31st-Jan-26, 06:48 AM
Scalextric Tuning 8 – Using Upgrade Parts
So you’re going to spend your money looking for that ‘unfair advantage’?
Tuning of the Scalextric Mustang GT4 has been all about getting the most out of the standard components. Apart from a few basic tools and materials, I’ve not used a single upgrade part. I think this is the best way to understanding how a Scalextric car works, learn new skills and how to problem-solve issues. Every increase in performance – small or large – is down to our hard work.
Of course - if you want to spend money - there are shortcuts to performance. To be able to use upgrade parts successfully, it really helps to have a solid grounding in methodically tuning a standard car with standard parts. See it as an apprenticeship...
In this blog post I will look at some of the tune-up parts available that will fit into a standard Scalextric car. I'll be improving our test car and creating a second car – a monster of a Mustang!
Slot.it and NSR performance parts
Over the past twenty years, Slot.it and NSR have been at the forefront of creating high-performance slot cars for home and club racing. Both companies started by producing tune-up parts – and many of these parts will fit into a Scalextric car. Having said that, the Slot.it and NSR components are designed to work in a performance slot car. Simply throwing powerful motors or super-sticky tyres at a Scalextric model won’t necessarily make it faster round a lap. But carefully selecting – and testing – tune up parts can make a difference...
Upgrading Our Mustang GT4 Project Car
First, I need to set a benchmark time. The Mustang is as it was at the end of Part 7 – all standard parts – plus a fresh scuff of the tyres. A two minute run on my Jadlam SL6 test track gave an impressive 27 laps and a best time of 4:17 seconds – we do have a pretty good car now. Don't forget our first two minute run at the start of Part 2 - 15 laps and a 6.96 second best lap. Can we go even faster?
I’m going to start with a couple of small changes...
1. Better Screws
One useful way to improve body float is to use a screw that has no thread under the head. This allows the body to move more freely without the screw being so loose it risks falling out. Losing screws is something that has happened quite often to the Mustang in these tests – and that can cause a short circuit or power overload if the screw fall into the slot. I’ve replaced the standard screws with Slot.it SICH53 Metric screws, but the CH51 version are a few millimetres longer and might possibly be a better choice. The important thing is to use a ‘small head’ metric screw – the large head versions won’t fit in the Scalextric underpan.
The new screws certainly give a better ‘rattle’ and more front-to-back movement. On a couple of warm-up laps, the car didn’t feel quite right. The rear of the body was very loose, so I tightened that screw to give more normal body float – and the behaviour of the car on track was much improved. I guess that goes to show how small changes can make a noticeable different to the handling of our car – and that’s a reason why I’ve changed and tested only one thing at a time during this Tuning series.
A two-minute timed test run gave 26 laps and 4:17 seconds. No difference, but no risk of the screws falling out!
2. Racing braid
Using a very thin braid helps keep the front of the car stable and copper braid gives better conductivity. Many slot racers use NSR Ultra Soft Braid. This is available in 1 metre length so you can cut it how you want – or in ready-cut packs of ten (enough for five cars). There’s also a choice of bare copper braid or tin plated. The plated braid is more rigid and harder wearing. The bare copper is softer, but needs more regular tweaking.
Although the NSR braid is the racer’s choice, it might not be ideal for you. It needs more care and attention and can also get damaged on lane changers and crossover pieces – any strands that break off are likely to cause a short circuit / power overload on a digital or ARC powerbase. A more robust alternative is the Slot.it SISP19 Competition braid, which is a little thicker.
Cutting and fitting braid to the Scalextric Easy Change guide requires a bit of practice. Make sure you use a pair of sharp and strong scissors to cut the braid cleanly. First, remove the original braids, measure the length and cut a length of racing braid about 2-3mm longer. Insert the new braid into the slot at the back of the braid plate, lining up the trailing edge with the rear of the plate. Then wrap the longer end down, forward, up and back.
The braid shouldn’t be super-tight under the plate, but neither too loose. Repeat with the other side. If the trailing edges are uneven, you can cut them before fitting the braid plate back on the guide. This will create lots of little strands of copper – you don’t want this getting anywhere – in the motor or digital chip, for example – where it can cause a short circuit and serious damage. Finally, insert the braid plate on the guide – back first and then the front. Make sure the plate sits exactly over the guide plate underneath. If it isn’t, you won’t get full power from the track.
With NSR Ultra Soft copper braid fitted, how did our Mustang get on? The new braid did need some laps to bed in, but I felt it gave a smoother and more responsive drive. A 2-minute run gave us 27 laps and a 4:25 second best lap...
The Mustang hasn’t has an issue with understeer, so I’m not surprised this didn’t give any big improvement. I did like how the Mustang drove with the NSR braids, so I think I’ll keep them.
3. Front Tyres
Reducing front grip and getting the tyres to only just touch the track is crucial to tackling understeer – as we saw in Part 6. This isn’t a problem for the Mustang – the front is set up nicely and all we did was to true the front wheels and tyres and then add a coating of nail varnish to reduce the grip.
It is possible to fit low-profile zero-grip tyres – both NSR and Slot.it make them. However, the front wheels of the Mustang are big and wide – and I couldn’t fit any of the zero grip tyres I had handy. Looking at the dimensions, the Slot.it SIPT15 zero grip tyres are probably wide enough to fit. These might be a good choice for Scalextric GT cars. I use the SIPT19 tyres on my BTCC front tyres – these are very low profile and work very well.
4. Rear Tyres
Rear grip has always been an issue with the Mustang. With careful truing - and softening the rubber with some oil - I have achieved a decent balance of grip and handling with the tyres that came with the car. However, I want to see if simply adding some Slot.it or NSR tyres would have been an effective shortcut.
Performance slot car tyres come in various compounds and sizes. Getting the right compound for a specific track surface can be a tricky process. If you’re racing at a club, ask what other people are using. Most of the recent (after 2016) Scalextric GT and BTCC cars have wheels that are the same size and profile as the ‘European standard’ hubs made by Slot.it and NSR. This means that tyres from those brands will fit the Scalextric hubs perfectly. For these cars, I like the Slot.it P6 compounds for racing on Scalextric Sport track – although I’m starting to experiment with the new NSR ‘RTR’ (ready to race) tyres. The benefit of both compounds is that they need very little preparation – you can slip them on the wheels and off you go.
For the Mustang, I’ll run a tyre test with a pair of Slot.it SIPT24 P6 compound GT tyres and NSR 5260 RTR GT tyres. The NSR tyres are also available in black.
I ran the Slot.it P6 tyres first. These are slightly narrower (9mm vs 10mm) and lower profile (21mm vs 22mm) compared to the Scalextric tyres. On the test track, the car felt much ‘tighter’ – in that the rear didn’t step out as much. But when it did, the car broke away and I couldn’t save it. That meant I was reducing my corner-entry speed in some places. As we saw when I softened the Scalextric tyres with oil, more grip can make a car trickier to drive – especially one with a high centre of gravity like the Mustang. We solved that in Part 5 by adding some extra weight to lower the CoG. In a 2-minute run, the Slot.it P6-shod Mustang covered 27 laps and set a best time of 4:21 seconds. Not bad.
With the red NSR RTR tyres fitted, the car was sensational. The NSR tyres are the same width (10mm) and lower profile (20.2 vs 22mm) compared to the Scalextric tyres. What made the NSR tyres so good was the extra grip combined with very catchable slides when I passed the limit of adhesion. Of course, the low profile tyre will get the magnet lower to the track rails and give more magnetic downforce, but I’m not sure that was the whole story. A 2-minute run gave 29 laps and a best lap of 3.96 seconds.
And it was a much easier drive than with the Slot.its. As an off-the-shelf replacement, these NSR RTR tyres get my recommendation. That’s a first sub-4 second time and a huge 29 laps in two minutes. Awesome!
I’ll leave the project car there for now – with the NSR rear tyres, braid and Slot.it screws. Those will stay on the car for the next step, when we remove the traction magnet.
However, I’ll now go off on a bit of a tangent – a quick look at other upgrade parts in a completely new chassis...
Building The Monster Mustang
There’s no time for a blow-by-blow walk through of how I built this second car. Essentially, I stripped out all the components from the chassis – apart from the traction magnet and the flat bit of the DPR hatch. I then built up the car with performance parts – some from my parts box and some from an NSR Audi GT car.
From back to front...
So how did it go? Well… it was certainly a monster! Of course, I went against all the advice of this Tuning series by throwing all the parts together and not testing each one to see if it was an improvement. What I had was a car that was a little too powerful and rather top-heavy for the twisty little SL6 test track. I added about 12g of weight into the underpan and that settled it down. On a larger track, the MX16 motor would have space to express itself, but not so much on the SL6.
It took a while to learn how to drive the Monster Mustang, but I finally committed to a timed run and put in 28 laps and a best time of 3:85 seconds. The car was faster over a lap than the final magnet version of our project car, but it wasn’t as easy to drive on the SL6 track.
Had I bought all those parts separately – in addition to the price of the Scalextric Mustang – this hybrid monster would have cost considerably more than buying an NSR GT3 model! And I’m still left with a less than perfect chassis… the NSR and Slot.it cars are designed to get the best out of these high-performance parts. Moving the wheels back onto my bog-standard NSR Audi R8, I fairly effortlessly banged in 30 laps and a fast lap of 3:37 seconds.
That was with the NSR magnet fitted. With the magnet removed, I managed 24 laps and a best of 4:67 seconds – which is right up there in the Scalextric magnet car range and an impressive non-magnet benchmark to carry over to next time.
I think that test shows that if you want a super-quick performance car, buy an NSR or Slot.it. Don’t spend your money throwing tune-up parts at a Scalextric model!
Next time, we remove the traction magnet from our Mustang and see what happens...
So you’re going to spend your money looking for that ‘unfair advantage’?
Tuning of the Scalextric Mustang GT4 has been all about getting the most out of the standard components. Apart from a few basic tools and materials, I’ve not used a single upgrade part. I think this is the best way to understanding how a Scalextric car works, learn new skills and how to problem-solve issues. Every increase in performance – small or large – is down to our hard work.
Of course - if you want to spend money - there are shortcuts to performance. To be able to use upgrade parts successfully, it really helps to have a solid grounding in methodically tuning a standard car with standard parts. See it as an apprenticeship...
In this blog post I will look at some of the tune-up parts available that will fit into a standard Scalextric car. I'll be improving our test car and creating a second car – a monster of a Mustang!
Slot.it and NSR performance parts
Over the past twenty years, Slot.it and NSR have been at the forefront of creating high-performance slot cars for home and club racing. Both companies started by producing tune-up parts – and many of these parts will fit into a Scalextric car. Having said that, the Slot.it and NSR components are designed to work in a performance slot car. Simply throwing powerful motors or super-sticky tyres at a Scalextric model won’t necessarily make it faster round a lap. But carefully selecting – and testing – tune up parts can make a difference...
Upgrading Our Mustang GT4 Project Car
First, I need to set a benchmark time. The Mustang is as it was at the end of Part 7 – all standard parts – plus a fresh scuff of the tyres. A two minute run on my Jadlam SL6 test track gave an impressive 27 laps and a best time of 4:17 seconds – we do have a pretty good car now. Don't forget our first two minute run at the start of Part 2 - 15 laps and a 6.96 second best lap. Can we go even faster?
I’m going to start with a couple of small changes...
1. Better Screws
One useful way to improve body float is to use a screw that has no thread under the head. This allows the body to move more freely without the screw being so loose it risks falling out. Losing screws is something that has happened quite often to the Mustang in these tests – and that can cause a short circuit or power overload if the screw fall into the slot. I’ve replaced the standard screws with Slot.it SICH53 Metric screws, but the CH51 version are a few millimetres longer and might possibly be a better choice. The important thing is to use a ‘small head’ metric screw – the large head versions won’t fit in the Scalextric underpan.
The new screws certainly give a better ‘rattle’ and more front-to-back movement. On a couple of warm-up laps, the car didn’t feel quite right. The rear of the body was very loose, so I tightened that screw to give more normal body float – and the behaviour of the car on track was much improved. I guess that goes to show how small changes can make a noticeable different to the handling of our car – and that’s a reason why I’ve changed and tested only one thing at a time during this Tuning series.
A two-minute timed test run gave 26 laps and 4:17 seconds. No difference, but no risk of the screws falling out!
2. Racing braid
Using a very thin braid helps keep the front of the car stable and copper braid gives better conductivity. Many slot racers use NSR Ultra Soft Braid. This is available in 1 metre length so you can cut it how you want – or in ready-cut packs of ten (enough for five cars). There’s also a choice of bare copper braid or tin plated. The plated braid is more rigid and harder wearing. The bare copper is softer, but needs more regular tweaking.
Although the NSR braid is the racer’s choice, it might not be ideal for you. It needs more care and attention and can also get damaged on lane changers and crossover pieces – any strands that break off are likely to cause a short circuit / power overload on a digital or ARC powerbase. A more robust alternative is the Slot.it SISP19 Competition braid, which is a little thicker.
Cutting and fitting braid to the Scalextric Easy Change guide requires a bit of practice. Make sure you use a pair of sharp and strong scissors to cut the braid cleanly. First, remove the original braids, measure the length and cut a length of racing braid about 2-3mm longer. Insert the new braid into the slot at the back of the braid plate, lining up the trailing edge with the rear of the plate. Then wrap the longer end down, forward, up and back.
The braid shouldn’t be super-tight under the plate, but neither too loose. Repeat with the other side. If the trailing edges are uneven, you can cut them before fitting the braid plate back on the guide. This will create lots of little strands of copper – you don’t want this getting anywhere – in the motor or digital chip, for example – where it can cause a short circuit and serious damage. Finally, insert the braid plate on the guide – back first and then the front. Make sure the plate sits exactly over the guide plate underneath. If it isn’t, you won’t get full power from the track.
With NSR Ultra Soft copper braid fitted, how did our Mustang get on? The new braid did need some laps to bed in, but I felt it gave a smoother and more responsive drive. A 2-minute run gave us 27 laps and a 4:25 second best lap...
The Mustang hasn’t has an issue with understeer, so I’m not surprised this didn’t give any big improvement. I did like how the Mustang drove with the NSR braids, so I think I’ll keep them.
3. Front Tyres
Reducing front grip and getting the tyres to only just touch the track is crucial to tackling understeer – as we saw in Part 6. This isn’t a problem for the Mustang – the front is set up nicely and all we did was to true the front wheels and tyres and then add a coating of nail varnish to reduce the grip.
It is possible to fit low-profile zero-grip tyres – both NSR and Slot.it make them. However, the front wheels of the Mustang are big and wide – and I couldn’t fit any of the zero grip tyres I had handy. Looking at the dimensions, the Slot.it SIPT15 zero grip tyres are probably wide enough to fit. These might be a good choice for Scalextric GT cars. I use the SIPT19 tyres on my BTCC front tyres – these are very low profile and work very well.
4. Rear Tyres
Rear grip has always been an issue with the Mustang. With careful truing - and softening the rubber with some oil - I have achieved a decent balance of grip and handling with the tyres that came with the car. However, I want to see if simply adding some Slot.it or NSR tyres would have been an effective shortcut.
Performance slot car tyres come in various compounds and sizes. Getting the right compound for a specific track surface can be a tricky process. If you’re racing at a club, ask what other people are using. Most of the recent (after 2016) Scalextric GT and BTCC cars have wheels that are the same size and profile as the ‘European standard’ hubs made by Slot.it and NSR. This means that tyres from those brands will fit the Scalextric hubs perfectly. For these cars, I like the Slot.it P6 compounds for racing on Scalextric Sport track – although I’m starting to experiment with the new NSR ‘RTR’ (ready to race) tyres. The benefit of both compounds is that they need very little preparation – you can slip them on the wheels and off you go.
For the Mustang, I’ll run a tyre test with a pair of Slot.it SIPT24 P6 compound GT tyres and NSR 5260 RTR GT tyres. The NSR tyres are also available in black.
I ran the Slot.it P6 tyres first. These are slightly narrower (9mm vs 10mm) and lower profile (21mm vs 22mm) compared to the Scalextric tyres. On the test track, the car felt much ‘tighter’ – in that the rear didn’t step out as much. But when it did, the car broke away and I couldn’t save it. That meant I was reducing my corner-entry speed in some places. As we saw when I softened the Scalextric tyres with oil, more grip can make a car trickier to drive – especially one with a high centre of gravity like the Mustang. We solved that in Part 5 by adding some extra weight to lower the CoG. In a 2-minute run, the Slot.it P6-shod Mustang covered 27 laps and set a best time of 4:21 seconds. Not bad.
With the red NSR RTR tyres fitted, the car was sensational. The NSR tyres are the same width (10mm) and lower profile (20.2 vs 22mm) compared to the Scalextric tyres. What made the NSR tyres so good was the extra grip combined with very catchable slides when I passed the limit of adhesion. Of course, the low profile tyre will get the magnet lower to the track rails and give more magnetic downforce, but I’m not sure that was the whole story. A 2-minute run gave 29 laps and a best lap of 3.96 seconds.
And it was a much easier drive than with the Slot.its. As an off-the-shelf replacement, these NSR RTR tyres get my recommendation. That’s a first sub-4 second time and a huge 29 laps in two minutes. Awesome!
I’ll leave the project car there for now – with the NSR rear tyres, braid and Slot.it screws. Those will stay on the car for the next step, when we remove the traction magnet.
However, I’ll now go off on a bit of a tangent – a quick look at other upgrade parts in a completely new chassis...
Building The Monster Mustang
There’s no time for a blow-by-blow walk through of how I built this second car. Essentially, I stripped out all the components from the chassis – apart from the traction magnet and the flat bit of the DPR hatch. I then built up the car with performance parts – some from my parts box and some from an NSR Audi GT car.
From back to front...
- Rear axle: NSR 50mm axle
- Rear wheels: NSR 17 x 8mm ‘Air System’ aluminium wheels + plastic inserts
- Rear wheels: NSR Supergrip
- Axle bearings: Bronze Low Friction (3mm width)
- Motor: Slot.it MX16 – 23,000 rpm and 170 gcm torque at 12v
- Gears: 9-tooth pinion and 25-tooth crown gear
- Wire: flexible silicone
- Front axle: NSR 50mm axle + NSR 2mm brass axle spacers
- Front wheels: NSR 17 x 8mm standard aluminium wheels + plastic inserts
- Front tyres: NSR low grip
- Guide: Slot.it CH10 universal screw mount guide + NSR 4819 Pick-up spacers
- Braid: Slot.it Competition braid
- Body Screws: Slot.it SICH53 small head Metric screws.
So how did it go? Well… it was certainly a monster! Of course, I went against all the advice of this Tuning series by throwing all the parts together and not testing each one to see if it was an improvement. What I had was a car that was a little too powerful and rather top-heavy for the twisty little SL6 test track. I added about 12g of weight into the underpan and that settled it down. On a larger track, the MX16 motor would have space to express itself, but not so much on the SL6.
It took a while to learn how to drive the Monster Mustang, but I finally committed to a timed run and put in 28 laps and a best time of 3:85 seconds. The car was faster over a lap than the final magnet version of our project car, but it wasn’t as easy to drive on the SL6 track.
Had I bought all those parts separately – in addition to the price of the Scalextric Mustang – this hybrid monster would have cost considerably more than buying an NSR GT3 model! And I’m still left with a less than perfect chassis… the NSR and Slot.it cars are designed to get the best out of these high-performance parts. Moving the wheels back onto my bog-standard NSR Audi R8, I fairly effortlessly banged in 30 laps and a fast lap of 3:37 seconds.
That was with the NSR magnet fitted. With the magnet removed, I managed 24 laps and a best of 4:67 seconds – which is right up there in the Scalextric magnet car range and an impressive non-magnet benchmark to carry over to next time.
I think that test shows that if you want a super-quick performance car, buy an NSR or Slot.it. Don’t spend your money throwing tune-up parts at a Scalextric model!
Next time, we remove the traction magnet from our Mustang and see what happens...
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