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Someone (sorry, can't remember who ) was asking about building a B1M on a graphite chassis... I didn't see any reason it wouldn't work. The graphite cars had less bracing in the rear than a pan-based RC10, since the bulkhead didn't tie to anything on its sides, so I figured the mid motor conversion wouldn't be any worse. So I decided to give it a try...

I picked up a nice TQ10 in runner condition (if it were really mint I probably would have shelved it) on here. All it needed to run was a radio and some wheels and tires well-suited to the indoor clay track I run on. On Thursday night I brought it out to the track with my B1M to run the TQ10 in its original configuration before I converted it to MM. I have to say, it drove and handled much better than I would have thought! I was actually embarrassing some of the guys with modern cars, lol.
I drove a few packs through it till the 6-gear started making strange noises. So now the teardown begins.
And I already designed and printed a bulkhead for graphite B1Ms.

Well that was easy enough, lol
Feels every bit as stiff as it did as a regular RC10.

Just need to put the motor and esc in now.

Interesting...

I was wondering if all of the printed parts can be done in black?

They can easily be died any color.

They can also be made to look more like AE nylon parts by dying them with strong coffee.

Thanks Brian. I was just curious, figured I'd ask for everybody

There was a thread a few years ago about dieing Shapeways parts to get them to appear more like natural Nylon. Coffee, tea, some different mixtures of Writ fabric dye, IIRC, were all discussed.

Edit: Just did some searching... seems it was spread over several threads. If you search for "dye" and "shapeways" you can find some info on dieing the parts different colors, including to match natural Nylon.

Why did you decide to keep the motor guard and therefore the bracing?

I can understand the logic with a tub chassis but less so with a graphite?

Could have gone either way, but I like the way it looks
And without the motor guard the body would just be hanging out in space. I think it would look weird.

Runner status!
I'll take her out to the track next week, they were closed last night (my usual night)

This looks really nice! Couple of questions:
Is there room for a gear cover if a guy made a custom motor plate? My track is rocky/sandy and I need a cover or the gears suffer. That's why I like this model more than the tub version.
and
have you thought of incorporating a plate to tie the 2 camber balls to each other? Seems like it would be nice to beef that area up, and if a guy is having custom towers made anyway it might be worth while. I'm thinking even 1.5mm fibreglass would add a lot of strength.

It looks super tight with the custom battery cups, nice work and thanks for the contribution!

I believe a custom motor plate and gear cover could work. Just for fun, I shoved an RC10 gear cover about where it would go, and it looked like a modified version would fit. The area that goes over the spur would need to be made to clear the rear arm mount, and the overall depth would need to be reduced as it was touching the shock. And then the motor plate enlarged to give it something to bolt to. For the camber link brace, it's an interesting idea, but I don't think it's necessary.

The graphite bulkheads came in, they came out good.
I'll add them to the B1M selling thread as an option if anyone's interested