Old Skool HOPRA Unlimited The car below is obviously a hand-made. Before the days of 'readily available' parts, this is what racers had to go through to get a fast car. This example is from Rod B. of Minnesota. It is built off of a Tyco Turbo Hopper chassis and a carbon-fiber plate from Scale Auto. The armature is a rare Lovell. The car originally had un-coated rock-hard sponge rear tires. More up to date tires were installed for testing. All of this work only yields a car that would not even be competitive in today's Modified classes.
6-Magnet Slottech Unlimited Cheetah
The Unlimited class as it is today may have a questionable life-span. To be competitive requires substantial knowledge and resources. The advent of the Scale Auto snap together Dop-In Neo class gives racers pause as to why anyone would want to start up into Unlimited racing. That said, the 6 magnet Slottech Cheetah is a fine example of a factory-built Unlimited car. In the right hands with the right parts it was quite competitive - perhaps even today. But in this Cheetah's mild state of de-tune, a well-built Scale Auto Drop-In Neo car is as fast or faster with less hassle.
Wizzard P-3 Neo Car
This is an interesting example of a Wizzard "Drop-In" Neo car. This was found on eBay for $35.00 and will be going to a foreign buyer. He's wanting it for some of the parts. The chassis is a rear-axle ball-bearing design. It has a steel pinion and a bronze crown gear. The armature is of an unknown make. But the armature does have a machined ring placed on the commutator to keep it from flying apart. Generally as it sits, the car is un-usable. The chassis is too flexible to keep the gears meshed. The small brush barrel electrics don't seem to be able to get the motor up to speed. It is a far stretch between this and the new BSRT "Drop-In" car.
Spicy South of the Border Tyco 440 Neo Unlimited
Our Mexican Connection sent this one in. It makes you appreciate today's snap-together cars. It is an old 440x2 set up for Neo Unlimited racing. Specs are: 1) Tyco Wide-Gap selected armature 2) Neo traction magnets adapted and glued to the rear motor bulkhead 3) Neo motor magnets adapted and glued to the chassis sides 4) 7 tooth pinion and 18 tooth Tyco Pro green crown gear 5) Bushing adapted and glued into the bulkheads 6) Front and rear guide pins 7) Standard Tyco rubber tire front and rear 8) Bodies fabricated from Aluminum soda cans
3 Ohm Ceramic/Polymer Modified
The car below was built to UFHORA 3 Ohm Modified specifications.Broadly that is a car with ceramic motor magnets, an armature that rates 3 ohms or higher, and machined ‘Level 25’ polymer traction magnets.Specifically this car was built on a BSRT G3-R stiff chassis, all-gold electrics with a shunt wire system, 7’ of 37 Spinner armature running ball bearings, 7/22 Delrin gears, and “Rock” rear tires. This car was run by me for most of the races in the 2010 UFHORA season.I was fortunate enough to win the 3 Ohm class championship.I doubt it would have been possible without this particular car. The material that the machined polymer magnets was made from has not been available to HO manufactures for several years now.Regardless of ones likes or dislikes of machined polymer material, the future for high-magnet cars will be with molded polymer and machined neo materials.So going into 2011 it will be difficult for racers to build cars like this. The HOPRA national organization recognizes this and has created the Compression Molded Polymer Modified class.Going forward I will be moving my racing efforts the Florida HOPRA group to run this new class.Early testing has shown that the Compression Molded cars give up little speed to the former Level 25 cars.
