Podded Vs Nonpodded

[rick1776]

OK as the Aus Proxt comes to a close (hopefully) lets look at the top 10 cars to date as a guide. 5 podded and 5 nonpodded. This may change slightly in the last couple of rounds?? First is a podded car Espsix, next is Manimmals nonpodded ( ), then FCC podded then I think mine which is nonpodded. Id say there is not a lot in it.

 

In general Id say that a nonpodded car is easier to set up. Basically it comes down to your tuning ability and personally I cant see an inherant advantage with the podded car. If it actually does something better then what is it? A well set up nonpodded as far as I can see competes very well against a well set up podded car. Unless there is something that I am missing from the Aus Proxy standings?

 

Let the debate begin.

[MOPARGREG]

Hi Rick, This should be a good topic. I like my podded cars as it gives some easy tweaking. As for if they are better, no idea. Do you think you have to do more work to a non podded car to get it to run with a podded car?

[SlotsNZ]

Well, here's my penny's worth.

 

For a box-stock Slot.it, I run the pod loose, so that the drive train sits flat on the track, especially when the track may have some "undulations" in the surface. Running a tight pod it doesn't handle near as well.....BUT

 

Having taken a couple of those same cars and applied the hot bath treatment to the chassis to make sure it is flat, I can now tighten the pod and they continue to handle as well, pretty much the same as with a loose pod. Maybe even a little better.

 

I still run the bodies loose, which is best for "before and after" the chassis treatment, - for the usual reasons.

 

To me, that is a bit of a window on what purpose pods acheive in the design, and the set-up of cars.

 

Again, it will vary with the track situation; I suspect a loose/floating pod may still have a place on a very flat chassis if the track is a bit of a rolling hillside.....

But a tight pod on a truely flat chassis, conversely may help handling on a really flat track - eg, - see Chris' NPSR track for our club in my signature file; as it gives a stable whole of car stiffness in that situation where the "forgiveness" of a floating pod is not required

[rick1776]

Mopar,

 

Short answer is yes. But its not a fair comparison. nonpodded cars are generally sold as toys, podded cars are generally sold by performance niche companies such as slotit.

 

With the nonpodded car you usually have to shave the chassis/body so that you can incorporate movement. You may have to change the body screws or grind down the screw head to allow movement. You may need to modify the interior for clearance chop out body parts etc to get the movement you want.

 

However I think its harder to set up a podded car that goes well. The number of podded cars that axle tramp is quite high. There is a basic reason for that, unlike real cars that have shock absorbers slot cars do not. Hence there is nothing to absorb the torque loading as a car punches out of corners. The pod snaps longitudinally and causes hop. Yes I know that nonpodded cars like Ninco have the ninco hop, that however boils down to a poorly designed chassis around the rear axle line. Personally I think the best pod design is the SCX design. But everyone will have their favourite.

 

Results dont lie and this years proxy is a good guide. A good podded car is the same as a good nonpodded car. A crap podded car is the same as a crap nonpodded car. The two best cars I drove were Espsix (podded) and Manimmal (nonpodded). Both of these cars are in a class of their own and have consistently been at the front of the field.

[MOPARGREG]

Rick you sound like you have a bit of time on your hands so I have a mission for you. Combine the laptimes of podded & nonpodded for each track from this years dupr. Im sure we would all like to see the results

[first corner crash]

I think Rick hit the nail on the head. A good car is a good car pod or not. As for comparing the proxy cars it is a difficult one as the tracks change from time to time as they do even at club level. We have all been to the track when it is running fast and other times when it isn't for the same class of car. The proxy cars have other variables to the least not being tyres whch for me make a hell of a lot more difference than pods. Rick also alludes to the fact that the specialist manufacturers tend to build pods. My fastest cars Slot its NSRs Scaleauto are all podded but if i built one of my Ninco Supras to the same spec. I doubt there would be much if anything in it. Reason being it is a wide long stable platform to start with. Specialist cars like NSR moslers have other advantages like low ride height low eight especially in the body etc. These advantages help it more than the pod imho.

[aussieslotter]

Podded cars always give you more tuning options.

[rick1776]

FCC we won the enduro with a Ninco only fitted with a NC5 last Monday night against a slotit 23K. A well set up car is a well set up car.

 

Personally I dont buy all this advertising hype. Yes I know we are stictly not compaing apples with apples in the poxy as conditions change but over the 8 ounds so far I dare say it would even itself out and ther result speak for themselves. We have a spread of results and if there is a bias towards podded cars there I cant pick it.

 

Now wheres my carbon fibre hollow axles and delrin reinforced magnesium rims with hollow body screws??

[Pioneer]

Very interesting.

 

We have been doing some experimental work with flat chassis for the IMSA cars. Protos of a standard no-pod were actually nicer to drive and faster than the podded proto we got together.

 

I'm not suggesting this was a strictly controlled experiment but, in the hands of the testers, a well balanced chassis with sticky tyres was as good as it needed to be.

 

For all the time it took to mess around 'tuning' and 'tweaking' the pod set up, we all agreed the no-pod made much more sense. Point and squirt.

 

Of course, some allowance must be made for the fact that we may not have set the pod car up for optimum performance but in the end the no-pod was less hassle and more laps.

 

Be interesting to see if there is a 50/50 split on favourite type. It helps development to gather in as many opinions as possible.

 

Jules

[munter]

Most metal chassis' are multi piece and give movement of one kind or another.

 

The Champion turbo flex and the Parma international 32 chassis have established an enviable reputation over recent years and they have two moving parts.

There are some other great metal chassis too such as the JK models in 3 piece( 1/32 and 1/24)

 

The eurosport/G12 chassis' offer more movement again and no chassis designer in that realm has come out with a one piece chassis yet.

 

You can buy a "non-moving" one piece metal chasis but they are not high end performers.

 

If you are running on a lumpy plastic track then a pod with some movement may help but the lucky ones who run cars on smooth mdf tracks seem to be saying a tight chassis pod or no pod is fine.

 

Plastic is the new brass and superglue is the new solder!!!!!!!!!!

 

regards

[slot noob]

FCC we won the enduro with a Ninco only fitted with a NC5 last Monday night against a slotit 23K. A well set up car is a well set up car.

 

Personally I dont buy all this advertising hype. Yes I know we are stictly not compaing apples with apples in the poxy as conditions change but over the 8 ounds so far I dare say it would even itself out and ther result speak for themselves. We have a spread of results and if there is a bias towards podded cars there I cant pick it.

 

Now wheres my carbon fibre hollow axles and delrin reinforced magnesium rims with hollow body screws??

 

 

...and don't forget the Polarizer.

[rick1776]

The polarizer will only work with podded cars. Thats a given. :purplebounce: Wasnt the Brock VL a podded car?

 

Hey Jules happy to test one of your early prototype IMSA cars :lbluebounce: :redbounce: Maybe if I enter it in the next proxy and get chrisfromcrewe to repaint it in ciggie livery no one will cotton on its a Pioneer :stretch:

[kennedyrd]

Mopar,

 

Short answer is yes. But its not a fair comparison. nonpodded cars are generally sold as toys, podded cars are generally sold by performance niche companies such as slotit.

 

With the nonpodded car you usually have to shave the chassis/body so that you can incorporate movement. You may have to change the body screws or grind down the screw head to allow movement. You may need to modify the interior for clearance chop out body parts etc to get the movement you want.

 

However I think its harder to set up a podded car that goes well. The number of podded cars that axle tramp is quite high. There is a basic reason for that, unlike real cars that have shock absorbers slot cars do not. Hence there is nothing to absorb the torque loading as a car punches out of corners. The pod snaps longitudinally and causes hop. Yes I know that nonpodded cars like Ninco have the ninco hop, that however boils down to a poorly designed chassis around the rear axle line. Personally I think the best pod design is the SCX design. But everyone will have their favourite.

 

Results dont lie and this years proxy is a good guide. A good podded car is the same as a good nonpodded car. A crap podded car is the same as a crap nonpodded car. The two best cars I drove were Espsix (podded) and Manimmal (nonpodded). Both of these cars are in a class of their own and have consistently been at the front of the field.

 

A fellow racer and I have drawn the same opinion about the reason some podded cars tramp and relate it to the soft plastic used in the pod. Slot.it use hard plastic so don't flex under power whereas the NSR pods are both soft and long, the worst combo. Neither matters if you are running rubber tires on a plastic track where grips is low. However if grip goes up, the pod starts to whip something awful until the the guide literally jumps out of the groove! I have considered bracing the pod but why bother when NSR's are meant to be perfect anyway?

[SlotsNZ]

Slot.it recently released their spring suspension, and now they've put out these pods.

 

Has anyone tried them yet?

 

 

[SuperSlab]

Hi there from the board's newest member! As a "Northern hemispherian" (new word: will appear in the 2015 New Oxford dictionary), I have been reading this board for some time and this topic has finally prompted me to join.

 

A lot of the comments in this thread struck a chord. I pretty much exclusively race on a wood track, no magnet, 10V. It appears that my local track's builder/owner/operator is known even in the Antipodes: Luf AKA Oldslotracer? Best times of some of my cars on his Targa track as follows: (in order car, lap time, pod or not. Also to be noted that anything under 8 seconds can be considered uncommonly fast on this track)

 

1. Fly Porsche 917/10 7.68 No

2. NSR Mosler Xavex 7.737 Pod

3. Ninco Mosler Lightning 7.778 No

4. Fly 917 7.794 Pod (kinda...)

5. Avant Slot Peugeot 908 7.822 Pod

6. MRRC Toyota GT1 7.868 Pod

7. Ninco Acura Lightning 7.886 No

8. Fly Racing Capri 7.891 No

9. Fly Saleen 7.965 No

10. Slot.it Fina McLaren 7.983 Pod

 

Well, what do you know: an exact 50:50 split!! Now statistically someone may be able to deduce something significant from this. As a person reasonably versed in statistics, I will just come out & say that, for my circumstances, a pod seems totally irrelevant.

 

Some comments on the cars themselves (and all cars carry Luf's own urethane tyres):

 

Fly Porsche 917/10: heavily "Slot.it-ised": yellow endbell motor, rear axle, bushings, gears etc. 0.460" wide BWA 15" rear wheels, some lead.

NSR Mosler Xavex: the one with the 25k Shark almost-anglewinder motor. Slot.it F1 wheels & F1 size tyres. And yes: it hops!

Ninco Mosler Lightning: chassis braced significantly, BWA 18" LMP rear wheels, bit of lead

Fly Classic 917K: also heavily "Slot.it-ised": orange endbell motor, rear axle, bushings, gears etc. 0.460" wide BWA 15" wheels, some lead.

Avant Slot Peugeot 908: 0.380" wide BWA 15" wheels

MRRC Toyota GT1: some lead

Ninco Acura Lightning: BWA 18" LMP rear wheels, it of lead

Fly Racing Capi: BWA 18" LMP rear wheels

Fly Saleen: Slot.it gear, 0.460" wide BWA 15" rear wheels. Not a Fly Racing model but came with an FK180 Racing motor

Slot.it Fina McLaren: Yellow endbell motor, bit of lead

 

As a rule, I must say that as a group I find Fly Racing cars probably the easiest and most satisfying to run essentially stock. And in the context of this thread: my enjoyment of these cars applies equally to their podded and non podded models!

 

Go figure.

 

Alwyn

[SlotsNZ]

Welcome aboard Alwyn......

 

 

Luf? ...Luf who??

 

Oh THAT Luf . . . . . .. . you mean THE Luf, the "Luf that launched a thousand routes"

 

"heard of him" is something of an understatment eh!

 

and on the thread subject, I don't think a pod or not is relevant or not.

I think Rick's (typically) provocative opening salvo, will simply lead us to the logical conclusion that a pod is a means to an end, and/but/however there are also other means to that end.

[munter]

Slot.it recently released their spring suspension, and now they've put out these pods.

 

Looks more like bracing than suspension

[rick1776]

Looks like my ninco brace without the solder. Bastards have copied my design.

[Pioneer]

SuperSlab - hi.

 

Good research. Looking at it another way on your top 10, it is feasible I presume that with only 0.250 secs between the 1st and the 10th position that on any random race day the list might read 1st-5th all podded and 6th-10th all no-pod. Equally the reverse may also be true or an entirely different placing of results may be the case.

 

If so then the lap times point to human 'trigger finger' tuning rather the the benefits, or not, of a pod.

I can tell you, from personal experience, that plenty of investment in time and tooling is potential being wasted in the quest for more and more complex motor 'arrangements' and suspension when in fact attention would be much better spent in less costly areas of chassis dynamics (can't say too much, sorry).

 

Reminds me a little of my ridiculously complicated real car with all the adjustable gizmo's for ride height, suspension settings, sport mode, traction control blah blah. In reality, after the few few weeks of reading the manual before setting off, you just get in the thing, start it up and rag the nuts off it the best you can (legally of course). If you forgot to switch the suspension setting to 'firm' you just deal with and drive around the problem. Adds a little dynamics to every journey.

 

Jules

[aussieslotter]

Hmm I wonder what gives NSR the edge, chassis, pod, tyres or all 3?

Edited September 20, 2009 by aussieslotter

[rick1776]

Are you talking mag or non mag? They dont have any edge at our club. You can tune any piece of plastic to perform. Even an NSR which took me forever to get right. But its not the pace setter though, thats a Ninco Mosler ans Sideways Reilly at the moment. Hopefully there is still some tuning left in my NSR. I need to find about another 0.1-0.15 seconds.

[aussieslotter]

Non, of course

[SuperSlab]

Looking at it another way on your top 10, it is feasible I presume that with only 0.250 secs between the 1st and the 10th position that on any random race day the list might read 1st-5th all podded and 6th-10th all no-pod. Equally the reverse may also be true or an entirely different placing of results may be the case.

 

If so then the lap times point to human 'trigger finger' tuning rather the the benefits, or not, of a pod.

Hi Jules

 

Very valid comment. There are even some day to day variations with a specific car where I cannot repeat previous lap times. Variations in track grip seems to be one big factor. But generally I find the relative positon of the cars stay pretty consistent even when all the lap times are up or down. When I switch between cars on a given day, I find the lap times to be pretty repeatable. We had one quite funny/strange incident where I ran three successive laps at the exact same time to the 1/1000th of a second: Luf was actually sitting watching the timer and thought it was not registering, but then he did notice the lap count incrementing but the times staying the same!

 

And BTW: I find 0,2 seconds is actually quite a big difference: no small task getting a lap time down from 7,9 to 7,7 seconds!

 

I can tell you, from personal experience, that plenty of investment in time and tooling is potential being wasted in the quest for more and more complex motor 'arrangements' and suspension when in fact attention would be much better spent in less costly areas of chassis dynamics (can't say too much, sorry).

 

Reminds me a little of my ridiculously complicated real car with all the adjustable gizmo's for ride height, suspension settings, sport mode, traction control blah blah. In reality, after the few few weeks of reading the manual before setting off, you just get in the thing, start it up and rag the nuts off it the best you can (legally of course). If you forgot to switch the suspension setting to 'firm' you just deal with and drive around the problem. Adds a little dynamics to every journey.

Could not agree more: very often less is more and good basics can mean more than infinite adjustability. Good example is my motorcycle: I ride a reasonably modern sportbike (2006 Suzuki GSX-R750). The suspension can be adjusted seven ways from Sunday but I am not a good enough rider to really tell the difference. So now I set it in a sort of middling setting and I use that, whether my wife & I do a two up 3,500km tour or I do track day on the local track (one up of course in case you were wondering!).

 

But then again: Rossi I ain't!

 

And just to let you know: I am looking forward to the notchback Mustang. A "must get" due to childhood racing memories!

Edited September 20, 2009 by SuperSlab

[wizardgm]

Most metal chassis' are multi piece and give movement of one kind or another.

You can buy a "non-moving" one piece metal chasis but they are not high end performers.

Back in the days when I was racing metal chassis, the trick was to get the motor 'box' (back axle to motor) as rigid as possible, then allow the chassis to 'flex' or move. Hence the multi-piece metal chassis.

 

FCC we won the enduro with a Ninco only fitted with a NC5 last Monday night against a slotit 23K. A well set up car is a well set up car.

This Ninco was a heap of s#!t, until I sorted out the motor to back axle bracing I must have got it right

 

Slot.it recently released their spring suspension, and now they've put out these pods.

This looks like a good motor brace that ties the bearings to the motor.

If I were to use one of these, I would glue (hot melt or the like - NOT superglue) the brace at ALL points.

 

Back to the topic - It makes no difference whether the car does or does not have a pod - the real thing is that the motor to bearing area must have ABSOLUTELY no flex.

 

The biggest thing that I have found with these plastic chassis' is, that until you get very good traction, even a bad chassis appears to be working OK. But as soon as you find more traction, then the bad signs start to show through.

 

I think the NSR's are so light, but have just the right amount of traction for their weight, so that when you modify them, their bad points start showing through. :(

 

Well, that's my idea's anyway

Regards,

Dennis

[rick1776]

Some pearls of wisdom there wizard. Oh by the way do you want some help setting up that V8 supercar for tonight? :( I'll swap it for your Ninco. What tyres are you going to run? Never got around to setting mine up Too busy working on Dave's timing box. Still need to do the loom of the track sensors. Nearly there.