# tell me about AW & LL chassis



## 440s-4ever (Feb 23, 2010)

Swore I wasn't gonna do it......SWORE. But now that Team Tyco has reached critical mass......I wanna add a couple other brands of slots to the mix. It's always interesting to see how different cars run against each other. We're just carpet racers, I don't really care if they win on a commercial track. I'm basically wondering how these stack up against a 440x2, plain 440, or HP7

But there's a catch. I'm super cheap. What I see sometimes going cheeeep on the bay are AW super III and those hideously molded LL jellybean shaped stock cars. Never owned either car.

The super III appears fairly legit as a fast slot. Is it? What's it a repro of, or is it an entirely new creation? Adjustable neo magnets caught my attention.

What's under those LL chassis? Are they all the same, or are there variations in motor or magnet? How do they stack up speed and magnet-force-wise?

What bodies fit both those chassis? The cheap ones are all ugly generic nascar.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts offered here.


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## chopchange (Oct 25, 2010)

Adjustable neo magnets?


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## 440s-4ever (Feb 23, 2010)

Just what I read in an auction. I've never held one of those cars in my hand. 

I am wondering how you adjust them unless the chassis allows you to set them at different heights. Or maybe it's a square magnets that can set in multiple ways and you can alter field orientation to increase or decrease downforce.

Or maybe it's typical seller BS. This is why I'm here asking


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

DISCLAIMER: This is strictly the opinion of a guy who fools mostly with pancake cars, and has picked up a bunch of Tycos and LLs because they were cheap at yard sales and one AW Super III because he just had to have one.

Pretty sure all Lifelike bodies fit all Lifelike chassis. If you like stock magnet cars, LLs are good runners and as bulletproof as your average 440x2. Years ago, I ran across a racing group near Winchester, VA that had a racing series built around the Lifelike T chassis and NASCAR bodies, and apparently they held up OK. They don't get built into uber-competitive Storm and Patriot type cars, but for a bunch of casual runners, they'd be fine.

Super IIIs can use only Super III bodies unless you want to fudge something together for a body mounting system. I remember hearing about them having adjustable magnets way back when, but never really knew what they did... so when I read your post, I got curious. I just went to the basement and looked at my one Super III car (a grey late-model Mustang) and yes, the traction magnets can be pushed up and down in their pockets. It's strictly a friction-fit arrangement, no threads or anything to help you adjust. The pocket has a cover over the top with a small hole that you can stick a tool into to push them back down. So just now, I moved them and ran the car around the track a little. It seems that with the mags closest to the track, the car almost feels like the magnets are slowing it down. Once you move them up into the chassis, even just a little, the car seems to get harder to drive, as in it spins out or barrel rolls easier. For reference, I grabbed a random NASCAR Tyco and a random NASCAR LL off the shelf to run a few laps back to back. Both seemed easier to drive and faster around the track than the Super III. To be fair, the Super III has not been tuned or adjusted in any way, but then neither have the others.

Again, as the disclaimer says, this is just my experiences... and I'm just a basement dweller with a bunch of yard-sale Tycos and LLs and one SIII with which to compare them. I know there are guys out there who have tuned and diddled with Super IIIs and gotten better results out of them. MOO, YMMV. those with more experience, feel free to jump in and set me straight... :wave:

--rick


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## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

*Super-III*

The "adjustable" traction magnets on the S-III are a manual push of the magnet up into the cavity they sit in. Not the easiest to measure accurately, but can be done. The other thing to adjust on the S-III are the pick up shoes. The ride askew on the brush barrels and lose electrical contact. That's an easy fix by reshaping the hook around a similar sized brush barrel tube. I use a 1/8" piece of piano wire to shape the hook. This increases the contact area and smoothes the action as well.

The Life-Like Fast Tracker are very quick and easy to work on. There is no way to adjust motor brush tension as they are a fixed unit, similar in design to the Tomy AFX Super G+.

Both run well and have their own peculiarities just like Tyco/Mattel or any other chassis. The variety is fun to mess around with.

-Paul


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Well, I'll throw my $.02 in...

First the LifeLike.

There are two different designs of chassis...

The racing chassis, or "M" chassis
and the toy chassis, or "T" chassis
The T chassis has replaced the M chassis, and is what you find under most late model LifeLikes.
The T is distinguished by HP7 like front shoes and its dot neo traction magnets.
Because of its speed, and narrow traction downforce, T chassis dont play well with other types of chassis.

The M chassis, on the other hand, is a brilliant design. It started with the brand ROKAR.
The motor magnets are also its traction magnets. Because of their placement, and size,
you can almost slide a car completely sideways and still have magnet downforce.
These cars run great with stock tires, push on silicones or Wizzard type silicones.
This is a wide chassis, so you are pretty much stuck with wide bodied cars.
They made indy cars and sprint cars for these chassis, but it was hard to make them look realistic.
The M chassis plays well with the Tyco 440x2 chassis, but has way more traction than the 440 or HP7.
We used to run a series with Tycos and LL M chassis.
The Tycos seemed to have the edge on straight speed, but the Ms had better traction.
It was a trade off, and ultimately, at the end of the heat, the Ms won with better balanced downforce.

The bodies for the T and M chassis are interchangeable.
There is also an older chassis to look out for. It fits the same bodies.
Not sure what to call it, but its their version of an AFX Gplus, but not as good.
The M chassis is discontinued, so I would buy all I could get my hands on.


The Super III
Although I'll give kudos to AW for bringing a new design, the chassis definitely needed refinement.
It seems the chassis has more downforce than the motor has power to pull.
Consequently, they are not as fast as they appear. I have seen several of these cars burn up.
The only car that acts similar to this one, to me, is the AW UltraG Xtraction.

From driving and competing with all of them, thats my opinion.


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## 440s-4ever (Feb 23, 2010)

This is GREAT info. Thank you. I'm not trying to stop the conversation so if anyone has anything else to add, please chime in. It sounds like the LL is more comparable to the 440x2, which is the backbone of our fleet. 

One more step......Do any of these cars have parts that interchange with tyco? Axles, pins, or tires? Just wondering in the event of finding a cheeeep but incomplete car, and for frankenstein purposes.


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## Pomfish (Oct 25, 2003)

You can swap axles, pins are different, tires are wider on rear of LL than Tyco.
Stock tires on LL generally are very hard and too tall, in short they suck.
Good set of slip ons around .442-436 and you are ready to rock and roll.
Watch motor temperature as you experiment with lower tires as the M chassis will run hot if run too low.

You can adjust brush tension on the M-Chassis by shortening the back side of it to make the brush shorter. They are brittle, probably best to score them and then break them where you want.

I have found that the old Notched G-plus high copper content brushes work best on these chassis, if you can find them.
Thanks,
Keith


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## cwbam (Feb 8, 2010)

$3.00 hpx2 (really $4 delivered) are they still in stock ?
level 42 neo's & tires. and if you are running Lambo's or 'Vettes
you can swap the parts into a narrow chassis.


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## fordcowboy (Dec 27, 1999)

I thouht one of the traction mag was in wrong on the super 3 ? Need to check that out. lendell


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## LeeRoy98 (Jul 8, 2005)

Are there any replacement parts available for the Super III? I know the ones that I have wore the pickup shoes quickly and I could never find any to replace them. 

Gary
AKA LeeRoy98
www.marioncountyraceway.com


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## alpink (Aug 22, 2010)

AMRAC and ROKAR bodies will fit on LL chassis.


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## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

No spares for the S-III. I have made Mega-G 1.7 long shoes work with a little tweaking.

-Paul


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## 440s-4ever (Feb 23, 2010)

NO SPARES!?!?! What kind of communist conspiracy sells slot cars without parts?

This thread has been extra informative. I was honestly leaning toward the super III at the start, but LL looks to be the clear winner.


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## pshoe64 (Jun 10, 2008)

*Chassis Pictures*

Here's a link that has most of the chassis in top and bottom views, including Life-Like, Rokar and AMRAC chassis.

http://sites.google.com/site/wrrspeedinc/home/ky-stlp-race-to-the-future/ky-stlp-racing-to-the-future-chassis-options

-Paul


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## LeeRoy98 (Jul 8, 2005)

Back to the original question, both of the LL chassis are fun. They are just two different types of racing. The M chassis is more of a lesser magnet car (lesser meaning less magnetic attraction) that is fun to drive. The T chassis has the neo traction magnets and sticks much harder. 
You are correct that they are cheap on ebay if you pay attention. Pick up a couple of each and see how they perform for you. 
The local track used to run a series with the T chassis allowing any gear ratio and with the 24' straights a 15 tooth tjet crown tied to the 7 tooth pinion made a true rocket! Only problem was it took forever to get the gear mesh to be smooth enough.
An alternative chassis to consider is the Tomy Super G Plus. With the new Mega G chassis out, the Super G plus value has declined. Just be prepared to do a lot of tweaking.

Gary
AKA LeeRoy98
www.marioncountyraceway.com


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## cwbam (Feb 8, 2010)

AW super 3, I tried 4 of these. 1 out of the box never moved, 2 were fast for awhile then 1 overheated (my fault) and 1 was great. No consistency but nice bodies that did not interchange with any other chassis.
LifeLike T great throw away chassis with ugly EGG shaped bodies I found some real cheap and let the kids play with them (try 15volts)
Old LifeLike M chassis I love the sound or noise they make! Most run pretty good , try some different rear tires and parts are available. Do some Racer leagues use the M chassis and run different Armatures?
Does the chassis link in a couple comments before this need some updating or matching title to chassis?


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