1. What Gear Ratio Do I Need? For drag racing all motors except strap type group 7 open/unlimited motors will not be far off the mark using a 12, 13, 14, or 15 tooth pinion with a 46, 50, 52, or 54 tooth spur or crown gear. The group 7 motors like a 11, 12, or 13 tooth pinion with a 50, 52, or 54 tooth spur gear. Top Gun Motors like a 9, or 10 tooth pinion with a 46, 50, or 52 tooth spur gear.

2. What Kind Of Motor Should I Buy? This depends on a number of factors, track power, chassis used, and intended application. If you are racing brackets, or one of the super classes choice of motors becomes irrelevant, as the only requirement is that it is consistent. Of course if you are going to be racing in one of the heads up type classes the motor becomes more of a factor. State of the art in these types of classes changes with every passing moment and what is fast today becomes second rate tomorrow. The best advice we can give is that you check to see what are in the cars that are running at the front of the pack. Mind you this does not mean that you should take the advice of anyone that offers it. The people that offer the most advice have the least amount of good advise to offer. This is not always true but as in 1=1 scale racing " bench racing" is very popular in the smaller scales too! More often than not the people that you have to drag the answers out of will have the best information to offer even if it is a little harder to get. Also beware of the racer that will intentionally mislead you either to sell you his or her old equipment or to keep you in the position of novice to allow him or her to take advantage of you while you are racing.( "read easy pickings")

We at DRS recommend the DRS Motors. The first and only c-can motor designed by Drag Racing Specialties for drag racing.

Then you hold the front of your car with one hand and the rear of the car with your fingers up under the rear of the car. Then you roll the cars rear tires through the glue a few times, only pressing down on the car hard enough to make sure that the rear tires roll through the glue, then turn the car upside down to make sure the glue is evenly applied around the tires. Then take the car to the track and set the car down on the track perfectly straight about four inches behind the starting line. Then roll the car using your hand (perhaps holding the car using the rear body mount) down the track about six to ten feet as slow as possible to apply the glue evenly to the track.

How many times you do this depends on the type of car you race, available track power, tire width, and temperature. When you feel you have enough glue applied to the track, glue your tires one final time with a heavy coat, then set the front of the car down in the slot keeping the rear tires from touching the track. Then move the car forward until the car is staged, and then set the rear of the car down perfectly straight and race from that position. You will have to adjust how much glue you apply to both the glueboard and the track, but this is the method that works! Bogg Light for Temperatures around 30-50 Degrees. Bogg Medium for Temperatures around 50-80 Degrees. Bogg Heavy for Temperatures around 80+ Degrees. Bogg Glue can also be mixed together to get that Special Blend for your application. We stir ours with a piece of .093 wire with a small piece of flat brass stock soldered to it. Put your stirring tool in your Dremel tool and run at LOW SPEED, or you will find out why you should have run it at low speed. Battery powered Dremel tools work best for this. Tire width is absolutely critical for maximum performance. .010 difference in tire width has a profound effect on performance!

4. Chassis Not Flat? DRS chassis have a arc of about 1/8th inch front to rear to help absorb the shock of the initial take off at the starting line. So if you notice that the chassis is not completely flat, by design, it is not supposed to be. All of the ride height specifications, wheelie bar height, tire diameter, has been incorporated with this in mind. Some of the other manufacturers claim that a chassis has to be flat to work. If this is true, then it would stand to reason that they would be winning all the races, and setting the records!!

5. Brushes? Mura Big Foot 2 PERIOD.

6. Holding Bearings in Place? Never solder axle bearings. Super glue or lock tight does the job just fine. Motor bearings should be held in place with epoxy if possible. If you have to solder the bearing, be careful when doing so to prevent flux spattering into the bearing. When you are finished soldering wash the bearing completely with hot soapy water. We spin the bearing under hot water using a battery operated Dremel tool with a armature shaft. If you do not do this you may lose a bearing to flux induced corrosion.

7. Air Gap? C-can motor, .520" to .525" for drag racing. .530" to .535" for road racing (using .513"-.515" diameter armatures). Strap motor, 4 to 6 thousands on each side for a total of 8 to 12 thousands. (Add 8 to 12 thousands to you armature diameter to arrive at your air gap.) Generally tighter for drag racing and looser for road racing.

8. Cleaning at the End of a race? All that is required is taking some lighter fluid and flushing the motor out thoroughly over a garbage can. Never clean your tires. The glue keeps them conditioned. Cleaning them only dries them out. Keeping the overall appearance of your racecar clean will make it a lot easier on you when The Best Appearing Contest comes up. Having the whole car spotless will help you win every time. Don’t forget your pit area. We should always pick up our pit areas before we leave.

9. Wheelie Bar Settings? .005 to .020 for most all applications.

10. Controller? The Cidex Omni drag controller is the one winning all the races. You can get a complete controller or get the kit and make one yourself.

11. SDRA Rules? Join the SDRA by sending a $15.00 money order to Brenda Herrick Dept. SDRA PO Box 940891 Plano, TX 75094. You will receive the following: rule book, membership card, event schedule, stickers, button and a quarterly newsletter. Being a member will help in soliciting outside sponsorship. This will give scale drag racing more of a main stream exposure and help our sport/hobby with a tremendous boost.

12. Armature Timing? A timing tool will be needed for you to find out what your arms’ timing is. For drags we have found that the lower timed arms work better. The higher timed for road racing. You have to decide what works best for you. Most of the lower timed arms will be anywhere from 30 to 35 degrees, and the higher timed 36 to 45 degrees.

13. Track Power? 16 volts max. If you travel you find that track power may vary. Narrower tires and less glue should help when power is 12 to 14 volts.

14. Track Lengths? 1000-ft., 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile. Doesn’t matter what length as long as we have a place to race. Track owners will put a track up with what area they have. Giving the racers adequate shutdown for their cars. If a track has less then 15 ft. for a 1/4 mile 10 ft to 12 ft for a 1000-ft and 8 ft to 10 ft for an 1/8th mile be careful to watch how others are shutting down before running.

15. Track Locations? Call DRS and ask for track locations or pull up the Web page at www.slotcar.com

16. Braid? We have used them all and found that the one we sell to be the one to use. A little trick you might want to try is taking the braid out of the braid a quarter of an inch a straight pin or body pin works the best. Then brush it out with a braid brush. Trim off the outside edge just enough to make it look better. Don’t have the braid laying flat to the guide. Have it where it is almost to the end of the centerpiece that goes in the slot. This is important for the wheelie bar setting.

17. Braid Conditioning? We recommend using Speed Trick. Apply a drop by starting at the top of the braid and moving the bottle down. One application will last anywhere from 15 to 20 passes. Taking a clean rag and putting lighter fluid on your first two fingers and going down the length of the track to the finish line will increase your E.T. every time. Do not put braid conditioner on the track braid, only on the cars’ braid. Too much braid conditioner on the track braid may make the track braid come loose.

18. Oiling the Bearings and Bushings? There are two types of oils, bushing and bearing. We recommend using Koford. The black oil goes on the oilites and the clear goes on the bearings. Apply sparingly. The black oil works well on the front wheels and wheelie wheels. It is a good idea to put a couple of clean nuts or washers in the oil bottle to mix the oil before using. Only apply oil before racing or testing. Do not oil before every run.

19. Soldering? We have found that Stay Clean Flux (made by Harris) and 98/2, (98% tin 2% silver), solder to be the best combination to use on all solder joints except for electrical connections. For that we use 60%/40% rosin core electrical solder. Always solder in a well-ventilated area. Never breathe the fumes. After soldering always-wash areas with hot soapy water while scrubbing with an old toothbrush or whatever works to get in all areas. Doing so you will prevent rust. Don’t be afraid of getting water in the motor. After washing the solder joints, just shake or blow the water out, hook it up to the power supply, and let it run to dry it out.

20. Tires? Our tires have magnesium hubs on all 3/32" applications, unlike the competitors. We also have a full setscrew boss on the hub. Why? Glad you asked. Our competitors should think about their practice of milling flats on the sides of the setscrew boss on the hub. If they did they would find that this does reduce weight to a slight degree, it also causes the axle bore to distort as soon as you tighten the hub to your axle. This is caused by the hub stretching at the very thin spots that remain after they are milled on the side of the setscrew boss!

This is something that will cause the best of cars not to perform at the optimum level! Our answer to this was to use magnesium hubs instead. Simple, right? Not really, It took years of drag racing, and research and design to foresee the problems BEFORE we manufacture the product. We do not sell prototypes to the unsuspecting racer. We sell products that have been tested and approved by the company that was the first to offer full line commercial slotcar drag racing products. And we are still the only company that has what it takes for our customers to win at any level.

Our drag tires are made with medium diameter hubs for reasons not obvious to our competitors. These medium diameter hubs allow a flexible sidewall to help absorb the shock of the launch. Plus they do not tend to have the problem of sidewall run-out common to the small diameter hubs, once used by us, and now common in the industry. We were the first to realize that while these small hubs can work as well, they are only practical if hand built, which just is not meant for manufacturing. The tires also are made with a small radius to get that full width tire contact on the track. If you need a tire with less width we suggest rounding the tire off on the outside corner with a emery board to your desired width. This method helps if the car gets a little out of shape, it does not get up on the edge of the tire causing a severe loss of traction, but allows the car to settle back down and continue the run without deslotting.

Our tires have several more features, which makes them stand alone when it comes to drag racing tires. First is the fact that we do not spare any expense when it comes to the glue that is used, the fit of the axle, and last the quality of the tire compound used to manufacture them.

DRS TIRES HAVE BEEN THE NUMBER ONE QUALIFIER AND WINNER