#40 Coors/Kiss Dodge
modelracing Nascar
As you probably have seen on my site already I converted a 1997 Ford Thunderbird to a slotcar. Now it is time for my race car of 2003 to hit the track. This time it will use a more complex and hopefully better chassis. Also the Dodge body is wider than the Ford giving some more stability in the turns. It is also a complete body and not one with separate front and rear bumpers which should help to keep it in one piece during racing. On the downside the body is much heavier due to thicker plastic. The rules we run on for 2003 says total weight must be minimum 220 grams whereof body, interior and body holders must be minimum 85 grams.
WHAT IS WAS
We begin with a Revell Monogram #40
Coors kit that was intended to be built to look like the one above. But a
static model of a race car is no good for racing. A race car, even if it
is a model is made to be raced, and so this one will...
THE CHASSIS
Here you can see the
Slotcar chassi, almost ready. It's a German Motor Modern SW1 chassi with a
Sakatsu V8 motor mounted in a sidewinder configuration in parallel with
the rear axle. If you know your slotracing you will notice that this track
seams to miss the electrical braid, that is correct, it isn't mounted yet
- but that is another project ;-)
THE INTERIOR
Here is the interior,
or rather what is left of it. The rules says that everything that is
visable through the windows must stay, the rest is okey to take out to
reduce weight.
Since the motor is in the back, the rules also says that you
may build a box that sticks into the cockpit to make room for the
motor.
Also holes had to be
taken out for screws that sticks up from the chassis.
The rules says you must have
the fire extingisher onboard. Since the bar it normally hangs on had to go
for the motor box, I put it on the floor, where it will have the lowest
center of gravity impact. Pieces from the lowest bar will be remounted
outside the box. Also the driver figure is drilled out from the underside
as much as possible to reduce weight.
The first picture
shows that all things from the kit is re-mounted on the box in the back so
it still looks good. All interior work and painting on it is done by me.
On the second picture the interior now sits on the chassis. We are getting
close now!
THE BODY
It is okey to glue the hood to the body for more strenght and also to
reduce weight by sanding out material from the body. Compare for instance
the thickness of the front spoiler with one from an original Revell kit.
The body has gotten it's paint job and decals are on. The body is painted
by a professional car painter called Peter Bjurman. The decal work is
by me. Next step is to seal everything with clear coat to protect the
decals and paint from the tough tumble and rumble of racing..
Ready for the track!
Yes, it's a Sterling Marlin #40 Coors but it doesn't look quite familiar.
It ran in this special paint scheme in Miami, FL on the 11/11/01. The
special decals comes from Wetworks.
The real car on the
track. Yeah, I grew up with Kiss so I like this paint scheme!
;-)
SOME DETAILS
The wheels are
aluminium Sakatsu 2055 wheels with sponge rubber glued and trued on them.
The aluminium wheels are painted yellow. The nice black wheel sides are
actually the kit wheels turned down on a dremel tool to the correct size
so they could be used as inserts inside the aluminium wheels. Note the
axle that is running in ball bearings.
Some pictures from the
details of the interior.
And on these
pictures (at the arrows) you can see the reassembling of the visable parts
of the lowest bar that the motor box took out. Still needs to be painted
but all bars are now in.
Here are some
transmission close up pictures.
My Nascar model slotcar
The car on the track.
I couldn't get the MoMo chassi to perform on our track. It just had to
much grip and tilted. We normally already have a lot of grip on our track
(left overs from tire glue from saloon/wing car races that stays even
if we clean the track before each modelcar race) and the MoMo chassis
seams to be a high grip chassis and it just gets to much of the good.
Making the big already narrow tires in the back even less wide didn't
work since they would sway to much sidewise (no stability in the soft
foam rubber). I therefor put up a Schöler chassis with much weight
in the front to get the car to slide more and be more drivable and that
did work well. The first race on this chassi it came second place, only
a couple of meters behind the winning car. The race after it was in the
lead when I crashed badly into another derailed car. I smashed the front
so badly I couldn't continue.
On the left you can see that the whole side of the body broke off in that
violent crash. On the right you can see the Schöler chassi on the
car. I pensioned this car and moved it to be my backup car and modified
the Kellogs Monte Carlo to a Plafit chassis and used that as the primary
car for the rest of the 2003 season. In the SSC Nascar cup 2003 I ended
at the second place after in total 18 races.
Repair work done to the front. I had to actually take out some plastic
and glue in new styrene, then sand the area smooth and repaint. The hood
line is therefor just a painted on line part wise now as you can see.
Not espacially noticable from some distance.
The front has gotten some paint damages also.
The rear has gotten some cracks that are repaired.