174 replies to this topic

[MSwiss]

... without any broken parts replacement? (other than braid to keep the car going as fast as possible)

Just oil and braid cleaning.

Thirteen hours and 55 minutes, so far (including a four-hour straight run).

Not crazy impressive, but I'm pretty sure it will go 24 hours plus...

New JK Rental Car

[Ron Hershman]

The motor is his new Hawk 25, 25,000 RPM motor.

So how does it compare in speed to, say, a Falcon 7?

[MSwiss]

Much slower.

7.1 second laps on my King on 12v (timed by running a slightly-faster car along side of it, sort of, two lanes away ).

An F7 in the same car would probably run about 5.2-5.4.

[Gator Bob]

The benchmark for endurance is the old Champion CP-100 test.

You could make a rental 25R braced with a H25 with same bodies,
... tell the kids "you don't have to wait to grow up to get in the big leagues, this is what the Pros and real men of slot cars are racing now".

Bezerko Bob, that is the dumbest thing I've heard ... "just paint the bottom with a Krylon brass spray can... then they will look (almost) the same".

[MSwiss]

I remember PdL mentioning the Champion thing. How long did they go? 24 hours, or more?

I doubt they ran ever four hours straight, full speed. LOL.

The JK is only semi-impressive in that it's done with a motor with brushes the size of a gnat's ass.

[Gator Bob]

Three days and three nights continuous, 80 hours.

One set of tires.
One motor CP-707BB.
Box stock $19.95.
1,200 actual miles.

Punched, with dead zones leading into the turns.

[MSwiss]

Did any parts get changed?

Or does continuous mean continuous?

But with dead zones, how could you consider it continuous?

What's $19.95 in 2012 dollars?

Or $11.95 in 196? dollars?

[Gator Bob]

I just have the short form results, Dokk has the full story but...

... IIRC it was just braids and oil. Continuous on track except for regular service intervals, I wouldn't count the dead (coast) zones as an interrupt, no wheel stop... kept rolling.

Champion used the word 'continuous'.

[MSwiss]

What's $19.95 in 2012 dollars?

$132.81 if it was done in 1968.

Conversely, the $11.95 JK Hawk 25 would be a $1.80 motor back in 1968.

[Gator Bob]

IIRC it was mid-to-late 1966.

But even at $1.80 sales might be less then stellar... electric tooth brushes had not come out yet...

Could be that Chinese motors were still made from rice, seaweed, and those little corn on the cob things in the mid-1960s.

They must have changed motor brushes before 80 hours. Dokk will set us straight on the test that was great for marketing and shown in the 1967 catalog.

Body was a wreck.

[MSwiss]

They must have changed motor brushes before 80 hours.

All I know is in 1985, 36D pullouts would only last about 20 minutes/four heats in a G7 car. LOL.

[Champion 507]

Three cars were run. Each car went through five guides and seven sets of braid.

Hold on to your commutators... each motor finished with its original set of brushes. No motor brushes were replaced.

Here's the STORY; you'll need to scroll down a bit.

[TSR]

Champion wanted to prove the speed and endurance of their cars and motors, so in the summer of 1966, they built a raised oval track that was assembled in the parking lot of the famed Santa Ana Raceway in California, run by enthusiast and master modeler John Hale. Two of these Lola-Chevy and a Ford GT fitted with the same running gear and "707" motors successfully ran an actual 1200 miles of racing in 80 hours, including all stops for regular maintenance. One of the contact rails on the track was taped so as to provide automatic running, as the cars would simply lose electrical contact and slow enough to negotiate the two tighter corners at each end of the oval. The silicone-compound tires lasted the distance, and only a few sets of braided contacts were changed. When the motors were disassembled, they showed virtually no wear except for normal motor brush wear.

Someone please compute the average speed achieved because it is too early in the morning for me to figure it out.

In 46 years, no one has touched that record.

We ran a 1/32 scale TSR Porsche 956 for 48 hours in two 24-hour segments a few years back, running on a Carrera oval track with tape to slow the car at each end. We had to change two sets of front tires, one set of rears. No guide braided contacts needed changing and the motor, a standard T3215 (Plafit Cheetah clone identical to the JK Falcon) lasted 48 hours with no sweat.

[MSwiss]

Taped rails?

That's like the contests for people to stay awake that let them take 20 minute naps periodically.

[Hworth08]

Interesting reading/test.

Mike, if it's too much trouble maybe run the JK car for 80 hours and compare cost. The $20 Champion (of Chamblee) was the COMPLETE car, not just the motor. The almost silicone tires lasted the whole 80 hours but today's silicones probably would, too.

The 707 motor probably sold for about $8 with a long life.

The Champion frame is still known as one of the best stamped frames and was of good design and high quality. Auto World sold the frame in 1966 for $2.98 including the rear oilites and body mounts.

Lap times? The Champion car with a 707 could probably turn 7.1 second laps on a modern King. If there's enough interest I've got the parts to assemble the Champion (less silicones) and direct lap comparisons can be made.

1,200 miles in 80 hours averages to 15 actual miles per hour.

[MSwiss]

$19.95 seemed like a lot for a motor, even a double BB one.

Anyway the 1966 $19.95 Champion RTR car would be $141.30 today.

The 2012 $64.95 JK RTR rental car would be $64.95 today.

It's apples and oranges. An old banked oval vs a modern king. I'd still go with the old banked oval, with I assume, a much bigger percentage of straightaway.

BTW, a Manta Ray struggles to break 9 seconds on my King.

I'm guessing the Champion car would be about a 8 second flat car.

As with all the cars that run on either of my tracks, all would depend if the car "hopped" when you got on it hard.

[Cheater]

What's $19.95 in 2012 dollars?

Or $11.95 in 196? dollars?

There are numerous ways of calculating this. The most appropriate one is probably the "Purchasing Power Calculation", based on the percentage increase in the CPI.

Using that method, one website calculator says $19.95 in 1967 is $134.00 in 2011 dollars.

And $11.95 is 2011 dollars is $1.77 in 1967 dollars.

[TSR]

Taped rails?

That's like the contests for people to stay awake that let them take 20 minute naps periodically.

Mike,

The way we did the TSR car test was to have the PM controller stuck with a rubber band, the Pyramid adjustable power supply set at 12 volts, and then we figured out when to brake for the car not to come off. The car, fitted with a single traction magnet, ran on the outer lane and aprons were used. The tape was added to the braking section and about 20% inside the turn at each end (Carrera curve #4).

Once the setup was done and the car had run on its own for several hours, we went home. When we returned every eight hours, the car was stopped, checked, and the front tines measured for track clearance. We changed them twice as they were wearing faster than the rears. On those cars, the braided contacts do not support the front end, the front tires do. The braided contacts showed very little wear after 48 hours. We tore down the motor to check on brush and comm wear, and the brushes were slightly over 50% down.

For the Champion record in 1966, they did very much the same thing, just keeping an eye on the cars, but as the motors broke in, there were crashes, and the two Lola bodies had their noses broken off. They had to add tape on the rails as the cars got faster, then settled into a rhythm. They stopped at 80 hours but there is little doubt that they could have gone another 80... what was most amazing is that the Champion silicone rear tires simply do not wear on those cars, while providing pretty decent traction on a clean track. Compare this to the soft Cox "Sil-Slik" that lasted only a few hours...

If I recall correctly, and I will verify the numbers, the Champion Lola RTR with the standard "701" stock motor was $12.95, the one with the "707" (rewound motor, serious comm, two ball bearings, stiffer brush springs, Arco magnets with shim, and Celcon endbell) was $19.95. The "707" motor with all the goodies was $9.95, vs $2.98 for the stock motor.

[MSwiss]

Greg,

It was a rhetorical question.

You have to read all the posts.

I already figured that out with the various $s I quoted, first from 1968 and then 1966 once the date of the record was confirmed.

[don.siegel]

Another way is saying that in 1966, a $20 car was at least twice as expensive as most other slot cars available at the time! Maybe 1-1/2 for a comparable top of the line RTR model - but there was nothing before the advent of the 26D that could touch a 707 in pure speed.

If I remember right, the 707 motor was $9.95 for the plain bearing version and $12.95 with ball bearings - again, significantly more expensive than most motors, but not too far from most other rewinds, and probably more reliable.

[Cheater]

Mike,

I did read them all, but wanted to point out that the changing value of money over time calculation is not an exact science. There are at least a dozen different ways of estimating those numbers. The change in purchasing power seemed to be the most applicable to the questions at hand.

[MSwiss]

This is the guy I used today to come up with the $141.30 figure.

US Inflation Calculator

[Ron Hershman]

In 46 years, no one has touched that record.

Has anyone tried or cared??? LOL.

Mike... didn't you guys have a 24-hour race a few years back with Flexi cars and 501 motors that set some kind of record back then?

[MSwiss]

Yes, the winning car's Deathstar ran the last 22 hours. They changed to it at the end of the second one-hour heat, in search of a faster motor.

It used up about half its brushes, IIRC, Golddust.

[TSR]

Has anyone tried or cared???

About twelve years ago, I issued a public challenge to manufacturers and amateurs, and offered a $1,000 enticement.

No one took me on it, but several argued that that record would easily be beaten, that is until I pointed out that no motor part or rear tires could be changed.

It is NOT that easy to beat such a record and establish that average speed. I know that we had a good candidate in the TSR cars, but the rear tires lasted only about 28 hours before there was no longer enough clearance, and we did not have the facility to make harder urethane compounds.

Scalextric did a test a few years back too, but they changed tires (and guides) on a regular basis and their speed was more like 6 MPH average if I recall correctly.