314 replies to this topic

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Mike, the Dilworth bodies are 3 7/8wb, 3" across the flares...and could do a 4.5" guide length. Not sure they are "lost causes". The 19 in original configuration would be alot more narrow.

Fate

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

OK, just got the Select body from Mike Swiss. The short version is that it fits entirely INSIDE the dilworth body. Much smaller "bardahl sign" spoiler. A lot more tumblehome on the sides. In essence, more scale.

Had a great mail delivery, today, all the bodies I have asked for arrived TODAY, all at once. Overwhelming.

Thank you to TEX for a magnificent gift,
To Ron Hershman and Mike Swiss for both being friends and efficiently as businessmen being "dealerman" to my vices.

Fate

[Duffy]

Hey, by way of a Lost Cause bump-up since I've been living out of boxes all August--Rick Thigpen was rambling about his Lotus on a maybe-inappropriate thread; so I hijacked his hijack and dragged it over here.

He's mocking-up a possible underpinning for the Grant Bardahl Sp'l, using THIS reference. (The pic already appears in this thread, somewhere above.)

Rick writes:

It shouldn't have the front diaplane but.........maybe he added one for the next race............maybe he had one in practice......... Anyway I'm going for the Jerry Grant (ED: Jerry HANSEN, by this time) livery, scale wheel and tire sizes and a full sidewinder setup. The rest is to be determined

Looks like you can trim the diaplane more to fit what we see there.

...Sidewinder, huh? You are SOO raising the bar for Lost Cause. --Or, at least, making the bar easier to bend.

Duffy

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[dc-65x]

Hi Duffy,

My post has a proper home, thanks.

This body can fit a 3" track width. The wheel wells are large enough to fit scale diameter tires. That means a big spur gear will work. It is also pretty tall so a big motor will fit. I can't pass up the chance to build a big motor sidewinder . The motors in the running are the Pittman 6001BB shown, Pittman DC-65X, Ram XL500, and Mabuchi 36D, 26D and 16D (maybe a 16D with a twist ).

The "Golden Era" was very creative. I think that's why I enjoy it so much. There are so many kinds of cars to build....FUN STUFF AHEAD!

[Jim]

I just received a Lotus 19 body from Mike Swiss and it is magnificent. I want to replicate the number 8 Bardahl car from Riverside 1965 and this body is just about perfect for that car. The quality of the body is excellent. Now, if I can just find some period correct wheel inserts...

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

In the day, I didn't see the select body(let alone dilworths new body). The Dubro Lotus 19 was the close fender versioon and I had it in 63 before I ran my first commerical track. It was for an on base track (Seymour Johnson AFB) and used a 704 type motor(I think it was actually the strombecker clone).

In the following decades I have NEVER seen the body show up! ARRGH.

I have a Cooper survivor that Jim has run with a 36 inline in it. In the day, I remember arguing with myself on this. The cooper is much narrower than this Select body, and I reasoned better wider tires on an inline, that the "gooder" handling of a sidewinder.

But I am inspired here. in '65 I would not have used a 16d, It would have, and was, 36ds for the commerical tracks. Pittcans didn't come out until april of 66. By then I had nice low and wide Lola T70s!

But memory fails me. None of my 36d sidewinders have run in about 40 years...I need to restore them.

Fate

[dc-65x]

Hi Rocky,

I haven't decided yet on the time frame of my build but it will probably be 1965 to early 1966 depending on the motor I choose. I do know it won't be like anything I would have built back then. Rewound 16D Mabuchi's mounted inline were IT then for us. We never would have used this body either, GP cars ruled. I just want the parts I use and the style of the chassis to be from the period. I've got some period magazine articles I'll post that I'm taking some of my ideas from.

I'm going to have fun building this Lotus 19 Special as a sidewinder with big scale diameter tires . Hopefully I can get it to power slide like the real cars used to . Where are those 40mm "German" tires anyway.............

Onward

[Duffy]

The "Golden Era" was very creative. I think that's why I enjoy it so much.

Needs a better name. "The Brass Era"--more appropriate maybe? and it distinguishes the period from the modern-retro "Bronze Age."

Duffy, juuust maybe clearing things away sufficiently to BUILD something, by next Monday or so

[don.siegel]

Rick,

How about a shortened Ram-Boochie? Might be a little tall for that car, but it should fit as a sidewinder and would be period-correct.

Or the Ram XL-500 - 150,000 rpm at your fingertips!

Don

[dc-65x]

Duffy, juuust maybe clearing things away sufficiently to BUILD something, by next Monday or so

Sounds like the "Deplete Duffy" will be a replenished and revitalized "Replete Duffy" soon.....cool! .

Hi Don,

I've got a Ram-Boochie 36D with ARCO magnets that I used to vintage hard body race. It's a good running motor with the reliability of a Pittman. I haven't put my modified Ram XL500 in a car yet:



Maybe the Lotus 19 Special will be the car

I've mounted but still need to trim to 1 1/8" some 40mm Germans and some Alpha Huge Supernatural Donuts on Russkit rims. Then I'll know for sure what motor I can fit as a sidewinder.

[dc-65x]

Hey Duffy,

I finally started building something thanks to your inspiration :

Jerry Hansen's 1966 Lotus 19 Chevy

[Duffy]

I've been busy shoehorning myself into a very small apartment and haven't done much hobby for weeks--just getting back now. I've pulled this snippet over here from another thread we were close to hijacking:

I, also just for the heck of it, am currently mounting a Genie-Ford (D3-legal Revell repop!). Just wanna see it out on the track.

Hi Duffy! I hope you have as much fun with yours as I am having with mine!

HAH!! Yessss. But I'm gonna run mine in D3 Can-Am, pulling this sweet thing down over an RGeo Samurai pan and begging scoffs from all the Ti22 guys. What d'you think? A little less wheelbase but a little more guide lead, I may run pretty good.

Duffy

[Darkron9]

Hey Duffy,

You might want to try a very short guide lead. Like 9/16" with a 3.8 or 3.9 wheelbase. This will give you Paul Sterritt style handling. Go deep into the corners, but be sure you have your car geared for brakes too.

You might also try a Slick 7 guide or trim a Parma to resemble a Slick 7 guide to clear the nose too.

Ron

[Duffy]

Hey Duffy, You might want to try a very short guide lead. Like 9/16" with a 3.8 or 3.9 wheelbase. This will give you Paul Sterritt style handling. Go deep into the corners, but be sure you have your car geared for brakes too.

--Uh-HUH, and as soon as I can by-damn DRIVE like Sterritt, that'll be jolly fine advice!!

Funny, I was just having this conversation in a PM; I'm building three identical chasses now, to always have one backup and one in trial-horse rotation. The guide lead will creep aft with time.

Other'n that, the choice of the Genie is mostly anti-bravado on my part; it certainly ain't the most aerodynamic body around, but, well, neither's mine.

Duffy

[Mopar Rob]

I'm building three identical chasses now, to always have one backup and one in trial-horse rotation.

You guys have been doing this alot longer than I have. I've built identical looking chassis, never chassis that were or worked identical

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

Duffy/Mikey hasn't been doing this longer than you! I learned a long time ago that the 3 chassis approach is a great way to LEARN. With the D3 kits, this is even easier. Have 3 cars off the same kit/motor. One to race, one as a backup if Mark Wampler(grin) t-bones you, and the third to test with. Everytime some idiot like me suggests an idea, you get to diddle the unraced 3ed car and see if it works ON THE TRACK. If so, you add it to the others.

But the 3 car approach isolates the variables in your learning. AND, this is the interesting part, it is cheaper than not doing so. That is, no racecar in any class stands still. But most of your ideas will be bad ones. If each car is unique, you risk a bigger expensive disaster! Versus racing a Vette in SCCA, slot car racing is really cheap. D3 especially so.

Ditto Jail Door.

But Duffy is going to LEARN.

Fate

[Duffy]

Hey, where the heck have I been? Lost in housework, arguing with the carpenter ("I jus' don' see, Mon, the Necessity, y'unnerstan'--like, why you need, you know Mon, to have ALL the louvers in the closet doors, you know, pointing the same way Mon--seems you know very REGIMENTED Mon..."), phone-strategizing with the floor-sanding crew ("Ahhh, MisserHeinrich, We got the ahhh vinyl up and ahhhh the oak floor's only halfway to the door, ahhh y'want we should just cover it back up or y'want to spend THREE TIMES AS MUCH with the tile contractor?...", mulling over learning tile work...

But I meant to address a point some days back:

Have 3 cars off the same kit/motor. One to race, one as a backup if Mark Wampler(grin) t-bones you, and the third to test with. Everytime some idiot like me suggests an idea, you get to diddle the unraced 3ed car and see if it works ON THE TRACK. If so, you add it to the others.

---Rob had questioned my frivolous use of "identical"--wull, no. I've been a toolmaker & grassroots engineer long enough to know the provisional nature of our terms, & yes we stack up variations .0001" at a time, no matter how close we think we work. Not my issue, not by a long shot.

But Rocky put it plain enough, & thanks Fate.

--And I did get to squeeze in some Brass Time this week, albeit at my work--I'd been bouncing around some ideas on a simple body mount jig. Looking at the superb Precision Slotcars product, I figured there's gotta be a way to do something like this on my present jig--and so I made a pair of the rails you see here:

--This is a demo shot, I just dropped in the chassis you see there (for my Lotus 11, more soon); the rail has an array of pin holes spaced 1/8" apart, and two pairs of holes to locate on the jig so your locator pin won't go through where you're pinning...and the locators're offset 1/32" so you can reverse the rails and get 1/16" increments in mount positions. --AND the row of pin holes is a little offset so you can flip over and get a LO or HI mount position.

So, pin the rails down and use it to locate & hold your pin tubes to solder up; then rubberband the body down and shove pins thru and presto, perfect alignment. Just make sure all your rail flipping was the same on both sides--I marked the rails" A" & "B" on one end for that.

It's typical Duffy overkill, but it seems to work the way I meant it to.

I showed it to RGeo and he got all excited and is tooling up for these now, so if it appeals to you, go bug him.

By the way, the pic-filler you see at the top is a quote from Zen Roshi Houn-Jiyu Kennett; I keep it floating around my workbench to remind me of the treasure to be found in the odd idle moment.

Duffy

[Mopar Rob]

In the spirit of CI (Continuous Improvement) I think the holes for the pin tubes need to be elongated? Starting at about .032 at the bottom and moving upward to about .250 That way it would accommondate may different chassis. I'll draw something up tomorrow to illistrate what I'm talking about if you can't visualize.

[Rick]

You betcha that excited me Duffy. I made one today just to try it. Of course mine is made of aluminum. That Duffy, one clever dood! I will bet if we put more holes in it, it would work on about every stamped steel chassis too. With some 1/8" axle shims on the bottom could make it fit any height pin hole also.

Rob, whos going to machine a 1/16 or smaller slot in the thing? Would be very tough and not to mention most minature endmills don't have that much flute length so it would have to be done from both sides. You could do it EDM.

A quickie to work out some details for the final version. Should be call this the Duffy Pinner?

[Duffy]

I think the holes for the pin tubes need to be elongated? Starting at about .032 at the bottom and moving upward to about .250 That way it would accommondate may different chassis.

Rick nailed the problem with that. --& the way I see it, a slot sort of defeats the purpose? Sure, you get longitudinal placement, but then you're back to shimming & kloodging for height. Dunno.

Just for mine, I picked a placement where I'd have a lower setting for pans and a higher one for JD. Rick can figure out whatever looks right.

--Now, why didn't I drill my locator holes outside the pin hole array?? Woulda saved me four holes. --But I wanted the thing conveniently short. Whatever.

Should be call this the Duffy Pinner?

Sounds kinda entomological, huh?

Duffus

[Rick]

Final version for scrutiny. To keep Duffy happy and make it short, inboard pins to locate on the jig. 6 pairs of hole on ither side to accomidate builders and one set is correct for Parma/Champ length clips. Sort of solves the retro problem of getting pin tubes always the same, chassis to chassis, build after build. TY Duffy for the great idea.

And I thought my regular cam (batteries are dead) was the worst on the planet, I had to snap this pic with an old web cam. Now I am convinced I have to worst TWO cams on the planet. LOL

But you'll get the idea.

[One27ray]

Hey Rick,

Looks good to me

When will they be available ?

inquiring mines want to know.

i-ray

PS did you ever make a motor bracket thing-ma-bob maker ??

[Rick]

I'll make up what I can with material I have on hand. Duffy and I are locking our horns on this one, I say you only need one and he says pair. ????

[Duffy]

Duffy and I are locking our horns on this one, I say you only need one and he says pair.

Horny guy weighs in: WHY<you need two>WHY? Because, with one each side, you line up your tubes visually and solder, lop 'em off perfect, done--and with only one, you take the chance of goofing up when you switch over.

AND THEN with two, you rubberband your body down right there on the jig, poke holes through one at a time and insert pins--more secure and foolproof with two, you don't risk things moving around under the rubberband when you move the rail to the other side.

I like everything in place, you may be fine with just one rail. Up to the manufacturer.

Duffy

[The Bugman]

well im not a FLEXI type racer,,but if something like those were ever created for your Retro-D3-JD jig,,,just like Flexi,YOU DEFINATELY NEED 2 ,to do the job the way ol' Duff explained it,,,yep 2,,,,