FLY Dodge Viper GTS-R

The two cars appear to have been produced at almost exactly the same time, but ― very much in typical old FLY fashion ― quality-control issues resulted in a significant difference in their overall condition. Structurally they were identical ― both third-generation FLY Vipers ― and yet the chassis rigidity between the two cars was completely different.

The blue A206 chassis was so soft that it would actually flex enough to alter the wheelbase under load. As a result, the pinion at the end of the driveshaft would move around fore-and-aft as well as side-to-side, and combined with the peaky high-rpm characteristics of the motor, it became extremely prone to stripping crown gears.

So the very first thing I did was reinforce the overly flexible chassis by adding roughly 2 mm piano-wire braces inside the side sills on both sides.

The green A209 used the same chassis design, and the chassis itself was certainly not especially rigid to begin with, but this one didn’t require additional bracing at all. Perhaps the plastic compound itself was somehow different from the A206 chassis.

On both cars, the stock wheels and axles actually seemed perfectly usable without replacing everything with high-performance aftermarket parts from companies like Slot.it. I simply fixed the front stub axles at an appropriate negative camber angle, rounded the edges of the front tires, and replaced the rear tires with N22s before truing them.

Driving them now, it’s hard to believe how terrifying they felt back when I had only just entered the slot-car hobby around 2005–2008. Back then, they honestly felt almost undrivable. But today, they no longer feel particularly intimidating.

Even the peaky motor characteristics turned out not to be that difficult, as long as I was mentally prepared for them beforehand.

Maybe that simply comes from having spent the last twenty years wrestling with far more troublesome cars.

Well… I suppose that’s what experience points are.

That said, I should probably add one thing: even today, I still think these are extremely difficult and temperamental cars for beginners. Modern slot-car racing now offers an abundance of excellent tires, convenient tuning parts, and specialized tools compared with back then, but even so, these remain cars from an era when you truly had to work on them properly to make them run well.