Lesson learned
While preparing a 1947 chevy fleetline , a cool older car, for racing. I learned that cramming as much weight into a car as you can does not necessarily make it go quicker. And I had weird thing happen. The car never did pick up much speed even with graphiting the wheels and axles and getting the weight to it's optimum level. The car was one of those "musical" ones with great paint and great tampos. Believe it or not the paint was rubbing on the high sided track I'm using. I tried graphiting the side of the car to no avail. Luckily I found a standard 47 chevy fleetline in my stash. I switched bodies. Now the car is beating my test car consistently.....I guess like me my car was a bit too chunky.........
Discussion
Physics, she is a harsh mistress.
Gotta say, that's what always frustrated me when I started modding (before RLD). I would set a goal to make my car faster than a stock FTE or something. Try wheels, weight, whatever...97% of the time I never reached my goal. Try, try again...
welcome aboard kate,
I think you are correct... I see mattel is using the FTE II wheels, but I don't think they are using the FTE axles... [plated]
In the 9 packs, there are color variations of the Javelin FTE (bright green) and '10 Mustang GT FTE (Silver w/ yellow stripes). The fte wheels have the same color gold and same tampos as the previous release of these models, so I do believe these are/could be 2013 FTE's. They sure run down the track like the previous variations.
I'd post pics if someone could tell me how.
When I started modding. If through testing I found a fast car. Say a '57 Chevy or whatever. I would go get another '57 Chevy to mod and make a racer. Well, I think I found out if you find a fast car you should mod that one because the exact model at the store might be slow and not be a good racer. Maybe...this seems to be true sometimes.
Had some time this weekend to set up the scale 1/4 mile configuration for some testing and tuning! Running my race box of top 36 cars; the standings for the top and the bottom 6 stayed relatively the same. But the middle 24 showed the extra weight advantage and better wheel design that others mention here all the time. Smooth rollers and heavier cars moved up in the standings and the wobblers and might be a fender rubbing car - even though they all made the total distance - were easily passed by the better runners! I did find an early and late model Ford for the upcoming mail in tournament, though!
The cold weather change maybe a contributing factor, but my race box has stopped being consistent. Cars are gaining 6 places on one day and losing them back the next day. Oh well! I also found a bunch of other Fords (mostly Mustangs) to do some mods on this past week. Did some tune ups and mods on them and none of the modifications made a big difference in the all ready faster cars. One of my best even slowed down!!! The other slower ones - yes they did improve overall, but not enough to keep them in the race box though. Oh well! Mrs Fox wants to stroll through Wally World today - maybe there will be some more Fords out to pick from.
better racing through testing....proven again.....
good on ya!