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Anyone messed with spring suspension in their slot cars? As frustrating a task as I have ever endeavored! My hats off to you, if you’ve successfully been able to tune them to be competitive.

I have messed around. But my smaller track size did not reveal any benefits. Of course, I may very well did not find that "sweet spot".

Good luck sir.

As far as having springs in the motor pod suspension goes I have not found any advantage to using them. Back in the '60s people built slot cars that had suspension like a 1:1 car, but I never heard of one that worked well.

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Suspension has been an idea since the beginning, but I've never heard of it ever being an advantage the same with front steering. Back in the 60's Dynamic made independent suspended cars, at least as independent as a solid axles can be. It didn't take long for guys to remove the springs under the axle holders and run the screws in tight so the frame was rigid.

While I am stuck in the early 60's simple inline slot car design, I think today the best builders like wheels, motor and guide to completely rigid with no flex. The body can move, the outriggers can move, but the wheels and guide remain completely rigid. Guys build ISO style frames and other designs, but that is not their fastest race cars, just a diversion, I guess.

I may be wrong!!

Are you talking about sprung pods or something else?

Scott, I have to say the difference is on your plastic type tracks. They are bumpy so a suspension does have an advantage in that situation. On the wood track it depends on the rules. If you are allowed to use tape to dampen the pod movement then that is what I would use. If not a stiff suspension may have an advantage. All depends on setup and rules.
Mike

You asked for it, here are pictures of a very superior scratch built full independent, steering slot car built by one of the best ever, Roy Wong. Roy was a builder with no peers. This is maybe the best scratchbuilt car I've ever seen. The photos are from a thread on slotblog and while there is no copyright present, lets keep these here on our forum. This car was not competitve as I remember reading. Like a lot of this stuff, too much friction and energy wasted on movement that didn't translate to speed. One of a kind.

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Springs have some utility, but as with so many things, it depends.

The Dynamic chassis only floated the rear axle with the motor rigid....so they chew up gears.
Lots of folks use soft washers on the pod screws to dampen the float. The Slot.it spring suspension can be adjusted, but it's a fine line and it's hard to see an advantage over tape on the pod.

So.... it's cool but I don't spend anything on it.....

I suggest a good hammer with "BioCurve"

And I congratulate you on spelling "ball peen" correctly. Its amazing how many people don't bother to get spellings right. Increpital!