| March 22, 2007 Review |
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 Spirit BMW 2002 Review By Shawn Smith Appearance:  2007 certainly look slike its going to be an interesting year for Spirit. It was just earlier this month that Spirit provided us their new Peugeot 406 for review and that car was way beyond anything they had done before boasting adjustable parts in a 'non-sport' car while trying something new like the first Spirit car to come with an angle-winder set up and new gearing. Well... the adorable little BMW 2002 showed up and yet again I was surprised. Mixing a little 'old with the new' you could say it has some features from previous cars and features from that Peugeot 406 Coupe.  Before we get to the mechanicals let's take a closer look at the new body design for Spirit. The first of the BMW cars to be released Spirit chose to model the orange and flat black of the 'Lauda - Nurburgring 1970' edition. Some of these images might make the car appear a little yellow but let me assure you the car is orange.  Up front, and all over for that matter, Spirit has done a decent job of detailing this BMW 2002. Chrome edged and accented grilles fill the front end holding the x-shape simulated 'taped' headlight lenses.  From the side it might be difficult to make out the separately applied turn lamp indicators and tiny little silver painted door handles but they are there. The cars window frames are also detailed in silver paint as is the body edging around all window openings.  Interior wise the detail isn't plentiful but they did take the time to put some gauges and instruments on the dash. The 'waist-up' driver figure has red painted gloves to match his red painted helmet and he even has tiny black dots for eyes. The interior boasts no roll cage or fire bottle details although the floor of the BMW passenger seat area does have a small square hole that looks like a bottle or another figure could be added. Possible co-driver location for a future rally version?  Out back the details are small but well done. Here again you can see the silver framed rear window and the painted tailight lenses get the chrome treatment again with a thin chrome bar running between the lights. Also notice the very small exhaust tip there on the bottom right.   Rims for the Spirit BMW are a black honeycomb design with a nice silver painted lip. The center lugs are also detailed in silver and I like that Spirit took the time to make different wheels for the front and the back with the lip of the rear rims being wider than those on the front.  Top sufaces of the BMW, with the exception of the roof, are painted in an even flat black that is edged with a silver pin-stipe. The rest of the graphics were all very well applied on my test subject with sharp edges and bright colors.  Performance:  Time to pull her top off and get a good look at her 'goods'. Everything is pretty straight forward here although the four screws you see in this image do not need to be removed to take the body off. The two that do are directly under the guide and in the back right next to the muffler.  Body now off and WOW... those are some really long guide wires.  And I mean long... makes me think they are pre-wiring these motors in the factory and have the length there for larger Spirit cars like the Dallara LMPs etc. Certainly can make reassembly something to pay attention to as it would be easy to pinch these wires between the motor and interior or and with that much length they could even find their way inside the opening of the motor car. Of course you could shorten these although the factory pinched the eyelets tight on the wires so you might need to open them back up a little with some pliers. Oh yeah... because the eyelets were pinched a little too much it took away from the friction that normally helps keep the eyelet in the guide. I ended up un-pinching mine even without shortening the wires just to make sure the wire didn't keep falling out.  Motor for this little BMW is a rather powerful SX3 engine... being shown to produce a little over 26,000 RPMs at 15 volts! 26K?? Yep and it makes this little sucker scoot! Also, nothing to do with performance, notice the notches in the chassis behind the rear wheels. I mentioned the hole in the interior for a possible co-driver equipped rally car and by the looks of these notches I'd be willing to bet that same car will come equipped with some mud-flaps.  The motor is fitted with a brass 9 tooth pinion that spins a white 27-tooth set screw gear which in turn spins the rear axle in high outside flanged brass bushings... all of which sits inside of a separate motor-pod assembly. Turning my gears by hand everything felt a little tight at first but it loosened up after I loosened the motor pod. I loosened it for another reason other than the gear tightness but we'll cover that in a minute.   Up front the newest Spirit feature, first seen in the earlier mentioned Peugeot 406, an adjustable axle mount holds the axle which has very noticable 'spun' marks down its length. Unlike the Peugeot the amount of up and down play for the front axle is greatly limited so I question why the adjument screws are even used but I guess I now have some spares if I happen to loose any out of the Peugeot.  Magnetic downforce is provided by the small Spirit bar-magnet mounted inside of the motor pod directly in front of the motor. Surprisingly the BMW felt more stuck down than the Peugeot 406 that uses the same style magnet... and there was a reason. Much like the tight gearing - we're getting to that.  The center hub of the BMW's wheels have very large notches in them but that didn't have as much to do with how the car ran nearly as much as the high-edged rubber, All four tires in fact have higher outer edges and a low center to their profile. Good news is that they sanded easily and the compound is very good providing really good grip and they might actually be a little 'too soft'. Upon sanding the rears began to 'chunk up' a bit and I had to be careful not to get them too heated up. Once sanded and cleaned the tires hooked up really well and felt maybe a bit 'sponge-like' that attributed to a little 'hopping' when getting on the gas hard out of a corner.  And speaking of track testing here is where I explain the tight gearing and amount of downforce felt. My first few laps around the track and I was impressed with the acceleration, speed, cornering grip etc... yet one thing was bothering me. I kept hearing an odd 'CLICK' in certain sections of the track, places I normally don't hear it. Picking the car up I first looked at the guide blade. It has good depth and good length but nothing that should bother the way it rides in my Carrera slot. Sending it off for yet another run, same thing, clicking in certain sections of the track. Lifting the car again I flipped it over and inspected the label that covers the motor can.. sure enough, the label was showing some distress. Placing the car back on the track then getting my eye down to track level I was amazed at how close to the rails the motor sat. With the motor pod screws secured tighlty, the way it came out of the case, it seems the motor pod actually sits fractionally lower than the rest of the chassis. The lack of distance from the rails was making the very front edge of the motor can hit a few of my less than perfect track connections. This was on Carrera, which isn't known for high rails, so I could only imagine what it might have sounded like going around a track brand with slightly higher rails. Taking my screwdriver to the motor-pod screws I loosened all four, not much, but just enough to let the pod free itself from the death grip the factory had placed on it. This.. raised the motor enough to stop the clicking and thankfully it also helped to loosen the tight gearing making the car run a little bit faster. No wonder the downforce felt strong earlier... the bar magnet as well as motor magnets were just a couple millimeters from the track surface. Final Verdict:  After a good night of testing the new BMW 2002 from Spirit has several good points. It's actually a well detailed little car, not top of the line detailing yet better than others. Performance wise, especially after sanding the rear tires and taking care of the motor pod issue it ran really well too. Nothing 'track record breaking' about it's performance but for a small, lightweight and high powered car it wasn't a burden to drive. It felt smooth, a little bounce out of the soft rubber tires but overall I liked the car more than I thought I might. Certainly a good effort from Spirit and if they can fix a few of the small issues the car will be a real winner! Thanks go to Kimrey Enterprises for providing the new Spirit BMW 2002 for review. I'm very pleased to have Kimrey on board and I'm looking forward to hearing more from them on the Spirit line of slot cars. As always, feel free to contact me at the email address below with any questions or comments and as always, happy slotting! Shawn Smith sjslots@hotmail.com |
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