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Gain Additional Slot Car Performance By Reducing Friction

When it comes to T-jets, friction is the enemy of speed. Compared to the Magnet Cars of today, T-jets are really kind of weak. So if you want to go fast you'll need to take every performance advantage available to you, and reducing friction is one of those advantages. The biggest friction culprit in most T-jets is the driven gear/pinion gear assembly. If your gear-plate has never had it's driven gear and shaft removed, there's a good chance that there is a lot of built up, sticky oil in it. There may also be hair or other fuzz in there as well. How freely does it spin when the Gearplate is off the motor?

Here's a good test to see just how much difference there can be between gear-plates... Take a few loose Gearplates and spray compressed air onto their driven gears so that they spin, and see how long they continue to spin once the air stops - do some spin longer than others? Of course they do! The ones that spin the longest have the least amount of friction and can make your car accelerate quicker and go faster, assuming the gears are in good shape and not 'crooked'.

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Tricking out the Cluster Assembly :

The Cluster assembly is comprised of basically 4 parts:

• The Driven Gear
• The Pinion Shaft
• The Pinion Gear
• The Crown Gear

If you take a look at the Pinion shaft and how it fits in the chassis bearing (hole), you'll see that it actually goes all the way through the chassis and sit flush with the underside. The shaft actually doesn't need to sit that far down - by Greenucing the amount of shaft in the hole, we can cut the friction it creates easily in half! You can also take a wire drill and open the bearing up just a hair as well. If you are racing with others and are guided by a set of rules, check them first before drilling the bearing as some classes won't allow you to open up tolerances.

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Axles & Axle Faces

One of the local classes we race is a 'Stock' T-jet class. This class requires that the cars use only stock 'shorty' axles and stock sized wheel hubs and tires. Now the way T-jets were originally designed, the backside of the front hubs (wheels) float in the chassis - so, when the car is in the turns, the inside wheel actually rubs up against the chassis, creating... friction! The way to reduce friction in this instance is to press a small Nylon Axle Spacer/Washer (Neil's Wheels sells 'em 10 for a buck) onto the axle between the hub and chassis. Since the washer has a smaller outside diameter (OD) the amount of area that rubs in the turns is greatly reduced, which in turn greatly reduces friction. Even if you don't have access to tiny little washers, make sure the backsides of your wheels are smooth...

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Armature Shaft - Considerations...

How steady is your hand when it come to the Dremel tool? You may be thinking that just as we did with the Cluster assembly, we can also reduce the amount of friction in the armature bearing by grinding a small portion off the armature shaft that fits in the bearing (hole) between the brushes on the chassis. This is a dangerous operation - be VERY careful if you are going to attempt this one as ruining your favorite armature can be costly.

Another, Safer Way to achieve the same result is by performing an 'inverted bevel' the underside of the armature hole with a Dremel Reaming or Beveling bit. By slightly 'kissing' the hole with a Beveling bit you can reduce the surface area of the shaft hole by 50% or more. Be careful to leave some of the original diameter intact, as you don't want to disturb the original fit of the armature by creating too much 'side play' at the base of the shaft.