3.25 oz Tungsten Pinewood Car Weights + 20 Page Step-by-Step Build Guide for Apollo 2000 Derby Car Showing Design + Weight Placement, Bring Your Car to The 5 oz Limit and Gain The Winning Edge

This is my fourth pinewood derby now with my second son. I spent a lot of time on the previous 4 cars and tried different techniques I had read online to try to improve our performance without ever making it out of the middle of the group. This year I just wanted it to be easier, I have found that one of the most time consuming aspects of preparing the car was trying to get the weight incorporated into the car. Using this system of weights made the car much easier to build without cheating, and my son was able to do a lot of the work because of how simple the car design was. Including some of the suggestions of adjusting the week angle in the instructions, this system worked perfectly for the track our pack used and we actually won the race. I used a different graphite (mentioned by a previous review) that I think may have helped. I had planned to give 4 stars because I didn't receive the putty for making final weight in my order, so I had to use something else to adjust the weight right before the race that was not nearly as convenient as the putty would have been. I think this weight system made things so much easier and made the car that much more competitive, I'll give it 5 stars.

Great product, easy to follow instructions and the results speak for themselves. My kiddos went one and two in their pack this weekend. They set the new track record, and we’re going back and forth through the heats to break it again, and again. In a sibling rivalry race after the event they came in at the same exact time. Goes to show how repeatable the process is.

We purchased this last year for my son's first pine car derby and didn't really know what we were doing. We loosely followed the instructions and ended up coming in second place in the whole school! This year, he worked really hard and followed the included instructions, and came in 1st place! He was so excited.The weights allow you to put it exactly where you need to have the most potential energy. Following their instructions gave us a little room to work when registering the car so we could bring it up to the maximum weight.I would highly recommend this weight kit. Even if you don't follow their instructions, the weights are really nice!

My boy followed the directions and it works. The design is simple and easy. The loss of a star is just because of the author sort of glosses over the most important part... axle polishing and placement. You could follow this book to a T... and if you don't polish the axles just right or don't put the axles in just right you have a fancy paperweight instead of a racer. We ended up following the direction for the build but spent most of the time following the advice we found on YouTube on axle polishing and placement. We got 2nd place in our pack! I’ll give some of the credit to this build guide... but do yourself and your kid a favor and seek advice from multiple places on how to build a fast car.

I bought all the recommended tools. The kids did most of the sanding. I lined up the drill press, they pushed. Also bought a wheel polishing kit. Cars came out as expected with the center of gravity 3/4” in front of the back axle.At first, it looked like it wasn’t worth it. We have a couple of long-time Scout dads and those cars haul the mail. So my Webelo finished 5th at the pack level. My Tiger got 3rd; enough to qualify for districts.Districts came and his den took the top 3 spots; he got 2nd, but this time, on a brand new track with built-in electronic scoring. On to council. Back to 3rd. But again, his den took the top 3 spots with the same winner as at districts (again, long-time Scout dad helping).We’ll see if they want to do the same thing again next year. If so, will buy again. Either way, recommended!

This is the first time I've helped build a pinewood derby car since I was a Cub Scout. My 7 year old daughter and I built one, and we ordered this set of weights to finish it. The directions were very good, very thorough, and very clear and easy to follow.My daughter won first place in her age group for both looks and speed. She was also the overall Grand Champion of all the scouts at the derby! In no small part I'm sure we can thank the quality weights and the excellent tips and directions that came with the weight set.

If you are new to Cub Scouts, you should know that the Pinewood Derby is like Super Bowl of scouting and many cars are super-serious feats of physics. You’ll (really, your scout) will want to decide whether to make a “funny car”/theme car or a racing car.I think that doing a theme car is an excellent woodworking option, and by no means easy, but if your Scout want to go for speed, this design (with Tungsten weights) is one of the two most popular models I’ve seen. The second model is out of another book that is everywhere and can be purchased on Amazon.I’d recommend starting with this package. First, the cost of the weights and booklet here are comparable to just the weights elsewhere for sale: basically, you’re getting the booklet for free. You’re going to need weights and who doesn’t like free stuff? Second, the design is good to try. The basics are sound.The biggest tip, though, is giving yourself enough time! I gave us a week and we could have used three more days!

This is a great kit/guide for building a winning derby car. We followed the bulk of the instructions but did some fine-tuning on the back end with weights leftover from a previous year to try and get our weight spot on. There is always going to be some deviation with weight considering paint and how dry your block is. I suggest baking the block for 2 hours at 250 to reduce the weight a little more. Anyway, winning product, we will definitely buy again!