I finally had a chance to take the two McLarens out for some laps and some feedback from the cars.
The lap times at our club have been dropping like the neckline on some bathing suits, so a decision was made to drop the track voltage from 11.5 to 10.5 for Slot.It cars. Rather then the racers turning in 4.3 second laps, the lap times are now back up in the 4.6 second zone. This might sound like a small difference, but the quality of the racing went up quite a bit. The difference in a 4 minute heat with 4.3 second laps vs 4.6 second laps makes for many less deslots and therefore the racing gets a whole lot closer. We did notice that at the end of the first heat, the leaders were all on the same lap, with 3 of the cars separated by a few feet.
We feel the reason for this is we have started to use INOX MX3 on the track. Our club is built with Scalextric Sport track and we have had our fair share of 'electrical connectivity' issues. Some conductive glue from Radio Shack and the INOX MX3 has seemed to put these issues behind us. The power stays even across all lanes during the race and we have had no complaints about power issues.
The first thing that was mentioned when someone saw the side by side photo of the two McLarens:
was about the difference of the width of the rear wheels. I got out the trusty calipers and the wheels on the earlier McLaren (inline) were 17 x 10 and the rear wheels on the new McLaren (anglewinder) were 17 x 8.
When I ran the anglewinder on the 11.5 volts, it was quite a handful. However when I ran it again on the 10.5 volts, the car was a dream to drive. I will have to do some more experimenting with the rear wheels (I have a set of 17 x 10 that I can use on the new McLaren) to see if that is where the problem is.
However at 10.5 volts the cars is like my Lola is on 11.5 volts. It's very smooth, it's very fast and is a joy to drive. I am a fan of this Flat-6 motor. The power delivery is very nice for a plastic track and with a bit of tuning, will come around to be an outstanding car for your racing.
During the running of the McLaren, all 4 lanes were in use and the McLaren was consistently turning in the fastest lap times. I kept hearing comments about how quick it was on the straights and how well it handled in the turns. I think Slot.It has a winner, but it might be made better with a set of 17 x 10 rear wheels.
:violin: