drop arms

[dretceterini]

Fate (and all)

Yes the drop arms I first used had far too much drop, but I still think that a car with a drop arm works better...maybe today 1/8 inch is all that is needed.

The pans and the certer section are all huinged too...and wear...so why single out drop arms and the fact they can break?

I agree that slot cars BASICALLY operate as tripods, but I hink that on a bumpy track with lots of ups and downs, a drop flag or drop center section HELPS keep the guide in the slot..

Stu

[pbj59]

Have you guys ever used the MJK chassis ( available from Pattosplace.com ) that has a drop arm with limited travel? The one I have is 1/24 but I believe he sells a 1/32 also.
Roy

[Prof Fate]

Hi

After you quit, I went through the same thinking on this. the bit about the wheels touching, the bit in your post above.
But things just did not work out.
One thing that occurs to me is this: what sort of track roughness would ONLY affect the wheels and not the guide so that the drop would do something?
People who know me at tracks, like Rad in Vegas, KNOW I am obsessed with braid recess so that I can set up my cars. Some tracks do not require the fronts to Touch and Roll, those are easy. Where touch and roll IS required, then the "trick" is to set the car up so that it Just barely qualifies.
Back in the 60s, most routed tracks were flush. Stromie track has a slightly raised rail, Scaley even more, Revell was flush. These days, commercial tracks are built with a .010 to .025 recess on the braid. When I say commercial tracks, I mean commercially routed tracks. It is pretty common these days for home 1/32 racers to have Dadds or someone build them a track. Most are 10 to 15 thou, but I did run on an Ogilvie a few years ago that was .025.
Anyway, the slop in the other hinges is a GOOD thing. Just not the drop arm. If you want, I will go into the slop in the other hinges thing.
My posts are already too long!

Fate

[dretceterini]

I'll just buy a commercial chassis kit first than start trying things. If I have to build a half dozen chassis, no big deal....just looking for a starting place based on today's technology

Thanks,
Stu

[danl318]

Sounds like the focus here is commercial tracks. Any thoughts about drop arms for cars running on home tracks? Would you try to use a brass chassis like the Parma International? How about bashing something together from existing plastic chassis (Fly, Scaley, etc.) or building from scratch?

danl318

[Larry LS]

All of the above danl318 just forget the drop arm bit. Try an Iso Ful crum type as an option. Kit bashing, scratch built or modified stock can work for you at home if it suits you. Keep experimenting till it works, thats more than half the fun of home track racing or anywhere else, if you like to.

Improvise, improvise, enjoy enjoy enjoy.

[ambrit]

In the days of yore, drop arms were the thing, but not anymore.
Today the tracks are smooth enough they are not needed. It's just another trouble spot in your chassis to worry about. Drops cameabout because of the crudely built tracks of the early sixties but by the end of the decade the builders of tracks had mastered their trade to the point there were no, or at least very little, rough tracks that dipped so bad that a drop arm was needed.
I won my championship using a drop arm with enough weight on it to use aftwards as a weapon.
Nope, today I love my little plastic chassis that are totally unforgiving stiff little things with no hinges at all to worry about. Don't win many races but who cares, I'm having a great time racing. :D

[jake]

At Don's hobby hut (ONtario,CA) where I used to hang out in '63, EVERYBODY ran with drop arms and when I built my first slotcar it used a Pittman DC704(all-in-one sidewinder with gear) on my brasstube chassis in a Strombecker Ferrari GTO body(1/32). The wheelie-bar (correct nomenclature) was powered with rubber bands and when that thing accelerated out of the bank it was with the front-end in the breeze; sometimes it would fishtail back and forth but thanks to the powered drop arm it rarely lost the slot. Wish I still had that car...

That was the last drop-arm car I ever built.
Regards/jj

[dretceterini]

It seems to be the consensus that drop arms are not needed, but are we talking about on "true" scale cars with skinny rear tires, no wings of any kind, and no glue allowed, running on "home tracK' type stuff such as Carrera, Scalextric, or similar track?

Based stritcly on THEORY, the kind of car I am spaeking about SHOULD work better with a bit of drop in the guide (either arm or center section) to kill a little bit of the oversteer created from skinny little tires and no wing to keep the back end planted...

Stu

[ambrit]

Stu and all,
Yes, true scale 1/32nd cars are what I meant. Drop arms were meant to keep the guide planted in the slot. I don't see where it would help much keeping the rear wheels planted. Silicone tires would do much better.
I'm not sure I understand the theory of understeer and oversteer in relation to slot cars. Seems to me the car is going to follow the slot and the only control, other than speed, would be to have good tires on the rear to maintain the correct track. :o
I am working on an Iso which is my second in 40 years in slot racing so this is new to me too. This might give the results that you were looking for.

[Prof Fate]

Hi Stu
Every year a bunch of us from all over go to vegas for the slot car convention. We have done 4. We do a lot of vintage racing, 1/32 SCALE racing, And various challenges.
One class we do every year is for 50s f1s. I have a car that has won all the races on the short routed track, the Blue King and is the car I run On Gorps track and everywhere else.
It is a 1965 vintage Monogram F1 with a stock x88 motor under a Lancia Ferrari body(see the photos at Rad Trax). The frame had a drop arm that got soldered up when new, the orginal was to flexy! Anyway, with 3/16ths wide tires, an under 2" track, with 15/16th rear diameter and 7/8th front, Tall and Skinny sure applies. However, this is a quick easy driving car that does well on EVERYTHING. In the last three years alone, it has run on every type of track available past or present except Eldon, and bunches of routed track.
The point being is that it is simple and works and drop arms don't.

Fate

[Tropi]

The smoothest driving car I ever had was one of those Monogram Ferraris! Straight out of the box, it beat everything, including much faster cars, just because it was so easy to drive - virtually idiot-proof. Everything felt "just right" about it. The tracks I used in the 60s were not pool-table smooth and I loved the drop arm set-up. But I never drove it any other way to compare.
Ah . . . sweet memories! :)

[dretceterini]

VERY INTERESTING..

A stock XP88 is still winning after 30+ years...

Guess I will have to build something and DESTROY you!! :D :p

I really prefer 50s sports cars to GP...but...

...and just where do you find XP 88 (or similar) motors today?? They should still be a LOT better than the stuff with no real end bell and crap brushes...

PS: Have you tried unsoldering the drop arm and setting it up with something like 1/8-1/4 inch of drop, maybe with just a bit of weight on the guide flag?

Stu

PS: I am not a collector, so I won't pay $200 for a Monogram 1/32nd F1 kit...

[oldgrrl]

One of the issues I see around the use of drop arms is that it's impossible to limit the arm to movement in a single plane (up/down). Invariably, you end up with movement side-to-side and in a yaw manner, if not at first, then as the "joint" gets mileage on it. Whether you believe this slop is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

My take on it is that the increasing slop changes the handling of the car over time, and compensating for it can greatly complicate setup of the car. One of the reasons why Iso-type cars work is that the relationship of guide to rear axle stays the same. Instead of varying the position of the guide relative to the back axle, the Iso chassis allows the position of the front axle and body to change. The guide can follow the slot, but it's relationship to the rear axle doesn't change.

What I'm driving at is that it's easier for me to set up a car (using weights, tires, gearing) where the guide to rear axle relationship isn't flutuating. Makes for a car that's probably more drivable.

All that having been said, I still have several Cox cars, most of which have drop arms. I like how they work, but I also suspect they might be better if I glued their drop arms in place.

- Susan

[cheater]

Originally posted by oldgrrl
One of the issues I see around the use of drop arms is that it's impossible to limit the arm to movement in a single plane (up/down). Invariably, you end up with movement side-to-side and in a yaw manner, if not at first, then as the "joint" gets mileage on it. Whether you believe this slop is good or bad is a matter of opinion.
(snip)


Susan, we always minimized the slop and wear by soldering the piano wire shaft to the drop arm and making the chassis "bushings" it rotated in as long as practical. I have chassis decades old without any noticeable slop in the drop arms.

If the shaft rotates in the drop arm, yes, slop will develop pretty quickly.

[Rotorranch]

Yeah.......what Cheater said. :D When the pivot shaft is not fastened securely to one of the mount holes, it will wear out both mount holes much quicker. Fixing it to the chassis, rather than the drop arm, makes a stronger, more reliable mounting position, and will wear less.

Susan...you'll like the Cox mag chassis cars if you tape the drop arm to the chassis. We used "Slot Racers Duct Tape", ie strapping tape. Makes a world of difference!

The only use for a drop arm today, IMHO, is for something like the Champion aluminum chassised, 36D powered, reproduction bodied "Little Red Wagon" wheelie stander car I built my son a few weeks back. It's fun to watch it wheelie all the way down the straight when he punches it! ;) And folks will walk over to the track and watch and say "That's cool". And that may be why drop arms happened to begin with! I remember it sure was fun watching my K&B Ford Gt40 wheelie up the track when I was a kid, but it sure went better when I taped the drop arm to the chassis!

Rotor

[dretceterini]

First, I consider an ISO type chassis to HAVE a drop arm (OK, drop center section). Maybe I was the one to invent ISO, but I think it was being used on the west coast first.

The most successful car I ever built (circa 1964) was a 1/32 inline ISO-fulcrum, but the ISO section and "wheel carrying" section were of brass sheet, and not wire. This car never lost a race in about 4 years of running it at every event where there was a 1/32nd GP class.

The motor of this car was a Strombecker Destroyer that I had hand wound 45 of 31 double (the Pittman 196 clone with magnets at both ends). Gearing varied from track to track, but generally was in the 3.5:1 to 4.5:1 range. Double winds were thought to produce more "torque" than single winds..and it was easier to wind something like 45 of 31 double than 45 of 28 single; at least for me...easier to "bend" thinner wire...

The body on this "invincible" car was a Du-Bro Lancia Ferrari (the later version where the side-pod gas tanks were not seperate from the center of the car; like the Hawk plastic one)...painted yellow instead of red...I think the driver of the car was "Jelly Bean" Gendebien (sp?) who was Belgian and hence, a yellow Ferrari "team" car. The cockpit of the car was cut out, and a modified Revell 1/32nd "head and arms" driver was used...the seat belts were sanded off...as none were used at the time of the "real car". I wish I still had this car today, but it was a gift to Irwin Berger, one of the Strombecker Team members, when I left Chicago in 1968...I have no idea where he or the car is today.

The pans and the side and everything else in the chassis was hand cut brass, in a shape to fit and fill up the entire bottom of the body...from the bottom of the car, it looked like many of todays RTRs such as a Fly car...there was nothing really showing except the motor armature..

In sports I ran many similar cars, both inline and sidewnder (anglewinders weren't being used as yet in 1/32nd), both with inline motors and with hand wound Strombecker Hemis.

I started racing circa 1958-59, with things like Bonner servo motor powered cars. I even built a 1/24th Auto Union D type GP car using a Pittman 85 6 volt motors with cut down motor segments..like what was being used by Gene Husting (who later formed Associated RC) in slot drags at the time..

Later I almost exclusively used Pittmans and modified Pittmans (hand wound or with a Pittman 65-6 volt arm stuck in in a 196A), and even tried Pittman 704s and Revell Pittman 66-6 volts. I thought the Revell Pittman 77 was too big and heavy for 1/32nd, and it pretty much turned out that was pretty much the case for the 704 with integral sidewinder rear axle.

Circa 1963 the 196B with top rather than side brushes came out in both 12 and 6 volt versions...The motor was better than the 196A, as it had cast aluminum rear axle holder rather than a brass one, but the brushes on top rather than on the side made the motor too tall to fit in some 1/32nd GP bodies.

Circa 1964, when the Strombecker Team was founded, I used Strombecker motors exclusively. The inline 196 clones came first, and than the Hemis. The 5 and 7 pole versions were created due to the fact tat at that time it was thought an arm with more poles or with a skewed arm was "smoother". I think the 5 and 7 pole arms motors cost Strombecker something like 4 to 6 cents more than the 3 pole arm!!!

This was about the same time the Monogram F1 cars came out with the XP-88 "small" Mabucchi. My cars blew them away!

Strombecker was going to come out with a chassis similar to the design I am speaking of, but they wee too cheap! The hemis only cost them something like 20 cents as a kit, and 35 cents as a built motor!!

As far as chassis, what Strombecker came out with was very similar to what Monogram was doing with their 1/32nd and 1/24th sports car chassis..not my design, but a "crib job" of the Monogram!!

I don't remember who designed the Monogram chassis, but probibly Gene Wallingford, Pete Hagenbush, or Dick Dobson on some kind of contract deal..as far as I am aware, none of them ever actually worked for Monogram. I was still in high school at the time. I graduated high school in September of 1964, and got my BA at Northwestern in June of 1968..

Stu

[Bwaminispeed]

"The motor was
better than the 196A, as it had cast aluminum rear axle
holder rather than a brass one"

Slight correction,196As and Bs both had cast axle brackets.

The 196A had a 1/8 axle hole cast right into the Bracket,whereas the 196B had 1/4 in holes cast in the Bracket and came with 1/4 X 1/8 Bronze Bushings installed for the rear axle

The orriginal 196 had the Brass Bracket

Beat you to that one Rocky:b

[dretceterini]

BWA:

I thought the 195 had no bracket, the 196 had a brass rear axle holder, the 196A was just an upgrade of the 196, and the 196B had the brushes on top and the cast aluminum rear axle bracket...than again, it's been 35 years...

Stu :D

PS: where can I find a catalogue of your wheels with photos...web site address? I am especially looking for real wire wheels in 1/32nd scale, especially fairly narrow ones for 1930s-1950s GP and sports-racing cars...kind of like a modern version of the old Russkit wheels...

[Bwaminispeed]

Yes,the 196 may have indeed been"Bracketless"

I have never actually seen one,but I do have about 10 196As,and approximately 45 196Bs.

This is the closest thing I have right now,am working on a proper catalogue/BWA Products WebSite.

http://members.fortunecity.com/bwaminispeed/scaleslotcars/id18.html.

Am working on some skinny wheels 3/16 wide with Etched spokes.Project has been stalled for a few months,while I was working out production problems with my regular line of wheels.That is all done now,and I have all sizes of my standard wheels in stock and ready to ship(just dealling with the backlog of backorders,and want to thank everybody for thier patience regarding this)

Should be able to get back to the Skinny Wheels real soon.

[oldgrrl]

Stu -
Considering an Iso chassis to have a "drop arm" is one way to look at it. I was interpreting "drop arm" to mean an arm that holds the guide and that moves up and down independently of the rest of the chassis. A lot of the '60's RTR cars had these at one point.

Cheater and Rotor -
I purposely over-stated the problems associated with building a drop arm, but I was trying to make a point. Adding one complicates the design (you do have to keep the hinge square in two planes and provide sufficient material to keep it that way), and particularly for folks who aren't skilled builders, it's probably more trouble than any potential benefit you might derive. Other than the wheelie car that Rotor mentioned - way cool! :D - what does it really do for you, particularly with smooth tracks? One of Ambrit's posts addressed this.

A sad-but-true story... When I was much younger, I had a car with a drop arm, a ladder-style frame made of punched aluminum, with a rewound 36D motor and a vac-formed body. It was WAY fast for it's time. I was racing with some friends and got nerfed at the end of the longest straight. The car went airborne, and over the track wall. Except that the drop arm caught the wall on the way out - it looked like a pretzel when I picked it off the floor. I was never able to straighten the arm and frame sufficiently to restore the car's previous performance. :( Broke a Cox F1 chassis under similar circumstances later.

Brass and piano wire can be vulnerable too, but I guess that's what soldering irons are for.. :rolleyes:

- Susan

[ambrit]

Rocky:
I remember reading one of Robert Schleicher's articles in Car Model??, where he says to solder up the drop arm on the Mono F-1 chassis and also add some brass plate under the X-88 between the motor and the chassis. Well I found that the brass offset the motor too much when mounted as he says so I added mine under the chassis plate and still had enough clearance between it and the track surface. My track, my rules and all it has to do is clear the track which is a smooth plastic Revell.
The two F-1's, the Lotus and Ferrari 158 sold for something like $7.98 and have been well worth the cost over the years. I hope I can say the same for the Euro cars of today in years to come. I probably won't be here 35 years from now anyway but maybe someone will be around to enjoy my collection.
I do have one little slot racer in a grandson who just turned six and spent two solid days racing rental cars at Rotor's track. I even let him race in the rental car race where he finished dead last. He didn't know it, all he knew was that he got to race on the big track! Get them young and you have them forever. We need more youngsters slot racing and working on their cars. Maybe then some of them will learn about the way things really work instead of cyber space fanticies. But that is another thread.

[ryan540]

What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of using drop arms??

[Bwaminispeed]

"What are the Advantages/Disadvantages of using drop
arms??"

There are no Advantages,only Dissadvantages.:p

If you want your car to deslot on the corners easily,then use a Drop Arm.:D

If you want your car fast and smooth,then don't use one.:p :D

[Prof Fate]

The 195 was just a smaller DC6? motor. The Dc 60-62-63-63m-66 were all the same. The 195 was just smaller with the same size half inch arm as a 3 pole(all the 60s were 5 poles). The brass bracket was added to make the 196. The 196A used a cast pot metal axle carrier with the brushes on top. The 196B used a similar carrier but the brush carrier was lowered a but by putting the springs UNDER the carrier rather than on top(mostly in response to customer complaints which lowered it about 3/32 inch. It used a hotter "8volt" wind.
The Strombecker "Scuttler" was so much a copy of the 196 that everything on each bolts onto the other. The ONLY real problem with the scuttler was the way the axle carrier was mounted. On the scuttler, this was a flimsy stamped bit. Cheap improvement was to solder in the braket to the rails and reinforce it with little plates. My only currenly running scuttler has been in operation sicne 65 this way.

Prof Fate .......see next message

[dretceterini]

and IMO the 66 is too heavy for 32nd...OK for 24th...

IMO the 77 is too heavy for either (at least today)..

Way back (circa 1962-1963) I did run a 1/24th Stormer Auto Union D-type with a Kemtron chassis and a cut down Pittman 85 6 volts, ala Gene Husting in slot drags..

The tyre I used on the rears was the real rubber ones from the AMT 1958 Chevy plastic kit! They worked GREAT at that time...I wonder how they would work today..or if you could even find them where they weren't hard as a rock...

Stu

[Prof Fate]

I adored the Mono F1 when it came out. Where I was, still in high school, they were 5.95, I had a part time job, and various relatives had given me birthday money. This was 65.
I was amused by Stu disparaging the cheap cost of the stromie upgrades. One of my "gifts to myself" was the Stromie Mercedes W154 with a Scuttler. Having worked at all levels of business in my dodderage, I know that a $.05 increase in costs means 30cents at the retail. In 1965, this represented some 3 hours at the grocery bagging groceries for my buddy SAM.
In 1965, a Pittman 196 cost as much as a Whole Mono F1 kit. AND THAT MENT that when the Mono F1 came out I could buy a number of them and build up my favorite F1s Quickly. For Fun.
So, and I still have them, I built the Ferrari 158 pretty stock and the Lotus 33 pretty stock(although they have long ago shed their fake gearbox covers! and BUILT my favorites, the 61 Ferrari 156 "Sharknose" and the 56 Lancia Ferrari with the Dubro bodies. When these were no longer current, the shops were clearing them out for a Dime each and I had purchased STACKS. of them. I love these cars.
In this period, I was pro racing and building, the pro cars paid for MY racing and MY hobbies. I approached the set up of the Mono's like a pro car and it worked! People raced them at Vegas and will testify that they still run well.

If you go to the Convention coverage at the Rad Trax site, the Lancia on the end, my annual winner, is the old mono>>>>>

Set up:Put the car together following the instructions(well, after blue printing the X88). Replace the guide with the old Dynamic 659 or the modern MRRC replacement copy which takes modern plug in braid. Replace the gears with Cox. Set braid flat. Sit flat on the track. AND SOLDER UP THE DROP ARM IN POSITION. Pull the front wheels off, invert the frame, file the axle carrier to allow the axle to float and NOT carry anything, just roll along. Put back together add about 10gms of lead in the space between the motor endbell and the front axle. If the car is wider than this, add outriggers and pin tube mounts.
Then, with everything straight and true, solder up all screw mounts, connections and so on.
Every few years, rebuild the motor. Car runs quick and welll almost everywhere for, well, DECADES!

Fate

[dretceterini]

just bemoaning that my stuff is all long gone, and that old stuff is VERY expensive today..

I did the masters for many of the DuBro bodies, but many, if not most, were pantograph jobs off old toys. Some were basically molds taken off the 1/24 Merit plastic kits.

So, you want to sell me some of your extra DuBro bodies at a reasonable price? One of my favorites was the Gordini GP car from 1956 in 1/32nd scale, as it was flat and low and had a medium length wheelbase. It kind of looks like the 1956 Bugatti GP car that ran only one time and was a total failure.

I also like the little cycle fendered Maserati A6 sports, but you had to scratch build the fenders and attachments, and I don't have time fot that now.

Back than, the tendency was to run the largest and flattest body that you could in a particular class. We ran 3 classes in 1/32nd in the midwest: GP+F1, open sports cars, and GT cars. Things like an early Can-Am car did NOT run with things like an AC Cobra.

Most guys would run pre-war or 50s GP cars rather than 60s cars, as a bigger motor and chassis could be used. The 62 ATS GP car was really tiny, and almost nothing would fit. Even a Monogram 88 P can wouldn't fit!!

Stu

[Prof Fate]

Hi

First on old Dubros. Actually I RACE these things. All the time. I have a few old racing buddies around the country, we get together now and again and RUN. And that means that, from time to time, the die. The old Buterate plastic will just, on a seemingly minor hit, SHATTER like glass. So, the stacks of Old Dubro, have become a FEW old Dubro......snif.
The good news is that they DO show up at various collector places and on Ebay all the time and go cheap, 4 to 8 bucks a body. The other good news is that I have supplied a lot of them to my friend John Bacon in Australia who makes fibreglas copies of things like the Gordini Stu wants.
The Other Other good news is that the Brits had the answer all along to those tiny 60s F1s with the "K's Mk1 and Mk2" motors. These have a power level much like a 13uo, but are only 3/8thinch high and wide. The Bad news is that they are difficult to find. The good news is that there are perhaps 4 people in the cosmos who want them so they are cheap.

Fate

[dretceterini]

You are one of the 3 or 4 in the world that wants Ks motors..:D ...I guess I make 5

THe XP88 will fit under many of the 60s GP bodies, but the 62 ATS GP (Shark?) was SO small even a Ks wouldn't fit!!

I am not, nor ever will become a slot "collector". These things are to RACE, IMO..

I fully understand how your stash of 100 Dubro bodies is now down to 5 or 10 :(

I just came home form the Society of Automotive Hostorians once a year literature fair at Irwindale raceway. Guess what I found there? A MINT brand new never opened Classic Slot (61 Larkfield Lane, Southport, Merseyside, England)...heck, this was back when they had 5 digit phone numbers...(the phone number on the bag topper is 29342!) Matra V-12 F1 fiberglass body (the thin stuff, no where near as thick as what Braverman did), with the 2 part drivers head. I think Charlie Fitzpatrick made this, but I'm not sure....

It's a little to late for the age of cars that I am really into, so if someone wants to offer me an interesting TRADE...otherwise I will probibly put it on e-bay..

Stu

[Prof Fate]

Hi

Yup. that Classic is a Charlie Fitzpatric.

In the recent Marconi Proxy for "modern F1", my second place car was a '67 Ferrari F1 glas body by Charlie, with a 3 pole version of the Ks, brass and aluminum frame, tradeship bevels, no drop arm and working steering. It was giving away a bunch in tire and width, but it surprised even me by liking to run on the 45 ohm parma!

probably the easy way to find this motor is look for OLD MRRC "Clubmans" from the late 70s and early 80s. They show up NOS for 50/75 bucks and run great right out of the box. And, you can use EVERYTHING. The bodies are ex-Airfix, the wheels, axles and so on are all first rate.

Fate

[TSRF]

Drop arms are as efficient as a finely tuned Edsel. All one has to do is to drive a Gar-Vic pile of junk to realise how bad they can be. Once the arm is locked solid, miracle, the car now kind of gets around the track.
In the 1960's when tracks had "russian mountains", drop arms were devised by mechanical morons as an expedient for their failure to design a proper model racing car. Subsequently, as there was less and less travel to the drop arm, cars kept getting better and faster. That is, until yours truly flattened the top-level pro-racing opposition with a car that had no drop arm at all.
It went over the mountains like if it was glued to them (which...it was!).
People ignoring history are bound to repeat the same mistakes, and this has never been truer than today, where it seems that an entire generation of teachers has been AWOL.
Drop arms NEVER worked, and anyone under such illusion needs serious psychiatric help.
Please don't come up with tall stories, the lap times will always tell the truth.
PdL
:confused:

[dretceterini]

OK, you have been racing over the last 30 years, and I have not, but on the crap tracks we had in the midwest back in the early 60s with amny hills, having a drop arm HELPED a GREAT deal, just like the early silicone tyres did when they fist were availble, circa 1966..for some reason the WHITE silicone tyres worked better than the black ones when I was racing 1/32nd back than...I have no idea what was the difference in compound..

Stu

[TSRF]

Drop arms were the expedient for overweight, unbalanced, poorly engineered lousy cars. In 1967, I proved this to myself once and for all. At that time, the best chassis off the shelf were the Dynamic alloy jobs. They were light, versatile and fast. They were however, a bit fragile...

I set up a Dynamic Mirage body (about the best you could get at that time) with a FT26 de-wound motor with ARCO mags, and a Champion end bell. The thing was a rocket and could live long enough to win a 30-minute race.
I had two chassis for it, both sidewinders. One had the Dynamic regular fixed arm, the other had the "hinged" drop arm.

The tracks used for daily races at the famous Rue Erlanger raceway in Paris were Revell huge commercial units, and they all had mountains like you would not believe, plus they were rather rough. Well, lo and behold, the fixed-arm car regularly cleaned up, and was ALWAYS better than the drop-arm car.

In 1968, we went to Germany to compete in the European Championship 1000 km race in Bad Godesberg. All the entrants except the French team had Fleishmann plastic chassis with de-wound 26D's and spring loaded drop arms, and we had a Morrissey style "jail house" job with an in-line 16D MURA. They had a 10-lane speed track with one big mountain, and ALL had to shut off to negociate this monster. Including our car with a drop arm. We could not figure how to get this thing from launching itself. Remembering my Dynamic experiment, I TAPED the arm in the up position, and we were able to go flat out through the mountain after that. Just as an experiment, I purchased one of the Fleishmann kits, assembled it (we had plenty of time on hand, think, a 1000 km race took nearly 36 hours!) and tested it on another track with and without the drop arm taped. It was definitely faster with the locked arm.
We won the race after passing the quicker German cars halfway and never looked back.

When I moved my whole kasbah (well, a small suitcase and $75.00...) to the US in 1970, I quickly joined the ranks of the USRA racers, and did like everyone else, built my cars with...a drop arm. Quickly, I locked it tighter and tighter, and the tighter I locked it, the faster the car went. By the end of 1972, I devised a whole new design without any drop arm. In 1973, no one in the US or the planet for that matter, could come close in performance to those cars, regardless if I built them or if they were clones. Read the papers from that year, it shows... That design lasted until the advent of the perimeter frames.
The drop arm was dead, forever.

In Bordeaux, I demonstrated the new TSRF32 car on a Carrera track with the humongous bridge-launch ramp. The car, that would not know what a drop arm is, negociated this as if everyone else was standing still.

As I said previously, if you HAD any benefit with a drop arm on your car, it only means that your car was not so good.
And that is putting it politely.
PdL :rolleyes:

[dretceterini]

when Morrissey and Quintana from the Russkit team came to my home raceway (Strombecker's first store, on Bronx Street in Skokie, Illinois) in 1966 or 67 with their 1/32nd scale ladder frames without drop flags and inline cans, we beat them by a considerable margain with my Strombecker rewound 2 magnet Pittman 196 clones with brass plate chassis and a drop arm that dropped about 1/4 inch. 1/32nd: Us 1 and 2; Them 3 and 4...the car that won is a car that NEVER lost a race; I used the DuBro Lancia Ferrari body, painted Belgian yellow (just to be different)

They tied us in 1/24th with similar cars; Them 1 and 3, Us 2 and 4. Our drivers were Bobby Ardvidson and my brother Scott (who hasn't raced in even longer than me.... he lives in lutefisk country, AKA Minnesota) I built the cars.

BTW, we were using the Strombecker "professional" blue color THUMB OPERATED contollers!!

Stu

PS: See you saturday AM...after I go to the Alfa national convention at the Hilton at Bristol and the 405..

[TSRF]

Try your drop arm car today agains any Flexi...
PdL

[dgersh]

Stu, PdL,
You guys are both wrong. It's not whether you have drop arms or not, but whether you have working steering on your car! Just look at all the British Model Maker magazines from 62-63, where everybody was convinced this was the only way to get around curves... in fact, on my last trip to the States I won a race at Tom Thumbs in Evanston using my 4WD, independent suspension, front-wheel steering Humber Snipe, powered by a Romford Terrier...
Don

[dretceterini]

I totally forgot about the Romford Terrier motors. I DO like cars with working steering and 4 wd, but it makes them rather fragile to wall wacks. I built some cars using the Strombecker and MRRC stuff with 4wd and working steering, but never built anything like that in "scratch"..

DGersh: I don't remember you; when were you at Tom Thumb in Evanston, as that was a track that I ran on fairly often! My "home" tracks were the Strombecker Raceway at Bronx and Dempster in Skokie, and Skokie Hobby House in downtown Skokie, next to Mancuso Chevy...before Mancuso moved near Old Orchard and became rather famous racing 1/1 scale cars. I also used to race a lot up in Highwood, near the military base, and at another track in Evanston on Green Bay Road, and a track on Depmster next to a Dairy Queen and another one on Dempster (north), just into Morton Grove from Skokie.

As to a Humber Super Snipe...was it painted brown, like one of those dreaded Ground Snipes? (OK, some of you youngsters won't get it...so way back when, in ancient times, we used to call farts "ground snipes")..


Stu

PS: The Frenchman is affecting my brain...

[TSRF]

"You guys are both wrong. It's not whether you have drop arms or not, but whether you have working steering on your car!"

How could I forget!
Of course it was.
;)