by RichD » Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:06 am
There are a couple of things that might cause the Ford GT to be a little slower. For one thing the car has a lot of ground clearance, so even though the body looks lower the actual CG might be about the same. The car is also on the heavy side, in order to reproduce the flying buttresses the body has two parts and that adds weight higher up. In my case I am running on wood tracks, one of our tracks does have Magnabraid, but we run without traction magnets in any case. If you do run with traction magnets consider that with the Ford GT the magnets would be further away from the rails.
When you tune cars to run without magnets little things can have a big impact on how the car will handle. The cars will benefit from having some body float, without it the cars tend to chatter when you accelerate out of a turn. Too much body float can cause the handling to become erratic.
Another issue to consider is the motors. There is a fair variation in the performance of the motors. I don't have a 1/32nd track, when I get a new motor I run it in on the bench for 30 minutes at 6 volts. I flush the commutator with contact cleaner and oil the bearings before I check the RPMs with a non-contact tachometer. The motors that I have tested range from 16 to 20K RPM. The Ford GT that I have came with a 17K motor, I switched to a 19K motor. RPM readings by themselves do not tell the whole story, but the can separate the dogs from the possible winners.
The tires that come with the cars are not necessarily all the same, the tires that came with the two Corvette C7Rs that I bought were harder than the ones On the Ford GT. The tires will benefit from being trued, but I found that the softer tires were difficult to true.