As I worked on T-Jet in the 60s I thought the fun versus thrash ratio was way out of balance. Too much work, not enough fun. Truing wheels and tires, replacing gears, finding the right combo, etc, etc just took too long and usually I wasn’t doing it right. Which resulted in the scene of the pro Greg Williams winner of numerous 1/32nd and 124th races getting his clocked cleaned in T-Jet races. Although I have been told by some, that T-Jets require a higher degree of driving skill than magnet cars, (that’s another article for another time) it was frustrating to work and work and end up with a pig handling chassis with a dog slow motor. Not that I didn’t have those in the bigger scales too!

Now I’m doing better although we’ll find out in October. I probably have long way to go. Hey, you’re welcome to email me with suggestions or ideas for the article that you find helpful for fellow T-Jet freaks out there. It will be interesting to note that when I do hook up in Las Vegas for the World Championships, anyone who has read these articles will know EVERYTHING I have done to my car. So let’s get to it!

The first stuff I started running into was the tools made by RT HO Racing. http://members.aol.com/rthoracing/index.html One of the guys here got a hold of their T-Jet pinion gear puller so I went to the website and Holy Cow! (Harry Caray)! RT has some awesome stuff. I pulled muscles in my hand writing the check so fast. The brass front end, the modified idler and drive gears are awesome! Although not legal for Fray and Vintage here they still are extremely cool to see on a car. We did allow them in our NASCAR Pro T-Jet series which is on temporary hold till I get back to it. RT has some new stuff out worth checking out. Oh yeah, the pinion puller works just fine.
Lately I have hooked up with Jim Walters of JW’s Speed Parts. http://www.csonline.net/vwalters/
WARNING!!! If you are a T-Jet freak and visit this site, myself and those who reprint this article are not responsible for your behavior! This site has so much stuff to ogle over it’s unbelievable. Give your checkbook or credit card to your wife before viewing! But seriously Jim is a great guy to talk to and makes the coolest parts and tools. Spend a few minutes at the site and check out his stuff to make your T-Jet racing world so much easier. Bookmark that puppy as Jim frequently updates it. One example for you at how well they work. Just a few minutes before the Performance 500, the eventual winner Pete came up to me with a gear that was spinning on the armature shaft of his fast car. Normally for me this is time consuming process. But thanks to JW and Wizzard for the replacement 14 tooth gear, in less than 2 minutes I had Pete’s car on the track and back up to speed. Not only is the gear removal (P01) and press tools (P02) cool but you really need to get the line up tools (P06 and P08) that go with them. They make it fool proof to perform once was difficult tasks. And they are so trick! At his website are pictures of how to use the tools and in my opinion if you are serious about building reliable and fast T-Jets these tools have to be in your box! They are AWESOME! And huge thanks to Wizzard for making available all the different gears we need to keep the cars running such as the RGT09, RGT12 and RGT14 at a super price of 5 gears for $4!

Everyone is or should be aware of JB’s Thunder Brushes. A good upgrade to dialing in the motor. But he has expanded his line into some other stuff. http://www.thunderbrushes.com/. I’m currently testing some of his Thunder Rubbers and please restrain from the Trojan rubber jokes. They look really good and are available from .370” to .382”. They go for $7 a pair. Of course I’m trying out Wizzard’s LTG’s tires in sizes of .360”, .370” and .380” along with his great FR54 brass front end. Lately Wizzard has added a very heavy front spacers to allow you 4 different weight combinations to load the front end. This allows you to compensate for the awesome grip the silicone coated rear tires give. The Wizzard and JB tires are about .250” but Wizzard’s can varying down to .200”. I consider this an additional tuning feature. Waiting for some Zone 2 tires which are the narrowest of the bunch. Along with the various slip on silicone tires you can dial you chassis in from pushing (understeer) to massive loose (oversteer)! I’ve run different rims with Wizzard’s PVT02s, SuperTires, and BSRT slip ons. I’ve also tried various Tuff Ones setups which is a narrower rim and tire. In fact the testing almost got too confusing with some many different combinations that I’m going to just focus on just the sized siliconed coated tires and Wizzard’s PVT02s and Tom Heister’s Lo-Lo slip ons for the World Championships. Look for some thoughts on tires when the car goes into the World Champ and Fray mode which will be soon.

Another item receiving a lot of attention is the 125 ohm resistor and is reviewed on HO World. Check it out at:
http://mr-bigstuff.com/howorld/archives/review/howorld/resistor/resistor.html Recently Rick Vogelin visited us during the IRL race at Phoenix International Raceway. He is the PR director for GM IRL Racing and has some very good stories to contribute to the post race bench session! Plus he loves T-Jets! Since we have not attended an out-of-state Fray type race we did not know that everyone is using these custom wound controller resistors. He allowed us to use his 125 ohm controller and the difference was amazing from our 60 ohm. When I first heard of the 125 ohm I thought it would really bog the motor down but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It allows better control of the motor when coming off the brakes and is easier on the chassis. Right off the git-go I cut 2 tenths off my best Fray car time and I couldn’t write the check fast enough. If what I hear is true that the World Champs and also the Fray have only 2 controller posts with no allowance for brakes it will be mandatory to have one. I will also be looking into the Tek-Lawler controller later on. I consider myself fortunate in that most of the cars I have built do not have a lot of brakes so it’s just a question of dialing some in.

As I mentioned JB’s Thunder Brushes are in the cars of many a T-Jet racer. I’ve run them for many years and they are miles ahead of the stock Aurora or Faller brushes we had to get by on for so long. Wizzard has joined the Fray (he-he) with his just recently released Copper/carbon composite T-Jet brushes #E81. These new brushes are very nice and leave an unbelievable polish on the comm that has to be seen. I believe the Fray and World Championship rules prohibit silver brushes so these or JB’s will probably be in every car there. They look similar in composition to Wizzard’s Big Feet brushes which work really well on the magnet cars so are something to look into.

I didn’t cover all the cool stuff out there tight now. Just the body releases would be an entire article. But just a sample here for your enjoyment. Hope it helps out. There are a lot of great guys out there racing T-Jets and very willing to help you out. Good Luck and Have Fun!

Letter from Greg:

After 2 months of racing different types of Vintage T-Jets (Vintage NASCAR, Endurance sportscars, long and short wheelbase) the final race of 8 races and the championship came down to the finish shown below. I'm the guy wearing the white Dan Loeffler Memorial T-shirt and DeRail is the other. DeRail was new to slot car racing 6 months ago but now he builds some of the fastest T-Jet motors and awesome handling chassis. We have been conducting classes and telling everyone what we know and he definitely pays attention! He is also a super sportsman and it's great when you have a knock down, dragged out race, each of us exhausted and both of us are happy with our efforts and hugely enjoyed the great race. He even called me the next day and we have a long bench racing session filled with "what ifs", "next series!" and "Man, was that fun!" What made the race even more fantastic was 3rd and 4th in the championship had to be decided by total amount of laps as Justin Coffel and Pete Vespender were tied in all other categories!

My RoadRaceReplica Mako Shark is done up as if Chaparral had built one. I am very proud to have won one race driving a Chaparral 2F WITH THE WING! It looked so cool going around the track and actually didn't handle too bad. Also competed with a Ferrari P4, Ford GT in Shelby Sebring colors, a Camaro done up in Mark Donohue Sunoco colors, a 68 Chevelle done in Dale Earnhardt Jr #8 Bud colors plus a Chaparral 2C with scratch built injectors/exhaust and a AFX helmet file, sanded, epoxied, painted like Jim Hall's helmet and goggles. Oh, raced a Ford Galaxie done in Dan Gurney #121 Purolator colors!

Man, this is a lot of fun!!!!!

If you're ever in Phoenix look us up!

Greg Williams