Policar Lotus Arriving

[Conti_rowland]

Good to see you guys start to enjoy these....

On the tyres be aware of a couple of things:
1. The tryes used in 1970 had tread and were quite a bit narrower than later tyres when slicks came in from 1971/2.
No reason of course for you guys running alone with larger tyres to fit whatever you want but theoretically at least the March size tyres are over scale.
2. In 1970/71 the Firestone runners had 15" diameter rear wheels as Firestone were playing with the lower profile this gave to the side wall. These are faithfully copied on the car.
3. The plastic rims the model came with can be exchanged with the aluminium equivalent sold by Policar. F22 compound racing slick tyres are also available. Most people I have heard speak prefer urethanes to F22's. That will depend on your track of course.
4. These tyres do not fit the slot.it rims which are for 1972+ and are scale 13" diameter.

Generally, the cars need a little bit of weight in the nose, as someone has predicted above. I also like a small amount under the rear axle. Gives an extraordinary balance without impacting on the acceleration.
Also run the car in. As many as 500 laps can be good to get the crown and pinion to get the oerfect fit. You will find the crown will wear the pinion although both are in fact wearing slightly.

On putting the instructions on the Policar website for the conversions i'll have to speak with Maurizio. You must remember that the conversion 3D printed chassis are not official Policar products, they just happen to have come from the same designer (me) using the Policar parts also originally conceptualised by me. I would be more than happy to post them all here on is forum if you would like so you have easy access? Let me know and i'll retrieve the original text and post it in here.

Cheers for now
Andi

[Rleog]

Thank you for your timely responses. I'm certain that Harry would be fine with the instructions being posted on this board, but I'm in no position to approve that. Let's wait for word from him on if and/or within which section you may post those lengthy, detailed articles.

Thank you very much

[HomeRacingWorld]

[TuscoTodd]

[TuscoTodd]

On a related note - does anyone know who might have the aluminum wheels and inserts in stock? It seems as though everywhere I checked still shows them as on "pre-order" / unavailable yet?
Thanks guys!

[chappy]

Hi Todd, it seems the Wheels are available in UK at Pendles, but even they have the I serts on BO.
I know that this model and the associated parts was such a hit, that the factory has been trying to catch up, with production of cars and spares.
Bob

[mikeinclover]

[TuscoTodd]

Mike - that is great to hear! I will have to check your site later this week and get an order in! Thanks!

Running the car on the road course at the commercial track yesterday was a LOT of fun! I didn't add any weight to it yet, just played around with varying the adjustments of the pod and have to say this car is a lot of fun to run!
Two thumbs up!

[HomeRacingWorld]

[SuperSlab]

Received my copy last week and I have started preparing it but have not yet had it to the track. It certainly is a thing of beauty but I do have two technical comments/questions for others that have prepared the car or possibly Conti_rowland Andi could comment?):

1. Typically, podded cars have the pod screwed to the chassis and the chassis screwed to the body, leaving the pod as a separate entity "uncoupled" from the body. This allows you to easily dial in however much float you want. With the Lotus, the rear mounting is actually pod to body with a method that does not allow float. From this I am assuming that the design was not meant to allow pod float at all? If so, it does beg the question: why bother with the complexity of a pod?

2. I am not sure if I am the only one that has found this but I typically use grub screws to set the front axle height. On the Lotus I have found that the clearance between the top of the front axle holders and the body is so tight that the small part of the grub screws sticking up from the axle holders interfere with the body. This happens even with shortish grub screws, distorting/bending the chassis when the body screws are tightened. The first time I did this it totally negated my careful front axle setup and left one front wheel cocked in the air. Removing the top grub screws set things right again, so I will be shortening some grub screws to get them to fit but I was wondering if anybody else has experienced this?

Thanks

Alwyn

[SuperSlab]

Thanks Dave: we race on wood as well so I had pretty much done all of these things as well with some small variations:

1. I replaced the rear wheels on mine with 15mm CB Design insert metal wheels. This allowed me to true the wheels on a different axle in my Tire Razor and put on the car: no lost setscrews! I used some of our local cast urethane F1 size tyres and took of enough material to end up with pretty much the same diameter as stock. I have removed the inserts from the plastic wheels (had to destroy them in the process but who cares: I am not going to use them again!) and will be fitting later today.
2. Used a reamer to "clean up" the front axle holders as mine was binding somewhat.
3. Replaced the braid with soft NSR braid. This is a must do for me: I find that most cars come with braids that I consider far too stiff and springy so I do this almost automatically as part of my standard setup.
4. As mentioned in my earlier post: put in setscrews in the front axle holder (above and below) and adjusted the height so that the front tyres just touch the track. Well, actually I have not had the car on the track yet so at this stage it is set up to just touch the setup block... And after my post above I carefully ground down two grub screws so that they effectively sit flush with the top of the front axle holders when the axle is adjusted to the height I want. Strange as it may seem it actually went more smoothly than I feared! I stuck them on the end of my hex driver and slowly sanded away some of tip with my Dremel while sticking my thumbnail in the screw threads to prevent it flying off. Problem solved!
5. The one side radiator pod on my car was loose so I added a bit of gel superglue.

Lubed it and now it is ready to go. Hope to run it this coming Friday and looking forward to it!

[HomeRacingWorld]

[dick1943]

"This is a very comprehensive list of helpfulness"

With out a doubt, and a great amount of info on a GREAT car. Just got mine and just had to take the "cover" off....I put the chassis/motor on the test stand and it seems to me the rear axle assembly, when run at low speed (approx.5 volts) was not running "true", maybe I'm a little picky? I was wondering if others have noted this. I thought it was being caused by the Wheel/Tire assy, so I very carefully removed those, but on careful inspection it seems it being caused by the "axle/gear" assy.

Could it be the bushings ID or maybe the axle was "bent" in pushing on the Main Gear ?

Any thoughts you guys have on this I appreciate :text-thankyouyellow:

Dick

[HomeRacingWorld]

Could be any of those reasons why it's bent.

I would contact the dealer and see when the replacement parts for this car will be available.

[chappy]

Hi Dick I will try again, computer froze the first time.
First off, ensure that the rear axle bushings are completely in the cradles. This is by putting the gear against the one side so the bushing is touching the gear. Bushing lip on the Inside .
on the other side the collar should be against the bushing lip also . If it is too tight you can loosen the collar a tad. This ensures the bushings are correctly inplace. When running at low speed without the wheels, look to see if either of the bushings is spinning or moving. This will eliminate the bushing issue.
If they are fine and you still have axle movement on one side it could be a bend. But if the axle is running true now great, if not , check for slop in the axle / bushing tolerance.
If it all seems fine now, then put a pair of alloy wheels on and see if they are running true. If they are, then it is the original wheels.
Let me know how you make out Dick.
Bob