Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

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fredswain
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Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

I had a chance to dig out some boxes of goodies over at Barry Raborn's house last night. Barry was the owner of both Bullet and Raborn Racing products. I took a few pictures but they aren't the greatest since they are from a cell phone. Anyways, here's a sample of some of the things still lying around.

Pic 1: Here are a few Bullet trailing arms. He's got lots more spare arms themselves lying around. The problem is a lack of hardware to complete many sets.

The car remnants at the bottom were of an RC-10 that Barry ran at the 1989 ROAR nationals. He had the pole in stock class after the first rounds of qualifying but then the track was cut and resurfaced and his setup didn't seem to work as well anymore. It happens. He finished 5th in the stock class B main with it. On the plus side he picked up Novak as a sponsor at that race.

The car has shortened versions of the trailing arms and as you can tell from the mounts and the number of holes in them, he was playing with wheelbase lengths and car width on it. The saddle pack slots are cut by hand and aren't particularly smooth! This and the other chassis are the only 2 Bullet chassis we could find at his place. I also have one at home. This car also had the Bullet Power Glide belt drive. Andy's arms up front. We started rebuilding this car last night and as it progresses I may start a thread on it.

Pic 2: Mint Bullet RC10 chassis on top. RC-X2 (RC10 front end/JRX2 gearbox) chassis on bottom. The sides on the RC-X2 chassis were trimmed weird for some strange reason now lost to history. An interesting aspect of this particular chassis is that the trailing arms mounts are further inboard than the standard width location on the RC10 chassis which means the rear wheelbase would be a little more narrow. It may have just been an experiment on this particular chassis.

Pic 3: Bullet Power Glide belt drives. We could only find enough parts for one complete unit. Fortunately you can make a new top shaft from an RC10 6 gear shaft, the upper pulley is from an Optima, and the gear diff is from an Ultima so it's not impossible to finish more off.
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trailing arms and car.jpg
RC-X2 chassis.jpg
Power Glide belt drives.jpg
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by scr8p »

does he still have some "i don't know where to put my batteries" chassis' left? :mrgreen:

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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

Here's one. These are Raborn Racing JRX2 oval chassis. The chassis on the right has a part of the sliding rack steering from the Invencer on it. He's got a box of these racks lying around. The battery tray is actually a sanded down rear bulkhead from a JRX2 that is nothing left but the actual battery cup area itself. Parts were layed out last night to build another car on the left chassis.
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JRX2 chassis.jpg
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fredswain
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

Raborn Invencer original hand drawn car layout template, 2 different Invencer chassis options, and an Invencer car. There was also a truck version. One is sitting up at M&M Hobbies in Houston.
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Invencer.jpg
Invencer chassis.jpg
Invencer template.jpg
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by LTO_Dave »

Very nice piece of history! The Invencer XT has always been one of my favorite oval trucks.

It's nice to know the tranny parts are from other manufacturers. :wink:

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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

The Bullet telescoping drive shafts were bought in bulk from Losi and repackaged but people have probably figured that one out by now. The Raborn pieces were different though.

I was just about out of battery on my phone so I didn't take any more pics but I get over there often so I'll get more yet. There is at least 2 boxes full of nothing but Invencer parts. Arms, bell cranks, etc. He's got an Optima Mid with the Bullet stretch chassis on it. That car too is pretty well taken apart and needs to be put back together. He'd like to but we are probably going to rebuild the '89 Nationals car first, and then the oval "I don't know where to put my batteries" JRX next. That would be a good thread name! I am also working on my own personal Bullet car which has the chassis, trailing arms, and belt drive.

A couple of other neat things he has are a still sealed in plastic wrap Edinger RC10 and a mint, new in box Optima Mid. Both of which were purchased from a garage sale for $25 each!!! There are also a couple of neat one off cars that were hybrids using parts from various others of the day. I need to get pics of one of the dirt oval cars. It seems like he mostly, but not completely, took everything apart when he was done with it. That just makes it all the more fun to reassemble 20 years later! There are random other things boxed up and it will take a while to go through everything but overall it's a bit like throwing a kid in a candy store.
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by Mr. ED »

I'd really like to see/read some more detail on those gearboxes. Did they have some kind of slipper?
And of course the hybrids: everything about them :mrgreen:

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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

I'm not sure if I'll get back over there this week or not. I might. If I do I'll try to get more pics. I have one of the belt drives. When I build it on the new project car I'll take pics of every step including the unique method of breaking in the diff using toothpaste and a drill.
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by wyldbill »

a few years i sent Meir from M&M hobbies/rayborn an email and he said he still had a lot of stuff left and he even sent me an old catalouge.

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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

Meir just sold M&M. He's on his way out and is moving to Florida. Barry picked up everything that was his but I don't know exactly what all it was.
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

It's a lousy picture of a piece of paper but as you can see I've measured the components of the trailing arms so that if parts are ever needed I can make them. This was done very quick in 2D AutoCAD but I'm planning to do it in 3D when I get the time.
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2012-05-23_00-00-48_714.jpg
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

I took some closer pictures of his ROAR nats car. Specifically on the back end to show the different things he tried with the trailing arms. 2 of the pics (labeled short arms 1 and short arms 2) show an original trailing arm compared to the modified shorter pieces on the car. The stock pieces are right at 3" from pivot point to axle centerline whereas the short arms are at 2-1/4" as run. You can see that they are mounted to separate plates that are then screwed down to the chassis. There are a couple of mounting points for these plates that can give a wider or narrower wheelbase and a few different spots to try different length arms on those plates.

If you look really carefully at the side view pic (short arms 1) where I have an original arm lying down next to the car, you can see that in front of the pivot bolt on the trailing arm is another hole for yet another effective length. In one shot (short arms 2) I have a stock trailing arm sitting next to the short one in a top view. If you look closely you can see that the material and thickness are different between each one. The standard pieces have what looks like a fiberglass core whereas the pieces on the car are solid graphite and are a little bit thicker. Barry said he never broke any trailing arms regardless of which they were. The caveat to that of course is that old tracks were softer, speeds were slower, and jumps were smaller.

On the bottom view of the chassis (short arms 4) you can see that this chassis was not a production piece. You can tell that much of it was hand cut and drilled. The holes for the belt drive mounting are the only holes in the back unlike the production RC10 chassis which were drilled for a 6 gear. The 2 larger holes in the rear are directly under where the outdrives on the diff sit. This was an easy access point for the set screw that held them on.
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short arms 4.jpg
short arms 3.jpg
short arms 2.jpg
short arms 1.jpg
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

OK moving on. Wow these are some poor quality shots! I took them in low light while tired with a cell phone camera so they aren't high quality shots by any means.

First up are some RC10 rear arms done in the style of the Andy's and RPM rear arms. These however are for the telescoping driveshaft conversion. There were even adapters to add them to the 6 gear boxes. The larger diameter of the slider style shafts meant added clearance was needed on the bottom of the arm.

The rest of the pictures are of a Raborn Invencer dirt oval car. This particular one doesn't have a stock chassis. This one is woven carbon fiber and is VERY thin for a chassis. If you look at the bottom view you can see that there wasn't enough material to run flush screw heads.
Attachments
RC10 rear arms.jpg
invencer bottom.jpg
invencer top rear 2.jpg
invencer top rear 1.jpg
invencer front.jpg
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by fredswain »

I forgot one! These are aluminum prototype pieces for the Invencer. Barry asked me if I could image running a car that heavy today. I said, everyone else is doing it!
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invencer prototype.jpg
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Bent
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Re: Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

Post by Bent »

Killer thread. Lot of things here that I didnt know.



I am interested in seeing the dirt oval car though.
You run me in the grass imma run you in the wall, drive like a racer not a flippin idiot

THIS PLACE ROCKS!!!!

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