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Are being re-issued! I just picked up a big oval "fat track" and a '69 Firebird, but I have to wait until xmas to open it. They kept all the original pacakging, so it looks like a cross between the coolest thing you ever saw and a garage sale in Target. I haven't seen anything on the Hot Wheels or Mattel website, but they had them at Target.

Hue and I were talking about how cool it is going to be to race bits on that big, wide track with the high banked turns and rails, not to mention putting the bit-racers out there.

Sizzlers were in the top 5 of all toys from my childhood, and I can't wait to get them flying around the track again.

steelo over at TRC was report in on the Fat Track. I in turn also picked up the Fat Track at Target.

The biggest challenge you're going to come up on is putting a car fast enough on the track that can get around that insane embankment. And if you DO get a fast enough Bit/Zip on the track to make it around, you'll then be challenged with how to keep it on the track.

...Even though the fattrack has the side rails built-in, they're still not high enough to keep the Bits/Zips from driving over.

One of the ideas I had for making the rails higher though is to buy some door/window insulation/stripping. Haven't done it yet though.

Good luck with your track and report back on how you're doing with it!

Well I was hoping that there would still be a need for steering and skill, so we'll see how it goes. I'm thinking a dual-cell will be plenty fast. Also, I've got some mosfetted cars with KIT racer gearing, should go as fast as a sizzler. Well, maybe not, sizzlers were fuckin fast!

someone throw up a pic, i think i may have one but wanna confirm.

Ya, I saw these at Target a little bit ago. I picked one up to check out. It was $7.99 if I remember right.

It came with a 2 "D" cell charger that clips onto your belt, and a car. The car has really crappy Hot Wheels like wheels, worse than regular Hot Wheels.

It has a 1/3 AA, 1.2v, Nicd, 150mah battery in yellow wrap.

It has a slot car like motor with a dual ended armature that powers the rear wheels.

Extremely simple set-up.

I swore I took pics.

Pics........





...and the crappy pic...

interesting, similar but different.

here's what i got, picked it up at a market once. inside it's the same as yours except instead of a battery it has a bigass capacitor mounted longwise in the chassis and wrapped in "hot wheels" heat shrink.
the charger takes 3 x aa cells.



so what do i have?

A blue hotwheels car with lint in the front right wheel

I picked up oe of those too, betty. Different car, similar concept. The Sizzlers have a little port on the side for charging, and are slightly smaller. Sizzlers first came out in 1970 or so and were discontinued in 1978.

I imagine you had the same I dea I did when I got that: How can I graft a steerable front end onto that huge longitudinal motor?

Betty, what you have there is an X-V racer. They are similar to Sizzlers, but not the same. They use a 2.5V 3.3F capaciter instead of a battery.

There is a new line of these called Turbo-Glo's, but the charging plates have been moved so you can't use the same chargers. There is also another new line called Ferrari X-V's which are 1/50th scale and use a 1/3AAA 2.4V 70mAh battery pack similar to the battery packs in ZZSE's, MT's and the new 'Cars' versions of ZipZaps. These use a pinion/gear setup similar to ZZ and similar r/c vehicles.

X-V Racers and Turbo-Glo's use a crown gear type HO slot car motor. Sizzlers have a special motor that is direct drive to the rear wheels.

The front wheels on a Sizzler are designed to allow the car to pass occasionally and spin-out on it's own to add more of a racing feel to them.

I have an idea for guard rails for the Fat Track that I haven't quite finished yet, but here is the jist of it.

Slim CD jewel cases will fit in the slots under the track walls. Just line up the tabs that would normally hold a piece of paper and slide them in (note it will be a tight fit but you actually want that). On the hinge side of the case cover you will see a raised line. Use this as a cutting guide and cut along the side away from the hinge. On the other side you will see 2 raised lines. Use the top of each line as a cutting guide to cut two barriers out from the material. Once you have done this use the lines as cutting guides to cut those sections off. Repeat process until you have enough to cover both sides of both straight aways (You'll need 24 cases for the new Giant O' Layout).

For ZipZaps and Bits this is all you will need. Since the track is wide enough for 1/43 scale cars too (see image below) you'll need some extra support on the back of the barriers so that they will not pop out. This is where I am having the trouble. I want to find a material that is cheap, visually pleasing and safe for kids to play with.

If you are worried about your cars getting scratched up on the barriers you can add a thin self-adhesive weatherstripping to the barriers on the track side.

I hope this helps everyone and if you have any other questions please feel free to ask.



BTW, Sizzlers speed is 6 mph according to the Hot Wheels Radar Gun. You can also get 600mAh NiMh batteries for Sizzlers off of ebay. Also, the rear tires from a Sizzler fit perfectly on a ZZ and are super sticky. You'll want a hard compound tire in the front.

I imagine you had the same I dea I did when I got that: How can I graft a steerable front end onto that huge longitudinal motor?

I actually think it is possible, but maybe not at 1/64 scale. The Ferrari X-V's with a custom made chassis would probably work. There is a ton of wasted space on them to accomodate the groove to race on the I-Beam tracks.

Check out this video I found. It is not Sizzlers or a Fat Track, but the action is the same. X-V Racers on the Daytona track set. This is the type of action I want with my ZZ's.

http://home.mchsi.com/~meyersbl4/fayketona_web_hi.wmv

steelo wrote:Check out this video I found. It is not Sizzlers or a Fat Track, but the action is the same. X-V Racers on the Daytona track set. This is the type of action I want with my ZZ's.

http://home.mchsi.com/~meyersbl4/fayketona_web_hi.wmv

that was fucking insane!

SuperFly wrote:

steelo wrote:Check out this video I found. It is not Sizzlers or a Fat Track, but the action is the same. X-V Racers on the Daytona track set. This is the type of action I want with my ZZ's.

http://home.mchsi.com/~meyersbl4/fayketona_web_hi.wmv

that was fucking insane!

The in car shots were too cool.

Well I got my gears for Christmas and they came in today so you know I had to sneak one set to the play area for testing and the intial results are promising. Stock motor red gears is plenty fast enough for the turns, but looks really slow on the track so I switched to the orange motor. When it goes into the turn it goes so fast it smacks the top wall and glides around and then smacks down really hard. Just a matter of adjusting the trim though to fix this.

I think I may need to lower the bodies now though as they seem to be a little top heavy and will occasionally flip over coming out of the turn.

For a car setup this is what I am suggesting now. Minimum Orange motor, Optimum NOS blue motor or faster with either green or red gears. The only reason I am suggesting the green gears is for torque to get up to speed faster. Once you get the car fast enough the side rails are really not that big of an issue as we once thought, but for passing is still needed.

I'm working on getting better guard rails now. The CD cases work but are brittle and kids can break them easily and can have sharp edges. I'm trying to either get Mattel or an aftermarket company now to reproduce the guard rails from a similar track set that would be perfect and add a more realistic look. I'll update everyone once I get more information.

steelo

betty.k wrote:interesting, similar but different.

here's what i got, picked it up at a market once. inside it's the same as yours except instead of a battery it has a bigass capacitor mounted longwise in the chassis and wrapped in "hot wheels" heat shrink.
the charger takes 3 x aa cells.



so what do i have?

oh wow those bring back memories! i used to love those!