Mr. ED and the dawn of the MX834

[Mr. ED]

This project has come to a big slowdown as I've come to the point I should be cutting a new chassis. Here's what I started with: A second-hand MX4 I bought in the days before I returned from Japan, and brand spanking new 834B NOS body I've been saving up for years.

[tiger1]

This is a great idea!!!! looking forward to see more!

[DennisM]

This is going to be interesting -
I think You should use a repro body though - I´ve got an 834 we can put that ORIGINAL body on

[Mr. ED]

I had already progressed a little further between the time I took those pics and posted them.
I tried flipping the front arms for a shorter wheelbase and a single shock design for the front. But wasn't happy with how it sat and worked, so that's undone again.
Probably I'm just gone redo the front tower and lay the shocks down as far as possible; you get the idea from the pics below. For the bumper I want to do something like you'd see done on 1/8th buggies in the mid eighties... not started on that yet for lack of material.
I already relocated the rear tower further back to get a little more air between the shocks and body... will probably not undo that, but might end up putting the shacks behind the shocktower and make new mountingholes on the back of the arms.

But the biggest step done sofar was clean-up the spider rags from the body, remove the protective wrap from the few spots it had not come undone yet, trim for rough fit, and laydown the paint and pin-stripes:

Where did you get that re-pop from Dennis?

The original is nicely detailed with fine shallow lines, but it feels a lot like the traxxas radicator body I stripped and repainted last January. Maybe they were both PET instead of lexan?
Anyways, that body just cracked all over within the first 5 minute-run. Good thing this car is not likely to ever get run... allowed me to use Tamiya paint on it too.

[DennisM]

I like that paintjob
Did You try all gold pinstripes before You decided on the red?

My repro is a TBG.
Did Your original come with protective film?
Can You remember if it were in a bag with Graupner Header card?

[GoMachV]

I like it!

Just needs a mono shock

[Mr. ED]

I like that paintjob
Did You try all gold pinstripes before You decided on the red?

My repro is a TBG.
Did Your original come with protective film?
Can You remember if it were in a bag with Graupner Header card?

I had the red stripes around the cockpit, and the gold ones, all taped out before the paint went on.
After painting it up, the lower white area just looked too big and I added the chrome and rest of the red lines.
The bag and label were long gone, but most likely it was imported by graupner: The shop I found it in always had graupner stuff. Protective film, yes, but not the kind we have now and protects against pverspray. It was barely more than cling-on.

[Mr. ED]

I like it!

Just needs a mono shock

Very funny
I would have liked a monoshock on the front and rear. But without the shock limiting the arm travel, some other parts took over that role... Not good!
Oh, and the A&L steering cranks didn't prove to be the best rockers.

[DennisM]

I see a set of Scorpion rear trailing arms in the near future

[rccars4sal]

Any room for cantilevers to lay the front shocks down?

[GoMachV]

I predict another " "

[rccars4sal]

Derrrr.

[Mr. ED]

mmm guys, this is not going to be one of my wilder builds. I'm gonna make sure the body fits a s good as it can and lay down the shock to complete the looks.
Scorpion trailing arms: check, I have them but if I would consider trailing arms for this car it would have to be the JRX2 5-links or Bullet Racing ones. All the rest woud just be to much of a down-grade for the MX4
Cantilever space: check, plenty but I tried and don't have the right parts, and again ; after trying I found lackof proper down-travel limiter to be too much of an issue on this car to use a mono-shock.

That said, this won't be the last build yet and I'm quite sure I'll try trailing arms and mono-shock or inboard shocks again on at least one more

[DennisM]

I see Your point on the Scorpion trailing arms - Very active camber setup

[a01butal]

I think this is kind of cool, I've got a few 834B's and the monoshock sucks so the front end treatment you've done is probably pretty good but and there is always a "but" what if you put long shocks on the front like they did on some of the RC10's that were run in the wold championships back in the early 90's to really think outside the box. You haven't trimmed the front shock tower down so just put the longer shocks on up to the top holes and you've got a really wild 834B.

Just a thought.