AFX Mod
 

I was weak...I was off my medication...I was going on days without sleep...so I took a drill, enlarged the rear axel mounts, and snapped in an AFX slot car rear axel. Holy Moly I thought...it just might work. And so Project Formula was born. From there I swapped the front hubs with AFX hubs and now it has slot car tires and wheels all around. I now have an endless supply of wide tires, it sits much lower to the ground (zero rolls), awesome traction...this can only mean it was destined for an F1 makeover.

The front AFX tires are a lot smaller than the stock Zip ones so ground clearance was actually affected by the stearing hubs and the trim lever. I little dremel action and a seriously stiff suspension arm did the trick. Now you can actually drop the body as far as you want without having to tub out the wells. Seeing how I'm going with an open wheel body anyhow, I didn't bother butchering one.

Stay Tuned...

Sweet!
 

I may just try this one.

Be careful, you hiccup anywhere along the way and it's tata to the chasis.

You have to drill a very small hole in a very small part..like a spur gear and the AFX front hubs...DANGER. This will of course make the gear useless on another Zip.

Replacing the front hubs is a pain in the arse! AND you gotta drill out the AFX hubs just a micro hair so they spin freely. All your holes MUST be perfectly straight or you'll get play, which could cause slippage if it happens with the gear.

I'd say go for it only if you have a few spare Zips and parts laying around and you're willing to have a whole parts car if you screw up.

This was a scary mod. I need to figure out how to drill micro holes in micro parts consistently.

Thanks for the heads up

Steve How much slower on the top end did it slow the Zip Zap? Cuzz I had thought about doing the same thing last week. But decided that the smaller wheels would slow the car down to much.


Gruder

Absolutely no idea. I didn't hack away at my red gears because I wasn't sure it would work. You are right though in that wider, grippier tires will slow the car down, but you should gain better control. The goal for me is to have more traction, so I can run slightly faster but with more power and no spinouts, versus going really fast and painting the outside retaining walls.

Very cool Steve, how about some more pics?

about the only useful thing about this pic is that you can see the spacer for the left wheel to make up for the lack of gear. I used part of the slot car gear to make it (a little dremmel action). Unfortunately, the bats in the cam died tonight so hopefully I'll get some more pics up tomorrow.

You should try to get some wheels from some old Aurora AFX MAgnatraction special H.O. slot cars. The wheel diameters are larger, but not wider than the wheels you have.