All of the first sets of cars I ordered arrived in time for a nice testing session. The cars involved are the SCD Panoz LMP-1, Tomy Sauber Mercedes C-9 and Tomy Catrol Jaguar. All three had brand new Tomy Tubo chassis and Super Tires #391 black slip on silicones. The Panoz uses the narrow chassis, the others use the wide, or "bucket handled" chassis. Other than tweeking the pick-up shoes to reach the rails in the corkscrew little else was done. Each car was run 25 laps, re-oiled and the tires taped.

I then ran 50 times laps using the Microsizers timer just before the entrance to turn 8. After about 15 laps with the first selection, the Panoz, I started running nice and fast, clean laps. At 50 I checked and had run a fast 2.66 seconds with the silicone shod Turbo. Quite a bit faster than I expected. Unfortunately during the warm up period I broke both the stalk mirrors off the Panoz, something I had expected would happen. I'll scratch build replacements later.

The Sauber was next and handled quite a bit different. being more tail heavy it tended to drift in the corners more. Not a bad thing on some laps, but totally too much on others. 50 laps left a decent impression with a fast lap of 2.71 seconds. There's probably a few things I could do to the chassis to bring the times down but I crashed less with the Sauber although I ran slower.

The last of the selected cars was a Castrol Jag XJR. Compaired to the Sauber (and the Panoz for that matter) the Jag is lower, although the Panoz is shorter. After getting over what I thought to be a push I ran some good laps and then looked at the front tires. One had come off the rim somewhat, so after fixing that ran 25 fast laps. Fast lap was 2.68, in between the two. The Jag was about like the Sauber although a bit heavier feeling.

I have two more chassis and the Toyota's on their way. I'm not sure they will get here in time beofre I put the track up for my surgery but we'll see what I can do. My choise was the Sauber for my team from the beginning, and I think it will be a good choice.

The Toyota body is super -- nice & low it handles great.

Have fun! :thumbsup:

I'm still debating the use of the 956/962 body, I really don't like the look much. I would really like to see an open cockpit BMW to go along with the Panoz. I like the roadster, although it sits higher than I expected, and the driver needs serious detailing.

Gary fast does the BMW V12LMR

For which chassis? Link?

First impressions: SCD Panoz LMP-1 Roadster

Since this is my first real foray into small scale I have to base this one off of a larger scale slot car; notably the FLY Panoz LMP. Understandably this one isn’t going to be the detailed version that car is but even some of the basic dimensions need to be addressed.

First let’s look at over all shape. The SCD car is nice although the car I’m testing has the mirrors removed for some odd reason. Pete says he will fashion some replacements from brass wire later. From references and first hand experience seeing the Panoz the SCD version has the proper look in body length and width, stance is nice too. But the driver figure is way too high as the helmet sits at the top of the roll hoop and not the body fairing as it is supposed to be. The wing is OK but as the FLY car has a dual level wing and this has a simpler single it lacks the right look.

I tested the car at Laguna Seca and didn’t run near the times Peter has. More like in the low to mid 3’s, but I don’t have a lot of experience with such a high powered and twitchy car on a short and very technical track. I’ve made the recommendation to reduce the power here, a sort of restrictor plate for slot cars until some of us can gain experience. I also drove the Sauber and Jaguar and really didn’t notice much different between the three.

The only real complaint I have is the height of the drivers figure. Fix that and it would be more realistic. That’s my 2¢ worth.

Yoshi, I have put resistors in series to my controllers that are selected with a switch on the controller base. You can run easier or you can switch during runs low for turns and "overdrive" for fast straights

About bodies,
Yes the Toyota is excellent and the Mercedes is next and the Panoz is about the same.
The Porsche 962 is horrible! too much overhang over the back and bulky.

My test runs were on my 26' twisty track the chassis were turbo, magnets removed, lead weights installed, stock tires. The times are for 5 laps and the average lap

Toyota #36 Minolta 25.8 5.16/lap
Mercedes#61 C9 26.4 5.28/lap

Some other car times, Mercedes#63 G+ demagnetized magnets 27.2 5.44/lap
The Mercedes#61 turbo chassis, with the magnets 22.14 4.43/lap
The Lola with Tuff1 chassis and silicones 32.5 6.50/lap

A first conclusion:
Tomy inline chassis weighed down with magnets replaced by lead were marginally better than cars with magnets simply removed. The most noticeable improvement of leaded cars was around the banked curves.
However light tjets can be miraculously transformed. My conversion involved weighing down a car comprising of a light and small 57 Vette body, from an ex-JL pull back, and a JL t-jet. After I applied weights rear&front it can compete with fast Tuff1's

The Mercedes really perks up if you "clip lower" it on an SG+, and the Jag just needs a shim in the body to keep it from wiggling around. Both are a little tail heavy, but not nearly what you've got with the Porsche 962. The Toyota bodies are great, and perk up fastastically with a lowering, too. I miss Mr. Bob's site, where he had excellent side-by-side shots of the effect.

I've done lowering jobs on clip cars like this, it's not hard but this may be the only Turbo ALMS series we have at LSMR. The cars are just too fast even at 9 volts and I still want to have a 1960's Trans-Am type permanent series using T-Jets. Yoshi has a Professor Motor Silver Series controller with all sorts of cool stuff sticking out of it, it took him longer to tune his controller than to tune the car. There's not even a resistor in this thing, all chip controlled. The Toyota's will probably arrive today or tomorrow but testing won't resume for a few weeks. Once this series is done I think I may remod the bodies and crank up the vacuformer, I've already had one request to do a Toyota body.

Ist the Toyota request me?

You were the first but there have been at least one other.

Cool. Can you spray them inside one color?

ROFL!!! I haven't gotten the cars yet Big D!!!! We need to run the ALMS series, 4 races starting in April. Afterward I'm going to remodel them a little. I'll more than likely do the rear wing like I did the Odyssey but better engineered. They will otherwise be the same shape, etc. It's just too bad these guys won't fit an XT, that would be nice to have ALMS pancake cars.

The rest of my team arrived today, 2 new Sauber Medcedes C9's bringing my total to 3, and a double handful of the spec silicone tires. I had originally intended to duplicate the 1989 Le Mans team, the German Silver cars with #61, #62 and #62. While I was trying to figure out what the interesting little colored square witrh the hole it the middle was I ran across this roll out scheme from 1988.

http://orion6004.mallwiz.co.kr/images/etc/exoto-c9-presentation-09.jpg

http://orion6004.mallwiz.co.kr/images/etc/exoto-c9-presentation-08.jpg

I'm now running through my mind if the blue band will vary between cars.

I also got the two Toyota's that will become Red Bull cars. With the decals arriving today as well I'm really anticipating how those will look. Tonight though, I started on Yoshi's Cup of Noodles Panoz....man. I really need a magnifying glass on this one. I'm glad he scaled back from two cars, this one may take a few more hours. Pics coming soon.

It's just too bad these guys won't fit an XT, that would be nice to have ALMS pancake cars.

The Panoz is doubtful (it looks mighty low in the photos I've seen), but all of the GTP/Group C cars fit on the XT. At least they fit on the MT, so I assume they'd fit the XT as well. Give it a try -- GTP cars on MT/XT chassis are a blast!

They fit but require some machine work on the indise of the body for the final drive gear to turn. Besides, there are some might fine Can-Am cars that do fit the XT.

....
I then ran 50 times laps using the Microsizers timer just before the entrance to turn 8. After about 15 laps with the first selection, the Panoz, I started running nice and fast, clean laps. At 50 I checked and had run a fast 2.66 seconds with the silicone shod Turbo. Quite a bit faster than I expected. Unfortunately during the warm up period I broke both the stalk mirrors off the Panoz, something
...
The Sauber was next and handled quite a bit different. being more tail heavy it tended to drift in the corners more. Not a bad thing on some laps, but totally too much on others. 50 laps left a decent impression with a fast lap of 2.71 seconds. There's probably a few things I could do to the chassis to bring the times down but I crashed less with the Sauber although I ran slower.

The last of the selected cars was a Castrol Jag XJR. Compaired to the Sauber (and the Panoz for that matter) the Jag is lower, although the Panoz is shorter. After getting over what I thought to be a push I ran some good laps and then looked at the front tires. One had come off the rim somewhat, so after fixing that ran 25 fast laps. Fast lap was 2.68, in between the two. The Jag was about like the Sauber although a bit heavier feeling.

...

How long is each lap please?

Almost 21' in each lane, elevation change is 10.5" from lowest point to highest. It's not an easy track to drive with any car.