Yet another Customised Optima Mid Custom Special

[alcyon]

Finally what did me in was I broke a front right ZX arm..

Oh no...now the "nylon isn't as good as fiber reinforced stock arms" gang is gonna have to stomp ya!

It's all the fault of that hinge pin! Evil little B*****d, sneaking out of the arm like that!

I know you meant that as sarcasm, but you may be right. After I disassembled the arm, I saw that the hingepin was twisted. So the question is, did the hingepin twist too much until it caused the arm to break or was it the arm broke first then the hingpin twisted because its only being held by the rear end of the arm ? CSI anyone ?

[alcyon]

Drove the car on Saturday evening on TMB track, the large track as in the video, and the car was superb. It handle the bumps like a champ and took the huge jump without faltering even once. Traction was rather good as the surface was mostly hard packed. No major reliability issues other than the rear shock end popping off yet again, eventhough I changed to tough xray touring car eyelets, I need to change the shock shafts. A happy Saturday turned out to be a sad sunday, and another track which was tighter and with a lot of loose sand. The J concepts couldn't grip there at all and I kept spiining wheels and losing traction, not having enough speed to clear the jumps. Knuckle failure followed and before I could change tyres, it rained. So I was really disappointed. I have few ideas on how to beef up the knuckles and will be working on it.
Till next week, which hopefully I will have videos to show you guys.

[alcyon]

Remember the last few post about when I battled a Durango DEX410 and my Optima Mid's ball diff gave way? Well it seems the dingos friend took a video of that battle. here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQoPX2me_7o
Notice he did not jump the big jump well, but his car was quicker than mine. I believe if I did not have ball diff problems my Mid CS would have given that dingo a hell of a fight.

[alcyon]

latest update, have not been driving this car because of rain, but painted a new body, undertray and wing and new stickers from mci racing.

[HKS_TRD]

That looks like a ZX-S shell correct?

Which undertray did you use, the ZX-S or Mid?
I am going to start cutting out the ZX-S shell for my LWB Mid and from what I can see the ZX-S shell and undertray is a little shorter than the the Mid pieces and the Mid chassis wont fit inside the ZX-S undertray. I could use a Mid undertray but I think the ZX-S body is then not going to fit over it because its a little shorter

Some details and/or pics with the shell off would be appreciated

[alcyon]

That looks like a ZX-S shell correct?

Which undertray did you use, the ZX-S or Mid?
I am going to start cutting out the ZX-S shell for my LWB Mid and from what I can see the ZX-S shell and undertray is a little shorter than the the Mid pieces and the Mid chassis wont fit inside the ZX-S undertray. I could use a Mid undertray but I think the ZX-S body is then not going to fit over it because its a little shorter

Some details and/or pics with the shell off would be appreciated

That is a ZX-S shell and LWB Mid undertray from kamtec, yes they fit !

[HKS_TRD]

That gives me hope, otherwise I was going to have to get another chassis made with a few changes to the rear section. I actually have a few genuine LWB Mid undertrays which fit the chassis better as the repros are undersize a touch. Hopefully the repro ZX-S shell still works with that

[alcyon]

URL=http://s185.photobucket.com/user/alcyon2sp/media/20140531_084150_zpsuxdswsz6.jpg.html][/URL]
Going to race.

[alcyon]

qualified 3rd. My mid was the only vintage. There were no other old timers there judging by the comments they gave about my car. They said it looked like dash yonkuro. Car handled the mud track well but the ot66s caused the car to flip easier at bumpy sections.

[alcyon]

increase my lap by 1 lap and also cut my laptime down by 6s. Car was tremendously quicker and handled better at this damp track by using zxr tires with inserts and tightened my slipper up. First car is a dingodex410. Second mine. Third losi tlr22. Fourth tlr22. Fifth dingo dex410. Fifth a sc truck. One more round of final. Hopefully i can keep this up. Car was reliable whole day.

[alcyon]

URL=http://s185.photobucket.com/user/alcyon2sp/media/20140601_181222_zpsna7avzrx.jpg.html][/URL]URL=http://s185.photobucket.com/user/alcyon2sp/media/IMG-20140601-WA0018_zpsi85ad9eb.jpg.html][/URL]
Car performed great in 3rd heat and manage to repeat my 6 lap performance. Again it held up fine. The biggest help to this outstanding performance was increasing -camber all around, lazer zxr tyres with sponge inserts, and tightening the slipper to give more speed. I had to also change my driving lines to avoid the ruts. This proves a modernised optima mid can compete today !

[HKS_TRD]

Way to go, nice work!

[alcyon]

Latest update. I took my LWB and SWB mid to sg buloh track, which is a loose sand surface. I finally managed to take a short video so you all can have a look.
The car was making grinding noises later on and I knew despite my best efforts to stop sand from going in, it did. When I reached home I saw that the belt was coated with fine sand. After debating with myself (schizo ) whether to open up the gearbox or not I decided to strip the whole car apart. After removing the undertray I think I found where is the sand going in. 3 Screws under the chassis holding in the front gearbox came loose. So the front gearbox was elevated from the chassis letting sand in. This happened because the threads were stripped and when I crashed hard it dislodged the gearbox. I decide to also change my SANWA ERG servo to a SAVOX short servo so that I can cover the body properly. I cleaned all the gears and front diff, and re stuffed it with RIDE 45 shore putty to make the car under steer a bit. The rear gearbox threads were also stripped at the shock tower mounting, causing the rear tower to flex. What the heck, this gearbox is used and I have been using it for the past 20 years. So I opened a NIP OT-84 I bought from daz75 on oople.


as you can see after about 30 packs my delrin gears started to look sharp. I decided to swap it out for my PEEK gear and give it a durability test. I sealed the lower drivetrain lastnight, and will proceed to re assemble the rest of the car tonight.
Oh yeah, here is the video, I think my mid performed really well. It jumps very well too. I tried out my SWB ,and while it was faster, it had a tendency to point its nose skywards on jumps. I will try to solve that problem later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPKM0xhsH7E
[youtube]hPKM0xhsH7E[/youtube]

[rccars4sal]

Very nice performance. I think you have achieved the pinnacle of performance for the mid platform. Those kind of tracks are confusing, with lanes crossing! I was running my 4wd slash on a similar track with some 1/8 ep buggies, and it was nearly a crash derby.

[alcyon]

Very nice performance. I think you have achieved the pinnacle of performance for the mid platform. Those kind of tracks are confusing, with lanes crossing! I was running my 4wd slash on a similar track with some 1/8 ep buggies, and it was nearly a crash derby.

Thanks rccars4all. I really had a hard time at this track a few months back when my own made white nylon c hubs flexed when my car crashed and ejected the bearings. This time I came with my hard PEEK c hubs and no failures occurred. I don't think the pinnacle has been reached yet. There was a little belt slippage at the time that video was taken, everytime I hit the brakes after full speed there was a clicking noise, because the sand in the gearbox was causing the belt to slip. Also I wasn't using the right tyres for that track. Now with the proline M3s I should be quicker. I will try to get another video out, hopefully with more impressive driving and performance.

update 7th sept 2014
an old fellow vintage racer asked me to join him to bash against his tamiya db01. My mid felt slow on road. I thought the motor was a goner. I also kinda felt my rear gearbox get hot after a pack. So after my friend left i decide to test the car on the parks grass surface. It was fast on the grass. I also used a small slope as a jump and it cleared it with still lots of speed to spare. So the 8.5 was fine. Also the rear gearbox did not get hot..just warm. The car handled the bumpy and rough surface well without any failures. I am very pleased with this mid customs performance. Also two large dogs saw my mid and they chased it. I promptly steered it in their direction and chased them back. After a short stand off they gave up.