Shortly before X-mas I wrote a quickie post about a particularly expensive and valuable limited production Road Race Replicas body that I bought with the intention of just keeping on a shelf due to its rarity, value, and beauty. Though that post garnered zero interest, at the time I expressed why I had come to that decision and my misgivings about it. Well, not surprisingly, it didn’t take even a full month for me to rethink my position on that, but I still was unwilling to get out the Dremel and start grinding material out of that body to make it fit an AW Ultra-G. That awesome orange Mustang gave me an opportunity to try something new, something I’ve been wanting to try for a few months but couldn’t really see how it might fit into my collection and my plan. Since I had this great body that I wanted to run with the traction magnet cars but didn’t want to force-fit over the traction magnet chassis I use, I thought this was the perfect time to try out a new product that might be the perfect fit for this Mustang…literally.
Some time ago Dash Motorsports made a modification to their T-Dash chassis and added a pair of small neodymium traction magnets. I suspect that the popularity of the AW Ultra-G format made it obvious to the fine folks at Dash that there was a market for such a product. This new variation on a familiar theme was released as the T-Dash “Mondo Grip.” I’ve been aware of these for some time, but my devotion to the Ultra-G format kept me from taking the plunge and buying one, until now. I recently acquired one specifically for use with this particular car to see how they would do on the Drag City Roadcourse.
Once the chassis arrived, I did what any gearhead would do and immediately disassembled it to see what it was made of. It came with a nylon idler gear (Dash claims this is for quieter running but I bet its also cheaper than a copper gear!) Though the field magnets were standard looking gray and marked only by small blue and white stripes indicating front and rear, they were extremely strong-perhaps the strongest I’ve seen in any T-Jet-style chassis, as they seemed to have even more pull than the OS3 Black Dragons I have used in many of my Ultra-G’s. Surprisingly, the brushes where neither tapered nor notched; they were the old-style barrel shape as seen in the original Aurora T-Jets. As with nearly everything Dash does, the whole product had an overall feel of quality.
I put it on the track without a body and dialed in the voltage I’m going to use in the aftermath of my recent “engine fires” – namely 18.5 to 19V – and gave it a run on both lanes to see what it would do. I have to confess that the performance was, to put it charitably, underwhelming; when I cranked up the voltage I got some real speed out of it but I can’t leave it that way without risking very short motor life, so I dialed it back down and determined pretty quickly that this chassis is going to be no match for the Auto World Ultra-G in terms of speed. However, it did have quite a nice grip on the track, and I liked the way the dual magnets seems to give more sticking power without too much drag, so this showed promise.
The big question was, would it fit underneath my notoriously tight Road Race Replicas body without the rear gear rubbing against the rear screw post or the top of the rear window, and would the axles, wheels and tires I most like to use clear the body’s fender wells without the tires rubbing the body or the axle rubbing the front screw post, all of which I have to “adjust for” when I mount this body on an Ultra-G.
Welll…
Pluperfection!
It fit flawlessly all around, with the low-profile tires clearing the wheel wells and everything looking factory-designed without a single grind to the body or a shim on the posts! That surprised me; I had reason to hope it would be good, but I didn’t think it would be that good!
With that triumph in place, it was time to put it back on the track with the body…and the result was glorious! While it isn’t as fast as the Ultra-G’s, on a body as valuable as this one that’s probably a good thing; it may not win races but it will still put on a hell of a show in the muscle fleet! This is a breakthrough of sorts: it means that when I have tighter, more compact bodies that won’t quite fit on the Ultra-G’s without a little modification, I have an option: I can make those modifications as I’ve learned to do if I really want the performance of the Ultra-G, but if I have a rare and valuable body that I just can’t see taking any material out of, but that I also just can’t resist putting on the track at Drag City and racing with the other cars, there’s a different platform I can use that can at least keep up!
On top of all this, there’s the added bonus that the Dash chassis come in a variety of colors; there’s only about 5 options for the Ultra-G (and with a few notable exceptions I haven’t had much luck with the translucent colored ones), but you can get the Dash chassis in over a dozen colors. And on top of that, there are two different strengths of neodymium traction magnets available for them!
Which brings me back to the issue of speed: is it possible that I just got a slow one? Maybe; I can’t know because this is the only one I’ve acquired, but I’m hoping to get some more if I can find them! I’m looking for a bright yellow one to go with a particular body that I purchased a while ago that will look awesome mounted on a yellow chassis, so when I get another one I’ll have better idea if this one is representative of the type, or a “laggard.”
The only bad news is that, naturally now that I’ve tried one out and liked it, the T-Dash Mondo Grip chassis seem to be in very short supply: a visit to Dash’s own website no longer lists them as an available item. Of course, being a small boutique manufacturer, it is likely they deplete their stock from time to time and will make more in the future when they are able to. I sure hope so, because for the first time I’m looking at racing with more than one kind of chassis while still keeping the action “all Thunderjet!” Now my awesome orange Mustang fastback is in the muscle car fleet, and that seems like a pretty awesome deal to me!
3 thoughts on “Test Driving the “Mondo Grip” T-Dash Chassis”