Do any arms besides stock fit lifelike m chassis? If not does someone know where I can have some custom wound?
Thanks
Ray

Ray, I believe you can also use the stock Super G+ arms arms as well. Which would also by proxy enable you to run any insane arm you may want to try from BSRT/Scale Auto.

Folks have posted here in the past about being able to switch out a dud M arm and pep it up with a SG+ arm and they work just fine.

Marty

Thanks for the reply Marty. I thought the super g arms wouldn't work because the brushes are top and bottom instead of left and right of the magnets. Doesn't that change the timing?

I gotta tell you that I have no idea, it's something I have been meaning to try since this thread:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=210304&highlight=life&page=2

Post #35 by SuperFist, he states they can be used, so I can only credit him with this trick. But the car in post 33 looks pretty sweet and I am am wanting to try this one out. :)

I thought the super g arms wouldn't work because the brushes are top and bottom instead of left and right of the magnets. Doesn't that change the timing?

If the M car motor magnetic field was oriented the same as it is on "Tyco" style motors this would be the case, but it is not.

The M car motor magnetic field is shifted by 90 degrees because of the magnet orientation and single flux plate. You can observe this difference using a another magnet, say a TJet or traction magnet, for test purposes. If you align the test magnet with the motor magnets on a conventional motor design, like a Tyco or Wizzard, while the magnets are in the car, you will observe that the back surfaces of the motor magnets are distinctly opposite polarity. The test magnet will be attracted to the back of one motor magnet and repelled from the back of the other motor magnet. This means that the faces of the motor magnets are also opposite polarity, which creates the lines of flux between the magnetic poles that are needed for the motor to work. If you do the same thing with an M car you will observe that the back surfaces of the motor magnets act like side edges of conventional motor magnets, with different polarities from one edge to the other. If you keep moving the test magnet around the M car motor box you will observe a peak attraction or repulsion (depending on the polarity of your test magnet) about dead center at the bottom of the M car motor. This acts like one motor pole, and obviously, the other one is aligned with the flux plate at the top of the motor. So, in the M car the magnetic poles formed by the motor magnets/flux plate create the lines of flux needed to make the motor work, but instead of being aligned side to side like they are on conventional motor design, they are aligned top to bottom. It acts as if the motor magnets are mounted top and bottom. This 90 degree shift in the motor magnetic field (stator field) changes the commutation timing versus a conventional motor. To correct the timing, the commutator segments on the rotor are shifted as they would be on a motor with the brushes shifted by 90 degrees, e.g., a Tomy SG+, Turbo, etc.

AFX--thanks a lot for the explaination. I was wondering why the lifelike magnets acted the way they do when removed from car. What does the flux plate do and would a car run without one?

Yes the AFX Super G+ armature works in a M chassis and they're consistently good.
It's exactly like AfxToo says.
The magnets are the same polarity in a M chassis and both work as traction magnets at the bottom.
That makes the timing kinda strange and M chassis armatures get really hot.
So using a low ohm armature like a 3 ohm BSRT High Power and using high brush tension could be disastrous.

They're strictly a 2 minute heat car.

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So I finally ended up trying this out today with a car that was about .5 seconds slower than the others I had. I stuck a BSRT Gold Power hot stock arm in it and was dismayed to see that the car was only slightly better than before.

I then took it apart and reamed out the front and rear bushings slightly and polished them up and lightly sanded the outside of the bushing as well. I put everything back in it's place and the car is now a screamer...

I was turning 3.6-7 laps before, woke it up to run 2.8-9 laps.

Not in the same class as my G3R Superstock which I can get into the 2.1-2 range, but a ton of fun and some cheap speed to boot. For under $30 you can make a real rocket out of these things.

Thanks again for the tips SuperFist, next thing on the list is to put an independent front end, put some supertires on the rear and maybe try to lighten that flux plate as well.

Marty

Quality control is a big issue in the Life Like cars. They don't cost much because they are just thrown together. They have issues with their pick up shoes and the motor brushes. If you take them apart and tweak them a bit, they can be real screamers. They just need more attention to detail when they are assembled. I find that the brushes and brush springs get stuck inside the barrels, causing the motor to run slow and hot. I have swapped in some from a Tyco 440 which are slightly narrower so they wont get stuck and the car runs much much better.

All my M car knowledge and tuning experience I got from Moe (http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/member.php?u=48303),
at A&M Raceway in Fremont Indiana.

I bought these 3 new Life Like Pro Tracker SS M chassis that come with 8/18 gears,
in the blister pack for $10 each at the Aurora Model Motoring Car Club slot car show.
Put some Rokar C4 Corvette bodies on them and SuperTires.

I got them to take to A&M Raceway to ring them out on their 50' banked 6 lane quad oval.

http://i41.tinypic.com/i3gh1g.jpg
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