23 replies to this topic

[tonyp]

Sometimes I wonder how much better our cars would have run back in the day if we did two things to them we take for granted now but never did.

The rules back then were that the cars had to have 1/16" clearance with the guide touching the test block and the front wheels touching. This of course did not allow for adjusting the guide depth for different tracks. How many loads would have been killer if the guide height was correct for the track...

When I started racing in 66 all cars had hard fronts. Retro cars run better with foam fronts then hard vinyl. How much better would the inlines back then be with today's fronts.

Just something to think about.

[Pappy]

We didn't have the tire truers we have today either, at least not that I remember.

[tonyp]

Just took the tires and bolted them on.

[Matt Sheldon]

I am going to say the greats would still be the greats!

[Mbloes]

I've thought a lot about this - what could have been done better with the existing technology or knowledge base of the time - without the benefit of hindsight.

 

I come up with:

• Running can drive, not endbell drive.
• Soldering the motor in, not bolting into a bracket.
• Making the front wheels independent.

[SlotStox#53]

How about your original ISO chassis, steel center section cars and others that ran REH, Riggen or associated hard fronts. Wonder how they'd all run with modern Retro fronts?

[tonyp]

By the time we got to Iso and steel designs the fronts were no longer even touching.

[MSwiss]

First of all , I think it's great Tony is retired, and is a bigger presence on Slotblog, especially to post crap like this.

 

I think softer fronts would of definitely been an improvement, especially with the tracks so much rougher.

 

I've never done a real scientific A-B comparison on softer fronts vs. rock hard ones, but as a track owner, I appreciate them just based on the noise level.

 

I miss Sano Dave, but I don't miss him running his vintage cars that had real hard fronts.

[tonyp]

John Gorski and I spent an afternoon testing hard vs soft fronts and the soft was faster every time. With the hard fronts the front of the car seemed to "hunt" especially coming out of the turns. Over the last 8 years I have tried it at least 3 more times with the same results.

I think retro style fronts on the pre angle winder cars would have made them faster.

[MSwiss]

By the time we got to Iso and steel designs the fronts were no longer even touching.

Ok, so why were chassis like PDL's diamond car so revolutionary?

[Tim Neja]

Tony has too much idle time on his hands!!!

[Pablo]

Mike, I know the question was directed to the master, but, if I may,

I think Tony means "the fronts were no longer forced to touch".

The PdL Diamond car front wheels touched the track surface only as hard as the spring pressure mandated.

That's the best way I can think of to explain it.

But Tony was there and I wasn't

[racie35]

Say what you want, he got you thinking. Tony for President!!

[jimht]

PdL was into minimal air control and wanted the weight transfer to the rear developed by the sprung fronts to get the right bite.

As time went by and we started using flaring .005 side dams the chassis got lighter so quickly with so much down force that the fronts became irrelevant one way or the other...except for the fact that if they were set up wrong the car would bog. There was a short time when we used glue, heavy-weight chassis and tall flexy side dams all together...1974, 1975, 1976, but the lighter cars with more air control went even faster on glue so the heavy chassis disappeared.

The inlines I built in the Sixties were such piles that I don't know if anything would have helped...quality tires, both front and rear and really articulated chassis didn't show up until anglewinders became dominant. The upgraded toy cars disappeared and the Hobby was dominated by racers and racing instead of toy companies selling Oriental junk.

YOMV

[tonyp]

Pdl's chassis was a total package. It was a stiff design with the motor soldered in on 3 sides which made it run through the glue conditions at the times. The front end eliminated the heavy front axle assembly and allowed some tuning with the springs.

[Jairus]

PDL agreed Tony that the modern Flexi and his TS chassis worked best with all 5 points touching.
The reason was that modern rubber eliminated the need for glue, tipping, flexing and all the tricks we needed back in the day.
It's a progression balancing tech with knowledge and experience.

But as Swiss said, a good driver will always win.
I have watched good drivers.  They can win with a mediocre car, where the basic driver has a problem with even the best car.
Nothing can overcome talent and experience.

[JimF]

Hey!!!.....................I think about "crap" alla time. Whadz wrong widdat???

[MSwiss]

"Crap" is a word I threw in to temper the sentimentality of my post.

[idare2bdul]

Tony's points are well taken. I stopped racing at the end of the Pittman era and didn't return till 1975. For me the adjustability of the Ruddock and other modern controllers made for the biggest change in driveability. The sad thing is that the golden age of slot cars is now, in most respects other than popularity. You have a wide choice of good tires, dependable motors and Lexan bodies that are more durable that what we had in the 60's. The tracks usually have decent power(maybe too much) and are usually smooth. Lap counters are way more dependable than they were when I first started racing.

[Pappy]

Back then we had photocell lap counters that if you got just a little bit of dirt on the sensor they wouldn't count. They also had no timing system, so when you tested and tuned your car you had to go by feel of the car or racing against another car. 

 

Everyone was looking for that secret wind for your armature back then. We didn't understand that everything had to be matched, the magnets, the air gap, the motor springs, the right chassis, the right body, the right controller, the wiring on the track, the power pack on the track.

 

Our cars were lead sleds. We ran on an American Red King which had the humps in the straightaway. So we made them heavy and had a drop arm.

 

Back then we didn't rotate lanes in a race. You drew a lane and raced it for either a 100 laps in a semi or 200 laps in the main. If you didn't draw green, orange, blue or yellow you were screwed.

 

You didn't choose your tires by the type of rubber, you chose them by color. Red, white, blue, green, gray, orange, tan and some people actually used black. When sponge tires first came out the raceway I ran at had a tool that would cut the diameter of the tires down. It had an X-acto knife blade on it so you would spin the tire and the blade would come in from the side to cut it down. The only problem with it was the surface of the tire was not flat. It had a curve to it and the inside of the tire was always larger than the outside.

 

Back before sponge rubber tires we used Cox Dunlop tires. They were hard rubber and we didn't even glue them to the wheels or true them. We just scuffed them up with sand paper and used Tiger Milk to clean them. Loved that smell.

[tonyp]

Also back then most people's had a single controller. No adjusting for sensitivity except with your finger. Nothing better then running a Parma 4/10 ohm controller full glue on a king track and having your fingers blister from the metal trigger after 2 heats...

[Noose]

I will say this though about our modern "retro" cars and that is fronts that are "too" soft do cause the car to scrub speed off especially in the bank.  So while the rock hard fronts we had back in the day don't work now, a front tire that is firm and true sure helps a whole lot.

[Samiam]

 "a front tire that is firm and true sure helps a whole lot."

Like ARP's new "Chubbys" (Inspired by X-Pro) .Get some.

 

http://slotblog.net/...ng-front-tires/

[John C Martin]

I will say this though about our modern "retro" cars and that is fronts that are "too" soft do cause the car to scrub speed off especially in the bank.  So while the rock hard fronts we had back in the day don't work now, a front tire that is firm and true sure helps a whole lot.

Exactly soft fronts scrub off speed just as soft rears..they all touch..and drift..thinking more deeply I am ,but your fronts run in more glue than your rears in the corners...?