Carrera #68 Ford GT

[rperry240Zr]

Hello folks! It's been awhile since I posted here,sometime life just gets in the way of having fun! Anyway whats up with the Carrera #68 Ford GT! Great looking car but it drives and handles like a brick!! very slow. I do not have a scale but it obviously must be over weight. I replaced the stock plastic gears with light metal Slot-it ones from Slot Car Corner and that did not help much. Next I've ordered a 3D Chassis -
Made by Nacional Racers 3D hoping that it will lighten up a little bit. Any other suggestions or oppinions?? Thanks, Rob Perry, Waterville NY.

https://goo.gl/images/Hg2UDW

[HomeRacingWorld]

Mine hauls the mail here, little wheel truing and a set of tires.

[rperry240Zr]

Hi Harry! What voltage do you run on your track? I'm at 11 volts. I did the same tuning.

[rperry240Zr]

I love the appearance of the Carrera Ford GT but in my situation the performance is lacking. My track is routed in 1/2" MDF, each lane is about 70' long and there are 11 corners and a 16' straight. I run at 11 volts. I changed out the tires to silicone and trued them, greased the gears and oiled the axle bushings Basically top lap speeds run in 7.5 sec. per lap. The best I could get out of the Ford GT is 8.65 sec. I tried swapping out the motor with another but the results were the same. The GT handles "heavy" here with limited acceleration. I could almost have the trigger maxed out for an entire lap which is very abnormal. The quickest recorded laps here are 7.3 sec. with a Slot-it Audi #1. I still love the livery though! Below is a video from my track.Thanks for the review. 

[HomeRacingWorld]

[GRUNZ]

Do you have other Carrera GT cars to test against?
You could use corvette, vantage, R8, merc-amg, huracan, 488, etc..

[RichD]

Shoreline Model Raceways has a class for Carrera cars, they are as close to boxstock as we run. We run on wood tracks at 10 volts. The rear axle, crown gear and wheels can be changed to aftermarket parts. The spec tires are Quickslicks, which can be trued but not glued. The cars were a little underpowered, but were still fun. One problem that we ran into was that the older motors could have more power than the newer ones, leaving some people at a disadvantage. We made the Slot Car Corner Piranha the spec motor for the class, which leveled the playing field and gave the cars a bit more zip. Ford GTs have won a number of races.

[HomeRacingWorld]

On my track, the Vette and Ford are close enough that the DRIVER makes the difference.

The Vantage on the other hand...is a touch smaller/lighter and simply a tough customer to beat.

[chappyman66]

The Carrera cars are heavy and lower powered relative to Slot.It and even Scaley/Fly cars. It's not a problem... it's apples and oranges.

HOWEVER:
1) They are inexpensive and decent looking cars with a good variety of GTs.

2) We actually found that the firm silicone Quickslicks tires work better than the soft tires.

3) The motors come alive at about 12.5 volts so you might try turning up the power if you keep the stock motor. We normally run 11-12V as well, but it's not enough for the stock Carrera motors.

In our Carrera class the Ford is solid but not as fast as the Mercedes or even the Lambo. The Ferrari is fast but so tail-happy it's not driveable. I like my Ford GT!

[rperry240Zr]

Hey Harry yeah the Slot-it was a bad comparison duh. My #48 Scaly Camaro pulls a best lap at 7.934 and the Scaley Nissan 370 hits a best lap at 7.934.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Have you tried a guide swap? Setting the front axle height to tripod style goes a long way with any CARRERA on wood, at least that is what I have found. If you haven’t, try the new CG Slotscars adapter and a Sloting plus guide. Combined with a tire change, I find them pretty impressive.

[Czar]

I think the prospect of only racing one brand of cars against other cars of the same brand is detrimental to what slot car racing is supposed to be, in my opinion. The history of slot cars has always pitted one brand against another. Curious where slot racing would be if Cox cars were only competitive against Cox cars? When you add another $20 of after-market parts you should definitely be able to run a Carrera against a Slot.it and expect reasonable parity.

[Cincyslots]

Since we run a lot of digital here, our go to cars are Carrera. It's been said for years, Carrera cars are best raced with other Carrera cars. For us, all the GT cars run very close in times across the board. Personally, my Ford GT is the fastest and easiest car to drive.

We true up the axles front and rear. Then glue and true the fronts to, I believe it's 20mm and finish them off with super glue polished smooth. 20mm should drop the guide in the slot as far as it will go and still have the tires slightly touching. We do not glue the rears. No need to this point plus it makes it much easier to replace worn tires. I don't have my cheat sheet here but I think the rear "wheel" gets sanded down to 17.85(ish). We then use a tire that fits the Slot.it Nissan R390...... This gives you a bit more grip and we're all on a level playing field.

Just my $.02,
Bruce

[Mayberryman]

I believe that Carrera cars, both DTM and GTs as some of the best racing slot cars if you accept certain facts about these cars in stock configuration. (1) These cars are heavy and this makes them slow to get to speed and makes brakes next to non existent.
(2) From my perspective the stock Carrera E 200 motor seems to need more voltage and current to be able to half way compete with other motors rated at 18K such as the H&R Hawk. (3) Being a rigid chassis with a body with a lot of top weight there seems to be a fine line as to adding weight to the chassis and the way that you remove some of the torque flex out of the motor without completely binding it to the rigid chassis.

I race with three different clubs that race Carrera only classes. the first club runs DTMs with magnets limited to 220 grams of magnet down force. The only modifications allowed is that you can replace the stock motor with the H&R Hawk 18K motor and most of the faster cars run this motor. The second modification allowed is that you can run the stock rubber or PG tires and again most of the faster cars run the PG tires. This club runs on a Scaley Plastic Track.

The second club runs a Carrera GT class using stock motors and stock tires or urethane tires, this club runs on routed wooden tracks. The stock motor only rule does allow for a lot of time put into that stock motor that may be a bit faster than the others. The tire of choice in this club is the stock rubber with NSR tire oil and other home brew traction additives that must be wiped dry before placing the car on the track. I will admit that the Ford GTs have not shown well in this club but that could mean that the people running these cars do not take the time to race tune them. The cars that seem to be the most competitive are the Audi, Aston Martin, BMW M3 and the Ferrari 488, with my tried and true Corvette C6 when the traction is not too great and the narrow wheel base causes roll overs. The biggest complaint with the Ford GT seems to be front end ride height.
on various plastic tracks with the Piranha motor as the spec motor and depending on the track either Quick Slick Sillies or NSR Rubber tires. This class seems to have the most parity with an adequate amount of power and good enough traction to make use of the power.

The third club runs Carrera DTMS on various plastic tracks with the Piranha motor and either Quick Slick Sillies or NSR rubber depending on the brand of track being run on. This configuration seems to produce the greatest competition with enough power to overcome the weight of the car and the tire traction to make use of the power.

Over all I think that Carrera cars are still some of the best bang for the buck you can get in slot car racing but mostly if you run them in Carrera only classes. The increase in price is a minor irritant at most and understandable in today's economic world. My biggest complaint is that the availability of spare parts seem to be not as good as it once was. I know that these cars can be considered cheap throw away cars but being the long time racer that I am I always want to repair what I have rather than getting a new car.

[slothead]

Overall I understand racing cars against their siblings based on manufacturer, but in reality I can't resist matching cars by model and livery over make. In my Trans Am class while the field is mostly composed of Scalextric cars, the Pioneer cars are worthy competitors, and surprisingly the lone SCX AAR 'Cuda has also posted some excellent finishes. If there were more makes of Trans Am replica cars I'd probably have to have them too.

My World Sportscar class (Le Mans cars) contains mostly of FLy cars (Porsche, Ferrari, Lola, Ford) but there's also a Carerra Porsche 917, Scalextric Ferrari 330 P3 and Ford GT40's, and three MRRC Chaparral 2F's. It's a lot of fun to race all these cars against each other, and there is no clear favorite. The same goes for my newest series, Can-Am cars from '66 - '74. I have a HSRR McLaren running against Carrera Porsche cars, Monogram Mclarens and Lolas, and a bunch of Slot-It McLarens, Alfa Romeos, Ferrari 312s, and Chaparral 2E's. The biggest outlier is the new CG-Slotcars 3D printed Shadow DN4 - which after some work qualified 9th out of 21 cars. The top qualifier is a Slot-It Alfa Romeo 33/3 followed closely by a Monogram McLaren M6. After them a Slot-It Ferrari 312 is 3rd, a Fly Porsche 908 is the 4th place qualifier in the series. Three different makes in the top 4 positions.

In a club series I agree manufacturer based classes may be the best way to go. But for the way I simulate races as a solo racer being able to pit the top replicas and drivers against each other, across manufacturers is ideal and fairly set up they can all be competitive.