Carrera Rollover

[Joe Handley]

I've got the Carrera Richard Petty set and I seem to have problems with the cars it came with (a '70 Superbird and '69 Torino Talladega) and the Scalextric Viper Comp Coupe wanting to roll over if they get too far sideways. Any suggestions (besides not to get too far siedways)?

[jbwelda]

hey good to see some action in the slot car area!

well what you have there is just like in real life: those kinda cars go good in a straight line but

ask them to turn a corner and they crash. the solution is also sort of like real life: learn to drive

them despite their handling or improve them. looks like you chose the latter!

(oops i forgot to notice the viper! that one should go around corners fine! still these tips should

help on the slot car even if the real thing dont need much!)

so theres a couple of options and i have to talk generally because i dont know those specific cars.

first of all if you like magnets, add more! that will sure keep the things glued to the track! or the cars you have may have magnets that you can adjust, either by removing or adding a thin spacer above the magnet, making it sit closer to the track, or maybe by having a couple of different magnet mounts you can move the magnet to for it to handle better, or maybe add new magnets into the vacant points.

but if youre a bit more experienced with racing you get bored with simply using magnet power because, pretty much, more magnets trumps pretty much anything else up the point where the

car wont even move because its stuck to the track!

so heres some other ideas, maybe use them in conjunction with moving the stock magnet around:

1. silicone tires. if youre using plastic track, ive never met a car that doesnt improve at least 100% with the addition of silicones. the tires that came with your cars might be hard plastic, out of round, etc but the silicones will add a whole new level of feel.

2. lower the body and the center of gravity. this often requires deciding if you want a shelf model or you want a race car. thats because if im serious the first thing i do is ditch the

detailed interior in favor of a thin flat black sheet of styrene with a pilot torso on it. this will

allow the body to sit lower if you cut the mounting posts, and will take away a lot of weight.

basically lighten and lower. if you want to get more radical, start drilling holes in the chassis

and get rid of lighting systems (unless youre planning on entering lemans) and switches and

all that ######...its a race car, if it dont make you go faster, ditch it.

another thing that may not exactly affect your handling but certainly will affect the sound and

feel of your car, and that is to glue in your rear bearings with superglue, and either glue the

motor to its mounts or tape the motor down to the chassis. this will quiet down the car and in my

experience will make it at least *seem* to handle better!

also you should experiment with the mounting of the body...some cars run better with the body lightly screwed to the chassis and others with the body solidly bolted down. i also usually trim

the chassis slightly where it touches the body so it doesnt bind as it flexes...esp with strong

magnets exerting force on the chassis.

front wheel movement is another factor and here are different schools of thought, basically

breaking into: 1) people who what the axle loose so the wheels move up and down freely and

2) people (like me) who prefer a solid axle. the latter crew think the front axle adds stability

going into a corner while the former evidently feel its good to let the car dip as it enters the

corner...

finally ive found that you should limit axle movement side to side by using washers or some

thing to keep the side to side slop to a minimum. again this just keeps the car stable on the

track as the various forces are put to bear on the car as it moves through turns.

one more thing: you probably have realized it by now but there are very few cars that just

run well right out of the box, pretty much all benefit from a disassembly and tune up or

at least a lubrication before being put on the track. a lot of slop gets by the factory sometimes.

hope all that helps and i have to say its really fun to tune a car and make it improve from a

pile of dung to a contender!

Edited February 6, 2008 by jbwelda

[Joe Handley]

Thanks for the tips JB, I picked up a second Petty Superbird to try them out on! It is too bad there doesn't seem like there's more interest in this forum, this is one of the few places I know of that has anything like this (he greg, I've got an idea for the mag now too!)

I ended up pulling all of the magnets in the set's Petty cars and found them more entertaining to drive like "dirt track" cars than with the magnets I even picked up the new Camaro Concept Car from Carrera and set it up as a "drift" car, way too fun . I still have yet to get the magnet out of the Viper Comp Coupe though......................

Edited February 9, 2008 by Joe Handley

[jbwelda]

yep thats the way i tend to go too: get rid of the magnets and learn to drive the car. its amazing what you can do with non-magnet cars. and especially if you use the magnets in the motor for some downforce (but still legitimately a non-magnet car). i build vintage cars and open body motors like a pittman really have some magnet force available and it makes up in cornering for what it lacks in pure rpm. really makes for a fun time driving cars that you really have to *drive*!

it was getting to the point on our track where we could just hold down the trigger all the time and not even look at the car going around the track. at that point you realize youve overused magnets!

[Joe Handley]

The ones that came with the set are now stick again, I did buy a second of both and modded the Superbird with a couple extra magnets and the Torino has had the magnets moved up front for "dirt tracking" . The Viper has been converted to a drift car.

[Modelcarjedi]

I have one of those torinos and i lowered the body and made a few modifications to the chassis.

stock

not a good pic but it's lowered here

close up pics of the chassis

shimmed the flag to keep it from flopping around

also made a axle tube to let the flag touch the track. My chassis was tweaked right from the start. I never could get it straight. So i raised the wheels up.

Burnt the motor up This is a $5 ebay special seems to work AOK

keith ross