I just pulled my crappy old set out and set it up to play with the monster, as she likes race cars... While I did get it running, I'm thinking I'd like to get a decent Tomy AFX setup and build a dedicated track down in the basement. Does anyone have any recommendations on sources, or anything else slot car related?

tia,


Chris

My advice - dont hold the trigger down all the way through the curve, it commonly results in the car leaving the track.

I don't know much about HO scale stuff.

15-20 years ago I was big into the 1/24th scale slots, still have some of the stuff.

I have a car that will run a 155' "king" track with a banked turn, two hairpins, a 90, a doughnut, and another 90, plus a straight and backstraight, in under 2 seconds. top speed is 70mph and it reaches it in milliseconds, uses big wings to hold it down on the track, may be the highest power/weight ratio of anything on the planet.

Fun stuff. all the tracks seem to be out of business now...

Ah.   Memories.

I remember those............we had an arcade in my town that had a big track where you could race cars that you had built, and a friend and I built one that had a motor in the front and one in the back, with large tires............it could hold the track like you wouldnt believe, and we used to beat everyone who raced their cars...........fun memories  

Quoted: I don't know much about HO scale stuff. 15-20 years ago I was big into the 1/24th scale slots, still have some of the stuff. I have a car that will run a 155' "king" track with a banked turn, two hairpins, a 90, a doughnut, and another 90, plus a straight and backstraight, in under 2 seconds. top speed is 70mph and it reaches it in milliseconds, uses big wings to hold it down on the track, may be the highest power/weight ratio of anything on the planet. Fun stuff. all the tracks seem to be out of business now...

yup, still have them. Even my Aurora pre AFX thunderbirds

Scalextric.

My favourite was a 1980 Elf Ligier F-1 car. It wasn't as fast as some, but had great road/slotholding abilities.

I had a 1980 Ferarri to race it against, it was much faster in a straight line, but harder to control on the curves.

NTM

There are guys that get together and set up massive tracks in their basements, and then have tournaments/ races.

They are called 'uber nerds'.

I got a set two xmas ago and they are great. i still break them out every few months or so till my wife wants it out of the living room.  They are a blast from the past.

Ahhh, the big tracks...

This is the only photo I could find of my old stuff... had a pair of rewinds that did 70,000 rpms.  This one handled like crap, but was VERY fast down the straight and around the banked curve.



If I remember correctly, those were a pair of Mabuchi 26D's with heat sinked brushes, rezapped magnets.  Armatures rewound, windings epoxied, commutator trued, the works.  Tires were Champion Mad Dogs.  Chassis was homemade, soldered from brass rod and tubing.  I had a McClaren body on it.

Another car I had was the Classic Asp, Champion rewind and Ugo tires (those ugly blue ones), which were very soft and very grippy.  Used "Tiger Milk" to clean them, and Tiger Milk mixed with STF for tire dressing.  Remember having to store the cars upside down so that the tires didn't get flats?

Most of my cars had chassis I built myself.

I think mina are still in the basement at my folks, have to look for them sometime and bring them here and set it up for my kids.  yep I'm doing it for the kids. That's my story

i just bought a 4 lane set for the 3 boys this christmas.  ebay seems good to find cars and parts.  your local hobby shop may have them too.  wait until you see the prices.  remember,  they are now considered "model collectables".  

I had a slot car set in the late 70's and remember actually burning out the motor and melting the car body. LOL Too funny.

I bought my kids a slot car set two years ago and it SUCKED!  Damn cars couldn't stay on the track.  The contacts were braded wire, not flat metal contacts. The cars would jump the corners every time under any speed other than "creepy-crawl".

thanks for the responses, I'm thinking about getting this...

www.hobbyoutlets.com/afx/9939.htm

AFX-Probably one of the best HO's home sets.

Quoted: My advice - dont hold the trigger down all the way through the curve, it commonly results in the car leaving the track.

+1

They should bank the track so that it doesn't happen anymore

I still have my T.C.R. Race track in it's original box. I also purchased several extra cars for it! This thing is about 14 years old and still works. They don't make 'em any more. What I love about it, is that it's a big track and more importantly, is that the cars switch lanes when you press the button. Slot cars without the slotted track! Way cool!

In 1997, I bought my first house. One weekend while shopping around for furnishings, I happened across a knick-knack shop which had among other things, the Tyco Lambourghini Challenge - for $30.00. All the bridge pieces, the pwr and controllers, two cars, and 64 ft of track. I built up a table for it in my garage, and while shopping for more track one day, I happened across two of the HO scale-electrically functional railroad intersections, which started a monster. I started buying up all the HO scale train track I could get my hands on, and built up a huge diorama-esque train-race track set, which the race track and train track intersected and winded thru itself, and occasionally, when friends were over (during paties and whatnot), we'd do the Addams family thing, where if you timed it right, you could crash the cars into the oncoming trains.

I've since moved, and have all that stuff stored in boxes now. When my fiance and I get hitched and get a home of our own, I plan on reconstructing the monster even bigger than before.

Man that was fun...

Quoted: I still have my T.C.R. Race track in it's original box. I also purchased several extra cars for it! This thing is about 14 years old and still works. They don't make 'em any more. What I love about it, is that it's a big track and more importantly, is that the cars switch lanes when you press the button. Slot cars without the slotted track! Way cool!

those were cool, never had them, but a friend did.

Quoted: My advice - dont hold the trigger down all the way through the curve, it commonly results in the car leaving the track.

not if you have Magna traction or G-Plus cars....  the outside lane should have rails but it kinda takes the fun out of it.  I always wanted to imbed my track in plywood so the road surface was flush or slightly below.   Back in the late '70's I had tons of HO scale track with about 2 dozen or more Magna Traction cars and 6 G-Plus cars.  I found a screaming deal at an outlet store for a set containing banked curves and banked s-turns. That stuff was killer fun.  I ended up giving it all to my first wifes little brother who proceeded to tear it all up.  If anything survived he probably sold it on E-bay................

Quoted: AFX-Probably one of the best HO's home sets.

+1000

The big cars and commercial tracks are coming back.  There are 3 in this area now and a 4th will be opening soon.

The little town I where I grew up had the last large track in Missouri and one of the last in the country, open until about 1980 or 81, maybe a little later.

In the late 60's when the original tracks opened, a good La Cucaracha was the car to beat for a long time, and stayed competitive even after better chassis and bodies came along later.

These tracks are a good place to attract kids to keep them off the streets.  There were racing leagues, rentals, you name it.  Lots of racers wound their motors, including motors specifically for drag racing.  I would guess tires were the number 1 item sold in the shops - they wore out quickly, and everyone was always loking for the "edge".

I would like to get a 1/32 or 1/23 car again.

Oh hell another hobbie to spend money on now, what is this like the 3 or forth one?  There needs to be a fund set up from member dues to help support these things...

Are HO scale cars and tracks even made anymore?  It was one of my favorite toys in the wintertime when I was a kid.

As far as brands....I remember starting off with AFX and then went with Tyco tracks...I remember the Tyco track to be far easier to work with.  I had some cars that could haul major ass....

Thety have one of the big tracks at Hobbytown USA in Kennesaw, Ga and the track stays covered up with people...............some pretty cool cars

In the late 60's when the original tracks opened, a good La Cucaracha was the car to beat for a long time, and stayed competitive even after better chassis and bodies came along later.

+1  That is another I had.  I modified it to take one of the 26D's from the dual motor car.  I think that chassis would still be competitive today.

The Cox La Cucaracha chassis was stamped aluminum.  The middle part of the chassis was composed of the rear axle assy, 16D motor, and tongue up to the guide shoe.  The outer part of the chassis was hinged back near the rear axle, and held the body and front axle assy.  It was all really low and really hugged the track well.  The body looked like most Can-Am type cars.  Still a good chassis design.

Bob Rule, Champion / Bolink in Georgia, was buying the 1/24 commercial tracks and storing them at one time.

Parma and a few others are still making 1/24 and 1/32 cars, but I haven't seen a commercial track in many years.

When I was a young teenager, Dad and I looked at how commercial tracks were made and built a 3 lane 55'/lap track in the garage.  We had it on pulleys with folding legs.  When not being used, we could hoist it up into the ceiling of the garage.  Could not find a transformer supply that would put out the required amps, so we got a rebuilt car battery.  I wired it up to use standard controller phone jacks like the commercial raceways.  

Surface was 3/4" particle board.  The slots were cut with a router and jigs.  The surface was cut on each side of the slot about 1/16" deep for the braided wire contacts.  Painted with flat black latex with a little very fine sand sprinked in as we painted, and another coat over that.

To race at home we just dropped in stock motors and geared lower (4:1 or so).  For the commercial raceways, rewinds and 3:1 gears.

Atlas made a crappy controller at that time ('60's), the best, smoothest was the Cox controller.  Few used the Russkit trigger type controller.

Quoted: Are HO scale cars and tracks even made anymore?  It was one of my favorite toys in the wintertime when I was a kid. As far as brands....I remember starting off with AFX and then went with Tyco tracks...I remember the Tyco track to be far easier to work with.  I had some cars that could haul major ass....

yes, this place carries both Tyco and AFX...

www.hobbyoutlets.com/afx/9939.htm

The AFX, particularly with G-Plus cars, seemed to be the better of the two.  Tyco cars generally sucked.  AFX and aftermarket companies had a lot of hop up kits for the AFX cars, tires, pickups, other items.

The G-Plus cars were in particular very good performers.  The motors and pickups were better, they just handled better.

The G-Plus and the AFX Magnetraction cars got their handling by having the motor magnets close to the track.  The power rails in the track were steel, not copper, so the magnets were attracted to the rails.  You could even put a car on a piece of track and turn the track upside down, the car would cling in place.

To keep the cars and track running smoothly, use a white abrasive bar type ink eraser to clean the track's power rails and pickups on the cars.  

If you ever burn out the power pack, you can pick up a 12v-18v dc power pack for some other device, probably have a few "ac adapters" around the house that will work now.  Voltage is not critical, I wouldn't go over 18 vdc.  12vdc is a minimum for good operation.  The more the amperage the better.  If you wire it backwards, the cars just go the other way.

Another neat thing about AFX tracks... they made two different turn radii... so you could clip the track side by side and make a four lane track.  Even the banked turns were made like this.  We put together a big banked 4 lane oval for a little NASCAR fun.

I think the old track at home is stored in a barn.  It probably has 8 lanes, I don't remember.  I think the first track built down there was burned when it was disassembled, but maybe not, the man that owned it never threw anything away, so it might be in the barn, too.  Both were pretty cool.