Product Review - Body Armor

I know, if you are not new to slot car racing, Body Armor is probably not something new to you. However, some people have just never thought about this other than through their own complaints. Have you ever put a new body on one of your cars only to have one of the body pin holes get pulled out in the first week or two of running the car? This can be very frustrating if you have spent a lot of time taping the body off to make a really neat paint job. Then painted the body with great care. After painting, you spent time making sure the body was mounted perfectly and trimmed out properly. All this work and then your body pin pulls through your body leaving a nasty hole you must try to reinforce with tape. Have you wished you could glue some lexan on the body to cover the body pin holes to make it stronger? Body Armor is the product you have been thinking about but may have never known existed.

Body Armor, to put it simply, is a piece of lexan you use to reinforce the body at a point where it may receive damage or tear. Body Armor comes in a range of thicknesses from 0.005” to 0.010”. It can come in a range of widths from 1/4” to 1” and perhaps wider. It is a piece of lexan with adhesive on one side covered with paper. It is a peel and stick application. Body Armor will usually come in strips you can cut to the appropriate size.

A good use for this product is to cut into squares and stick over your body pin holes from the inside. You can then reinforce your body even more by applying a strip of strapping tape over the body holes and Body Armor going the length of the body. After this you can cut short strips of strapping tape and place them so the threads are running perpendicular to the other strapping tape. You now have an almost bullet proof body pin hole, especially so if you use strapping tape on the outside of the body as well.

Another use for the Body Armor is to reinforce weak places on the body. If you have a car that does not run a diaplane you can use Body Armor to reinforce the front end of your car. Right in front of the guide flag the body often takes an amount of abuse. By putting Body Armor under the body at the very front it stiffens the are which usually gets folding back in impacts with deslotted cars. In the rear fender area there usually is a weak point where the body is likely to tear or split over the rear wheels or around any spoiler you may have. By putting Body Armor in these places you can prevent a lot of these issues from appearing as quickly. You can also use these Body Armor strips to firm up an area which has already split.

Body Armor can, with the proper application, make your bodies stand up to a lot more impacts than unprotected bodies. It is not visible from the outside of the body and no one ever realizes the body is reinforced. You can even take the Body Armor and bend it to make it fit into creased areas of the body making it even more flexible in its use.

Now for the bad stuff. In some classes and rules at some tracks Body Armor is not allowed. You will have to check to see if it is allowed in your application. Also, for those who are counting the grams their car weighs, this does increase the body weight. It does not increase it by much but it does increase the weight. Weight reduces speed. Weight makes a car slower out of a turn into a straight. So, if you are at the level where you are willing to give up durability for a little edge in that lead on turn into the longest straight you would not want to use this product. However, if your driving skills are not to the point where you are hitting the lead on turn for maximum acceleration every lap, this might be a product that will keep you on the track longer.

Body Armor can be purchased through your local slot car track. If the track owner does not stock it, surely he will order it if you request it. If it is not available locally then it can be purchased from many online vendors or stores.