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Chipping an F1 car The following will give you an idea of the process of chipping a single seater car. Usually a bit more fiddly than chipping saloons. The instructions below may look a bit daunting to begin with but that's only because they've been split out into lots of small steps, once you get the hang of it you'll be whizzing through, no problem. If you are looking to chip one of the older style F1 cars such as the Lotus/Eagle have a look on Slot Forum for more details, these are a bit trickier. NB: If chipping a brand new car please be aware that some of the screws in the underside may be really tightly screwed in at the factory. You may find a longer handle on your screwdriver useful to get a better purchase to remove them the first time. Also take care where you hold the body of the car in case you break off a wing or wing mirror before you have even got the bottom off. Here we have a slightly more complicated exercise, chipping one of the Lewis Hamilton McLarens. These are done with the slimmer F1 single seater chip. Start by removing the body screws underneath.One for the rear wing, two at the rear, one big one in the nearside centre and one at the front. There is no screw in the offside centre because that's where the chip will go and the manufacturers have thus provided a bit more space there. With the body off it's clear there is much less room in here, particularly in the area around the guide blade. Indeed there is no room for the capacitor and ferrite choke in that area. They can be squeezed in but then the guide blade will not turn. So, also mindful of the fact that the wires from the blade are threaded through the front axle assembly, let's leave that area completely alone. We will move the capacitor and ferrite choke further back in the car. First the easy bit which is inserting the LED which on this chip is on a long fly lead. There is a vertical shaft behind the guide blade which it fits tightly into and seems secure without adhesive but you may wish to add a spot of glue in to the shaft for extra security. Then, cut the black wires running from the guide blade to the motor, around the point where they pass the driver's arms. This same approach has been successfully used on other modern F1s like the Ferraris, Hondas and Renaults. Next, you will probably find it helpful to shorten the green and yellow wires to reduce the amount of wiring you are trying to stuff into the bodywork later. Too much extra wire can get tangled up in the gears during racing. Just cut out the capacitor and legs, ferrite choke and a little bit of the green and yellow wires from the chip to create a little "Ferrite Man" (see him lying by the nearside front wheel in this photo). Cut off the silver feet (which you would have threaded through the guide blade, but we don't need them this time) and bend his legs apart to stop his ferrite trousers falling down. Keep the feet in your slot car spares box as they may be useful in the future for spares. Then shorten by about half, the green and yellow wires remaining on the chip. Now just solder in the Ferrite Man. His legs solder on to the black wires, then re-establish his green and yellow arms' connection to the green and yellow wires you just shortened. Here he is, exactly in the same circuit as he would have been if we had placed him by the guide blade, but now he can fit in the area by the driver. Then connect the two motor wires (red to offside, black to nearside) and tape up the soldered joints as before. Now you can pop the car on track like we did with the saloon car and check it works correctly, if it goes backwards, swap the motor wires around. Also check the lanechanger works. Finally, locate the main chip board next to the motor, there is a little holder to keep it in place on the offside (nearside on some other cars). The Ferrite Man is shown in the photo behind the driver's left shoulder but actually there is a big gap between the driver's lower back and the motor, and it fits nicely in there. On some cars it can run down the other side of the motor from the chip. Thread all the wires neatly out of the way of screw holes, driver's chest and motor gear areas and then re-seat the body. You will probably have several attempts at this, as each time you lower the body a wire will escape. Usually from the side of the car you are not watching. You may find it useful to have a small object like a screwdriver handy to poke any escaping wires back into place. Also take care when holding the body whilst screwing in the base again, there are many little features, winglets, mirrors, and so on, that can easily be broken off if you apply pressure to them. Not as easy as the saloon car but we still avoided disconnecting anything from the motor and also kept away from the guide blade as well. The extra bit of soldering is well worth it compared to the effort and performance risk of trying to properly re-thread the wires in the driver's footwell.

SSD and uprated motors SSD chips are not compatible with motors above 20K RPM. We have successfully chipped a Lewis Hamilton Scalextric Club McLaren F1 car with a 20K motor in it, but other racers report blown chips with motors more powerful than this.

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