So recently my Dad and I have been getting back into slot car racing. We’ve been going through all of our old cars and getting them going again.
I have a pair of Scalextric Datsun 260Zs; The one kindly sent to me by Craig Hamnett (which I wrote about here: https://motorsportformentalhealth.com/2017/06/20/quick-restorations-scalextric-metros-and-datsun/ ) is running perfectly. I have a second blue car, which I don’t think has ever appeared on this blog, which somewhere along the line managed to suffer a snapped chassis.
I had a look on eBay for a replacement chassis and found a company called Wirral Slot Racing (WSR3D) who make 3D printed updated chassis for lots of old Scalextric cars, so you can put different running gear in them and you can make them handle a little better.
Here is their eBay store: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/wsr3d-online?_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2559
As I have the other standard Datsun to race my Dad’s standard Datsun, and I have a tonne of fast motors and bits from the days I was more into slot cars, I thought it might be fun to make a bit of a hotrod from this one. So I ordered the chassis!
It’s actually a really nice kit! Everything fitted together with no modification required, and WSR provide a lot of spacers which allows you to tune various aspects of the chassis. I used mine to stop the side to side movement in the front axle and I raised the front of the motor pod slightly to give the car a little extra clearance on the ‘classic’ style Scalextric track.
Another adjustment that I really like is at the front. You can set the height of the front axle using these little grub screws. I left about half a millimetre between the axle and top screw to allow it to spin freely if the front wheels hit the track.
WSR provide a number of motor pods so you could use the standard Scalextric motor if you wished or and NSR or Slot It mabuchi can.
The pod I opted for was the advertised ‘Flat 6’ style pod. I had this yellow can motor in stock and remember it being fast. I thought it was an Avant Slot Hurricane, but that’s clearly not the case, so if anyone happens to know what the motor is, please get in touch and I’ll edit that in.
With such a posh looking chassis it seemed a sin to leave the body as it was. As there was a lot of red in the chassis I decided to repaint the body to be somewhat like the Safari rally car.
Thankfully all the separately fitted parts of the shell just pop out. I was able to get rid of a lot of the dirt around the headlights with a little warm water and a soft brush attachment on my Dremel.
The top coat is VW Mars red with a lacquer over the top.
The final result! The painted detail and black bonnet were done with Vallejo acrylic paint. The number boards are layered vinyl that I made with my vinyl cutter and the decals were ones that I had in storage.
I decided to use a few yellow decals as the motor and driver’s helmet are yellow, so it ties it all in together.
The difference that this conversion makes is incredible. The car handles so much better with the WSR chassis than standard. On the flat and smooth ‘Sport’ style Scalextric track the difference is particularly noticeable. I have set this car up to run on both ‘Sport’ and ‘Classic’ track as we use both, but I think you’ll get the most out of this chassis if you just run on sport track or even a wooden track.
I think I will be doing more of these in the future. I reckon a Clubman Mini might be the next to be built but we’ll have to see what comes along at swap meets or on eBay.
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By Richard Francis
Excellent blog, really enjoyed it!