36 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

Between scratch building projects I thought it would be fun to fool around with some RTR and kit cars. Rereading this Rod & Custom Magazine article ignited the bug to “Hop Up” some period cars:











The first car I decided to build up was the Russkit Black Widow twin motor:





Rather than building the Lola T70 I chose the Lotus 38 Indy car. I’ve always admired the way Al Hale detailed his in this R&C article:







Since the Black Widow finished mid-pack in the Round Up I guess it needs a little "hopping up". Time to gather up some pieces parts for the project.

[Mark Johnson]

Whats the plan ?? I like hotrod motors, trued tires , accurate gears ,and lead implants .
Mark

[dc-65x]

Hi Mark,

Here's the plan... well, part of the plan. Below is a follow up article to the Round Up test where the author "hops up" several of the RTRs:









I'll be putting this car together from new-old-stock (NOS) parts I've collected over the years starting with a Russkit Lotus 38 body kit...



... and a Black Widow two-piece style frame (frame and body mount are separate pieces):



The first thing I did was to replace these sloppy nylon bushings with ball bearings:



That meant reaming out the frame's 3/16" bearing holes to 1/4". A tapper pin reamer carefully turned by hand did a great job without bending the fragile frame or making the holes out of round:



Next up are new tires...

[mdiv]

Looking good, Rick! Watching with antici...............pation!

I have an MPC lancia that could use a hop up!

[dc-65x]

Hi Mike,

I'm surprised that the MPC Lancia was one of the slowest cars tested. I have one....



and all I've done to it is AJ's silicone rear tires......



......and ball bearings for the axles and a Cox quick change guide:



The next time I go to Eddie's I'll time it and the Black Widow around the King. It seemed fast to me but the clock won't lie .

[TSR]

Frankly, I am not so sure that the published lap times were not reflecting the amount of dollars paid for advertizing in the magazine...

Interestingly, while i could not for the life of me to make that Black Widow Lotus work in the day, as the front-driven wheel had a tendency to make the car jumping out of the slot, others were very happy with them and reported that the car handled great. I think that my mistake was to attempt that all four wheels would drive the car, giving it an advantage in a straight line. Theirs must have been set in a manner where the front wheels were driving... nothing, and the guide was doing its job of steering the car.
Jim Russell claimed that Morrissey designed the car, but in fact Jack Duer did the job. Why this car had two motors was simply a question of getting rid of over 200000 unsold Russkit "22" motors once the "23" was issued. Mimi Russell suggested that "two motors are better than one", at which point the car was conceived, marketed and incredibly successful in the marketplace, explaining why there are still so m many around.

[MSwiss]

Cool info.

Thanks for posting

[havlicek]

I can attest to Philippe's asessment about the success in the market[place. Even I had one of these and, as I recall, was pretty disappointed as a kid in the disparity between what I expected...and what I got when it was in a slot and being asked to actually "go". As always, I'll be watching Rick's build...but this one is particularly interesting in hindsight. Kids most often bought R2Rs because they didn't yet have the ability and/or patience to completely build cars like the "big guys" did. Some figured out ways to slightly improve them and most simply tossed them aside until the next paper-route collection day when they could buy something "better"!

-john

PS...also based on Philippe's post, it might be good to build-in a bit of slippage on those fronts, but I'm sure you have something coolio figured out for that anyway Rick. There's got to be a way to make that second motor do more than add weight!

[dc-65x]

There's got to be a way to make that second motor do more than add weight!

Actually, if I was to run modern tires that motor's extra weight would really help stop tilting!

I'm going to run some vintage rubber though. I think the original car ran solid rubber "rear" tires on the front and some not that sticky sponge rubber for the rear shown on the right:



On the left at the top are narrow 30mm Germans for the front and on the bottom left are the much wider 40mm Germans for the rear. I'll start there and see what happens. I'll show what they look like fitted to the chassis soon.....

[TSR]

Actually, if I was to run modern tires that motor's extra weight would really help stop tilting!

And here lies the secret of the Russkit Black Widow cars, the extra weight on the nose keeping them in the slot much better than many contemporary cars!

[mdiv]

Great looking Lancia Rick! I'm going through my tub of stuff to make projects, I'll try to get a shot of mine up there. It's nothing special, but I tried trading it a couple years back and it broke en route and I got it back..runs really well for an oldie...I even have an extra body kit mint

Mikey

[Hworth08]

I've bought 10 or 12 rough old kit and RTR cars lately. It is pretty amazing just how pitiful these cars were from the factory but as Rick is doing, they can be made to handle pretty well with some tuning.

We don't really want to admit it but some of the old scratch-built cars were dogs too.

[mdiv]

This is an attempt at posting pictures from Facebook since I can't figure out how to post pictures like the old way (I'm assuming way too much bandwidth was used with that! ) and I hate photobucket:

Rick, here's my Lancia:














Here's the mint body kit:





Hrm, bit of a pain to upload pics...any suggestions, fellas?

Mikey

[dc-65x]

Cool to see another MPC Lancia, I like them . I'm using PhotoBucket for my pics Mikey but can't you download them through Slot Blog? Maybe Greg will chime in.

Here's the chassis with the wheels and tires mounted. Mine are 1/16" smaller in diameter than stock and the chassis still has a mile of clearance:



Check out the guide clearance . The angle is wrong too. I'll have to work on both of these problems :



The body is rough trimmed and I think it sits pretty well on the chassis:






Onward

[flarimer]

Oh you betcha I'm watching this! I know I had a lot of fun with one of these when I plopped a couple of rewinds in it. IIR, the harder front tires were to get some slip at the front (rather than bite). I just know I had a ton of fun with mine, it was reasonably fast and stuck pretty good. Do it! Do it! Watching with much interest for sure.

[TSR]

The Graupner Rekord Elastik tires were the best for a few weeks in 1965...

[dc-65x]

For a guide I'm using the "Korrect" Opti-Guide but with Lenz braid:



The guide mount in the frame is just an extruded tube and it's end is not square with the bore. The bottom of the frame where the guide seats isn't flat and the guide was really sloppy. Here's a fix and it worked out really well:

File the top of the frame's guide tube nice and square with it's bore

Use some "Mr. Big Washers" over the guide post to make a nice flat surface for the guide to seat against

An aluminum guide collar replaces the factory O-ring and can be adjusted to get rid of the slop but still turn freely:



I turned down the guide collar so it was flush with the top of the guide post. I think that gives things a sano factory look:

I know I had a lot of fun with one of these when I plopped a couple of rewinds in it.

I was thinking of doing that too Fred but Rodney has a stock Black Widow the Russkit 22's in it. The "Hop Up" article above talks about replacing the 22's with these:




I'll be interested to see how much faster the Black Widow is with the 23's compared to the stock 22's.

[flarimer]

Tim Allen would be proud! Yep, did that too. Was faster no doubt. The rewinds were even faster...

[TSR]

I'll be interested to see how much faster the Black Widow is with the 23's compared to the stock 22's.

Lots...

[tonyp]

I remember we had these at the track I worked at. They were hot until someone actually tried to run them on our 220 engleman. Boy were they slow.

[tlbrace]

I own one of the Lotus 38 black widows, and have owned several. I've never owned one or seen one for sale or in someone else's collection with the tailpipes. My thought was they they were never shipped with said tailpipes and the owner was left to crafting and installing his own should he feel the need. Or...was is simply that those bits were always the first to go in a shunt and few cars survive with OEM tailpipes?

[TSR]

The driver's head, plated exhaust and roll bar were aftermarket accessories by Russkit., However Russkit had the cars shown at trade shows with these installed.
Russkit also issued these cars in other colors for export and some are quite hard to find.
Light metallic blue, light metallic brown, Metallic red...

[dc-65x]

Here's a pair of NOS Russkit 23's ready to install except......



I didn't have the little gizmo that holds the motors down into the frame. I did have a hunk of aluminum rod and a lathe (finished motor hold down gizmo is on the left) :



Here are the motors and gizmo installed in the frame:



I wanted to change the gearing for a bit more top speed. I decided to try the very short lived first generation Cox Nylatron 33T crown gear and matching 9T pinion:



The bigger Cox crown gears caused some problems. I had to bevel the frame for clearance in the rear....



.....and cut a big chamfer in my guide hold down collar:



Anywho it all worked out and the roller is ready to go:



Looking at the car now I realize I only have 4 original parts left in it, the chassis, guide and front wheels. Over 80% of the stock parts were replaced striving for "LUDICROUS SPEED!"



Time to paint arg..................

[Duffy]

Looking at the car now I realize I only have 4 original parts left in it, the chassis, guide and front wheels. Over 80% of the stock parts were replaced striving for "LUDICROUS SPEED!"

That's still more original material than what's left today in our USS CONSTITUTION, but on the other hand, old slot car chassis don't rot so easy.

[dc-65x]

Well Duffy, I just got the stock parts count up by 2 so I'm even farther ahead of the CONSTITUTION .

The best laid plans and all that.....my 33T crown gears just touched the inside of the body front and rear . I didn't want to raise the body and 33T are the smallest first gen Cox gears I've got right now.

So, the stock 8T pinions went back on along with a couple of second gen Cox 29T crowns .

Now, back to the body......