Carrera Porsche RS Spyder
I collect LMP cars from the American Le Mans Series and I was very pleased when Carrera announced they would be producing not only this car but also the Audi R10, so I pre-ordered both. The news got better when I heard the cars were to be released with a new chassis, something that Carrera have needed for some time.
The car is really good looking and Carrera have done a great job on the cars appearence :-
The new chassis features a redesigned guide and braid system which works great if you want to run the car on plastic tracks with magnets, but unfortunatly performs very poorly on wooden tracks. The main problem being that the guide arc is very small, so any swinging of the tail will cause the car to deslot.
I almost gave up on the car and consigned it to my "Project Pile" for replacement of the existing chassis with a Slot.it HRS at some time in the future.
Then I had an idea of how I could rectify the problem and started work.
First I stripped the chassis down to bare plastic, removing all the Lighting boards, Main Circuit board and Guide holder. Several reasons for this, I don't like lights on my cars, (I find them a distraction) and the reversing switch Carrera always fit seems a total waste of time to me and just complicates the wiring. I was now left with a base chassis, complete with large hole where the guide holder used to live.
A new Guide holder was required and there were several options available. I could construct one from brass or PCB and fit a TSRF or Slot.it retained guide, or try and find something in my spares box. I took the latter option and came up with the front section of a PCS32 chassis. I cut the rear tongue section off with a Dremel and cutting disc, removed the front axle holders and did a check fit against the chassis. A perfect fit!.
After opening up the guide slot slightly with a round file I fitted a standard Ninco sprung guide and secured the new assembly to the chassis with two part JB Weld.
As you can see from the above photo, it all fits together very well and looks pretty neat. I added a little lead behind the new assembly to provide the guide with a little more "bite" into the corners. Standard Ninco eyelets were used to attach the new motor wires to the guide.
A view of the complete chassis:-
and a photo of the underside of the chassis. Note magnets removed and the plastic magnet retainers glued into place.
All that was left to do was to correct the "axle slop" in the rear axle that you get with almost all Carrera cars, (caused by mismatched axles and bearings), and fit new Ortman rear tyres.
The axle slop was corrected by applying a little superglue to the inside of the trar bearings which fill the void between the axle and the inside face of the bearing. Warning!..Make sure you keep turning the axle until the siperglue sets or you will end up with a solid mess.
Pendle's now sell just the front end of the PCS chassis, for around the £3 mark, so the total cost of these works, (including Ortman Tyres) was £14.
The car is now transformed and makes racing on home wooden tracks great fun.
The car is really good looking and Carrera have done a great job on the cars appearence :-
The new chassis features a redesigned guide and braid system which works great if you want to run the car on plastic tracks with magnets, but unfortunatly performs very poorly on wooden tracks. The main problem being that the guide arc is very small, so any swinging of the tail will cause the car to deslot.
I almost gave up on the car and consigned it to my "Project Pile" for replacement of the existing chassis with a Slot.it HRS at some time in the future.
Then I had an idea of how I could rectify the problem and started work.
First I stripped the chassis down to bare plastic, removing all the Lighting boards, Main Circuit board and Guide holder. Several reasons for this, I don't like lights on my cars, (I find them a distraction) and the reversing switch Carrera always fit seems a total waste of time to me and just complicates the wiring. I was now left with a base chassis, complete with large hole where the guide holder used to live.
A new Guide holder was required and there were several options available. I could construct one from brass or PCB and fit a TSRF or Slot.it retained guide, or try and find something in my spares box. I took the latter option and came up with the front section of a PCS32 chassis. I cut the rear tongue section off with a Dremel and cutting disc, removed the front axle holders and did a check fit against the chassis. A perfect fit!.
After opening up the guide slot slightly with a round file I fitted a standard Ninco sprung guide and secured the new assembly to the chassis with two part JB Weld.
As you can see from the above photo, it all fits together very well and looks pretty neat. I added a little lead behind the new assembly to provide the guide with a little more "bite" into the corners. Standard Ninco eyelets were used to attach the new motor wires to the guide.
A view of the complete chassis:-
and a photo of the underside of the chassis. Note magnets removed and the plastic magnet retainers glued into place.
All that was left to do was to correct the "axle slop" in the rear axle that you get with almost all Carrera cars, (caused by mismatched axles and bearings), and fit new Ortman rear tyres.
The axle slop was corrected by applying a little superglue to the inside of the trar bearings which fill the void between the axle and the inside face of the bearing. Warning!..Make sure you keep turning the axle until the siperglue sets or you will end up with a solid mess.
Pendle's now sell just the front end of the PCS chassis, for around the £3 mark, so the total cost of these works, (including Ortman Tyres) was £14.
The car is now transformed and makes racing on home wooden tracks great fun.
