My brother got into 1/32nd big time and is trying to pull me from ho, and although I know I'll never let ho go, I am interested in getting into 1/32nd a little bit.
My brother has a Carrera track and runs mostly Fly cars, and some Scalectric, nothing else seems to run as good. Are the Carrera cars as good? Is it different tuning needed (I know nothing of tuning, but bro is always shifting and regluing magnets)
And is Ninco racable with these cars?
And is anyone interested in trading a few cars?

thanks,
Ed

My brother got into 1/32nd big time and is trying to pull me from ho, and although I know I'll never let ho go, I am interested in getting into 1/32nd a little bit.
My brother has a Carrera track and runs mostly Fly cars, and some Scalectric, nothing else seems to run as good. Are the Carrera cars as good? Is it different tuning needed (I know nothing of tuning, but bro is always shifting and regluing magnets)
And is Ninco racable with these cars?
And is anyone interested in trading a few cars?

thanks,
Ed

Hi Ed!

The Carrera cars are fairly good, but most people have noticed that they are great on Carrera tracks and usually need some tuning and tweaking for any other track. Things like replace tires and changing the magnets, gearing, and sometimes the motors are typical. It just all depends on if you will only race them on Carrera track or other tracks too.

As for NINCO, they are VERY raceable and nicely made cars - I have raced these cars, personally, with non-magnets and they run fantastic. Maybe not as great as Slot.it's, but they have some excellent gearing and fast motors. Not sure how they will do on Carerra track since all I've raced them on is Scalextric and wood/MDF routed tracks, but they are definitely nice cars in my opinion.

Hope some of this helps - feel free to post any other questions you may have.

PD2:thumbsup:

I also am looking at 1/32 to supplement my HO racing.. Do the available
solid silicone aftermarket tires even the cars up some for different tracks?
What are the 'digital' car differences?

Having just made the jump from HO to 1/32 a few days ago, I thought I'd share my fresh (though still generally uninformed) opinions.

Just like with HO, at issue is what you mean when you say which cars run "best". In HO, I run TJ's, Magnatraction, G+, some Tyco, etc., and each of them are fun in their own right, but offer different driving experiences. For me, I've always tended toward slower more challenging cars like TJ's, but have always been frustrated with no-fault deslotting and other quirks.

I settled on Scalextrix Sport for my track. Didn't like the rough surface of Ninco. Would've tried to find the space for a Carrera setup, but they didn't offer the variety of track I wanted (hairpins, etc.) Scaley seemed to be the best fit for me.

At the moment, I have a three pairs of cars: Scaletrix, Carrera, and Revell/Monogram. All six cars ran great right out of the box (something you don't often get from HO these days). Each of them are fun and can be competitve with each other depending on how you tune them, which for me at this stage is limited to playing with the magnets. I want a realistic amount of drift. I haven't touched the magnets on the Scaley cars and they're quick and firm around the circuit which is fine as those chassis are on F1 bodies and look realistic taking corners at those speeds. I like the smoothness of the Revell cars which are 1960's road rally cars. The magnets were too powerful to be realistic so I removed them. Now the cars are a little too loose. I need to see if lower power magnets are available or if better tires might address the issue; I need to find that middle road for these cars somehow. Nonetheless, they're a lot of fun. I like the Carrera cars best, mostly because they offer two magnets, one in front and one in the rear and both are adjustable. I'm happy leaving the front the way it is and completely removing the rear. The only issue with Carrera, as many will tell you, is their guide pin is a little large for other brands of track and typically require some cutting and sanding to work well.

There are higher quailty more detailed cars out there than the brands I've tried, but I'm still adapting to the idea of spending $40-$50/car instead of the usual $15-$20. I'm definitely not ready for $70+ cars.

All for what it's worth. Enjoy.

I also am looking at 1/32 to supplement my HO racing.. Do the available
solid silicone aftermarket tires even the cars up some for different tracks?
What are the 'digital' car differences?

Some times the solid silicone aftermarket tires even the cars up. But you have to also take into account things like imperfection in the wheels/rims and truing them up. Gear slop and trying to shim some of the side-to-side action to clean up the looseness you may get from that. Then there is the tire and wheel diameter and insuring that all 4 wheels/tires stay connected with the track. It helps just as getting silicones in HO helps, but there are always other things that improve the handling of the cars in 1/32.

I'm not familiar with anything digital. I do know that today, everyone of the manufacturer's have a different approach to it and there is ZERO consistency between brands. Outside of that, I've stayed analog.

PD2:thumbsup:

So it sounds like if I want a quality tire in 1/32, I will have to
do what I do in HO,make delrin rims,glue and grind foam,then
silicone coat them.I have some level 50 magnet material,are
there any common dimensions between the magnets?

So it sounds like if I want a quality tire in 1/32, I will have to
do what I do in HO,make delrin rims,glue and grind foam,then
silicone coat them.I have some level 50 magnet material,are
there any common dimensions between the magnets?

Before you go making your own tires, tjettim, try some aftermarket tires. Slot.it, Orttmans, Super Tires, and some others have been the choice tires among many - you just have to make sure that the plastic used to form the rims/wheels you mount them to are true so that the tire remains in contact with the track. I'll get the various aftermarket tire makers and post them up here - UPDATE: Here are the tires you want to take a look at........

Super Tires / Yellow Dogs
Indygrips
Slot.it S2's
BRM's
Ortmann's
Tru-Grip
NSR

As for the magnets, no, there are no common dimensions between cars, unless you stick to a particular brand. Scalextrics use thin bar magnets usually placed toward the rear, but in front of the motor cans. NINCO's all have dot or round cylinder magnets placed from mid-chassis to just before the rear of the car. Carerra, as you found out, has two bar magnets. Some bar magnets are flat and straight - others are "C" like. Just all depends on which car you get. But I do know that there are some guys that have bought aftermarkets on the magnets and even went as far as doing Magnet Marshall matching of them. I don't run very many cars with the magnets still installed - I usually run non-magnet, even at home. It just depends on how bad the car handles and whether I want to put the magnet back in or add lead weight.

PD2:thumbsup:

What diameter are most axles? Do you think people
would pay for Titanium axles and cnc'd gears?

The most popular axle size is 2.38 mm (3/32"). Some brands cars such as Ninco use a 2.48 mm axle.

Best regards,
Brian

People are buying machined, metal gears today. The Slot.it and NSR gears are metal CNC/machined gears that are supposed to be more precise. Would you be able to do something different or special with the gears you could punch? Just wondering.

PD2:thumbsup:

My brother and I used to run 'OnTrack' H.O. racing.We made
light weight delrin gears and parts.There doesn't seem to
be much organized 1/32 racing in my area though.

We race both scales. I got back into the hobby through the HO cars and it pretty much stayed that way for a few years. Around 2001, I stumbled across some 1/32 scale cars on the net and thought I had to be looking at model kits! The detail was incredible.

This was the first temptation in taking up 1/32 and I went ahead and bought a Scalextric set in order to have Mark Donahue's Sunoco Camaro. But, we never really raced it much as a 4 lane 1/32 scale track seemed impossible.

Fast forward to today and we have obtained enough Scalextric Sport track to build many great 4 lanes. We still alternate between HO and 1/32.

What I found appealing about the 1/32 cars is when they wreck...it hurts! Unlike HO, everybody cringes when one of these massive (compared to HO) and detailed cars slams into the baseboard. And, unlike HO the 1/32 cars really bang and clang when you "swap paint" in the curves!

As far as brands go....One of our most enjoyable class of cars is those manufactured by Slot.it. We race the cars from the 1980s LeMans races. These cars have medium magnet, are very smooth, easy to hang the rear end out, fast and make for great 4 lane races.

Jim Norton
Huntsville, Alabama

I love the looks of F1 cars.The new Tomy mega Gs in HO,
and the 1/32 offerings look better than any scale did just
a few years ago.Just turn the voltage down to get realistic
speeds and less damaging crashes and I think racing F1 cars
could be a blast.I am soooo tired of Nascar and ricer T-jets.

Yeah, I noticed my brothers favorite runners all have massive paint damage, missing mirrors and the "take off the wing before you race" thing going on, and the "cringe" when a 50.00 car (which is most of them) creams off the wall. lol.

We actually have a good 1/32 race scene within less than 5 miles of my home. Nice 122', 4 lane road course and an 8 lane Yellow Track! The 4 lane was originally built using Scalextric track and spacing and then they created a routed MDF/wood track out of the layout.

But we are now working on adding HO racing with a new HO track coming into the shop. So there will be both scales racing. They are even reintroducing the 1/24 racing via BRM's and Flexi's to be run on the 8 lane Yellow track.

It's nice when you can have one-stop-shop racing!

PD2:thumbsup:

We have a few of the 1/24 scale BRM cars for sale. We got them to get in a class, that the other guys want to start running, but after we got the instock...they changed their minds. So we are going to get rid of them. We will get back into it later....when we find more who's interested.

Personally, I think it would be a very good class, to get into, because they are 1/24Scale. They are very real looking. For what we know, there's only 4 Porsches at this time but more should be out...we believe this summer.

Thx All!