1/24 Lotus 38 Indy cars

[mattb]

P1010003 (5).JPGP1010011.JPGMaybe a little bigger than what most of you all run, but it's a good size for old eyes and fumbling hands! I finished up the molds of the Monogram Lotus 38 and the Watson Roadster and have built a couple cars. I am using Dynamic inline chassis with Plafit Fox motors. They run super on the local commercial track and am scratch building some chassis to run either MT1 or HR Jackrabbit motors. Maybe even some 13 D K&B motors. I need something that is better on an 18 foot track. I really like these cars and enjoy building "poor" replicas of the real thing.

[chappyman66]

Matt,
Those are lovely cars. What are the rear tires? I had silicone coated sponge, which worked well for larger tracks.
The Dynamics are good vintage frames for those narrow bodies. I bet they are a blast to run!

[jeepcj7]

How about a picture of the frame? Which one did you use. Nice cars!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[chappy]

They are great looking cars Matt.
Bob

[mattb]

The best tires I've found are PROTRAC coated sponge, that's what on those cars They work great at home and also on the commercial track we play on every now and then. They come from Pro Motor. On all the Indy cars I use the AMT fronts from their recent slot car kits. I don't like the bigger rim, but they are cheap and a good size. I also have lots of 1960 silicone which I also run on a lot of cars. Not quite as sticky as the PT, but I have them, so I use them. Some cars have George Lowe tires and some tires I made many years ago. I recently picked up some urethane tires and they do well, but not as well as silicone. But I can run urethane on original Cox rims and use their great Lotus rims.

I'll do some chassis pix tomorrow. I use about any kind of inline Dynamic and drill them to use new style motors. I add a little weight above the tongue and a brass plate underneath. They can corner pretty hard without flipping out! The windshields come from Brad Blohm and the decals from Indycals.com. He offers al his decals in 1/32 also.

[dreinecke]

Matt - those are all awesome!!! Really great open wheelers!

[mattb]

P1010015.JPGP1010013 (2).JPGP1010014 (2).JPGHere's some pix of the chassis setup. Using plain old Dynamic parts from the 60's, Plafit Fox motors. Fox is great at the commercial track but overpowering here at home. I am leaving my best 2 cars for the big track and re-motoring the other cars for our home tracks. Not sure what motors will end up in them, but I have a Jackrabbit, an MT1, and some K&B 13d's. As you can see, I add the brass pan for weight in the right place and I use the glue gun to help hold the motor in place and not leave one screw to do that job. I also cut out the Monogram interior and glue in a card with a Cox driver. I think it looks better. Brad Blohm makes the great windshields. One of the guys makes a brass tube frame to fit these, but it doesn't really work as good as the dynamic with the belly pan. I have a box of Lotus and Watson roadster bodies made up. These are 1/24.

If I knew how to re-size the photos I would.

[HomeRacingWorld]

I missed this?

Absolute cool. These are just fun to look at, and thanks for the detailed info. I remember those "sillispongies" and they did work great on our Careers oval.

Well done.

[bill from nh]

Neat looking cars Matt. The guy building those brass tube/rod frames ought to try adding one of the brass belly pans like the Dynamics use. They might race better if he did.

[mattb]

The guy building scratch chassis is a craftsman. He builds these 70-100 thou street rods and street machines. Takes him forever, because he is so meticulous. When I want these belly pans, I go to his shop and use his shear. I made a pan for one of his chassis and he can see that it is the way to add weight in the perfect spot. His cars are so precise that they usually run great, but even my rough old builds hang with him and beat him a touch with the belly pans. He has seen the light.

I remember way back when we were the 132 slots forum, "Smilin' Ray" built really great cars and that was his trick, a nice belly pan design. Lots of weight, right down on the track. When I was trying to get these cars to "drive" better that was my inspiration. Thanks Ray.

I did use the H&R Jackrabbit in a car yesterday and I believe it is a much more appropriate motor for my shorter home track. I tried using a more scale size rear tire, but the grip just wasn't there with the old 1960's silicones I have that are 1 1/8 inch. The cars look better, but the motor way overpowers the tires on the big track. I might try some urethane tires on Cox Lotus rims at home with less motor.

[TuscoTodd]

Those are way cool! Thanks for sharing the pics and the details! :D

[mattb]

indy cars new wheels.JPGHere's an update after we ran at the commercial track Monday nite. We got both the brass chassied cars and the Dynamic chassied cars running laps around 7.8 on the King track. That is a good lap and requires some driving, not just full throttle all the way around. Handling is great, but the brass chassis required a bit of weight to finally
handle as good as my cars with the pan under the Dynamic frame.

We also learned that if you crash at the speeds we run on the big track, you are guaranteed to bend the axles from the recent AMT kits. We bent 5-6 axles Monday nite. I came home and threw away all of them I had and replaced the fronts on all my cars with Protrac fronts that I sanded down to the same size as the old AMT fronts.
I am going to re-drill all the AMT wheels to 1/8 and only run them on the cars raced at home.

One side benefit is the AMT wheels diameter is too big to look really good, while the Protrac wheels have the small hub and look much better.