Sloter Opel Corsa - the track test

Last week I wrote the first review of this blog on the recent Sloter Opel Corsa, so now I thought it would be appropriate to write my first track test on the same model... now that I had the time to test it!

I changed some parts for this test. I fitted Slot.It aluminum 15'' wheels front and rear (fronts are "short hub" type). The front tires are 17x10 mm "Z0" Slot.It (covered with cyanoacrilate glue to remove any grip) and the rear tires are some used Ninco I had from some previous series. I think they are "regular" Ninco rubber, and trimmed down to a mere 18 mm diameter. As you can see from the photo beneath, the front tires are almost the largest diameter you can fit to the car, with the wheels almost touching the arches. For the rear ones, 18 mm still leaves a good margin for larger wheels.

Now, on the power side: I've chosen the 20.000 rpm Boxer 2 motor, fearing that it would be a bit too much for the small size Corsa. A gear ratio of 9:25 with light components (aluminium crown and axle bearings, 50 mm hollow axle). More detail on the photo below:

Sloter came up with an interesting motor pod configuration. Not only for the versatility of inline and sidewinder configurations available, but also for the different screwing procedure: rear screws lock both the pod and chassis to the bodywork. The car comes with 6 screw holes: 2 for the front chassis lock, 2 for the front pod lock to the chassis, and 2 longer screws for the rear pod and chassis lock to the body. The next couple of photos give some detail on this.

The Opel Corsa screws from their respective position in the chassis: the rear ones are longer than the others.

The rear section in detail: screw holes from the bodywork fit the chassis (top) and pod (below) holes.

I had some suspicions on whether this system would work well. Loosening the screws would promote pod motion, or both pod and chassis motion? To my surprise, the system did work well, provided that the front chassis screws were tightly locked. Loosening the 4 pod screws caused only pod motion.

Taking on the track with this Corsa proved a lot of fun! The car runs very smoothly with almost no noise at all, it's a real pleasure to drive. The car has a very "light" feel (notice that the original interior was changed to a lexan rally interior from NSR). The awesome power from the Boxer 2 motor is easily controlled, with the car really leaping out of corners with an amazing acceleration, not loosing much on braking. The strong magnetic downforce, coupled with the lowered rear tires, are a welcome help, since the front does not support too well high cornering speeds - much to blame on the fact of the front tires not touching the track, when the car stands still. This is due to the great height of the guide blade, which comes off the chassis too far. This photo explains that:

Perhaps trimming the guide blade would provide some stability to the front. Anyway, the car is easy to drive at a steady pace, with laptimes improving after some running. In the end of the test, a 8.7 s laptime was achieved on the GT Team track (I promise I will present the track layout and detail soon!), but it easily ran on 8.8s with much effort. Other drivers took on the track with this car and all them seemed to enjoy this Corsa. Some margin for progress still exists: since this is a Carrera track, maybe replacing the Ninco tires for the Slot.It P1 would give more traction. Also, replacing aluminium wheels for lighter ones would give this car even more acceleration, but I've chosen this material since I'm more interested in running this car for rally events.

And we can't forget: next test, SIDEWINDER configuration!


Hope you enjoyed this post. Until next time, see you soon...

Sloter Opel Corsa - Review

For my very first review article, I decided to pick the recent release from Sloter, the Opel Corsa (some countries name it Vauxhall instead of Opel).

What made me purchase not one, but two Corsas? Well, sometimes you see promotions in shops, and when you see some cars so cheap, you might lose you head about them. The versions I purchased were the "Super White" and "Team Palmer" versions.

Here's the looks on the Super White model, still in stock guise:

From a first look at the car, we can say that Sloter did a great job capturing the looks on the Corsa. And even if those wheel arches seem too wide for this scale, "experts" have confirmed me that the car is in scale. I wonder how the real car looks like!

This model features the tradicional short can Mabuchi type motor from other Sloter models, but what's interesting is the motor pod. Sloter brings us a versatile motor pod, allowing sidewinder configuration for short can motors, whereas for Boxer type motors, and inline configuration is also possible using an acessory provided with the model itself.

The "black stripe" Mabuchi motor, standard for Sloter models.
























A closer look at the motor pod configuration. Removing the motor and the plastic insert on the standard pod and replacing it with the provided accessory allows fitting a boxer motor in inline configuration.

I did try to fit a Boxer motor in the car. What happened? Well, Sloter did a good job for interior detail but unfortunately the dimensions were designed for a sidewinder fit, only. Here's the problem I faced:

The chassis I tried to fit into the yellow car (Team Palmer), featuring Slot.It parts and an inline Boxer configuration.














The ill-fitting of the interior to the chassis.

Well, stuborn as I am, I NEEDED to put the car in inline configuration, so the only option was replacing the interior. I chosen the NSR rally interior for the Renault Clio, it fitted very well after some croping. Here's how it ended up:

Fitting of the NSR light interior to the Team Palmer Corsa.





































The great looking interior of the Opel Corsa, with some great detail - a cell phone and a spare wheel are present. The dashboard really resembles the Corsa road car.

Now the chassis fitted to the body. It will be hard to find a competition that would allow this kind of modifications to the car. Still, I have doubts that this car will be competitive in stock guise. Not only for the standard and underperforming motor (for non-magnet events), but also for the quality glitches. Wheels came loose quite easily, so I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them coasting around the track if you take the car out of the box and into the track.

So, my final conclusions? Missing the track test, what I can say is that this is a pretty looking model from Sloter. Corsa fans shall not be disapointed by this car. Performance-wise, I guess it's a car needing work to be competitive. Stock configuration may be good for magnetic racing, keep an eye out for the weak fit of the wheels to the axles.


I hope you enjoyed this review. Hope there will be many more to come. Also, track tests will follow...