84 replies to this topic

[TSR]

Perhaps I explained it wrong, but slotcars with the motors 90 degrees to the forward direction had a tendency to swing very wide around the curves at our club track, which is what I meant by wheelspin.

 

So one has to assume that sidewinders did not work for you. Funny but... aren't all seriously-fast cars sidewinders today, except for most of those piles of Chinese plastic run on cheap plastic track at home?

[idare2bdul]

In a word, No! Anglewinders are the design of choice for going fast in most USRA classes. This is one of the reasons D3 mandates inlines only.

Many of the lower performing hometrack cars have either an inline or full sidewinder configuration. Many of them can also run like a striped ape with minor modifications. God did invent magnets for a reason.

[TSR]

In a word, No!

Mike, no one here is speaking about D3. If you want to go stupid fast, better NOT have an inline. Indeed my D3 Retro Pro chassis (sidewinder) handles a LOT better than my D3 Retro Can-Am (inline).
We are talking SPEED here. Anyone who thinks sidewinders are slower than inlines has fallen from his branch. Indeed my SIDEWINDER Dynamic chassis, even with the big wheels and tires due to the gearing, used to run circles around my INLINE Dynamic chassis, all other components remaining the same. You take a Gar-Vic car with their sidewinder chassis and it is kind of mediocre, that is until you switch the body to their inline chassis. Their inline chassis had the same big tires and big FT36D motor as their sidewinder. After driving the pile, you REALLY think that the sidewinder has some advantage, and Lord knows how bad Gar-Vic cars could be.
That's what the Zebman is talking about but his memory fails to consider other factors such as correct setup, and that is probably why he thinks that inlines are or were the thing.
Also home-racing magnet cars do NOT use their motor magnets for traction, that simply does not work. They ALWAYS use a specific traction magnet. Or two. However if you take the mags out, the sidewinders have a definite advantage.

[gascarnut]

However if you take the mags out, the sidewinders have a definite advantage.

Not always true in my experience. What needs to be considered is the effect of rear tire traction, which can easily be overpowered by the extra rear-end momentum of a sidewinder.

We are talking SPEED here.

Actually, we were talking about Cox cars, until this degenerated into a thread that should IMO now be relegated to the freeblog and apologies issued to Jeb for the unnecessary insults hurled at him for no reason.

"Where decency is paramount" seems to have been lost here, and personally I think it's time to go elsewhere for some civil slot racing talk.

Bye.

[TSR]

Sorry to ruffle your feathers. Slotblog! promised to be frank and not mash words from its very beginning. I believe that it has delivered, as can be read in comments on other forums, as many prefer Slotblog! to any other forums that they find rather lame.
Just a question of choice and the choice is yours.
Indeed the thread (like most on every forum) seems to wander, nothing new.
As far as sidewinders vs inlines, one has to see what goes fast today to realise that inlines, as fun as they can be in D3, don't hold a candle to sidewinders all other things being equal.

[Ecurie Martini]

Anglewinders are the design of choice for going fast in most USRA classes. This is one of the reasons D3 mandates inlines only.

I have always assumed that the anglewinder configuration addresses the issue of lack of space between the (typically overwide) rear tires to fit a sidewinder. Certainly, at shallow angles, the difference in center of mass will be small and, unless one is using angled pinions or spurs, gear mesh is a compromise. The only advantage, aside from space considerations, that I can see in the anglewinder configuration is the ability to make fine adjustments of gear mesh by moving the spur in or out whereas the sidewinder set up demands very precise spacing of the motor shaft/axle combination.

EM

[TSR]

Zeb,
I believe that the main reason why your sidewinders were not so good at the time has little to do with where the motor was, much more to do with the period tire equipment and the higher CG forced onto the period sidewinders.
I never used the FT36 motors, they were huge bricks. Yet, most of the period sidewinders had the FT36 motors between their rear wheels, forcing several problems: huge gears necessary to reach the huge pinions due to the motor's heft, meaning large-diameter and narrow tires to fit under tall bodies. So indeed, a FT16-powered, inline car with tiny but wide tire had an advantage.
Now how many FT16-powered sidewinder cars were available then? NONE. NADA. ZIP. Why not? I don't know. The motor is narrower, one could have used smaller gears, smaller tires, it was simply not done. The main advantage of the sidewinder with the FT16 would (and did) have killed the inlines, distributing just the right amount of weight onto the rear tires (the period inlines chattered like crazy due to not enough weight on said tires, ask Cukras and Steube...). Not the case today with the FK-powered inlines for a slew of other reasons. But surprise, when the FT26 motor came, proof was easy to establish that the sidewinder DID work a lot better as a sidewinder than as an inline. The simple proof is in the assembly of two Dynamic chassis using identical tires, motors, bodies... the inline version was SUBSTANTIALLY inferior on ANY track configuration than their sidewinder brethren.

At the time when pro racers such as Mike Steube, John Cukras, Bob Cozine, or any top-notch period racer had the most sophisticated inlines, a former drag-racer showed them the way by building a sidewinder that simply was better because it CORNERED faster. When Gene Husting produced his sidewinder, the inlines became instantly obsolete. It used the very same tires as the inlines, and the slight motor angle cleared both rear axle and right-side tire. It was also a can-side drive setup, something that took another TWO years for the top pros to figure out! Greater mass over the rear tires increased traction, ending the inline chattering, and it was a simple matter of adding weight to the nose of the car to establish proper balance.

A parallel can be found today in 1/32 scale home-racing cars: there is absolutely NO way that an inline chassis not using traction magnets can even stay with the very same cars fitted with sidewinder motors. A simple proof of this was shown at the 5th Marconi Proxy race a few years back when the most sophisticated hand-built brass or plastic inlines were simply stomped by standard, production TSR sidewinder cars as well as more sophisticated hand-built sidewinders inspired by development in 1/24 scale pro racing.
The problem here, Zeb, is that you may never have SEEN a fast slot car yet in your entire life, and what kind of sophistication has been incorporated into finely hand-built home racers compared with the absolutely crude (but beautifully finished) plastic home-racing cars available today. To give you an idea of the difference in performance between inline and sidewinder cars in the "modern world", we had a clear and clean demonstration of this in Phoenix a couple of years back: eight inline Slot.it Porsche 956s were run in a race on a 90' routed track. The fastest lap for these cars (no magnet, added weight to give them decent traction) was 5.380". Number of laps covered was 204.
Then, eight TSR cars using the very same bodies over their stock sidewinder chassis with motors of exactly equivalent power and gearing to the Slot.it V12 motors, of the same exact weight, were raced. The fastest time was 4.50" and the number of laps covered was 283.
Why so much difference in performance? In one word, TRACTION. The extra weight over the rear tires simply provided the traction missing on the Slot.it machines. It is called "down force" and is accomplished on 1/1 cars by aerodynamics. On a slot car, simply add magnets, or weight. The weight MUST push the rear tires harder. Weight distribution on an inline is simply not favorable, all other things equal.

The day when you compete with your inline Scalextric Aston-Martin DBR9 versus one of Dennis Samson's hand-built sidewinder cars, you will not believe your very eyes.

[n9949y]

Funny but... aren't all seriously-fast cars sidewinders today...

Careful, Philippe. All generalizations, incuding this one, are false.

[abie321]

So, Phillipe - you are implying that it is all down to sidewinders in your analogy above?

So the TSR metal side pans - that sit low and reduce CoG - had no influence? I think they had more influence on the improved times and traction, than the sidewinder set up...
A full plastic chassis, with or without added lead, will never stand up to a metal-panned car.

[TSR]

The point I made is an absolute one. That of ultimate performance. If one is to seek absolute speed from a slot car, the sidewinder design is at this time, pretty much unbeatable, because of the factors spelled in previous posts. As soon as someone comes up with an inline that sets a new King-track "world record" of 1.3" to beat the current 1.4" and change, I will make all the amends you want, on both knees, kissing anyone's ring.

Returning to the 1960s and Zeb's claims, I would be pleased to prove to anyone, hardware in hand with Dynamic chassis and a single FT26 motor or even a FT36D, that his observations are based on unequal specs and are utterly meaningless. Indeed, the pros successfully used inline FT16 motors, that is until Gene Husting showed them how wrong they were when he turned the hobby on its head with his sidewinder. And that took some work to convince those guys, like over 12 weeks of wins by John Anderson with a single car fitted with a single motor. Even today and confronted with historical evidence, some still deny it ever happened.

In the meantime, I am defending the D3 classes with inline motors, because I believe strongly in the "retarded" retro concept of having fun, that does not imply absolute speed. In a world of especially tense and over-sensitive atmosphere, the word "fun" may be considered as political incorrectness.

I am also defending the TSR sidewinder plastic-chassis concept for other reasons: not only does it compete favorably with any currently-produced inline plastic car (and not solely because of extra weight) but it allows for a fully-detailed cockpit as nothing is in the way such as a big motor.
And...

A full plastic chassis with or without added lead will never stand up to a metal panned car.

That is without saying, simply because the CoG is lower and offers a better base to begin with... but how many PRODUCTION home-racing RTR slot cars in either 1/24 or 1/32 scale have a brass chassis to begin with? And the "absolute performance" comments apply there, too. A sidewinder with the current motors available is also a basic advantage.

[edworth]

I don't get it. Why the cachet surrounding Cox...

A look at the wheels produced by Cox should answer the question. They were, in a word, amazing.

[n9949y]

The point I made is an absolute one. That of ultimate performance. If one is to seek absolute speed from a slot car, the sidewinder design is at this time, pretty much unbeatable, because of the factors spelled in previous posts. As soon as someone comes up with an inline that sets a new King-track "world record" of 1.3" to beat the current 1.4 and change, I will make all the amends you want, on both knees, kissing anyone's ring.

Not so fast, there, Philippe! If you're asserting that angle- or sidewinder slot cars running on commercial or arcade tracks provide the ultimate performance, you're possibly quite correct, absolutely.

But, and since you've done little consistent long term racing of 1/24 hard body, scale model cars on club and home tracks, I can appreciate your particular, narrow perspective, here in Oregon where there is more per capita racers racing weekly and monthly with more per capita model race cars than probably than most any other state, we find that side and anglewinder chassis perform no better than inline chassis on our home and club tracks, which, of course, are nothing like the tracks you have become accustomed to.

Seeking absolute speed from a slot car is an OK goal, I suppose, if you're running solo laps on a punchbowl track, but in racing scale cars on scale tracks, there are a lot more factors that go into the designing and building a consistantly-winning model car than just focusing on absolute speed - unless one's a speed-crazed junkie!

[TSR]

Todd,
Again I have to repeat that I was speaking absolutes. I am not ready to kiss anyone's ring yet...
That does not mean that I spend a lot of time racing 1.4" per 155' lap machines...
I would rather drive my Dynamic Lotus with the 26D.

[don.siegel]

Not sure why we got all off track on this subject, and I think Philippe went a bit overboard, as usual. All Zeb was saying was that at the time inlines tended to handle better than sidewinders, given the underlying conditions - and this was true pretty much everywhere, especially among the SoCal pros.

Afterwards, an anglewinder is not a sidewinder; even when the technology existed to make these pure sidewinders, the anglewinder stayed supreme (or paramount, same difference, eh?). There were plenty of experiments with high-performance sidewinders in the mid-'60s, and I don't think they were very successful... (altho I'd love to see that 13D lightweight sidewinder out of Texas in '67-68).

Back to Cox, one of the main weaknesses from a kid's perspective was that those beautiful wheels and tapered axles almost automatically had to be replaced, to get wider, better gripping tires. Like any proprietary technology in slots (think Globe/Versitec motors), what may have been a good idea in theory, or for industry, wasn't so good in the fast-moving hop-up-crazy world of slots.

Miguel, do you remember how stock those Cox cars were? What were they running against: similar Revell/Monogram? minor or major modifications?

Another think I've seen in vintage racing is that about any of the commercial cars of the period can be tuned to run very well, provided an expert is doing it! At Turin this year, Bruno Novarese had a Cox 2D running a lot faster than I've ever seen any other Cox car. Besides turned-down tires, didn't see any obvious modifications...

Don

[Ecurie Martini]

But, and since you've done little consistent long term racing of 1/24th hard body, scale model cars on club and home tracks, I can appreciate your particular, narrow perspective, here in Oregon where there is more per capita racers racing weekly and monthly with more per capita model race cars than probably than most any other state, we find that side and angle winder chassis perform no better than inline chassis on our home and club tracks, which, of course, are nothing like the tracks you have become accustomed to.

Let me first identify my peculiar point of view: As a life-long iconoclast, there is nothing I like better for dinner than a well prepared tranche of sacred cow!

This said, I have had a long, albeit interrupted, history of racing 1/24 hard bodied cars on home, club, and commercial tracks and it is my observation that, all other factors being equal, the sidewinder configuration is superior, not necessarily on a pure, straight line speed basis but rather in terms of race-winning performance which factors in speed, handling, and consistency. (These observations specifically exclude "artificial" handling improvements based on magnets, air dams and non-scale tire, width and ground clearance dimensions.)

I think that there is a good reason for this. Because the front of a slot car is constrained to follow a set path (any deviation = crash) the physics has little relationship to the real thing. The objective is to keep the rear end within some acceptable range of motion as it follows the front. There are really only two sets of forces involved here. The first is simple - traction at the rear wheels. While this can be influenced by a variety of factors - moving bodies, leaning bodies, etc., in the end it comes down to the frictional coefficient of the rear tires X the force pressing them against the surface. The second is a bit more complex - the moment of inertia that, in its simplest form, acts to "push" the rear end to the outside of a corner as a result of the mass attempting to continue in a straight line. So there is a "contest" - add mass near the rear wheels and you increase downforce and traction but, at the same time, the force (derived from the traction) must oppose an increasing tendency for the rear to swing out. Thus, the "ideal" slot car is a device with zero mass and two downforces, one over the guide and the second over the rear wheels (I guess that is the definition of a wing car!) In the real world of scale cars, we operate within limits. The mass of our toys must fall within a range - too light and there is no contact or traction, too heavy and the thing won't move, or, when it finally starts moving, won't stop. In my experience, for models of similar size and weight with comparable power sources, the advantage of having the weight concentrated at the rear wheels outweighs the increased moment incurred. There are a couple of other factors that play a (probably) lesser role: Spurs gears are more efficient than bevel or crown and pinion sets and there is no longitudinal torque reaction to unload the outside tire on 50% of the corners.

With one exception, I know little of the Oregon scene so I can't comment on the circumstances that support the observation quoted above. I do know, from my own experience, that development within a closed or narrow environment of track conditions or rules can lead to conclusions that only apply within those limits. (This applies in the real world as well - consider what happened at Indy when someone showed up with a little rear-engined car that had barely more than 50% of the displacement of the Meyer-Drakes)

I have read a good deal about the Pelican Park group and applaud their long and apparently successful history. I have often wondered about two things: How much of the success and longevity it due to the presence of a stable core group of enthusiasts vs a fairly restrictive formula and what might be learned if the club entertained an experiment of perhaps one or two years duration (to allow some development time), of side-by-side racing with cars restricted to a "no more than" motor formula but with open chassis design (and I'd throw in scale wheels/tires as well simply because that's how I would do it)

Always sideways,

EM

[TSR]

I personally do not see any difference between an anglewinder and a full sidewinder in absolute performance. In the 1960s, the attempts at making a full sidewinder for pro-racing only failed because the guy who tried it, Ed Lewis, could not even make a conventional car work in the first place. So what was his competence at doing a full sidewinder? The guy never made a main event at any documented race where serious competition was present.
The main reason why it did not work is the fact that the Champion C-can used was simply too large and could not be geared properly, had to have its negative magnet ground to almost 1/2 for axle clearance, and was not leaning to easy maintenance. Besides, the whole chassis design by Lewis was a loser in the first place. Ask Lee Gilbert about it, he will be laughing about it all afternoon.

I return to my "easy" comparison of a simple 1960s Dynamic inline using all the same parts as the Dynamic sidewinder. The SW is simply a much better car, regardless of track conditions and circumstances. I also submit that such a combination was just about the finest over-the-counter machinery one could get then, and superior to ANY (except maybe the one mentioned below) RTR or kit available. I accept that in the 1960s, sidewinders were defective as RTR or kits are concerned, COMPARED to pro-racing cars, SIMPLY because most SW were powered by a brick, the FT36D, while the inlines were powered by the lighter, lower FT16. Try a sidewinder with a FT16D and it is a whole different story. Try the marvelously-balanced Mila Miglia Cougar II RTR with the small Tyco SW motor, this is possibly the best RTR ever made in the 1960s.

A modern wing car has such a shallow motor angle that it is hard NOT to call it a sidewinder. It is an anglewinder for convenience, that of having the optimum gar ratio. Otherwise there is no difference. These sidewinder cars are the fastest slot cars on earth, bar none. Would an inline wing car work? Certainly. Would it ever be as fast as a SW? You show me.

Do we start a proxy inline vs sidewinder race?

Returning to the basic subject of this thread, I simply believe that my friend Vay Jonynas was probably never exposed to Cox's beautiful packaging, and had possibly only seen the rather plain IFC kit boxes and maybe a few others. I know that Vay is a Monogram fanatic, and I see nothing wrong with that. But I believe that Cox set an unequalled standard for packaging their kits and RTRs, and all others were simply eating Cox's dust. This is today confirmed by most collectors preference, with Cox being # 1.
However, others may disagree, and indeed once some of the more obscure but beautiful cars issued in late 1967 and early 1968 surface publicly, opinions may change...

[Prof. Fate]

Hi,

Cox out of the box? I understand your love of them, P, but it seems to me that you ended up running an AMT in the euro/vintage races!

Grin.

I think this is another case where I had the advantage of actually racing in tracks with the "stock" kits. Being a bit younger, it was often demanded that I run with the kids and the kids HAD to run... you get the idea.

Anyway, the manufacturers were always years behind what the serious racers were doing, what the serious "pros" were doing. When Dick Dobson designed the AMT pan cars for them, it was early '64 and they were state of the art for club racing in the Midwest. But they hit the shelves 18 months later.

He did want to mount the motors in both cars sidewinder, but AMT demurred. They wanted a bolt together-kit and that didn't work for what they wanted.

About the 36D. It really is simple why the kit manufacturers did them and, P, I am surprised it isn't obvious to you!

Lets compare the motors. Revells SP600 versus the SP500. The SP500 is, given memory, the same wind as the current Scalex S can, ca 150 turns of 36 wire. Given the endbell, stock, magnets (200 gauss), a hotter wind as a production motor wasn't in the cards. The 600 is ca 350 gauss magnets and a 33 wind. The 16D didn't have the power to move those big scale tires, a heavy body, and chassis down the track.

That simple.

The IFC/Cuc is MUCH later, with better motors, and at most tracks, illegal tires.

Even on a Black 90', just the straights would decide the issue between the SP500 and the 600. And the kids weren't going to be understanding that, if they knew what they were doing, they could get handling out of the 16D.

In '66, we went from 36Ds to 26Ds to 16Ds in a few months. The critical change was that the Hitachi magnets FINALLY made the 16D produce the power to hold down the classic 65/30 wind. That 65/30 was the stock wind of the 26D that seemed so hot. That 65/30 wind was also the hotter "stock" wind of the era for the 36D. THAT was the period when the smaller motors worked for the manufacturers.

Fate

[TSR]

Hi Rocky,
No argument about that. My points are different:
1) We are talking AESTHETICS about Cox kits vs any other, and perceived value for collectors. However they run on track is irrelevant in Vay's question.

2) To address the SW vs Inline question, I think that I did this clearly on the absolute. I also would like to point out that when I went to Bordeaux with what I felt was my very well-prepped AMT car, I got my clock cleaned by several proiduction sidewinders, namely Champion SW cars with 707 motors. When I attempted to run a 707 in the AMT chassis to keep up, it handled terribly and lacked traction.

Regards,

[Vay Jonynas]

TSR:

Returning to the basic subject of this thread, I simply believe that my friend Vay Jonynas was probably never exposed to Cox's beautiful packaging, and had possibly only seen the rather plain IFC kit boxes and maybe a few others. I know that Vay is a Monogram fanatic, and I see nothing wrong with that.

We are talking AESTHETICS about Cox kits VS any other, and perceived value for collectors. However they run on track is irrelevant in Vay's question.

You're entirely correct on both points.

As far as for my good collector friend Vay Jonynas, I offer these as evidence and rest my case:

You've convinced me! On the basis of aesthetics, most of those Cox kits look very collectible indeed.



Although I will add that I still think the Monogram cars were nicer in appearance once built...

[TSR]

Vay,
They are indeed real beauties... I especially love that '55 Chevy!

[Prof. Fate]

Hi,

In the day, the AMTs didn't face the 707 Champions because of the cost. Kids... race... 8 bucks versus 20 bucks. Mostly, it was adults with real jobs who had them!

On the other hand, when you did go to frogland... I did point out that you wouldn't win with your configuration! I know the cars. You need ME to build the AMT for you!

Grin.

I agree with the sidewinder/inline idea, in general.

Again, a lot of it is context. There was NO discussion on some tracks, and lots on others. It revolved around the rules. Essentially, some tracks just had a 3" wide limit and others required the tires to be entirly under the body. One reason the Cheetah body sold so well was its width. Anyway, where the tires were allowed to stick out, the sidewinders dominated. Where they could not, the discussion was seriously about tire width, inlines could use wider tires, and the sidewinder advantage.

As a collector, I am sure P has seen so many cut bodies for this effort.

But remember that in '64, the sponge tire of the day was the open cell type like the Mille Miglia sponge. Or the Veco airplane tire.

These days, any track and tire we are using are superior by a couple orders of magnitude than the tires we used in '64.

Fate

[mcseitz]

Good advice I got from P once: If you like running those old Cox gems this is a quick and easy way to keep the sunny side up. Might not keep up with Rocky but with a set of Ortmanns could make the race a little more interesting.