"Breaking in" a new car?

GspeedR Tuesday, 11/22/2011

Has anyone ever done this before?

I've opened up a lot of new cars for my recent 'roll tests' and couldn't help but noticing how the performance of several of them improved, often dramatically, after 15-20 repetitious runs down a long strait. In the case of my Ferrari F50...I was so disappointed with its speed right out of the package that I immediately filed it away with the other "duds". After seeing a speed increase w/repetition in other cars, I decided to give the F50 another try. Sure enough, after running it over & over & over again, it can all of my slower cars...I guess a "dud" is a "dud".


Discussion

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WorpeX 11/22/11

I've noticed this with some cars, but it seems fairly rare. I've seen far more cars start out strong and then go south after 5 or 6 races. However, a few months ago I was bored and found a large group of junkers and raced a tournament with them. The top two cars was a weird mcdonalds car taking first and an old Camaro Z-28 taking the silver. Needless to say, I decided to take the top two cars and race them up against some veterens and the results were interesting... the McDonalds car lost first round while the Camaro pulled off a respectable performance.

So, I kept racing the thing and now its rank 176 on the leader-board and still pulling off some surprising results. Last week I broke out the McDonalds car again to do a re-race against the Camaro and it wasn't even close, the Camaro absolutely annihilated it. The improvement in this car is just insane! It's crazy to think that this McDonalds car (which isn't even close to being good enough to make it onto the leaderboard) once won a tournament against this Camaro.

Just goes to show you that even really old cars can improve with some repeated runs!

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Jobe 11/23/11

Usually I will spin and check the wheels out of the package before I run it down the track.
Sometimes the wheels or axles need a little adjustment, have a bit of plastic on them, etc.

but sometimes a dud is a dud.

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model40fan 11/23/11

i pre-spin the wheels on the back [paper] side of my 1" belt sander, spins them faster than they will ever spin on a track...
but i also have had good cars go south after racing multiple passes... poor plastic casting ?

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iowastockcars 11/23/11

I have seen more cars improve over time than ones that go backwards. The boys and I even looked at this for a science fair project to see if the FTEs slowed down as some people were claiming that they started to groove into the "softer" axles and slow down right away.

We tried a brand new Ferrari 458 Italia FTE and it kept going a longer distance on the track every time for 10-15 runs (don't remember off hand). From there it leveled out but it never went backwards after 50 runs.

I can only think of one of our cars that has significantly slowed down, a 1970 roadrunner. And this is out of hundreds and hundreds of cars.

I don't break cars in, except for racing them and racing them more.

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redlinederby 11/23/11
Site manager

I've seen cars improve, sure. Kind of makes sense, the more you run the more things grind and rub and smooth out. Kind of like Jobe said, they have little imperfections on the wheels and axles and whatever. After a couple dozen rolls down the track it's bound to smooth out.

I do a spin check with new cars too but even if they're less than what I think they should be, I roll them and let people play them. If after a couple weeks of racing and the car is not to where I think it would be, I might remove it and search for a replacement. The problem I find most often is the body rubbing on the wheels but it would take a lot of racing to wear that down, so I may bend the axle a tad to help the wheels not rub in the wheel well...but that doesn't always do the trick so that car will get put in the freebie bin.

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model40fan 11/23/11

sentence for the slow......... a forsaken life in the freebee bin !

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GspeedR 11/23/11

sentence for the slow......... a forsaken life in the freebee bin !

freebee bin?...I would've thought that a slow car would be an "organ donor" to be turned into another heavyweight beast for your stable, Smitty.

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model40fan 11/23/11

my freebee bin is also the loaner case when i put on a race for others... with well behaved, small groups i give the kids the car they raced... this also weeds out the faster cars... B T W. if you do this only fill one side of the case... the kids will dump your cars LOOKING at what's on the other side...

Hotwheels typically slow down over a period of time, especially on the heavier cars. On the modified lead sleds, you're keeping a spare set of wheels on hand. The only cars I have seen that will "break in" and actually speed up are the Johnny Lightnings. JL has wheels that blow HW away.

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GspeedR 12/3/11

Last night, I found yet gone!

GspeedR

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redlinederby 12/3/11
Site manager

The Demon is a great little car, especially for a muscle car. It was one of the first cars I followed when I started racing...I thought it couldn't be beat!

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model40fan 12/4/11

The Demon is a great little car, especially for a muscle car. It was one of the first cars I followed when I started racing...I thought it couldn't be beat!


I KNOW YOU MEAN DODGE DEMON, BUT "demon" IS NO SLOUCH EITHER...

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