| May 30, 2007 Review |
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 Carrera's 1/32 Porsche RS Spyder And Audi R10 LMP Review by Shawn Smith and Eric Cropper  Shawn: “Form of a seasoned, dry review God.” Eric: “Form of a seasoned, goofy review Grease Monkey!” SHAZAAMMM!!! (oops wrong cartoon) Oh, and this review is considerably longer and contains a lot more photos than our average write-ups... So load times may vary depending on connection. Appearance:   Shawn: My Audi is a bit more complex, not knocking the more solid color of the Porsche, the Audi R10 has far more colors trying to share the surface. The largest percentage of the paint job is silver with a large center section of the car being painted with a nice dark gray metallic color with additional accents in several locations painted a deep maroon-red. Tampo graphics are about perfect and the only oddities I could find were the left rear louvers on the engine cover looking as if they were slightly 'over-painted', actually looks hand painted by a less than steady hand, and a slight lack of crispness with two very small accent silver stripes on either side of the cockpit.  Eric: Up close and personal the Spyder has a pair of large eyes (the better to see you with my dear) I mean head lights flanked by 2 air channels for nose down force, motor intake, and rear brake cooling. Above each head light is a series of vents to cool down the front brakes. You also get to see how close this Spyder crawls to the track. The world famous Porsche logo resides proudly on the nose surround by sponsor logos and Ole’ Glory.  Shawn: The Audi... looks about spot on the real car. Not so ironically this R10, along with its yellow accented #7 cousin, happen to be the wallpaper currently on my monitor and every marking on the real versions have been replicated here. One thing I did notice was that the antenna was missing from the nose of my car. It should be mounted in the bottom yellow stripe of the German flag between the number 8 and the cockpit however because these cars were pulled from a set I really have no idea if the antenna is still some where in the box or if it was skipped at the factory. Also important to note, looking at both cars on the track the Audi's design does make it appear much higher off of the track than does the Audi. If you look above at Eric's nose shot you can tell the chassis sits much lower to the track surface than does my Audi. It's not the angle of the image, the difference is noticable.  Eric: In the rear the RS sports a monster stinger. Uh, I mean wing. It runs the span of the car and has two center supports. NOTE: The Gods had 3 sets of these cars and just about every car’s wing was knocked loose in the track set. Nothing a bit of glue couldn’t solve, but worth mentioning. The Porsche’s tail lights are small and mark the upper corners of the rear end. Not much else to point out back here. They kept it simple.  Shawn: Ditto on the Audi R10 although the Audi did get a little extra treatment in the way of the silver accented exhaust pipe openings. Touching on Eric's 'loose wing' comment, the Audi's wing also comes off rather easily and I'm assuming it was meant to. Just handling the car incorrectly my back wing came off in my hand although it seemed to stay on during racing so I decided not to glue mine... would rather it fall off in one piece than break off   Eric: The bird’s eye view shows the air channels that run from front to rear highlighted by the red graphics. There are a couple of additional vents in the rear and the driver is all snug as a bug in a rug. (whatever that means) The top of the car is actually pretty plain in the graphics department since the majority of the logos reside on its nose.  Shawn: The Audi is certainly not plain. As I mentioned before the variety of colors really looks great on this model. From this view you can also see the issue with the black paint on the lower rear vent as well as the hole in the German flag meant for the antenna.  Eric: The Spyder’s cockpit is molded in black with a silver painted steering wheel, buttons and switches. The driver has a multi-colored helmet which is nice added detail. The painted helmet does have issues with the colored bands being even around it. The black top section is more of an ellipse than a circle. Overall, these little things won’t show up when the RS speeds down the front stretch.  Shawn: Similar findings with the Audi. The cockpit is very shallow and the driver is only a figure from about armpits up. He is wearing a HANS device thankfully as he no doubt will eventually find himself crashing headfirst in to a wall or a tree on my track... Eric has gotten really good at timing my chicane sections and sending me in to my own trees.  Eric: This is where there are some differences between the Porsche and Audi. The rims of the RS are made up of seven double spokes surrounded by Michelin rubber. The tire compound is smooth and relatively soft. The rears needed a little sanding to get rid of some mild ridges on the outsides of the tire. Shawn: I'd really like to add that I'm very happy Carrera did what they should have done and created an accurate wheel for the Porsche rather than use the standard DTM/GT/LMP wheel on so many of their cars, my Audi R10 included. Eric: NOTE: If you read my Carrera Hot Rods Review you might remember me pointing out issues with the rims and the excess of glue they had on them. They needed some serious attention to achieve a good contact patch. Sadly, both of these LMP’s had similar issues.  Above you see that the Spyder had an excess of glue on them. The made getting a couple of the tires off a bit more difficult. As you see a bit of the tire was left on the rim when I removed the tire. After some sanding and use of a hobby knife they were good as new. However, this is looking like more of an assembly issue than an isolated issue with the Hot Rods I reviewed. Shawn had the opposite issue with the Audi.   Shawn: Indeed I did. Where Eric's Porsche had too much glue on his rims, and on his tires, the rims of my Audi had zero glue, none, nada. Upon taking off one of the tires the rim should have looked like the image above, minus the little bit of flashing you see there but that is another matter, instead the spoked front section of the rim fell off and bounced across the floor. Odd? Well... a fluke perhaps. NOT! All four rims were the exact same way. Seems the only thing holding the Audi rims together was the tension of the installed tire. All four of my rims needed to be glued together before I could sand off the flashing and true the center rib. A bit of a dissapointment.   Besides my normal checking of the rim for flashing I also had another reason to pull the rubber off. Just eyeballing both cars I could tell something was different about the tires and getting them off the car proved I was right. Notice the difference in height and sidewall between the taller Audi tire on the right and the shorter, lower sidewall profile of the Porsche tire on the left. One thing I have often grumbled at under my breath is Carrera's use of thick and often too tall-looking tires on their cars although to my surprise it seems Carrera's making of new rims for the Porsche also prompted a slight change in their tire molds for the car. Visually speaking I like the lower profile look of the Porsche tires better.  And the sidewalls weren't the only difference... also notice how the Porsche not only gets a smaller tire but it's in fact wider than the tires used on the Audi. Lower profile and wider? Does that mean a noticable performance difference?  Also note worthy is the front and rear lighting of both cars. Eric's Porsche has the LEDs mounted low and wide where my Audi has the LEDs mounted higher and closer together.  As far as tailights go the Audi's lights are noticably brighter than the Porsche's. Design difference playing a role here as the Audi has the actual LEDs mounted directly behind each red lense where in the Porsche the LEDs are mouned closer to the center of the chassis and the interior sections of the Porsche's tailights have channels trying to re-direct the light toward the upper corners. Audi:  Porsche:   Performance:  Eric: Flipping the Spyder on its side you get to see one of the differences between it and the Audi. The RS chassis is flat and smooth on the underside. It’s held in place by 5 screws pointed out by the yellow arrows. There are 3 big differences on both LMP’s. There is no adjustable sliding magnet in the front part of the chassis. This might upset some of you who like the ability to loosen up a car with a simple push of your finger. Speaking of a simple push of your finger, the reverse switch isn’t the simple switch it used to be. The only way you’re going to flip this tiny thing is with a small screw driver, toothpick, or Q-tip. (make sure that Q-tip isn’t used either…eww!!!)  Lastly, they have put the removable motor pod in these cars just as they did in the Hot Rods. The motor pod screw is pointed out by the red arrow as shown above.  Shawn: The Audi has a similar chassis design although as Eric mentioned there are differences. Screw placement is slightly different, especially the location of the front and middle screws, yet the odd chassis difference in my mind is how the Porsche has a chassis that is relatively flush side to side yet in the case of the Audi the side sections of the chassis are not level with the center section. Visually the Audi's body looks a lot higher off of the track, especially between the wheels, than the body of the Porsche as I mentioned earlier.   Back to the motor pod only one screw needs to be removed to pull the pod down and out of the chassis. When putting the pod back in take note that the front of the pod is notched, sort of tongue and groove, and the notch needs to be slipped over the lip of the chassis for it to fit correctly.   Eric: Armor removed the Spyder and Audi expose some more improvements coming from Carrera that will hopefully continue in the 2007 line. The usual motor, gearing, electronics are present however they have added quick releases for the motor lead wires, front and rear lights, and the reverse switch. Also, while holding these cars we noticed that they are pretty heavy cars compared to similar type cars by other makers. Shawn: Devil's advocate... I know some of you racers might cringe at all that wiring and plug-system. If you can make out in the image above red and black wires come from the guide and get plugged in to matching wires attached to the circuit board. Off of the circuit board green and yellow wires get sent off to a plug and finally to the front LEDs while yellow and white head towards the rear red LEDs and purple and white-with-green stripe wires get plugged in to the motor. I have a feeling... some of you may not like this nest of wiring.  Eric: Unlike the Audi, the sides of the Porsche are connected to the chassis. Above you see just how much of the body comes off the chassis.  Shawn: As Eric mentioned, the Audi in contrast has a one piece solid body. An interesting difference in design although it's not the only difference.  Besides how the body design is different the Porsche is actually a slightly longer car. While longer than the Audi the Porsche's wheelbase is actually shorter as you can see in the image below.  Also notice that the wiring is routed differently around the chassis of both cars. Eric's Porsche did at one point develop a twitch in one eye but after playing with the wiring and associated plug the flickering headlight seemed to stay on more consistently. TRACK TIME  Eric: Once we got all the pictures out of the way the Boss and I hit the Garage’s Test Track for some head to head with these LMP’s. Both of these cars stuck to the track with little to no tail end sliding. The acceleration and braking were steady and equally responsive. The difference in the chassis design and tires didn’t cause any obvious performance differences between the two cars on the track. However, the Audi did seem to be faster after a short time. After having the Audi consistently pulling away from me I pulled the Porsche from its slot for a closer inspection and I found a problem with the front axle. They came very well lubed and after maybe 40 laps the lube had turned from white to a nasty looking grey. There is a minimal amount of play in the front axle and when one of the rims slid over against the bushing it was sticking and caused the wheels to not roll freely. I took the axle out and completely removed all of the factory 'grease' and added a drop of liquid oil to each bushing. Upon replacing the front axle and giving the wheels a spin the axle spun a lot more freely.  Shawn: Not to be outdone the Audi also developed a little problem. It didn't seem to be performance robbing however it was becoming more and more audible and I had a feeling I knew what it was. Where the Porsche seemed loaded with sticky grease the Audi was devoid of any grease at all. The sound I was hearing was that of the dry axle and Carrera's self installed shims squeeling and chattering at speed. Much like Eric did I gave the bushings and shims a few small drops of oil and thankfully the noise stopped. I also took the time while the body was off to try and move the wiring off of the front axle as you can see above.  Back to racing and the Porsche ran better, however, I was still getting beat by the Boss and his Audi. The fastest lap I turned on box stock rubber was 6.312 seconds. I gave the rears a good sanding and the lap time dropped to 5.700 seconds on the inside lane. Then my fellow Wonder Twinkie and I switched lanes and in the outside lane the Porsche turned an even faster lap time of 5.674 seconds. In contrast Shawn's fastest time with the Audi in the outside groove was 5.473 seconds and after switching to the inside lane the Audi clicked off a 5.427. For those curious, a Scalextric MG Lola laps the same track in the sub-5 range... So, being that Shawn has 'home track advantage' on the Garages’ test track we had him run the Porsche in both lanes since the Audi was still the faster of the two. The Spyder in the Boss’ hands cranked out 5.426 seconds on the inside and 5.463 seconds on the outside. So, the time differences between the Porsche and Audi were caused by driver experience or lack there of on my part.  Something that we would like to point out is that the guides on these cars are huge. They sit deep in the slot yet have a limited amount of pivot. When they are driven hard into a turn, and the back end tries to kick out, it doesn't take much for the guide rotation to hit their limit and the subsequent effect is they will pop out of the slot. The good news is that they just pop out and come to a stop. No tumbling or roll over in our testing. We have heard that some have already found issue with the guide length/size on tighter inner turns of non-Carrera track however we had no real issue negotiating the 1/60 turns of our Carrera test track. Be advised however that you may need to do some trimming depending on the track system you use.  Just for comparison sake... below is the Audi's guide matched up with the guide of Carrera's own Corvette C6R. If you've ever thought Carrera's guides were big before they are even bigger now!  Judgment Day:  After our night of fighting with the 'quirks' of the cars Eric and I both feel that we left the ring victorious. The cars proved to be as close to perfectly matched as you could ask for but unfortunately that was after fixing a couple of issues that really had us scratching our heads. While I think we love both cars, now, it does seem troublesome that both had their share of problems and what is the most surprising was the inconsistency of the issues. One car had 'too much' glue fouling up the rims while the other had all four rims fall apart from an apparent 'lack' of glue etc... Issues aside the new Carrera Audi R10 and Porsche Spyder are great looking cars that run well together and with two evenly matched cars on the track you can't help but have fun! Eric and I would like to thank www.HobbyGods.com for allowing us to steal these cars out of a set to review. Feel free to direct any questions or comments to us at the email addresses below. Shawn Smith SJSlots@hotmail.com Eric Cropper AKA legionofone ecropper@hotmail.com |
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