I picked up a Carrera Hot Rod 'cus it looked cool. :) While it was winging its way to me, I checked out the chipping database to find Savage's Hot Rods. Unfortunately, "High Performance" is significantly different from the ones he did. :( I used some of his tips, but it was different enough that I decided to document it for everyone.
Here we see the beauty from the outside. Who cares how fast it really goes? It LOOKS fast and LOUD. :)
Here she is on the inside. Note that I've already disconnected some of the wires to the lighting chip. I love lights on all the time, so wanted to retain the chip and install the SSD chip in parallel.
It took a little thinking, but I found a good place for the LED between the housings for the polarity switch and the self-centering guide. It's tight, but it works.
Admittedly, I have too much wiring to fit in there (see below), but I still had to take some plastic out. There's no "shelf" for the chip to sit like on other models, and the cockpit comes down right on top of the light board and guide housing. First I cut the red part out, but that wasn't enough for where the chip had to be, so I dug into the cockpit itself.
Since the chip would be more or less resting on the motor and the spur gear, I decided to elevate it with a small bit of styrene board. It looks like it's touching the gear, but it's not. A dab of super glue to hold that in place, and then hot glue for the chip itself.
As I said, I've got too much wire. I'm still new to this, and wanted a lot to work with in case I needed to cut, strip, and resolder anything. If I ever have to open this up to make repairs, I'm going to trim down all that extra wire, and the next Carrera I chip like this (taking the chip's power off the lead from the light chip to the motor), I'll keep my wires shorter. Note that I put a piece of electrical tape on the back of the chip before gluing it down, to avoid shorts on the motor casing.
Here's the underside showing the finished chassis with the LED and modified guide blade. I had to do more to this guide blade than any other Carrera so far. Not only did I have to trim the length and taper the leading and trailing edges, but I also had to slim the whole thing up, as it would literally get wedged between the rails in some parts of my track. Drives very well now. :)
I hope that's helpful to someone planning to chip this car.
For wiring details, see Savage's HotRod Chipping where he retained the light board and took the chip's power from the motor leads off the light board. :)