Last updated on Wednesday November 27, 2002



Introduction
    Hello and welcome to Slim's Mini-Z page, the official site of Slim's Mini Speedway. My main hobby is racing remote control cars. In the summer I race on my lunch break with a few guys at work. We race 4WD 1/10th scale remote control cars. If you want to see our setup you can check out VPGRacing. On friday night I can be found at Groupe Radio Contrôle St-Roch racing my Team TC3 in the 4WD sedan class. In the winter here in Canada we have to move inside for racing and since the GRCSR offers 4WD Sedan racing only on week-ends, I don't have a place to run my 1/10th scale car. So I decided to get myself a car small enough I could race it inside my own home So I went out and got myself a Mini-Z. The Kyosho Mini-Z is a serious racing machine in 1/24th scale. If you look at the pictures below you can see how small it really is. I built a racetrack in my basement (actually a crawl space at 4 feet high) and we try to race every week. On this page I will be putting some pictures ,video and info on various little mods that make these little cars really fun to race.

 Click on any pictures to get a larger version.


My Car
    Let me introduce you to my Mini-Z. It's approximatly 1/24th scale. It goes between 15-25 Km/h depending on the gear used. Stock out of the box it's about 15Km/h; but some people change the motor and get much faster speeds. The default motor is plenty fast if your track is not that big. My Mini-Z is a RED Nissan Skyline GT-R. Different car models are available and you can even buy just a body shell to change the look of your ride. I personally like the skyline body, it's light and very stable because of it's weelbase.

    I got myself a spare body because mine was getting wrecked after a season of racing. I also gave my old body a new look using some stripes...

   


The Crew
I have Seven other friends that own mini-z's and race them at Slim's mini speedway.. Here are a few pictures of our mini-z. After months of racing you can notice a few scratches on our cars. :-)


The Track
    The track is located in a crawl space in the basement. The room is about 18 feet by 14 feet with a headroom of  4 feet. This forces us to sit to drive. The track was built to prevent the cars from cutting corners. I have built two different track. The first one I built was made from various scraps of wood that were lying around my garage. To make the turns I used a jigsaw to cut plywood and press wood to shape the curves. After attaching the various pieces together; I nailed a 2 inch strip of 1/8 inch thick hardboard ( the stuff used to make bottom of drawers) to the side of the press wood/plywood pieces. You can see below what that gives.

    The traction of the bare concrete was pretty good for me but my freind BROCHEW had a terrible time with his Audi-TT. His car kept sliding in the turns making it hard to control the car. So I set out to add sheets of tar paper to the track. The idea for using tar paper has to be credited to the Mini Z Guy at the G.P. Mini Zway. Here is a picture after the tar paper was installed and a closeup of the two cars with remote.

    We later realised that the reason for the TT's bad handling was it's short wheelbase and the tires that came with the kit. When we changed the tires on the car it became quite driveable.

    The problem with the original track was that the layout was fixed. The parts were assembled together using screws and nails and the layout could not easily be changed. After racing for a full season on that layout we needed a change. So I set out to build a track that would use modular pieces so I could change my layout. Another problem with the track was that the TAR paper offered way too much traction. It was very easy to flip the car when cornering too fast. For that reason I decided my second track would not use TAR paper. I built it straight on the cement. The last lesson learned from the original track was that hardboard is HARD! When the car hits the wall of the track it makes a loud noise and my wife does not like to hear the "pock" noises while we race! I decided my new track would be equipped with foam covered walls to reduce noises. I used Flexi-Foam sheets from Fibre Craft. They come in sheets of 12"x18" (30cm x 45cm) approximately. I got them at Wall-Mart for less than $1.00 Canadian each. I cut them with an exacto in strips of 1 1/2 inch.

    So here is what the new track looks like.

    The red and white stuff is the foam I was referring to. Here are a few explanations on how I built the track. I am using plywood 3/4 inch for the sides of the track. All pieces are straight and 4 inches wide. This makes building the pieces much simpler.   I then setup a jig in my press drill to make 3/4 inch holes. This enables me to quickly manufacture all the pieces.

    Then I attached the wall of the track to these plywood pieces. Just like in my first design, I used hardboard for the walls. I attached them using finishing nails.

    These plugs are made from 3/4 Inch pegs. On the other side I nailed a 6 inch piece of plywood as a joiner, the holes match the ones in the other pieces of trackThis is how it comes together.

    To save on wood and keep the design simple I build my curves by nailing the hardboard to small plywood pieces that have the required holes in them to attach to the rest of the track. The first picture show some 180 degree curves. The second one show 90 degree curves that have the foam attached to the sidewall. The third picture shows a close-up of the inside of a 90 degree curve. Here are the pieces of foam before I started gluing them to the track


Tips

Longer Antenna
   The first modification we made to our cars is to change the standard antenna by a longer one. You can use very small diameter piano wire and make an antena that will be about 12 inch long. Just cut a 14 inch long peice. Bend it to the right shape and dont forget to bend the tip back on itself to avoid getting hurt on the tip. Please see the pictures below for details.

Running More Then 6 Cars at a Time

    The Kyosho Mini-Z run on the 27Mhz band. On this band there are only 6 channels available. If you need to run more then 6 cars at a time there is an old trick you can use. Simply swap your receiver crystal and you transmitter crystal. Trust me it works!

Use NiMh or NiCad Batteries

    The only other trick I have for now is to use NiMh batteries of NiCad if you can't find the NiMh batteries. Of course it's cheaper than buying new Alkalines every time. But you car will actually be faster with the NiMh (or NiCad). The NiMh can deliver more instantaneous AMPs than the Alkaline ever could. So when you punch the trottle with NiMh your car will really go. Also the Alkalines loose their power slowly over time instead of sharply at the end like the NiMh. What this means is that with Alkaline your car will run slower and slower as you race. With my NiMh the car feels just as fast after 5 minutes then after 30 minutes; no so with the alkalines. We use 650 mah and 750 mah NiMh and they last about 45-55 minutes in the car.

Videos

Race of 14th of December     In the land of Giants #1     In the land of Giants #2

Links

Flagdan's Mini-Z Page      G.P. mini Zway     MiniZclub    Pulse Race Team    MiniZ Workshop    mini rc cars    Martini Racing

 Kyosho


E-Mail

slim_jlp@yahoo.com