50 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

Looking Good Jairus

[tjsguns]

Finished!



Nice job Jairus & John !!!!!

[TSR]

Looking nice!
Now if only we could get a picture of any of the Team Russkit guys using this body in a race...

[tonyp]

No picture but Mike Morrissey is listed as running a Mclaren in the First Car Model race at J&J's.

[TSR]

Yes Tony, but not the same body. Mike was racing a McLaren-Elva MK1, not the later MK2. A whole different animal...

[tonyp]

You sure it was an Elva, after all the Lotus 40 and Lola were used at that race. He must have had a wide *** Elva. LOL...

[Pete L.]

Finished!



Nice job Jairus & John !!!!!

Great work !!!

[TSR]

You sure it was an elva, after all the lotus 40 and Lola,s were used at that race. He must have a wide *** elva. Lol...

Tony,

Remember, candle, spoon...

I talked to Morrissey a few years back and he said he only ran the Elva as far as he could recall, then the Lotus 40, then the Lola T70, then the team was disbanded and he did like everyone else, he used the Champion-Waters-Bloom McLaren M8 until he quit and went to play with R/C cars.

[dc-65x]

Great looking car guys. It's motivated me to get my 26D version finished!

[Jairus]

It would have been much better if we had started with a re-pop body. That one is all vintage and the rear panel was split all to heck. After painting I added some epoxy to hold it together and that curled the panel in some.

[edscars]

I acquired this McLaren II relatively recently from a Wisconsin racer in Oct of 2021. He'd saved my Toy Collector magazine ad for about 20 years, and called me when he was ready to sell. Thank goodness for the power of advertising! The rear wheels and tires might not be original. The rear tires here are silicones.

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[Bill from NH]

Nice looking car Ed! The body is in great shape. Does this car have a Russkit 22 or 23? I May have the chance to bring my Carrera chassis pieces home this weekend. A Russkit Porsche was my first commercial slot car in '67.

[old & gray]

Very nice car.

 

Unsolicited comments: Red tag should be a 23; nice spoiler, not stock; I think the rear tires were unglued rubber.

[Bill from NH]

I overlooked the tag, Bob.   23s have a slightly hotter wind than a 22, stronger magnets, & brush heat sinks. A black tag indicates a Russkit 22.

[TSR]

"nice spoiler, not stock; I think the rear tires were unglued rubber."

Bob Schlain, the spoiler is stock. It was a feature on the Russkit kits of the Chaparral 2, 2D and the McLaren Mk2. At first they were just inside the small parts pack at the bottom right on the display tray, but glued on the bodies in the later issues and on the RTR models issued in late 1967, early 1968.

Regarding the rear tires, the first versions of the "Carrera Series" kits had unglued rubber "Dunlop" ribbed tires, but for 1967 all the kits (and the later RTR models) had neoprene foam rubber, glued on the same wheels and trued on a lathe.
Of course in the model shown above, the original rear wheels have been replaced by what appears to be a set of AJ's silicone tires on larger aluminum wheels. This required a change of rear axle for a threaded type and the use of a Cox setscrew spur gear.

Fine details on these can be found in "Slot Car Dreams", a book that should be the Bible of vintage slot car enthusiasts and available at your local church!

 

[Martin]

In the "what if" category . If Team Russkit had used products that they sold to the public to compete with. Like the stamped aluminum shown by Ed above. 

 

A bit of a stretch I know, but could they have tuned their factory products to be competitive at the time when they were traveling the country ?

 

"Race on Sunday sell on Monday" deal, now that would be even more inexpressive.

 

Has anybody here tuned a stamped Russkit chassis and raced it against a brass rod car of the same vintage? 

[Tex]

I've never heard of such. But if someone were to try and knowing what we know now, I would think they'd have needed to add some "movement" to the chassis since the chassis proper is rigid. Maybe allow for just a tad of up/down slop in the front axle and somehow allow the body to be mounted loosely.

[Jairus]

If I were to take part in such a race, I would only wish for a NON-Modification rule.
Biggest problem that I can see is the driven gear being attached to the rear wheel.  No gear ratio changes!
So many things wrong with the original design, weak drop arm, weak chassis, bad screws, aluminum axles, plastic bearing races, hard rubber tires...

[Martin]

I was thinking a total fake "Truth in advertising" build. So when you picked up the car it would appear as a stamped aluminum chassis, but in reality it would be a brass rod state of the art pro chassis. with none of the issues mention above. It would be just the use of the stamped pan for brand recognition.

[don.siegel]

FWIW, the Russkit "Carrera" aluminum pan chassis is one of the most competitive chassis in vintage racing here in Europe, especially for guys who know how to set them up (like a lot of the Italians, who often cut their teeth on these chassis). That's on the shorter tracks we have in Europe, with mild or no banking, and generally using urethane tires, no moo. 

 

Under these conditions, the jaildoor frames have not been all that competitive. 

 

Also very popular are Dynamic frames with various combinations of brass added, mostly inline or sidewinder 26D powered. 

 

I think the British Team Russkit originally ran their production cars and did fairly well at the time, before the scratchbuilts took over. 

 

Don 

[Martin]

All very interesting to me.

 

The "what ifs" come to mind. What if Russkit management had said, team go out and kick but, but use our production products. Modify all you want. We will then use those mods to improve the product.

 

I had not herd of a British Team Russkit.  Would love to see what they were running and what they did to be competitive?

 

" Russkit "Carrera" aluminum pan chassis is one of the most competitive chassis in vintage racing here in Europe"

Are there any pics or tips of these cars that you can share?

[don.siegel]

I think we only have pics of the bottom, and from that angle they look pretty stock! The Italians play it pretty close to the vest, and when I ask what they did, to the motor for instance, the answer always is, "it's stock, Don!"

 

A few years ago, Brad brought a Russkit McLaren to the Double Trouble meeting in England, and finished second against some pretty good competition. It was really stock, and his only hint was to turn the urethane tires (probably Ortmann) on a lathe at very low speed, to make sure they were really round. (a short, but relatively high speed track, 6 lanes)

 

Don 

[bradblohm]

That Mclaren was an original lightweight body painted similar to stock and tuned by Andy Smith (Professor Motor) and ran well, but it was Ralph Parker who REALLY got it to run!  I used it first in Italy at Roncole and that's where Ralph worked his magic!  For me was great as Andy did the motor, and Ralph did the chassis, so it was smooth and fast!  Also, credit to Phil Smith for getting Ortmann's truly round and smooth!  At the Double Trouble my heats were with John Secchi.  In the first heat I ran two feet behind him the entire time.  Between heats Derek Cooper and Phil came to me and directly asked, "Your car is faster than John's, isn't it?"  I said it was, but I wasn't going to fight him and possible wreck one or both of our cars (remember, Russkit wall shot equals bent up chassis!), and they thought I was nuts.  He ended up beating me by a couple laps, and after came over and asked if it really was faster.  I told him Derek would have beat him easily if he were running it, but that I couldn't, and it was no dis-honor to finish second to him.  He was always friendly with me, but even friendlier after that!  Sadly, three of those four gone now (RIP), but I remember!

[Martin]

Thanks for sharing the story Brad.

Don, Brad, at some point I would still like to see if I could make the " Russkit Carrera" aluminum pan chassis work well, and buy well I mean as good as a brass rod chassis of the period.

 

I will have to find a donor.

[olskoolslotz]

At the Bordeaux Vintage Meeting in 2002 my 1/24 entry was an early Russkit Carrera Series chassis that was run stock with the exception of a modern graphite guide & braid, replacement steel axles, Ortmann rear tires and a small amount of ballast. The body used was a repro Ferrari 365 P2 and it was powered by a stock blueprinted 23 motor, I tested a 27 motor but felt it was over powered.

I finished in 6th overall with the car despite some vindictive twats nullifying me from a chance at overall victory by giving me "0" scores in concours judging and thus stealing a portion of the weekend fun from me. In the racing competition I believe that I finished in third behind the two Italian entries that ran either Unicar or Mini Dream chassis' which stretched the spirit of the event rulings with under size diameter wheel and tire combinations. My car ran well but gave up too much tire grip late in the running.

 

If anyone has a scoring rundown of the 2002 Bordeaux results in both 1/32 and 1/24 scales I sure would appreciate a copy for my records, thanks.