Friday February 23, 2008
 NINCO 350z 'Team Houzan' Review By Shawn Smith Appearance:  Prior to this release my favorit paint job of the NINCO 350Z was the previously mentioned 'Xanavi' painted car. It may still be my favorite but the black and white contrast of this 'Houzan' model make it a very close second!  Amber colored headlights accent the nose of the car, as do a tiny yellow bumper mounted tow hook and thin black canard style wings.  The hood gets a louver treatment and a nice amount of well applied graphics including some silver accenting on the 'torn' graphics behind each of the headlight details.   Nice the low the profile of this 350Z screams 'fast' to me. The side of the car has open body work near the rear of each of the front fenders, seprately applied side view mirrors, painted details like the door handles and black 6-spoke wheels with chrome accenting break rotor details and NINCO molded slick racing tires. The rims even get their own tiny tampo- graphics... if you look close enough.   In the back the small clear red-plastic tailight details are often shadowed by the GIANT black rear wing and thankfully these wings have proven to be nice and sturdy and I like this one piece design over the two piece version used on the NINCO Toyota Supra.  Overall fit and finish is great on this car. The only fault I found on it were my own finger prints on the black stripes that ended up in a couple of the images... sorry bout' that. All tampos are well applied with no signs of fading. A great looking 350Z in my opinion. Performance:  Two screws hold the 350Z's body to the flat and wide chassis. Here the cars angle-winder motor placement stands out and you can see just in front of the motor the small round impression of the NINCO cylinder button-style magnet.  The red plastic angle-winder gearing spins the axle through brass axle bushings. Only two bushings needed on this car, which is a big contrast from the eight brass bushings used on the NINCO Hummer, with the front axle riding in moulded chassis mounts.  The NINCO spring loaded guide helps keep power to the car but I still find it very helpful to angle the braid tips downward towards the track and I make them as wide as possible at the same time for optimal performance.  And of course that performance is pretty strong. For those of you newer to slot car racing the NINCO NC-5 'Speeder' motor provides more than enough straight line speed and with NINCO's small round magnet you'll find it has ample power to over-power the cars grippy tires in the turns.  The NINCO 350Z is no magnet-missle, none of NINCO's cars are, but its very fast when driven within its limitations and I find myself running these light downforce NINCO cars when turning laps by myself for fun. Plenty of tail-sliding action punching the gas out of the turns! The Final Verdict:  No the 350Z is not new, this paint job is, yet the NINCO 350Z remains a great car with lots of racing potential. Good looks, plenty of RPM's with solid braking and strong torque and you have yourself yet another winner in the NINCO GT line up! Thanks to Model Rectifier (MRC) for providing the NINCO 350Z 'Team Houzan' for review. Please stop by the HRW/SCG Message Board to talk about this and all other models of slot cars. Happy Slotting! Shawn Smith - SJSlots sjslots@hotmail.com Thanks Go To MRC For Sponsoring This Review!
|
