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Racing A Scalextric Ford Falcon Xb


Vinno

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This was one of those cars that for me was gong to be a must have. I also was very keen to turn it into my next Trans Am race car. Our race group has some rules that mean we have to run a car with stock running gear. A couple of other rules that dictate what you can do are as follows.

  • Standard Body.
  • Resin bodies from Phil.
  • Wheels must not protrude outside the body.
  • Wheel arches must not cover the top of the wheel. Limits how low you can go.
  • Standard gearing.
  • Standard chassis.Standard motor, this is a little loose as you can swap around motors from Scalextric 18K, Pioneer18Kr, or SCX RX41B.
  • Where we run resin bodies they must have a chassis from one of the brands mentioned above.

You can modify most other areas to improve performance. What has happened though is that the SCX Hemi Cuda has almost killed the class. We put a 110 gram weight limit on the Cuda's to slow them down a little. This really did nothing as they just become smoother and stick to the track like glue. I have always tried to run something different and picked up a few podiums over recent times with my Pioneer Mustang. Maybe even could have won a race had I had a little more practice but not having a track for 4 years meant not a lot of track time and rusty skills. Anyway the Falcon always looked promising being nice and wide and the Scalextric motor just goes that little harder than the SCX especially with no weight limit. So with plenty of time until the Trans Am season and a local track opening at Penrith it gave me some time to work on the car and also get some driving skills back.

 

So first off I started with the body. Those who have one or have read my review will know the front grille, bumper and spoiler and the rear clip are separate parts to the body. Now those who race will know that when running loose body screws all these parts rattling around won't help the handling of the car at all. There is quite a bit of work in attaching these parts so unless you are handy it might be best to give this a miss. I attached the grille first at the front using Araldite which is a strong two part epoxy. Clean off the paint around the inside of the nose of the car and also the grille where it will meet the nose to get a strong bond. Care needs to be taken to not get epoxy over the painted parts. Best to use a pin or something else small to spread the epoxy and then leave the car upside down until it sets. I use 5 minute Araldite and have never had it come apart.

The bumper had two tabs which mount it to the chassis screw mounts so screw the chassis to the body to make sure the fit is right and you will get it looking nice and straight. I then epoxied the spoiler in place. I did the same with the rear clip so it was also attached.

Once set I used a cutting disc and cut the tabs off the bumper and also the rear clip. Then I spent some time grinding it all back with some round dremel bits until it looked relatively clean. After I completed this I added some more epoxy in all the joins to make it strong.

The body mounts were lowered considerably, trial and error until it was right. I ground the tops of the mounts slightly round so they would allow free body movement inside the chassis mounts giving it a nice float. The body drops straight on to the chassis with nothing touching but the four mounts.

Moffatxb15.jpgMoffatxb16.jpg

 

To improve the handling I had to do some work on the interior to get the car as low as possible following our class rules. Basically I cut about 5mm out of the bottom of the interior and made a new floor with sheet styrene using the thinnest I could without compromising strength. I removed the seats and driver and re fitted them inside the interior. I also used the existing tunnel and re fitted it so I could run the wires through it.

You can see the picture on the right I have epoxied the wires in to position as well to keep it neat and stop anything moving around during racing. I cut a section out of the floor where the magnet sat in front of the engine plus a little more and then epoxied some more thin styrene under the chassis. I then cut some lead to fit the hole and epoxied the lead in place. I also cut and sanded the chassis sides all the way round to make sure it was not touching the body at all. I take a fair bit of time on all these procedures so the car looks tidy.

Moffatxb17.jpgMoffatxb18.jpg

 

You can see some of the work I did to the front of the chassis here. I filed the front mounts as the body post has a little tab on the back of it to give it strength. The front will no doubt take a few hits during racing so I want to keep strength in the car.

I fitted a Ninco sprung guide which takes some work. I use some aluminium tube which fits over the guide shaft and drill and sand out the old mount until it fits snugly also using epoxy. The Ninco sprung guide will reduce the chance of de slotting.

I filed out the front axle mount after removing one front wheel very carefully. I also narrowed the axle slightly as the front will sit lower. When I was ready to re fit I set the axle up on my tyre truer and spun it slowly and once I was happy with the how true the wheel was I marked the axle and wheel hub so when I installed it on the car I could epoxy the wheel on with no issues. In between all this I trued the front tyres and put clear on them for less rolling resistance. I put epoxy on the inside of the hub carefully so it did not get on the chassis and never move again. The underside shot here shows where I installed some Slot.it grub screws to adjust the front axle height and stop the front axles flopping around. On a routed track the car works best with the front wheels just carrying the front of the car.

Moffatxb19.jpgMoffatxb21.jpg

 

And here is the finished product after it's first up race win defeating the dominant Cuda's. All the pictures were after the race meeting which explains the rubbish inside the body and chassis. The lap times were similar to the Cuda's but no quicker. It was fun building and testing it to get it where it was. I am sure there is more I could do. As a matter of interest I ended up dropping the weight of the raw car from 95 grams out of the box to 80 grams with the lights magnet and a lot of plastic removed from the interior and the glass inside the roof of the car. It is amazing how thick the glass is on the roof. We do have an odd set of rules but this is what it takes to win a class using stock components. There are probably a dozen things I have not mentioned it took a few months and I have forgotten some of the things I did now.

Moffatxb14.jpg

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Nice work, and a great write up...

As I've just gotten one of these, I'll definitely keep this in mind when I start tuning mine.

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Nice words about a nice car....have you thought about bypassing the DPR wiring box? or do rules prevail?

 

No rule saying I can't but I don't think it really matters so will leave it for now. Maybe a potential failure point though.

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great work Vinny you forgot to mention that the wheels must remain standard but thats another can-a

 

I thought it was just no alloy rims. You can swap plastic wheels around as far as I am aware. A lot of the rules a pretty open to interpretation and some cars have such crappy plastic wheels that you need to be pretty good to fix them. It seems we are always in the old argument that allowing Alloy rims can make for a more level playing field versus using standard parts to reduce cost. Tuning is an art that not everyone wants to do.

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Great work Vinno. The stance on the finished product is just perfect.

Computers. They'll never catch on.

 

_AM_sig_zps00cdfd1a.jpg

 

Tiny Tyers Targa - The build saga continues - Aging wood - A recipe for staining wood - Don't take a fence - Step by step paling fence - An old shed for my new cars - Wooden garage under construction

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As a Holden fan I'll just say this... that looks horn!!!

 

I don't have one of these (been out of slots for a while now and missed the boat) but it looks as though that's how they should sit!

 

Great job Vinno, too good not to show off!

 

Moffatxb14.jpg

Cheers,

Dick

 

SCMR build thread

Woodbrook Valley build thread

 

"A Man's home is his castle, but his garage is his sanctuary!"

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well done mate. Very similar rules to ours at SCR. However the Pioneer Mustangs are the hardest to beat here. The guys have put heaps of time into tuning them and the extra torque of the motors over the Scalely motors makes them very fast.

www.sigmamansmodels.com

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Well done mate. Very similar rules to ours at SCR. However the Pioneer Mustangs are the hardest to beat here. The guys have put heaps of time into tuning them and the extra torque of the motors over the Scalely motors makes them very fast.

 

I was running a Pioneer Mustang and it was up there. Most of our tracks are all corners with short straights so the Cuda's just have it over other cars.

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  • 8 months later...

I took the plunge last night and seperated the bumpers from the chassis, removed the tabs off the grill / rear section, and hotglued the whold lot together...

 

I used a sharp knife blade, and a hammer to cut them off, and it worked a treat. Nice straight, clean lines.

I then dremelled the chassis to allow some float (but more work is needed here).

I also moved the rear whell on the spur gear side further out to 'balance' the axle as it was much closer to the centre line than the other wheel.

 

Whilst not really quicker, it's now much easier to drive...

 

Previous mods where MJK XB tyres, smaller fronts to allow the guide to sit fully in the slot, and lead in the magnet hole, and under the chassis (about 10-15g total).

 

 

So, still on the to do list...

  • Improve float clearance.
  • Move lower front spoiler to the shell instead of the chassis.
  • Possibly lower the shell onto the chassis, but I believe that will mean modding the interior... :(
  • Longer body screws (current ones keep falling out... lol)
  • And to work out what font is used for the number to change it from the No. 9 car to the No. 1 car...

Edited by shadow_rusty
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Took a couple of photo's this morning...

 

Chassis, which as you can see, doesn't have a lot of clearance on the sides... There is some, and it doesn't appear to be affecting float, so I believe that it's now the 'cups' on the top of the chassis piece of the body posts that are causing my binding.

XB%20-%20Chassis.jpg

 

Closeup of the front and rear...

XB%20-%20Front%20Closeup.jpg

XB%20-%20Rear%20Closeup.jpg

 

Closeup of the inside of the shell... Front is nice and neat, but a little more glue on the rear than I would of liked... Still, it does have to withstand the rigors of racing...

XB%20-%20Shell%20Inner%20Front.jpg

XB%20-%20Shell%20Inner%20Rear.jpg

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Printed some #1 'decals' on my Dymo printer, and now I should be able to tell my car apart from the 300 others...

 

It now looks closer to the 1977 ATCC car...

XB%20-%20Complete.jpg

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No, I had the opposite... My passenger rear was 3mm inboard.

Also, I'm running the newer XB falcon tyre from MJK.

 

Also, car ran very well tonight, and in the right hands would have been a weapon...

So many XB's tonight though... Glad I changed the number...

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  • 2 years later...

I got around to prepping one of these for a new club class.

 

falcon1_zpsf0fniisi.jpg

 

Much the same treatment as Vinno - lowered on the body posts with the front and rear bumpers cut off the chassis and glued to the body. Slot It wood guide. Lexan interior as per the club rules. The photo shows Slot It gear but I've since swapped it out for a NSR gear and pinion.

 

falcon2_zps2fnwbkr4.jpg

 

Handles well with 3g of tungsten putty in the front corners behind the axle and 4g in the magnet pocket in front of the motor - and runs 7.3s on my 95' track.

Edited by slotmadmac

Podiums are for short people.

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Yeah - i edited my post when I went to order the Piranha and saw it was 21k. I'll try a 18k Pioneer instead.

 

I swapped to NSR for a better mesh. The Slot It set up was noisy. Sometimes they just are. I now think that the noise is the Scalextric motor. It's a howler under braking.

Podiums are for short people.

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18k Hawks are good if the gearing is tall enough as they don't rev much over 18k but have pretty good torque. I've got them in a couple of big wheel Carrera stockers and they're surprisingly quick for big heavy cars.

bram1_zpsfkhrhndv.jpg
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