I picked up three of the Mega-Gs and three of the clears today (2 GT-40s and the Daytona Coupe). Wow.

I gotta go run some laps and I know you guys are a visual bunch so I'll shoot some pics too.

:thumbsup::thumbsup:

Cool beans.I hope to have mine for the weekend!!!:thumbsup:

Doba, did these come from Lucky Bob's or another source?

Doba, did these come from Lucky Bob's or another source?

Model Empire here West Allis -- Mega-Gs were $28 and change and the clear SRTs were $27 and change. Bob's probably has them too -- I'll scoop the other ones from him this weekend maybe (I like to spread the dollars amongst the local guys).

OK Here is some pics --

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03065.jpg
The new AFX Mega-G & the SRT clear cars came mounted with a twisty to a separate plastic carrier inside a standard clampack. Here, I've already ruined it's collectability by opening the package.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03078.jpg
Side by side comparison of the Mega-G on top and the SRT on the bottom. It really is incredible that the chassis is only as wide as the power rails on the Mega-G.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03083.jpg
Here's the new fleet.

The Mega-Gs, like most of the recent AFX stuff I've bought, had at least one wheel mounted crooked. I don't think there is a problem with the wheels, just the way they are being pressed onto the axles. All three of the Mega-Gs seemed to pull about the same on my track, but the wobble from the wheels cost a tenth here and there. Ultimately, the OzJet car ended up being the quickest of the bunch, about a second off the track record for a GTP bodied SG+, on the stock Bridgestone-tampoed rubber.

More in a minute . . .

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03085.jpg
Times around the 'ring -- Mega-Gs on top, the new SRTs on the bottom.

Now behold the sweetness:

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03069.jpg
On the eye-candy scale, it doesn't get any sweeter than this I don't think. Just eyeball this pic for a sec and remember that this is HO scale.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03067.jpg
Old SRT on the left -- new SRT clear on the right. Which would you rather have? It really begs the question -- Why didn't this get thought of before?

More in a minute . . .

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03071.jpg
This thin sheet of card paper is how the magic happens inside.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03072.jpg
A look at the insert -- note the chassis tab cut-outs. This fits inside the body neatly and firmly and doesn't interfere with the operation of the motor or gears at all. Pretty trick.

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03076.jpg
Here's a front shot of the GT-40. This car really pops.

More in a minute . . .

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03075.jpg
A rearview of a Ford GT-40 . . . or is it an HO car?

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03080.jpg
And just to add my $.02 worth -- I think AFX should sell the tampo-printed tires in bulk to the hobby shops. The tires are grippy enough to be OK for runners and just awesome looking for the shelf queens.

I gotta say the Mega-G is pretty strong right out of the package. If I were to swap out the crooked wheels and get some low profiles on them, I have no doubt they would be absolute missles on my track. As it was, I whacked the wall a few times and the bodies held up well with no breakage.

The crooked wheels issue is a minor gripe, and really, they are not THAT crooked. Just a little wobble upon close inspection. When I prep cars I race, however, I pay close attention to getting the wheels on straight because every little bit shaves some time. To pull the car out of the package, plop it down, and just run for kicks you would never even know or care about a minor little imbalance.

The clear SRTs are really the shock for me, however. The printing on the body is great and the insert adds that little extra that makes you go, "Wow."

That GT really does pop!! Awesome cars, every one of them! :thumbsup::thumbsup: Thanks for the in depth review.. I likes'em, but what kind of voltage do they like to eat?? I'm afraid I'd be overfeeding them on my set-up... Both chassis look like serious customizer material too..:thumbsup::thumbsup:

UtherJoe

wow, i gotta get me some mega G's soon, great looking cars i been looking at them as soon as i get the money after christmas i'm going to buy a couple, congrats on your new cars, shon

As many of you know, I'm a nut for the F1/Indy type cars so I am absolutely thrilled to see these Mega G's hit the shelves. I believe I will be biting the bullet and ordering all four at once from someone. :thumbsup:

As for the GT's...those are really, really sweet looking and they have done an outstanding job with the details alone. I'll probably end up with a few of those as well.

What's the difference between Mega G's and G+ cars?

A fair bit!

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa147/wahoo50/DP01-5-BOT.jpg

Poly motor mags instead of ceramic, neo traction magnets instead of poly, much narrower chassis, longer wheelbase, (much) better looking open wheel bodies - the list goes on...

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03075.jpg
A rearview of a Ford GT-40 . . . or is it an HO car?

http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/500/bDSC03080.jpg
And just to add my $.02 worth -- I think AFX should sell the tampo-printed tires in bulk to the hobby shops. The tires are grippy enough to be OK for runners and just awesome looking for the shelf queens.

I gotta say the Mega-G is pretty strong right out of the package. If I were to swap out the crooked wheels and get some low profiles on them, I have no doubt they would be absolute missles on my track. As it was, I whacked the wall a few times and the bodies held up well with no breakage.

The crooked wheels issue is a minor gripe, and really, they are not THAT crooked. Just a little wobble upon close inspection. When I prep cars I race, however, I pay close attention to getting the wheels on straight because every little bit shaves some time. To pull the car out of the package, plop it down, and just run for kicks you would never even know or care about a minor little imbalance.

The clear SRTs are really the shock for me, however. The printing on the body is great and the insert adds that little extra that makes you go, "Wow."

Thanx 'doba!

Do you think the wheel wobbles can be attributed to the "gnarled" axles?

Fantastic looking cars, especially the Cobra Daytona.

Wonder why they chose to go with driver-less interior pictures? Maybe there will be a whole new aftermarket for pictures of drivers to interchange in the the interiors.

Brian

What's the difference between Mega G's and G+ cars?

One thing I'm impressed with just from viewing photos is the ease of "access" to the armature and all that. It's reminiscent of the Aurora G+ chassis.

Thanx 'doba!

Do you think the wheel wobbles can be attributed to the "gnarled" axles?

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of ANY axle that isn't a "smoothie". It makes wheel combo swapping much more consumer friendly when not dealing with one of these "gnarly" thingies.:p

Well I know all the open wheel fans are excited!

Thanks to 'doba's good year blimp shot showing the waspish waist of this chassis I'm Mega excited!

Huge amounts of room to play with. Coachwork possibilities previously seen only in diecast or 1/32.

Streetrods with 20's and 30's era bods are now easily possible! All those groovy hot wheels that wouldnt quite cram a chassis as a diecast or in resin ?....well....ya better check again!

This is a beautiful showing for the collectors, racers, and slot hobbiests...but guaranteed the doors for butchery, mischief and mayhem have been thrown wide open for miscreants like me!

Bless you Wahoo, Racemasters and Tomy...that chassis is a breath of fresh air and one hell of a Christmas present! I'm 12 again.

Looks like the price of Hot Wheels and resin casting supplies just went up!!!
Oh yea!!! RM

My half arsed calculations done the old school method compute to a wheelbase of approximately 40.75 mm. Can anyone give me an accurate wheelbase dimension?? I'm looking for axle center to axle center. Also, is there room for making fore and aft adjustment on the front, or is that where it stays?? Just curious at this time, and no rush for the measurements..

UtherJoe

Thank you Wahoo For bringing us this chassis!! Longer wheelbase, slim, low, well thought out, and well assembled!!! While it may be too fast for my silly little table, it does make making custom resin bodies a breeze!! If there wasn't a thought about customizers in the designing of this chassis, I wouldn't tell anyone!! :thumbsup::thumbsup::woohoo:

UtherJoe

I'm glad I only picked up one of those old Daytonas. Those new ones with the clear glass KA for the looks department. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: rr

So who is going to be the first to point those of us that want to try and cast our own to the thread here that shows us how? And do you only use the Johnny Lighting cars or do other brands wprk as well?

There are a few threads on HT already with intructions for resin casting, some with links to videos.:thumbsup: The search function will find them for you. Any diecast car will work. It does make it a heck of alot easier if the wheelbase of your diecast matches a chassis. I'm looking foward to trying it myself, but need to wait a few more months for better weather and better financing (tax return) before I start. I will more than likely need to modify my bodies just the same to fit a T-jet, as I'm sure the Mega-G as sweet as it is, will be way too fast to navigate my goofy track. Unlike most slotters here, I lean to the opposite extreme.... Slower is better... but that's just me.:tongue:

UtherJoe

'Doba, will the new Clear GT40 body fit on an X-Traction chassis or does the interior insert interfere?

Thanks to 'doba's good year blimp shot showing the waspish waist of this
Bless you Wahoo, Racemasters and Tomy...that chassis is a breath of fresh air and one hell of a Christmas present! I'm 12 again.

I love this quote I must have read it 5 times and thought about it many more. Isn't that what it is all about being "12 again". No matter what the hobby or interest it rarely has anything else to do with anything but our youth. Thanks Bill
Mike

I picked up the two clear GT40s last night. The bodies fit well on an X-Traction chassis. They look better with the darker XT wheels than the shiny chrome ones. The weight and center of gravity seems pretty low, even with the cardboard insert, so they run competitive lap times.

I also bought two of the Mega-Gs and those are very impressive. I found it hard to have the courage to crank up the speed.

I picked up all the latest RaceMasters cars at the local slot shop. Also ran some Mega Gs for quite a while on a large track with wide lane spacing. Really got a good feel for them. Very impressive and awesome looking. The overall body profile is closer to the real thing than any production HO slot car I've ever seen. The old slimmy TJet formula cars and some of the G-Plus cars came close, but these cars nailed it. I'm not sure if the awesome goodness of these cars will be as evident on smaller set track layouts with a lot of uber tight curves and narrow lane spacing. My home track has nothing less than 12" turns and they look very good on these.

Handling of the Mega G reminded me of an SRT that had been put on a diet, slimmed down, and stretched. They exhibit the same Neo Whack Effect (NWE) as the SRT when pushed too hard, though not as pronounced and certainly not as violent as say a Life-Like T car or an SRT on Tomy track. I was concerned about the magnets overwhelming the long and slight looking chassis but it's not a concern. The fact that all of the magnets are kept at a reasonable distance from the rails by the chassis structure results in a good compromise on magnetic downforce and delivers good balance. The pin placement behind the front axle does help them turn well and independent fronts would probably improve the situation even more.

Overall, 5 out of 5 stars for the Mega Gs both for their innovation, stunning beauty, exceptional design, superb build quality, and the huge potential upside of the chassis itself. Clearly the single most significant new HO slot car to hit the track in the last decade.

Has anyone tried lowering the cars yet? If so any heat issues?

I'm at .442 rear,.352 front & quicker 21 crown with no heat issues. My SRT GT40 still handles better, need to work on the springs & shoes for more front grip. The car still is sitting off the rails.

Any issues with lap counting? I found on a brief test with Tomy timers that not every lap got counted.

No issues here,had to flip one of the traction magnets for high downforce.

Anyone get the chassis rubbing the track yet? Tire sizes? My
Mega -G should be here soon.I plan on throwing in some WHP
.007 springs and some 80% copper brushes and recording the
results.

I put some .438 tires on one of my mega-g cars, it made the car stick to the track better and it still slid out a little in a couple turns ( 9inchers ) , but it seemed to really slow down the car, I like them just the way they are out of the box, adjusted pick-up shoes and a little oil. They work perfect with the stock afx controllers and new power pack, great drive feel, power all the way through the band, you can go as slow as you want smoothly, very controllable, my longest straight is 12 feet and I don't think it topped out. Out of the box they whipped my 440-t2 and g3 (901 I think)box stock cars, some g3's handle better in the turns but when you get to the long straight the mega-g says "bye bye" to the other cars.

I noticed there are 2 chassis variations on the MegaG, the Number 1 and the Number 2. Has anyone found any differences?

This guide pins on 3 out of 4 of the ones I got seem a tad loose while the 4th one has a nice reassuring click to let you know it's seated. I think I will give the 3 looser ones a tiny drop of super glue.

Out of the 8 shoes springs 2 were noticeably shorter than the others. I matched them up and put them both on the same car. They all have the same number of coils so stretching/squishing them would work too. Normal tweakin' and tunin' stuff. I also noticed that the shoes springs are magnetic, and magnetized. The metal tweezers I used for picking them up has obviously been magnetized as well and found myself chasing some of the little buggers across the table. Something to keep in mind so you don't lose them because they hitched a ride on another tool or got repelled off the table top.

These things are very cool. I'm still in awe of the compactness of the design.

After breaking in the brushes these things are missiles down the straights. With the brushes broken in for an hour at 6V the current draw is in the 120-130 milliamp range. That's pretty good. I wish I could run the motor magnets from the Mega G in all of my inline cars. They really keep the motor cool and reduce current draw by about 20-30 percent versus ceramic motor magnets. I have uncovered a few things that are worth mentioning:

1) Two of my cars have rear wheels that are mounted a little off center and wobble slightly. The magnetic downforce in the rear lessens the impact but I can still see the car jumping a bit under acceleration, with the front end bouncing.

2) The body fit is very tight. On one car the tiniest bit of flashing was interfering with the body sitting where it needed to and the performance dropped off significantly. I also noticed that the chassis material above the rectangular hole in the chassis that accepts the body mounting tabs is a bit on the thin side and a couple of my chassis were already showing a little deformity in this area. I suppose that after I mount and dismount the body several times it will loosen up a bit. It is a tight fit.

3) The brush tubes can move side to side quite easily, maybe 1/32" or so on each side. This could have a significant impact on brush tension after a wreck or when handling the chassis. I happened to notice this when I picked up a chassis from the break-in station and noticed when I set it back down the current draw had jumped up 20 or 30 milliamps. I inadvertently squeezed the tubes inward when I picked up the chassis. If you tuned your car with the tubes pushed in, a wreck could cause the tubes to move outward and seriously degrade performance. Fortunately there are detents on the brush barrels that limit the maximum amount of side to side movement, but ideally I'd like to see zero movement. I suppose if we were racing these chassis competitively we would run an aftermarket adjustable brush barrel system that fits very snug.

Good Stuff! :thumbsup:

Nice bushings too.

Mine should be here monday.My goal is to make the car
as best as it can be for box stock racing.

Picking mine up monday :)

I noticed there are 2 chassis variations on the MegaG, the Number 1 and the Number 2. Has anyone found any differences?

This guide pins on 3 out of 4 of the ones I got seem a tad loose while the 4th one has a nice reassuring click to let you know it's seated. I think I will give the 3 looser ones a tiny drop of super glue.

Out of the 8 shoes springs 2 were noticeably shorter than the others. I matched them up and put them both on the same car. They all have the same number of coils so stretching/squishing them would work too. Normal tweakin' and tunin' stuff. I also noticed that the shoes springs are magnetic, and magnetized. The metal tweezers I used for picking them up has obviously been magnetized as well and found myself chasing some of the little buggers across the table. Something to keep in mind so you don't lose them because they hitched a ride on another tool or got repelled off the table top.

These things are very cool. I'm still in awe of the compactness of the design.

The #s 1 and 2 should refer to the two cavities in the mold. Though there should be no difference between them since both cavities are made in the same mold at the same time from the same CAD data there could be some nearly microscopic variations. It would be surprising if there were any noticeable performance differences.

The springs are made of a low grade stainless because we insisted on a tight tolerance on the spring tension and China has a hard time getting phosphor bronze of sufficient quality to hold the tolerance.

For your information we plan to produce a low cost home version portable electron microscope with a 15" LCD screen so that you can find pick-up shoe springs when they fall onto shag carpet . . .

I have found no visible differences yet between the #1 and #2 chassis. I tried. On the Super G+ chassis there were very noticeable differences between the #1 and #2 chassis (not to mention the new and very awesome gray chassis). Half the racers insisted that one was better than the other, with neither side in agreement as to which one was better.

Once I realized the spring were magnetized, and not possessed by some unknown force that made them run away from my tweezers, I was okay. If they do jump off the table and land on the floor at least I can try finding them with a magnet.

Carpet would be less of a challenge than what I have to contend with. When I painted the floor with epoxy I used those decorative sprinkles. Any small part that finds its way to the floor is perfectly camouflaged amidst a sea of seemingly identical small lost parts. Unless I'm desperate, have no spares, or I'm feeling very lucky I tend to write off the loss immediately, or after a token effort to find the wayward part.

. . . When I painted the floor with epoxy I used those decorative sprinkles. Any small part that finds its way to the floor is perfectly camouflaged amidst a sea of seemingly identical small lost parts . . .

I am going to file this tidbit in my brain for future reference under "painting floor - what Not to do" :thumbsup:

And I was just pondering the feasibility of making floor tiles decorated with actual sized slot car related parts.. arms, springs, bushings, magnets and pick up shoes... Back to the drawing board....

Cordoba posted a beautiful picture: Now behold the sweetness: of the Cobra Daytona #13 by Racemaster with the clear plastic windows and printed interior.

Must ask the question are the plastic windows CLEAR because I finally purchased the Cobra Daytona and was MOST disappointed!!! The clear plastic is so FOGGY on the windshield & rear windows that I could not see the printed interior!!!

Has anyone had this experience?

I could not tell looking through the plastic packaging of the problem and it was the only Cobra left in the Hobby shop! ...RL

Xracer:

Sorry you were disappointed. None of the clear windshields are perfectly clear and I have noted that some are definitely more clear than others. Still, I have not seen one yet that prevented you from seeing the interior. Please PM me and we'll get this sorted out postee hastee.

Fantastic looking cars, especially the Cobra Daytona.

Wonder why they chose to go with driver-less interior pictures? Maybe there will be a whole new aftermarket for pictures of drivers to interchange in the the interiors.

Brian

no reason you couldn't mount a tjet driver to the card...if the driver was just a photo,you wouldn't see him from the front,either.some things gotta be 3d...

Hows dat fer customer service!!!!

Daaaaaaaamm!

Fantastic looking cars, especially the Cobra Daytona.

Wonder why they chose to go with driver-less interior pictures? Maybe there will be a whole new aftermarket for pictures of drivers to interchange in the the interiors.

Brian

Ya' know we did try including a driver image but we couldn't find an angle that looked decent and all of them made the interior look phony. We also revisited the idea of attaching a head to the card but there were too many problems with it not staying on. And the extra complexity would add to what was already a lot of additional cost (the filthy lucre again!).

So, we settled on a driverless car. I mean, with GPS and all do you really need one . . .