| May 10, 2007 Review |
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 Spirit Peugeot Silhouette Review By Shawn Smith Appearance:  One thing I am quickly learning is that Spirit 'pre-release' images of their cars are not always how the finished product will arrive to the consumer. In the case of this Peugeot Silhouette the body and graphics all appear 'spot-on' however the early images did show this car wearing black rims and now here in the flesh the final product is fitted with silver editions. Not a problem, don't think I'm complaining... I just liked the look of the black.  Getting a close up look of the Silhouette the level of detail is on the light side, much like I mentioned when looking at the above linked 406 Coupes, with the notable details being separately applied clear headlight lenses and the black plastic solid grill section behind the large lower grill opening.  Side details are also few however the side view mirrors do feel quite sturdy and will hopefully stand up to the occasional impact of racing. Here in this image you get a really good look at the multi-colored checkered flag livery, some have talked about it looking 'busy', but I personally like it and at speed it's not a distraction.  Internal details are nice... a shallow tray style interior holds the driver from about the middle of his rib cage upward and he's seated in an open headrest simulated racing seat, comfortably within a silver roll cage, with a bright red fire bottle seated next to him.  Mmmm, look at that backside, wide and bulging! What you'll find here, besides the large flared fenders, is a black trunk mounted spoiler, separately applied red tail light details and a bronze colored exhaust that is actually fixed to the cars chassis.  Other notable details are the V6 engine tucked nicely under the rear window, actually molded in to the interior pan then painted, and some nice grooved rotors inside each of the cars silver painted eleven-spoke wheels.   Overall fit and finish is actually pretty nice with about the only flaw I can find being perhaps the lack of clear coat covering the paint job. Where as the red and yellow 406 Coupes had a very glossy finish the silver on this Silhouette comes off a little 'satin-like' although the varying shades of blue graphics and other tampo-printed decorations look crisp and well applied. Performance:  Flipping the Silhouette over the chassis looks almost the exact same as the 406 Coupe. Two center mounted screws, one directly behind the guide and one near the rear bumper, hold the body to the chassis. The third screw visable near the middle of the chassis is there to help secure the motor pod assembly. Before moving on I would like to draw your attention to the longer than needed front axle. As you can see in the above photo the front wheel closer to the bottom of the image is considerably farther away from the chassis than the top wheel is. Normally... I would bust out the Dremel tool here and cut the axle length down. In this case cutting the axle might make the wheels sit too far under the fenders and I found using thin spacers on either side kept the tires near flush with the fenders.  As we'll see in a few more paragraphs I had a problem with the Silhouette being a little too light for my driving style and things like this lightweight body fitted with a thin and shallow interior is partly to blame. Details like a full interior add weight and its obvious Spirit meant to keep the weight down on these cars.  Sitting right side up about the only difference between the Silhouette chassis and the 406 Coupe chassis is the Silhouettes additional width. The car is fitted with the same angle-winder motor configuration, same S3x motor, same small bar magnet in the same location etc...  Oddly enough I didn't seem to notice as much 'hop' with the Silhouette as I did with the 406 Coupes. In the Coupes I had removed the motor pod springs, seen below, and made the chassis as rigid as I could by tightening the screws that allow pod movement all the way down. With this Silhouette I left them just as it came out of the box as it just seemed to behave differently.   Angle-winder gearing in this Silhouette proves to work really well. It's actually pretty quiet, considering other cars from different manufacturers set up in a similar fashion have proven to be relatively loud, and the 'torquey' S3X motor seemed to have no problem transferring power down through the gearing.  In fact... that 'power' proved to be perhaps too much for this car's stock set up on my Carrera's painted plastic surface. Issue number one was that at my normal 15-volt power supply test setting the S3X motor generates someting a little over 26,000 RPMs. That might not seem like too many RPMs to some yet I can assure you the light weight Silhouette has some issue with using the power effectively. Hitting the gas too soon out of a turn often found the torque lifting the nose high enough in the air for the guide to come out of the slot and numerous times I overdrove the car straight off the track coming out of a corner. Stock from the box my test subject managed a humble 7.189 fastest lap. Best time, for comparison sake, of an angle-winder NINCO Supra has been clocked at 5.838 or not quite a second and a half faster. My first course of action... truing of the rear tires. Keeping in mind the already low sidewall profile of the Spirit rubber I sanded only to get the widest contact patch possible. Times did improve, down to a 6.909 although was that the tire sanding or me getting more familiar with the Silhouettes twitchy characteristics?  What was becoming painfully obvious was that the car was actually getting pretty decent grip from the tires and I was reminded of that by once again hitting the throttle too hard too soon and watching my Silhouette coasting down the track un- powered with the guide once again out of the slot. The fix? About a quarter ounce of lead mounted right on top of the case mounting hole in the chassis. Weight now helping hold the guide down lap times lowered again this time to a noticably smoother 6.112.  Lap times coming down I still felt the motors torque working against me. Tires sanded, lead in the nose, and yet still I could easily overpower the tires with 26K+ RPMs and very little magnetic downforce. Deciding not to drop the power I simply placed a small 'tweaker-style' magnet directly on top of the stock magnet, after all I'm driving on a magnetic track so why not use what works, and that addition once again lowered the speed floor clicking off a 5.748 fastest lap. Obviously a stronger magnet would slam that even lower... yet I felt satisfied with the 1.44 second improvement while still maintaining a car that I could pitch the back end out and slide it if I wanted to. Not breaking any speed records... but now able to run with and beat cars running a similar set up. Final Verdict:  The long and the short of it; I think the Spirit Peugeot Silhouette is a very nice car with a lot of potential however if you are a magnet racer like I am you'll find yourself tweaking this car quite a bit to get the most out of it on your plastic home tracks. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who is able to try this model out on a larger routed track where the car can stretch its legs and power out of a wide sweaping turn rather than my very tight corners. Ideally I might back the voltage down to something closer to 11 or 12-volts, where the cars torque might be more controllable, yet for what its worth I was happy with the 'easy' mods I made and the difference in speed that I saw. More tweaking will no doubt take place... as I like the car too much to just leave it alone. Thanks go to Kimrey Enterprises for providing the new Spirit Peugeot Silhouette for review. 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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