.....

I started a thread already, but nobody has posted in it so I will delete it if I can or ask a mod to if I can't.

Here is something I lifted from another post:

Can wizzard brushes, springs and screws be used?

Brushes - Yes, but they will either have to be cut down or the tension reduced by using a shorter or softer spring and by using a thread locker on the screws.

Springs - Yes, but they will have to be paired up with the brushes properly.

Screws - No. The thread pitch is different. The screws that fit the Wizzard car are too course and large to fit the AW car.

I really would like to get all the tips for this chassis under one roof

.......

I'm hoping that the tuning thread can actually focus on tuning so I don't have to wade through 10 pages of opinions to find a tip or two.

A diary of someone's interactions with the S3 seems very appropriate. Discussions of AutoWorld's business practices has nothing to do with tuning the chassis and belongs in the General Discussion threads.

I'm not upset. I'm just trying to help keep things organized so we can find what we need efficiently.

That was my plan, but the nature of forums has always been free-forming.

I bought two Super III Mustangs tonight at the Rockford Hobbytown for $15.99 each. Not sure why they were so much cheaper than MSRP. I honestly don't think I would have bought one for $24.99 after what I've read around here but $15.99 was compelling. There are still a dozen on the shelf at that price if anyone's in the area.

The first one ran without a problem, timing in at about the same speed as a Tomy Turbo with slip ons but accomplishing it in a completely different manner -- less speed in the straights but almost no need to slow down for the corners. I did absolutely nothing to the car after taking it out of the cube. I ran it another 20 laps to see if the brush screws would vibrate out but it didn't happen.

The second one required a 20-minute battle with the pick-up shoes before it would even move. I kept incrementally bending and testing and it would run if I held the car with the rears off the track but not when I set it down. Finally, I got some shoe/rail contact but it was inconsistent as the car went herky jerky around the track, stopping several times. Another round of bending and things were finally working fine. The shoes now have a gentle arc off the front. Again, I timed it in and it was comparable with the first one. I ran it another 20 laps and the speeds held up. No flames...

Thinner front tires would be nice and less shoe bending might be required, however, that would get those speed sucking magnets even closer to track and that's not a good idea unless you want to use your S3 exclusively as a track cleaner -- and it would make a good one.

The S3 front tires have a nice shape to them with the rounded edges. I tried one on a RRR rear wheel and they were JUST barely too big. The OD was perfect.

.....

Gary--- Sorry some posters didn't appreciate your efforts-- I'm sure the vast majority did. Its always interesting to see the progression of tweeks and changes and how they relate to the results on the track. I applaud your efforts and would hope that you would continue to present your results whether here or on a new thread.

Gary,

I think your reaction is a little over the top. I have been 'slapped down' for starting a multiple thread before and took it with good grace. In this instance I was aknowledging that my thread was surplus to requirements, although earlier than yours, and I was happy to remove it. I think we would all be better served if the tips for this chassis were in one place, but I accepted the nature of forums does not lend itself to such things.

For whatever reason my thread attracted no posts, so I have removed as much of it as I can. Your thread has worked, and kudos to you for that, lets see all the tips and discussion of those tips migrate here, and your continued input would be much valued. I know that AFXtoo is planning to migrate his findings here.

LeeRoy, please keep the notes coming. They were very useful for me.

I just got my case of 6 mustangs, and opened up the Teal Boss and Blue GT, since those are the keepers that I actually wanted and the rest will be ebay bound. Here's whats shakin' so far:

First off, the bodies look way, WAY better in person than in pics. The proportions are a little chunky, but the camera is pretty unkind to these. My blue GT has a few paint flaws that I found kind of dissapointing, and I also noticed that the red and blue GTs have smooth rear glass, the silver and black ones and both Boss' have louvers. So Ill be doing a swap-a-roo with one of those that has the louvered glass into my blue GT.

Looking at this chassis, most of it looks like a fusion of the Tomy Super G+ and tyco 440-X2. It looks like it was meant to combine the best elements of those along with a few new innovations. As to whether it was a success...

Straight from the box and slapped to the track neither car would make it more than 8-10 inches before a stall. When I touched the nose of the car to the track and held the rear tires up for a free spin and hit the trigger, the motors spun nice and fast. Rear gears on the GT sounded like a 'box of rocks' like described before. Closer inspection showed that the culprit was a pinion gear that was drilled slightly off center, making the axle do a slight side to side shimmy as the motor rotated. Ive seen examples of this in pretty much all makes of slots, btw. Its a common flaw. The Boss' pinion was dead on so its geartrain is a lot smoother by comparison, but still not to my liking. Part of the problem is that the stock crown gear looks like a knockoff of the super G+ part. But the gear teeth go way deep and are very sharp on the ends, so how anything can mesh smoothly with this I have no idea.

I pulled the pickups and tweaked the first narrow section behind the wider area to a more or less 45 degree angle. From there, the top part which actually rests on top of the brush barrels is at a wierd slope so I tweaked it straight and then bend the tail part straight down. This has the pickups running flat on the rails. The pickup springs are a little odd. Its a little like doubling up on Tyco 440 pickup springs, but joining them at the bottom. Its a lot of spring pressure, probably to go with the lots of downforce. I see what they were trying to do with this setup. Tyco 440s can be a pain when installing pickups since that spring has to line up in the right spot then hook into that little tab on the pickup. The pickup on the SIII just threads thru the loop, which is a simple affair, but since theres little room to work, you get hung up a lot, and if you get the pickup twisted or turned then whatever you do dont just start yanking on it. You have to work it out a little at a time.

I pulled the brush barrel screws and since I dont have any vibra-tight or loctite I put a teeny dab of silicone on each one so they wont back out of the barrels. Honestly, for 2 cents Im half considering pulling the brush barrels, backing out the screw head flush with the ends of the barrels, soldering them in place, and putting them back together with longer brushes. Problem-o solved-o.

I tried swapping both Tomy and tyco/lifelike pinion gears in unison with the stock SIII rear axle, and it just doesnt work out too hot. The motor pinion is just about a half millimeter or so too short to get the kind of gear/pinion/boss/gear saver mesh Id like, and it seems that the tyco and LL pinions are a bit loose on the motor shaft.

I swapped in a tomy Turbo rear axle/gearset with the tomy pinion and thats getting a lot closer. Trouble is, theres a bit too much material on the side of the crown gear, and it rubs the chassis/axle boss. So I chucked it in my dremel and ran that against a swiss file to get a nice tight but freewheeling fit. Besides, I dont much care for AW's choice of wheels on the SIII, at least not with either Mustang. So this is the perfect opportunity to swap on some AW 5-spoke mags (the AFX style). Ive got 2 pairs mounted up that Ive stripped of all the chrome just waiting for special paint jobs: black spokes/silver lip on the GT, dull grey spokes/silver lip on the Boss. The stock SIII tires are WAY wide for the AFX type rears. But theyre just place holders on there since Im out of silicone rears.

The stock front axles were both slightly bent, and popping the front wheels off the knurled axles was a snap: Just get a pair of jewelers needle nose started in behind the wheels and shove against the chassis untill they're pressed off. You have to cut off about 1-1.5 millimeters worth of the spacers from the inside of the front AFX style wheels in order for them to fit properly. I stretched the stock SIII front tires onto these for now since Im outta O-rings also.

Once I got everything tweaked, dialed in and oiled up, both cars do run nicely. The Boss is a little bit faster all around and responds much more smoothly. The GT bogs a bit in the curves for some reason. The wear stripes on the pickups run the full length of the pads so I know those are dialed in just right, and of course the AFX type front axles are independent rotating, so who knows?

All in all, Im not so dissapointed as some in these cars. For $20-25 apiece though, Im going to give the R&D and QC departments some more time to refine these and probably wait a couple of releases to buy any more unless there's a body or two that Iv just gotta have. Some of the gripes Ive seen on these are a bit far flung. Yes, you will have to do a little work to get these rolling properly, and swapping parts on a spanking new car is a bit absurd. But at least the issues ARE fixable. Anyone who bought the R1 release of black chassis JL T-jets back in '02 knows those were total dogs. Most of the problems with those werent really fixable and most ended up as spare parts. But with time the later releases got better and better. The SIII is a totally brand new platform unique to itself. With ongoing improvements, the bugs will shake out of these and it seems that this chassis has great potential. Another concern Ive heard is that no hop up parts are currently available. Youve got to remember that these have only been in peoples hands for a little more than a week or so. Once more get out there and the guys from BSRT, Wizzard, etc have had a little time with these, parts are going to start coming out for them. Then we'll see just what they can do with some real tuning.

Thanks for taking the time Jeeper. Good read!

No problemo, Bill. Hope what I found helps out someone else. I forgot to mention that I also did a little break-in on the motors as well. I removed the rear axle and gave the motor 2 4 minute sessions at full throttle. I did the first without oiling the pinion bushings, then hit them with my syringe-O-ATF during the cooldown period. Both motors ran strong and stayed pretty cool during this.

Here are my first findings:

Arm sounds fast and responded well to electrozip during break-in

Rear wheels a breeze to remove. I put a Tomy axle in as the standard mesh is not even worth trying to do anything with and it was miles better and is now legal for the 34mm rule.

Tyco and Life-like axles seem even better but both seemed prone to axle pop so I will stick with the Tomy for now.

Can’t get the front wheels off as I can’t quite get the wheel tool behind them. Once spares are available I will cut the axle off and use other makes of wheels than are easier to remove.

The way the shoes touch the track seems so bizarre I have no idea how to improve them so anybody got a description or pictures of what they did :confused:

As usual I am held back by the lack of a test track and will have to wait until the next EAHORC to see what is what

Here's a picture of the way I bend the AW SIII shoes. You're never going to get a big ski like area making contact, so whatever you can do to get at least a small flat contact patch is an improvement. As you can see I make a little bend in the rear to keep the shoe from popping out in the back. The top shoe in the picture is probably bent a little better. The bottom one needs a little more tweaking. If nothing else these shoes are thick.

Sorry for the poor quality pics, but this is about the best my ancient, coal fired digital camera can do.

Thanx AFX2

Is anyone else finding when the remove the brush springs the brushes themselves won't come out??

AFXToo I've been able to get a full shoe by bringing the hook "around" (2) from the back, this drops the rear of the contact patch down. Stealing your pic for an explaination: the top of the shoe has that goofy hook (1) sticking way up high and away from the barrel. By tightening bend A (3), then opening bend B (3), you get a more traditional barrel-type hook and it lengthens the rear portion of the shoe in it's relationship to the barrel. Basically it ends up looking like the edited pic (4). I've done this on one shoe (sucks not having spares yet) and it has a perfect line down the full lenght of the "ski".

:thumbsup:

http://i26.tinypic.com/11v7kef.jpg

Is anyone else finding when the remove the brush springs the brushes themselves won't come out??

Not any more than other adjustable barrel cars. I just tap the chassis on the table a couple times.

The real fun is trying to reinstall the tiny phillips-head screws, which happen to be magnetic, right next to a poly mag. :freak:

I found a jewellers screwdriver that ''bit'' into the grub screw perfectly to overcome that but after 5 minutes I still cannot get the brushes out!!

Montoya--- in situations where the motor brush will not come out I have done both of the following methods with success. One is take a can of compressed air with the plastic straw tube to direct the air into the com end of the motor brush tube. Put a tissue over the other end of the motor brush tube to "catch and cushion" the motor brush if it should dislodge. The other method is to use a small wire ten thou or under and bend a push hook into it to push the brush out.

I will try that - thanks Neo.

Arm sounds fast and responded well to electrozip during break-in
Please explain what is 'electrozip'??

Comm drops, buy very thin. I think a lot of ISRA guys use it.

Thanks SwamperGene.

Yeah, I know there's a lot of material there available for bending. Since I currently have no spares I've been very conservative with the bending. My first concern was securing the free floating rear of the shoe. The little bend in the back works very well for that. The next big challenge as you've pointed out is getting more of that copper working for you instead of just hanging out there for the ride. Once I get a nice patch of copper on the rail then I'll see what I can do to get the tension where I want it.

The phillips head set screws are a PIA. I knew they would be even before I removed them for the first time. I fumbled with them three of four times before getting them back in. Maybe a touch of tacky on the head of the set screw would help. If they were the same thread as WHP set screws I would have already replaced them all. If anyone finds a suitable replacement - let us know.

I pulled the brush barrel screws and since I dont have any vibra-tight or loctite I put a teeny dab of silicone on each one so they wont back out of the barrels. Honestly, for 2 cents Im half considering pulling the brush barrels, backing out the screw head flush with the ends of the barrels, soldering them in place, and putting them back together with longer brushes. Problem-o solved-o.

I swapped in a tomy Turbo rear axle/gearset with the tomy pinion and thats getting a lot closer. Trouble is, theres a bit too much material on the side of the crown gear, and it rubs the chassis/axle boss. So I chucked it in my dremel and ran that against a swiss file to get a nice tight but freewheeling fit.

All in all, Im not so dissapointed as some in these cars. For $20-25 apiece though, Im going to give the R&D and QC departments some more time to refine these and probably wait a couple of releases to buy any more unless there's a body or two that Iv just gotta have. Some of the gripes Ive seen on these are a bit far flung. Yes, you will have to do a little work to get these rolling properly, and swapping parts on a spanking new car is a bit absurd. But at least the issues ARE fixable. Anyone who bought the R1 release of black chassis JL T-jets back in '02 knows those were total dogs. Most of the problems with those werent really fixable and most ended up as spare parts. But with time the later releases got better and better. The SIII is a totally brand new platform unique to itself. With ongoing improvements, the bugs will shake out of these and it seems that this chassis has great potential. Another concern Ive heard is that no hop up parts are currently available. Youve got to remember that these have only been in peoples hands for a little more than a week or so. Once more get out there and the guys from BSRT, Wizzard, etc have had a little time with these, parts are going to start coming out for them. Then we'll see just what they can do with some real tuning.

SwamperGene,

Interesting that you and I tried the same rear gears in order even and had pretty much the same results.
I tried the Tomy Turbo rear from an Indy car with the higher gearing however and it did not bid against the side of the chassis. I retained the stock Super III pinion and it was fairly quiet.

But I was still not happy with the overall mesh and ended up using the Old Rokar White rear axle form the X-Chassis, I believe they are 20 tooth.
This provides a great mesh and doesn't jump off the pinion, lined up perfect. I am using .490 Supertires for AFX . Also tried some .474 but they seemed to be bogging the car. I will try to get something near .482 in the future and see how that works out.


I still cannot get this Super III to coast very well, is there a trick or is it just the very Strong Traction magnets causing this?


Your Pictures on the Pickup shoe bending are very helpful, I will try those bends when I get a second car. I have just bent them in a bow fashion on the bottom with needle-nose pliers and am getting a decent contact patch, but not 100%.

I have retained the front axles and rims since they were not too bad for stock, but have replaced the tires with slightly smaller profile Tyco Wide Pan chassis front tires.

Concerning soldering the brush barrels, doesn't that negate the supposed advantage of having adjustable brush tension?

Also concerning the JL Series one black chassis, I know some of these were warped beyond repair but of the ones that did not have that problem, they are some of my best runners after changing out the guide pin of course and cleaning up the ring gear play.

I think the best Series out of the box was Series 5. I have a Corvette GS that I did nothing more than put law tires on it and it is just fantastic.
It is fun and interesting how each series seemed to have some things fixed and some new problems popped up. Fun to mix and match.

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble and thanks for the great info.
Keith

AFXToo I've been able to get a full shoe by bringing the hook "around" (2) from the back, this drops the rear of the contact patch down. Stealing your pic for an explaination: the top of the shoe has that goofy hook (1) sticking way up high and away from the barrel. By tightening bend A (3), then opening bend B (3), you get a more traditional barrel-type hook and it lengthens the rear portion of the shoe in it's relationship to the barrel. Basically it ends up looking like the edited pic (4). I've done this on one shoe (sucks not having spares yet) and it has a perfect line down the full lenght of the "ski".

:thumbsup:

http://i26.tinypic.com/11v7kef.jpg

Gene, youre final pickup looks pretty similar to mine. I keep that trailing little 'tail' that goes down behind the brush barrel straight, yours looks like a nightmare to get in and out of the chassis. The other thing is, that first piece of the narrow section just behind the contact pads on mine are bent to a 45 degree angle. This lays the whole thing dead flat on the rails and the wear stripe goes the length of the pickup. And also, that little square looped area that hooks over the barrel lays flat onto it also. You can see this in my CrapTastic pic, from a similarly ancient digi-cam as AFX-Too's. Difference is, his must be newer since it runs on coal. Mine has a waterwheel!

Keith I've been trying various setups too. On one car I have a LL axle, very quiet but I don't like the slop it has, even though the crown doesn't rub the chassis. The other downside is that I'm finding the LL axle in particular is very easy to pop out, in fact I'd swear the thing dislodged a few times simply due to torque. Going to my other car with a stock SIII setup, I'm finding that mesh is very good and there's no rub by simply putting a .010 spacer on the backside of the crown. Of course this still leaves the width problem which I have to address as the SIII will likely be in our race lineup next month. One thing I did notice...the black stock car rear setup is narrower than my '70 Boss. I haven't played with gear ratio yet simply because the first few times racing these cars I'd like to see variables kept to a minimum, so any replacements will need to be 25T.

As for coast, you really won't get any even if the car is high, the motor mags are braking the car too, both on the rails and the arm. It's somewhat relative to velocity though, I'm still getting best times on my 4x16 with brakes...on a smaller course you definitely wouldn't need any.

Tire size of course is a huge factor on mag cars, the stock tires are .490 +/- when mounted, I'd imagine a .490 AFX tire may be taller due to the larger SIII rims (I always consider my tire sizes when mounted). I'm finding a sweet spot to be around .470 rear and around .395 (I've had .390 on the front and got a little rub in front of the motor). I'm not sure why some cars are bogging when too low, I've had no heat/speed problem with one setup that was lightly riding the rails. I you have a tire sizing gauge, check those Tyco fronts when mounted...I put a set on SIII front rims and again cuz of the larger rim they actually ended up .006 bigger than stock.

I like the black JL chassis too, now that so many tips have been discovered and shared on the platform, these are definitely worth revisiting as viable racing cars.

Glad to see others are spending some time with the SIII. :thumbsup:

Gene, youre final pickup looks pretty similar to mine. I keep that trailing little 'tail' that goes down behind the brush barrel straight, yours looks like a nightmare to get in and out of the chassis. The other thing is, that first piece of the narrow section just behind the contact pads on mine are bent to a 45 degree angle. This lays the whole thing dead flat on the rails and the wear stripe goes the length of the pickup. And also, that little square looped area that hooks over the barrel lays flat onto it also. You can see this in my CrapTastic pic, from a similarly ancient digi-cam as AFX-Too's. Difference is, his must be newer since it runs on coal. Mine has a waterwheel!


Actually I lifted and photoshop'd AFXToo's pic, the added hook is his. :)

I should have mentioned that you as you did one should tighen up on the middle bend when doing the hook mod. I'm finding that you can actually "pull the hook around" somewhat with the shoes mounted.

I really wish there were a pit kit for these, I hate getting too rough with them without having some spares.

One thing that may be affecting coast is that on one that I have been messing with is the front inside tire will rub on the little plastic flange or whatever it is, the thing holding that wire over the front bushing, the part that makes it so it won't slide back to the brush housing. I slide my tires out a bit before replacing them with 440x2 wide chassis fronts, still does the same thing but at least those stay on, might be a hair lower also. J

AFXToo I've been able to get a full shoe by bringing the hook "around" (2) from the back, this drops the rear of the contact patch down. Stealing your pic for an explaination: the top of the shoe has that goofy hook (1) sticking way up high and away from the barrel. By tightening bend A (3), then opening bend B (3), you get a more traditional barrel-type hook and it lengthens the rear portion of the shoe in it's relationship to the barrel. Basically it ends up looking like the edited pic (4). I've done this on one shoe (sucks not having spares yet) and it has a perfect line down the full lenght of the "ski".

:thumbsup:

http://i26.tinypic.com/11v7kef.jpg
How bad of an idea would it be to have a barrel that slid over the brush tube and allowed a pickup shoe to be 'snapped' into a holder on the barrel? This would serve at least 3 purposes. First, you would never need to dork around with these little 'hooks' to try to get the shoe to fit. Second, it would provide a more consistent electrical contact with the brush tube. Third, it would also make replacing shoes a lot easier.

I have found that slots are just like real cars..The first few years of a new model car always has recalls..Then after a couple of years all the bugs are fixed , then they come out with a new style and its back to getting the bugs out..I'm sure by Release 2 all will be fixed..Hopefully..
Steve

How bad of an idea would it be to have a barrel that slid over the brush tube and allowed a pickup shoe to be 'snapped' into a holder on the barrel? This would serve at least 3 purposes. First, you would never need to dork around with these little 'hooks' to try to get the shoe to fit. Second, it would provide a more consistent electrical contact with the brush tube. Third, it would also make replacing shoes a lot easier.

Actually Dan, I think the best idea that would give the most bang for the buck, and this applies to all barrel-type cars, is to simply have a rounded hook that conforms to the shape of barrel instead of a squared-off one. We do this ourselves on the high end stuff. A sleeve would add another contact point to worry about in the electrical path, not really a good thing. I could see barrels that are made with a holder that is part of the tube, but that'd only be practical on drop-in bulkheads.

yours looks like a nightmare to get in and out of the chassis

Nightmare no, not even a mildly bad dream where you are being chased but your legs won't respond... Actually, the little bend in the rear does not make it appreciably harder to get the shoe on/off at all. It's much easier than say getting qualifier shoes on a G car. You just have to guide the shoe in place on the front and rear at the same time, not simply hook the rear and then snap over the front or vice versa. The bend is an insurance policy against the rear of the shoe popping off, say in a crash. The hook is compensation for what I believe is a design defect on the Super III.

The electrical design on the Super III, Patriot, and other cars is based on the Tyco 440. Take a look at your Tycos and you'll see that the rear of the shoe that goes over the brush barrel is not free to float up unrestricted. On those cars, there is a wedge of plastic hangs out over the rear of the shoe, It also serves to keep the ends of double wound shoe springs apart. In normal use this rear guard does not restrict the normal movement of the shoe. But in a wreck it does keep the shoe from getting dislodged. With double wound springs a dislodged shoe would likely booger up the shoe spring pretty bad. Since our inventory of spare shoe springs stands at zero, that would be a pain. But I do see where the rear retainer bend would be seen as controversial by some folks. If you are uncomfortable with putting a little bend in the rear, don't do it. Word of warning: you only get to bend these shoes a couple of times. At some point they will break.

I have mixed feelings about the whole Tyco style electrical setup. The WHP implementation is about as evolved as it gets but the basic design inherited from Tyco has inherent limitations. With the proper rear guard (which AW overlooked) the Tyco style setup is very robust and FAR less prone to shoe and spring loss than the Tomy/G-car design. The weakness of the Tyco design, IMHO, is that it lumps together a number of performance and handling related variables in one area. Tweaking any one variable has an impact on both performance and handling so it's harder for me at least to get it right because you are shooting at two moving targets at the same time with every adjustment. Optimizing the performance and handling with this style design is obviously achievable and I like it for the inherent robustness of the design.

A shoe that snaps-in over the brush barrel would require some sort of spring metal. It may be easier to mount but would not be optimal for electrical performance. You need to maximize the current flow between the shoe and the brush barrel without binding it up mechanically. The easiest way to achieve this is with the "round peg in the square hole" approach that the Tyco and all derived designs employ. With a properly squared off shoe you can get at least two contact points between the shoe and the brush barrel. If you had a round shoe you can only get one contact point between the shoe and the brush barrel. Electrically speaking, two contact points allows for twice as much current flow, which is a huge advantage. Plus, with the squared off shoe the contact with the brush tube is tangential to the surface of the shoe, minimizing friction. Rounding the ends of the shoe by itself can only decrease electrical performance. On high end cars, shunts are used to compensate. But again, as I mentioned above, the whole Tyco style electrical system is intimately tied to mechanical factors that affect handling so giving something up on the electrical side to help you out on the handling side may be a reasonable compromise.

Grunger' thanks for the picture, I tried putting the more aggressive angle in the bend and now I have a much better contact patch.

Here's some pics of the new and improved bend. Much better contact patch. I tried to do a stock versus tweaked view, top set it stock and bottom is tweaked and front is tweaked and rear is tweaked. Maybe I'm using the wrong type of coal. Anthracite or bituminous, who really knows? The dude at the 7-11 said it would work in my camera. It doesn't look great so maybe I'll switch back over to my other digital camera that's powered by composting Yak poo.

Powered by Yak methane...LOL...I modified my Camera to run a "Kinsford Matchlight" charcoal brickquette. Uses a road draft ashtray to keep the crap off the lens.

Your pics really show the aforementioned thickness of these clodhoppers...wow!

You need to enable macro methinks.

Look for a menu to do with focus, maybe there is a magnifying glass symbol?

Here's the reason for the 'rock crusher' sound of the S-3 gear box. The picture shows a Tyco 440 (top), latest Wizzard (middle) and S-3 (bottom). Notice that the pitch and depth of the teeth on the crown gears of the Tyco and the Wizzard are much different then the S-3. The S-3 teeth are further apart, the pitch is steeper and the teeth are longer. The bad part is that teeth on the S-3 pinion gear are also longer and might be bottoming out on the crown gear, particularly if the pinion is off-center. Replacing only the pinion gear with a Tyco 440 pinion gear resulted in a much smoother gear mesh. Replacing the crown gear without replacing the pinion gear might not fix the problem. Replacing both, which many of you have probably already done, will dramatically improve the gear mesh.

Amazingly the rear axle is not splined to keep the crown gear in place. My car is brand new and I was able to relatively easily turn the crown gear with my hands. Imagine what will happen when oil gets under the gear or it gets a little time on the gear.

After popping the rear axle in and out of the chassis a number of times, the rear axle pops out of the chassis way too easily.

The pictures show the top and bottom of the shoes and bulkheads of the latest Wizzard car, the S-3 and the Tyco 440. Focusing on the picture of the bottoms of chassis, you can see how much more wider the Tyco and WHP shoes are at the point that they contact the brush tubes. Unfortunately, the S-3 bulkhead is too wide so you're pretty much limited to this narrow contact area.

And as has been pointed out in other posts, the shoes need to be bent to better contact the brush tubes and to keep them from losing contact with the brush tubes. If the shoes are left unbent, or bent improperly, you could end up with the shoes not contacting the brush tubes at all and the only current getting to the brushes will be that from the shoe springs. Not good...

Actually, by tapping the shoes lightly underneath, I'm able to get them to easily disengage from the brush tube on the S-3 and the WHP chassis, not so easily on the Tyco. (shoes on all 3 are stock, unbent)

Looking at the picture of the tops of the chassis you can get a good look at how narrow the S-3 shoe is at top compared to the Tyco and WHP, and also how wide the S-3 bulkhead is, leaving little room for a wider shoe.


You can also see where the S-3 is apparently missing an arm spacer. This might actually be a factory screw-up. Looking at the exploded view of the chassis on the back of the jewel case, it appears that there should be front and rear spacers on the armature before the brass bushings.

Well I had 3 days to play with the super III. all in all not bad. I rebent the pick ups, restricted them with wire and solder. then the infamous loose bruses, tightened them. The most inportant improvement I got was when I disassembled the rear axel, removed the guide for the pinion gear and reversed it. After turning it around you can adjust the free play to a bare minimum so the motor don't jam. I find that the car is not good on wall warts and stock tomy controlls, burned 2 up using the cars. They seem to need a lot of current to get them moving and seem to have more power avail. but with my set up There is not enough juice. I needed to close the controll lever 3/4 of the way to get the car crawling. The second best improvement was when I modified the clip and put a AW camaro body on the car. now it stays on the track very well. The stock bodies are too heavy and too high mounted on the chassis. I hope this helps you guys out some!

How bad of an idea would it be to have a barrel that slid over the brush tube and allowed a pickup shoe to be 'snapped' into a holder on the barrel? This would serve at least 3 purposes. First, you would never need to dork around with these little 'hooks' to try to get the shoe to fit. Second, it would provide a more consistent electrical contact with the brush tube. Third, it would also make replacing shoes a lot easier.

They should have made the "b" bend round like the brush tubes, I also feel it is a little narrow, if it were wider it would also benefit the electrical connection.

I'm able to push the S-3 traction magnets out of the bottom of the chassis with not too much effort. The magnets turned out to be simple rectangles and there are no barriers molded into the chassis to keep them from coming out of the bottom. They are just held in place with just pressure. I would imagine that over time the magnets would work loose and could work their way out of the bottom of the chassis by themselves.

I'm able to push the S-3 traction magnets out of the bottom of the chassis with not too much effort. The magnets turned out to be simple rectangles and there are no barriers molded into the chassis to keep them from coming out of the bottom. They are just held in place with just pressure. I would imagine that over time the magnets would work loose and could work their way out of the bottom of the chassis by themselves.

my car had rail marks on the magnets so I filed the bottom of the chassis slightly also. It seems you realy "dug in" hey? I hardly pulled it apart, with no spare parts avail yet I felt better to wait a little!
By the way thanks for the copy of my reciept for the camaros!

Here's some pics of the new and improved bend. Much better contact patch. I tried to do a stock versus tweaked view, top set it stock and bottom is tweaked and front is tweaked and rear is tweaked. Maybe I'm using the wrong type of coal. Anthracite or bituminous, who really knows? The dude at the 7-11 said it would work in my camera. It doesn't look great so maybe I'll switch back over to my other digital camera that's powered by composting Yak poo.

I am thinking about shunts to the brush tubes, I need to find a source for the round braided stuff!

It seems you realy "dug in" hey? I hardly pulled it apart, with no spare parts avail yet I felt better to wait a little!
By the way thanks for the copy of my reciept for the camaros!
I'm posting my results as I rip one of these apart... I can't believe how short the actual brushes are.

(You'll love those Camaros, they are killer!!!! )

I'm posting my results as I rip one of these apart... I can't believe how short the actual brushes are.

(You'll love those Camaros, they are killer!!!! )

Yea when it loosened up I pulled it out, real short. The springs were dark, do you know if they are that way normally? they actually looked overheated to me. Also the side where the screw goes gets very hot after some use. One thing I do like is after fixing the rear axel ( see post above) the car feels very free, whells spin well with a finger pull.

Well glad my tip on shoe bending helped out. It took me about 10 min of trial and error to get it where I liked it. Good info on the pros and cons of the hook-over-the-barrels pickup design. Honestly, I like the setup that tyco used on the old CH and HP2 cars, and even the U-turns. The spring tension is just right and the pickups sit flat on the rails.

I just hope they redesign the gearboxes on these, that seems to be the biggest weak spot. If nothing else, either knock off Tomys design or buy rearends from them, I say.

There's a reason the brushes are shorter, and I hadn't noticed this before...it's very clear in the front end pics Dan posted that the chassis is substantially narrower than the Tyco or Wiz cars, thus the need for shorter barrels. It also would explain the reasoning behind the narrower shoe hooks.

TJet Racer I took my first one apart before ever powering it up for an "unused" analysis, the springs were dark right out of the box. To me it appeared to be oxidation...might be a speed tip there.

There's a reason the brushes are shorter, and I hadn't noticed this before...it's very clear in the front end pics Dan posted that the chassis is substantially narrower than the Tyco or Wiz cars, thus the need for shorter barrels. It also would explain the reasoning behind the narrower shoe hooks.

The Tyco chassis is wider but the brush tubes sit entirely inside the chassis. Measured from the inside from the heads of the tubes, the Tyco chassis is 19mm. The WHP chassis is 20.5mm wide and measured from the heads of the tubes it's 23mm. The S-3 chassis is 19.5mm wide and is 22mm from tube head to tube head.

The entire length of the Tyco brush tube is 8mm, the S-3 is 9mm and the WHP is 10. So the S-3 brush tube is actually longer than the Tyco, but the reality is that the usable tube length is probably similar.


The width of the bulkheads: Tyco is 9mm, the S-3 is 10.5mm and the WHP is 10mm. So it would appear that the shoe hooks are narrower because the bulkhead is also substantially wider than the Tyco bulkhead.

"The most inportant improvement I got was when I disassembled the rear axel, removed the guide for the pinion gear and reversed it. After turning it around you can adjust the free play to a bare minimum so the motor don't jam. "

Do you think it is possible the gear boss was assembled backwards from its intended spacing?