I stopped in at Zepplin's on Route 23 North in Wayne, NJ for those familiar with the place.

I was looking at some new cars. But the store has changed since I was a kid. They used to carry Tomy and Tyco/Mattel cars but now they only carry Auto World cars. I found a car I liked but opted out of purchasing because I have no experience with AW; I used to buy only Tyco and Tomy when I was younger. So, I'm wondering who has experience with their cars? Are they any good?

Auto World took over Johnny Lightning slot cars. They certainly aren't the old Auroras, but they are what they are. You will probably have to tweak them a little to get the maximum out of them. There was (maybe still is) a gear problem with some of the Auto World Tjets. I'm not really familiar with the X traction, but others will help you out there. Some of AWs bodies are pretty cool and there isn't much else out there as far as those chassis (Tjet and Xtraction) without spending big bucks. So buy one, try it, and decide for yourself. HAPPY SLOTTING!!!!!!

Jerry

Compared to the Tyco's and Tomy's, you will find them difficult but by now there are alot of tips out there to make them driveable. On smaller, unstable (unmounted) tracks they can be a nightmare. Like I said, mi caja es su caja...lol...if you plan on coming over here's some of what you will get to try (excluding what I know you have):

Stock Aurora T-Jets
"Fray"-Style Aurora T-Jets
AFX MagnaTractions
JL and AW cars, about every chassis variation made.
Tomy Super G+
Slottech Ceramic Super Stock
BSRT G3

AND......If you come over to race at Genes, We have autoworld cars for sale for probably 6.00 less then what you saw in the store, and no shipping fees.....both tjet and xtraction.

440,
Go ahead and jump into the world of pancake motors. After awhile, you'll be like a rat on crack. :freak:

Next thing you know, you'll have a slew of the AW things trying to get them tweaked out. Plus you'll have some great fun and a whole bunch of us here to comiserate with you as you go through the process of learning the skills involved in tweaking these monsters. :woohoo:

Welcome aboard! :wave:rr

The AW's are a higher skill level car, as they don't have the magnetic downforce as Tyco's/Tomy's/LL's/etc., but you should definitely get some. After you tweak and tune them, you'll love them. The AW/JL cars are the 'Green Eggs & Ham' of the slotcar world.

Hi Nick,
There were a couple Tyco twinpacks hanging behind the counter, but that's about all the magnet car stuff I saw. Some carded track and that was about it. I will be delivering some Tyco/Mattel track to them for sale so that they will have a larger selection. I hope to do that in a few weeks.
T-Jets and AFX (X-Traction) are for those who like to tweak and tune. I love them as do a whole lot of others. You may or may not find them to your liking. You won't know until you either see them in action or buy one.
The JL cars are the forerunners of the AW stuff and can still be found for good prices - usually around $10. They started coming out around 2000 and the company was sold (and eventually ended up as AW) sometime around 2005.
If you like to tinker, they are great. If you want a car that zips around the track and sticks like glue, then the JL/AW stuff is not for you. To each his own.

Joe

Take the plunge. Whats the worse that could happen...?

Oh yea...fergot about the complete and total slot junkie thing...LOL.

I've got a couple of AW cars, a Thunderjet 500, a couple of Flamethrowers and an XTraction and they are all terrible. I haven't messed with any of them yet but not one of them will make it around the track consistently, the Tjet often deslots on the straight sections. To call them a "higher skill level car" must mean you need to rebuild them completely before you intend to use them.

At our last race, we had a nice 6 lane Tomy track. One of our classes was a new idea.....We called it an "Out of the Box Race."

The cars were AW X-traction. What we did was take 8 or so brand new cars in the box and drew for the car one would race. Then, we had a few minutes to get the cars ready.

This is what we learned. Out of the box was a mistake as the range of performance varied greatly. Some cars were a pleasure to drive, others were dogs. The impression we had was that this probably was not the best class of cars to try an Out of the Box race.

HOWEVER....After the big race, a few of us did a little tune up and checking of the cars. What we found out was that a basic tune-up and about an hour of running created a very competitive and enjoyable group of cars to race. Break in is crucial. All then ran very even.

Now, these AW X-tractions are some Of our favorite cars to race. So, I can give these cars a great review. They take a little tunning but are a blast to drive once they get "in the groove."

Jim Norton
Huntsville, Alabama

I guess one could say that with the second generation pancake cars a large portion of quality control is left up to the owner. I rekon thats how they think they are keeping the price down.

The actual car cost is about the same as an out of the can entry level inline mag car. By the time you buy a few new era pancakes and shuffle everything around and add some minor upgrades, or bring an affordable vintage car up to snuff in the same fashion; argueably the costs are about the same to create some good new era pancake runners...less your time....snicker;)

While there was always the occassional dog in the old days (I'm pre-jurassic), it was few and far between when compared to today's experience of "here's a pile of slot junk we threw in a purdy box for you...sort it out yerself!"

Yet still ya might get the luck of the draw and recieve one of the rumored Holy Grail decent runners. Good luck 440...they can be great or horrible...but not impossible....make sense? LOL.

All the help ya need is right here on HT.:wave:

Man, I guess I've been REALLY lucky. I have never had one JL or AW car run out of ther box. Sure, some needs to be tweeked.. but for the most part, all I do is swap out the rear tires with silicone rears, oil it up and I'm ready to go

Sweet, thanks for the replies. I think I'm gonna pick one up but will more than likely wait till this weekend after I test one out at Gene's. :)

I do love to tinker and rebuild stuff. So, they are more than likely be right up my alley. The AW cars may be a good challenge for me since keeping the mag's going 'round the track is easy.

As for the two packs over at Zeps, I didn't really notice them. Although she did have the one portion slid open because I was looking for some silicone tires I thought I glimpsed a car hanging on pegs but wasn't sure because I couldn't see it too well.

Man, I guess I've been REALLY lucky. I have never had one JL or AW car run out of ther box. Sure, some needs to be tweeked.. but for the most part, all I do is swap out the rear tires with silicone rears, oil it up and I'm ready to go

You ARE really lucky. I'd say about 75% of the JL / AW cars I've purchased have either been dogs or complete crapwagons.

Some really haul the mail but a lot of them take a good bit of screwing around with just to get some decent speed and consistency out of them. :mad:

A few years ago, we had a variation on the "out of the box" or "box stock" race described above. We were using JLTO's and had found that there could be some variations on the cars right out of the box :wave: , so we picked 4 cars that were run-in and tuned fairly well, took off the bodies and made those the stockers that we drew poker chips out of a hat to race (the cars have/had a dot of paint pen on one side in r/w/b/y ). You'd draw a chassis, then tune it and mount a body in 5 minutes. Close to box-stock, but the cars ran better.

I have never tried an AW car, but I have a few JL cars that I've opened and ran. I haven't really noticed any dogs and I haven't spent a whole lot of time tinkering with them.

The problem I have with them right now is that I think my track is overpowered and my controllers under-ohmed (is that a term?) to run them properly. I am using 22v Aurora power packs (one per lane) and 60 ohm controllers. The cars are simply uncontrollable; especially one T-Jet Corvette I got in a trade - this thing is so fast it's unbelieveable. However, at 22 volts it's either stopped or at top speed. Until I get a variable power supply and lower the voltage, along with some 90 or 120 ohm controllers, I won't be able to enjoy them or really find out what I've got.

Actually, at 22v a lot of cars are just too twitchy.

Joe

Alright, maybe I was a little hard on the AW cars I've got. This thead got me to do a little research on how to make these cars run. There's a thread in the tuning forum called "JLTO Tuning Report" by limiting brush travel, adding O-ring fronts and truing the rears the Ultra G Cobra I have has become a fun car to drive. I'm sure silicone would make it better and I'm going to try the front and rear axle mods after I collect the parts. It was already a looker now maybe it will be a fun driver.

Looks great! :thumbsup::thumbsup: rr

I'm not a racer, but I can imagine it must be fun and a labor of love for most who are. I wouldn't think it would be too much fun to open my car up 5 mins before a race, only to find I drew a woofer. Labor of love can stretch into plain old labor, so that ain't fun in my book. EB has the right idea I think though. Since the AW and JL cars DO need help right out of the box for the most part, I think a break-in period is pretty much essential. Whether home racing or club racing it's not much fun when your car runs like doo-doo. You're on the right path by working the chassis over before you grade it AZ. I'm not convinced you'll find every car will perform well even after you massage it, but they should at least be "better". Trued silicones should help alot and I hear some guys even chuck the rear axle in their dremel to "break in" the gear train. Good luck and let us know what you find out from your testing. Always good to hear a fresh perspective. nd

AW cars do need some tweaking. A shame the factory in China isn't as good as the Aurora factories.....But when you correct the 'problems' your car came with (look up the various tune-up tips threads in the forums), these cars run very well, rivaling original Afx/Aurora Tuff-Ones cars.

The QC of the Johnny Lightning/AutoWorld cars is all over the map. It's a shame too. You CAN get much better quality out of Chinese Factories. Tomy appears to have the ability to do so. The modern AFX cars have been very consistent.

FWIW: I've had fairly good luck (most of the time) "bottom feeding" the low-end T-Jets on eBay. Most of them sell for the same or less than a new JL/AW car. They aren't perfect, but there's someting about bringing a 30-40 year-old slot car back to life.

They aren't perfect, but there's someting about bringing a 30-40 year-old slot car back to life.

This is the best part of the hobby for me - well, okay, it's tied with collecting. Because I don't race and just run cars at home, I spend almost all my time with cars that don't run quite right. Once I get a car running near what I consider to be as good as I'll get it, I usually don't run it much any more. It's the one's that need tuning that usually take up most of my time - and I love it.

Joe

I agree with the above. I get the most enjoyment in this hobby now from picking up old project cars on the bay and bringing them back to life. Dave.

I agree with you , racer dave but instead of buying them off the bay I buy them here. I have gotten a lot of really good deals off of a lot of really cool people right here. I would rather give the money to my fellow slotters anyway !

Ditto

Diamonds in the rough are a joy. Even if I get a real t-turd they still have a place here. Through continous "bottom feeding" your spares inventory increases to the point where you have enough "its and bitties" to get ya going!

Ok, I couldn't wait till this weekend to pick one up at Gene's so I picked one up at Zep's today for $16. '69 Charger. Nice looking car. Got it home opened the box and tossed it on the track. It ran from the get-go. It seems a bit slower than my Aurora's, my step-son's Aurora SRT AFx (but then again, none of the cars that I do have can keep up with that.) or my 440x2's. But it's quiet and seems smooth.

The one thing I did notice that I don't particularly care for is the plastic guide-pin and the fact that it "fish-tails" around turns. I noticed the rear can be almost 90* out from the rails. The pick-ups still make contact and it continues to go but I've noticed it'll "hop" out of the groove. Not sure if its the plastic guide-pin or the fact that it seems like its not weighted properly in the rear. I also don't like the front axle, seems to me like if you get it going fast enough that passenger side tire and wheel will come flying off. But overall, I like the car. I do like to tinker with stuff and this car will be my project car since all of my other cars; while stock run pretty damn good (well, with the exception of my Corvette [Tomy Aurora] which is extremely tired.)

Nick,
I'm going to guess that the Charger is an X-Traction which would make it a repro of the old Aurora Magna-Traction. This car is not going to be anywhere near as fast as a Tyco 440x2 or a Tomy (Aurora) SRT. It's not designed or intended to be.
If you never had pancake cars growing up, then you need to understand that they are a different animal from the magnet cars (440x2s, HP-7s) you grew up with. They do not have magnetic attraction to the rails like magnet cars, and therefore will deslot easier and fishtail. Using them at the proper voltage, with the correct controller and with good tires is essential to enjoying them. You have to drive them.
Going back to the JL days, the XTs have had a problem with the front tires falling off. You replace them with inexpensive O-Rings. Either go to the hardware store and buy size #78 or check the forums for a thread by Ligier Runner on AFX replacement fronts. You can buy bags of 100 O-Rings for $2.
There's no need to worry about the plastic guide pin. All Aurora cars, until the G Plus, used them. In fact, you will find that a plastic pin is quieter than a metal pin on plastic track. You will also find the blade side to be smoother on plastic track than the pin side; because of it's length, the blade will get hung up less in track joints. You will have to shave the length of the blade if you use it on Tyco track - the blade is designed for Tomy track which has a deeper slot.
Pancake cars are a lot of fun if tinkering is something you enjoy.

Joe

Cool, 440. The fishtailing is kinda like teaching you to respect the curves. You have to drive it as if you were in the car while it runs on the track.

Now for the tinker part......Check the pickup shoes to see if only the front tip is contacting the rails. That is bad........Using a small screwdriver, gently bend the pickup shoes until you get a longer contact patch. This usually smoothes things a bit. After that, check the rims for trueness, then sand off any tree-nubs (usually found on the rear rims), these transfer through the tires (kind of like The Princess and the Pea) and makes a bump that can cause hopping.

These couple step should smooth out your car a bit.

Hey Nick I'll set you up with a homemade shoe tweaker (http://slotcars.yuku.com/topic/483).

They are kind of exotic, so they're real expensive. :jest:

Count me in the camp of not being overly impressed with AW cars. I like some of their looks, but out of the box they do require tweaking- that which I haven't been inclined to do just yet. But this is a hobby that's hands-on in setting up and fine-tuning tracks and cars. I'll be educated by T-jets and AW cars alike.

Hey Nick I'll set you up with a homemade shoe tweaker (http://slotcars.yuku.com/topic/483).

They are kind of exotic, so they're real expensive. :jest:Gene, I had been using a screwdriver but that looks like it works so much better.

:thumbsup:

I did cut down the guide-pin like it was suggested and I did kind of "tweak" the shoes but it was already making some decent contact.

I do need to modify the front axle. Joe and I are going to do that on Monday afternoon since I'll be in his neck of the woods.

The QC of the Johnny Lightning/AutoWorld cars is all over the map. -snip- The modern AFX cars have been very consistent.

FWIW: I've had fairly good luck (most of the time) "bottom feeding" the low-end T-Jets on eBay. Most of them sell for the same or less than a new JL/AW car. They aren't perfect, but there's someting about bringing a 30-40 year-old slot car back to life.

I really enjoy this also. But, I treat my JL/AW cars like I do my old Aurora cars. I like to "rebuild" them till they run the best that I can get 'em.:)

GP

In reality, tweaking and tuning of pancake cars is one thing; inexcusable lack of quality is another. While I don't think anyone expects an JL/AW car to run perfectly out of the box, what we should expect is a complete car with parts which do not need to be immediatly replaced. After all, if the parts are no good to start with, why give them to us at all?

There is no reason for bent axles, out of round tires or wheels, and bad gears. There is no reason to supply these on a car if the first thing you have to do is replace them. If you cannot do something right, you are better off not doing it at all.

I gladly accept having to work in the gears, tune the shoes and adjust the brush tension. That is part of the fun. What I cannot accept is having to immediatly replace parts.

I finally took a real good look at the three JL XTs which I have as runners. Two run pretty well right out of the box, while the third seemed very tight. Upon closer inspection, it appears that the third one does have a bent rear axle causing it to bind at certain points. So now I have to replace that in order for the chassis to have any chance of being decent.

Also, in looking at all three chassis from the rear, it certainly appears that the gear plate does not want to sit flat/square on top of the chassis. This will be hard to describe, but a close inspection of all three shows that the two "walls" which come up from the back of the chassis and hold the gear plate are not parallel to each other. The "wall" on the driver side is bent outward on all three. That is just poor quality control and there is no excuse for that.

Joe

Nick....

If you got the early Charger with the skinny shoes, they probably came out of the box looking like the top example:

http://i27.tinypic.com/27zllvm.jpg

They're real thin, so you gotta watch when bending them that you don't put a belly in them, if you do the car will stop suddenly in sharp turns cuz the shoe falls off the rail. I find that if you get it flat, then put a light bend about a third way up from the hook, these shoes are killer.

If you have the later Charger with the wide shoes, just make sure the contact area is flat, then adjust at this bend:

http://i30.tinypic.com/2ibm1cj.jpg

Put it on a loose piece of track to check if you got it good (hold up to light and look at shoe-to-rail contact).


Joe I did a little tech piece about crooked XT gearplates a while back, sounds like this could be what you're seeing:
http://slotcars.yuku.com/topic/381



http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/4053518849a075d1f7cdc6d29aac0844d89288f.gif

I read something somewhere about building an independent front end for a T-Jet using 1/16" brass tubing & sewing pins. Does this help AW cars, and what exactly do you need, do the wheels fit over the tubing and the pins press in to hold them on? If someone has any other tricks to make these things run better I'm listening. Thanks

1. stock tjet hubs (you probably have these)
2. 1/16 hollow brass tube (hobby shop)
3. long sewing pins (i like brass jewelry pins from craft stores)
4. wheel collars (used for R/C planes, cars; hobby store)
5. o-rings for tires

cut a length of brass tube, longer than you think you need. i used a dremel with a cut off disk.

polish the rod to make it pretty and reduce friction.

cut a pin about 3/8 - 1/2 inch long and give it a little bend so it doesnt easily fall out of the brass tube

bore out the axle hole on the tjet hubs so they rotate on the 1/16 brass axle. i chuck a 1/16 solid axle into a dremel, spin it, and use it to ream the hole in the hubs. a drill bit by hand would do the same. if the hole is too big the hub will wobble, you dont want that. you just want it rotate. you only need to do 1. its sounds harder than it is.

assemble as follows: pin, hub, wheel collar, chassis, wheel collar, hub, pin.

if the axle is too long, trim some off until it fits nicely.

the wheel collars provide some extra weight to the front end. plus, their SHINY! (bling). and they have a hole in them you can use to put a drop of oil on the axle.

here are pix of the front and wheel collars.

i think these fronts look nice on the dash hot rods, they add some bling to the front (kind of like big chrome wheels, chrome brake components, and chrome suspension on a street rod)

another cheap front end is to just buy the brass hubs from wizzard ($2) instead of the entire front end kit ($7), and use the hollw brass tube and sewing pin trick from above.

I don't have any parts lying around yet, stuffs hard to come by here in Arizona. I'll just buy a handfull of the wizzard hubs. Thanks for the detailed instructions they're exactly what I needed

one thing i forgot to mention is that you want a pin with a big head. small head pins sometimes arent big enough to cover the hole in the hub. crafts stores sell jewelry pins that have nice big flat heads. you can get a pack of 80 in various lengths (longer than you need) for about $4

AZSlot, all JL/AW cars (except the 2nd release of Bowtie Brigade thunderjets, 1st release of Dukes XT's, and 2nd release of Mopar XT's) come with independant front ends. If you have one of the above mentioned, all you need is the indie front end brad used for the axle. Just use a rear axle to ream out one rim (this will be the independant wheel), and press the other rim onto the sharp end and you'll have indie fronts.

Nick....


If you have the later Charger with the wide shoes, just make sure the contact area is flat, then adjust at this bend:

http://i30.tinypic.com/2ibm1cj.jpg

Put it on a loose piece of track to check if you got it good (hold up to light and look at shoe-to-rail contact).


Joe I did a little tech piece about crooked XT gearplates a while back, sounds like this could be what you're seeing:
http://slotcars.yuku.com/topic/381



http://images.yuku.com/image/gif/4053518849a075d1f7cdc6d29aac0844d89288f.gif
I grabbed a later Charger. Suprising enough is that they didn't need much "tweaking" out-of-the-box. I just bent it a little bit towards the bend more to get them to contact a bit more.

I put a set of wheels off a Tomy Turbo on a AWTJet, made a new axle for the rear out of 1/16 piano wire, slipped the regular Tomy turbo axle in front for now (didn't want o ruin the wheels in case it didn't work). Got me thinking a set of Magna Traction wheels would look nice. This setup is much better than stock or even the Cobra with stock wheels and axles.

Hey AZ,

That looks nice. I always liked how well AW did this new body. It looks like the wheels don't even stick out from the body. How wide is this body and its new rear track with those wheels. Did you have to dremel the wheel wells? This makes me want to try a custom using this body.

SPED

Good lookin car AZ!

AZ, that came off very well! Much more realistic looking, stance looks good. Great improvement.

Thanks guys. I kept the dremel away, don't really like cutting bodies up. The wheels do stick out some kind of high school hot rod style, still need to glue the gear to the new axle, the wheels don't look even in the pics. I'm going to order some Magna Traction wheels from ebay, I think they'll look even better. Silicone tires should make it easier to drive, it's much better than it was
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/MG_6028_copy.jpg
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/MG_6027_copy.jpg
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/MG_6026_copy.jpg

Drag racer style! Looks good AZ.

GP

I have purchased 2 of the new Super III cars from Auto World and the result was bad. The first one made it 1/2 the way around the track at a good speed then slowed to 1/2 speed and never improved after that. The second one that replaced the first had a out of round rear tire to start. With new tires it made it around the track a dozen times with the performance of maybe a old tomy turbo or a good xtraction. It then slowed down to half speed and that is how it stayed. One of traction magnets came loose and had to be super glued in place.

Do not waste your money!

I have purchased 2 of the new Super III cars from Auto World and the result was bad. The first one made it 1/2 the way around the track at a good speed then slowed to 1/2 speed and never improved after that. The second one that replaced the first had a out of round rear tire to start. With new tires it made it around the track a dozen times with the performance of maybe a old tomy turbo or a good xtraction. It then slowed down to half speed and that is how it stayed. One of traction magnets came loose and had to be super glued in place.

Do not waste your money!



Goes then slows down....sounds like another case of one or both brush screws backing out.

What size were the rear tires you put on the second one?

I checked out the car today and noticed the brush screws. One was backed out and it is now running better. Has anybody tried nail polish or lock-tite to keep the screws in place?

Nail polish will work in a bind, Loctite Purple (hard to find) works great, AFXToo posted a link for VibraTite, which works good but you gotta watch the amount you use...no more than a pinpoint drop.