Ninco GT cars.

From a handling point of view there was no real issues running the more powerful motor. The car was still settled in the corners and had the legs down the straight to match the long can motors. All in all the new motor proved not to be overkill for the little Lotus (considering it was designed for the 1/28 scale cars) it had turned a back marker into a front runner. Now all I need to do is test a NC-10 Exceeder in one of my other Ninco GT cars to see the difference.

The old hot glue on top of the guide trick.

One way of stopping an SCX cars front end from de-slotting and going straight at corners is by using a hot glue gun. By placing a dollop of hot glue on to the top of the guide post while pushing the guide up into the body to remove movement and waiting for the glue to cool. You will stop the guide being used by the power contacts to lift and remove weight the front end. Once the glue has cooled make sure the guide will still turn freely and all the travel from the guide is removed. This should make the front end more settled as it is braking or hitting bumps.

SCX Motor Reference Guide.

This is a quick explanation of some of the names of SCX slot car motors.

Using the RX-41 and RX-42B as examples.

The first number “4” stands for the armature length and also refers to where the pinion gear is mounted. So a motor with a “4” is a 50mm shaft with a 9-tooth pinion gear mounted on the rear of the armature.

The next number refers to whether the motor is meant to be used with a motor pod or not. A “1” means the motor is made to be used with NO motor pod and a “2” means the motor is to be used with a motor pod. If there is no second number then the motor uses wires instead of the standard metal legs to make contact with the guide.

The letter or lack of a letter after the numbers refers to the motors rpm.

Motors with a “A” or no letter at the end are rated at 16400 rpm.(RX-41,RX-42) Motors with a “B” are rated at 18000 rpm. (RX-41B,RX-42B) Motors with a ”C” are rated at 19000 rpm. Motors with a “D” are rated at 19000 rpm.(including Pro motors) Motors with a “E” are rated at 22000 rpm. Motors with a “F” are rated at 25000 rpm. Motors with a “G” are rated at 21000 rpm. Motors with a “H” are rated at 25000rpm.

So a RX-41 is a 50mm shaft with a rear 9 tooth pinion gear made for a non motor pod chassis rated at 16400rpm and a RX-42B is a 50mm shaft with a rear 9 tooth pinion gear made for a motor pod chassis rated at 18000rpm.

Reasons for trimming a Carrera guide.

A normal Carrera front guide is considered by some to be too long and thick. If you own a new Carrera slot car then you may have came across two problems especially if running the cars on other brands of track.

The first problem is the length of the guide limits how tight a corner you can go around. On any other brands R1 hairpin corner the car will stop dead because the length from tip to tip of the guide will prevent it traveling along any radius corner tighter then an Carrera R1 corner so much so that it even slows down cars on the the Carrera R1 corners eg. I had to trim the guides on my D132 Porsche GT3 and BMW Z4 cars because when using the ghost car function they would come to a almost complete stop. Then after removing 3-4 mm from the rear end of the guide the car could exit the R1 corners at speed and lead to a 1 sec a lap improvement in times.

The second problem mainly concerns Ninco tracks. Because of the thickness of Carrera guides they will not even run in a straight line on a Ninco track. This can be fixed by using a Dremel style tool to grind the width of the guide so that it fits along a Ninco groove without getting stuck.

Update:- Carrera now sell a special universal guide that works for Non-Carrera tracks with a narrower slot then Carrera. The part ref. number is 85309 (be warned the Australian distributor is shipping Pro-X guides under this code).

Digital 132 Dualuse Track

The Digital 132 Dualuse Track conversion allows you to use both your digital and analogue cars on the digital track without chipping any analogue cars. As I am yet to complete the conversion to my own D132 track here are 2 links to people who have done the conversion.

Digital 132 Dualuse - Slotbaer (By brumbaer from Slotforum)

Digital and analogrunning on new track!, Thanks to brumbaer and his Dual Use system - Slotforum (By b.yingling from Slotforum)

Converting a Ninco GT car to Carrera Digital

I finally got around to doing my first Carrera digital conversion.

The choice of car :- Ninco Ford GT
 

With the width of the car and abundant space in front of the motor the choice of car looked suitable (Carrera D132 Mercedes Maclaren next to Ninco Ford GT).



After taking the measurements of the digital decoder. One hole was drilled for the the LED. Then the screw mount hole for the display box was extended for the switch and finally a NSR motor pod plastic cap was super glued into position for the screw to hold the chip in place.



The next step was to shorten the NSR motor pod screw that is going into the plastic cap by about 4mm. This is to stop the screw from hitting the chassis and dislodging the plastic cap. After that I cut off the plug on the motor side and soldered it to the guide wirings and covered the solder joins with heat shrink.



The underside.



Once on the track the digital decoder work rightway with no problems setting the cars id or adjusting its speed. Even with no magnet in the car and it fish tailing out of the corners it never once missed a lane change command. With the electronics working the last problem was to fit the body back on. Given the low height of the Ford GT this is proving to be the most difficult part to get right. By removing some of the interior floor and shaving 2 mm off the plastic cap I was able to get the body on but it still needs to be dropped by about 2-3 mm. To get the chip low enough in the end I had to grind off 2-3mm on both sides where the chip touched the two chassis rails. Another way would have been to fit a prorace interior.

Conclusion :- So far I am happy with the result.The Ninco chassis is easy to convert and the Ninco D132 car is quicker.

Replacement guides for Fly & Spirit slot cars

If anyone is looking for a replacement guide to fit to their Fly or Spirit slot cars then you can use a NSR ref. 4843 pick-up guide. As no one here in Australia keeps spare parts for either brand. It is handy to know that a NSR guide is a straight swap. So far I have fitted the NSR guide to a Spirit BMW 2002 which had cracked at the eyelet/braid hole and a Fly Ferrari LM250 which I wanted to lower the front end of to improve the handling.

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