Review of the new ELECTRIC DREAMS kit of the McLaren M8A

REVIEW of the new ELECTRIC DREAMS kit of the McLaren M8A

By Jack Marteville

(SCG Editor's Note: Thanks goes out to Electric Dreams for providing Slot Car Garage with this review article - we hope to persuade him into sending us one of these for our own special review :)

Available only through Electric Dreams at http://www.electric-dreams.com/elecdrms.htm Price: US$119.00 plus US$6.00 S&H, or US$219.00 assembled as a RTR.

Electric Dreams has just issued an interesting kit, using the recently re-issued McLaren M8A body formerly by Lancer, and an array of vintage bits.

The kit comes in a nice quality white box with a color photo of the finished item decorating the box lid. Inside, the components are well packed and are of the NOS kind except for a modern guide flag, and of course the body and interior. It is complete down to the last washer, and includes an unusual but very functional ball thrust bearing system for the rear axle.

The body (but not the driver compartment) is pre-painted by Ronn Sutton, and the color is an excellent match to the original McLaren orange. It can also be obtained in a metallic blue, representing the Penske team car.

The body detail is outstanding, showing clean body and windshield lines, rivet detailing, very accurate shape and glass-smooth finish. The nose is a bit rough and we have been told that the mold will soon be altered and improved to offer a better trim line. The interior is molded in white plastic, and must be sprayed flat black before detailing the driver.

The chassis is an old Riggen NCC Group-22 unit issued in 1969, and was made in Japan. It is an end bell-drive angle-winder with nickel plated finish, and is of excellent quality. Genuine COX Ford GT40 wheels are supplied with correct straight and tapered axles, and cute little lock nuts, a very unusual combination on a "pro-racing" slot car. Nonetheless, it looks good, but we would have preferred the use of the Lotus 40 wheels, much closer to the original McLaren 4-spoke units. The hard rubber front tires have to be ground to size, which is not an easy process as one must "burn" the rubber to cut through while sanding with rough paper. This, however, is the only difficult part of the assembly. The rear gray donuts supplied with the kit are OK, but for better performance, should be replaced by modern black units with more "grip". We have been told that this is going to be done very soon.

The motor is a combination of the old Hemi 300 (can, magnets and armature), and a heat-resistant Tradeship end bell with Mabuchi FT16 brushes, held by COX silver-plated springs. The armature is unbalanced, but has a serious Kirkwood-like comm with welded connections, a guaranty of some sort about its reliability. We recommend that you send the arm to be balanced before assembly.

The can and end bell are pre-fitted and drilled for 2 assembly screws, but one must tap for both the 0-80 and the 2-56 machine screws that retain can and end bell and end bell to chassis. A brass brace is supplied for extra retention on the chassis.

Another unusual feature is that one must cut the front axle in its center and glue the two halves in place inside the front axle tubing to space the free wheeling front wheels. Nothing really wrong with this practice, just a bit different. The very well detailed instructions recommend the use of Zap-A-Gap, and we agree.

Once assembly is done, the body fits nicely on the chassis but it is critical to trim the wheel wells from as far back as possible, as the body is built for a very short wheel-base. Make sure that you look at the pictures before trimming!

We used the old Dynamic McLaren decal sheet for this car, instead of the decals supplied with the kit. We also used some silver tape for the aluminum ‘character’ line on the body sides.

On the track, the car handled nicely with no vices, but we added a bit of lead on front of the car, on the drop arm and on the side pans. This helped a tendency to "under-steer" due to the greater grip of the tires we used, a set of Pro-Track in a 7/8" diameter. With the supplied gray tires, the car was a bit "loose" and lacked grip, and we did not want to use any traction compound which always turn a slot car in a sticky and gooey mess.

Overall, a very good kit for the money, as it would be hard for anyone to gather all the parts for less than what Electric Dreams retails the thing for.

Rating: **** (5 stars max)

Go back, or head home.