91 Masami Stealth replica (Photo Comparison Uploaded)

[fredswain]

I'm actually wondering if there weren't two different kick angles? The bulkhead on Masami's seems to suggest that his is 25° but has a 30° bulkhead due to the way the top deck snapped. Could it be that one chassis was unknowingly made with a different kick and it just happened to be his?

[jbmeyer13]

I just went back and listened to the podcast with Jason Ruona and Cliff said that he and Roger worked on the swept forward design for months. When they went to the nationals the prior year they tested a prototype with hand built parts which smoked the surfs up section. The critical design challenge was to have a 30 degree kick up with swept forward arms and not lose ride height. The only way to do it was to redesign the carrier and axle assembly (axle below the arm). The best part about the design was that the front end didn't dig in and that resulted in picking up 30 seconds of run time which was crucial given existing day battery technology.

The problem was that when they went to molding the parts for the remaining 15 cars they lost something in the translation. They had to scramble to fix the issues that altered the car between hand built to injection molding process. Cliff didn't specify exactly what that was but I suppose it's not out of the realm of possibility that compensatory adjustments were made to the bulkhead to dial things in. They certainly couldn't adjust the chassis and I would think that trying to adjust the carrier assembly would have been quite difficult. I'd love to know exactly what they did to alter the geometry in trying to get it to behave like the hand built version. Curtis?

Ultimately, it took another decade to fix all of those issues to arrive at the B4.

[Curtis]

Hi guys,

I hope I can answer some of your questions.

@LittleVETTE - Regarding the upper deck thickness. The upper deck needs to be as thin as possible without breaking. A thin upper deck lets the chassis flex side to side but the design keeps it stiff front to back.

@ Nikki - At the time we only could get 30 degree kick-up Carbon Fiber panels. We didn't have an option of different angles. I believe it is the chassis stance in the pictures that is fooling your eyes. Masami's car is the same as all the others.

@ Peakey - We took all the '91 Stealth Cars back after the race. No one was allowed to keep their cars. We did have a lot of cars at the shop but ended up destroying most all of them when we moved the shop from Costa Mesa to Lake Forest building.

@ jbmeyer13 - No compensatory angle was built into the front bulkhead. The hinge pins are at a 30 degree angle. Regarding the losing of something in the translation. The stiffness in the molded arms were not the same as the stiffness as the machined arms. We needed to try molding arms in different materials as well as altering the designs of the molded parts to get the correct stiffness.

[littleVETTE]

thanks for the reply curtis. were those rear motor guards cut from rc10 tubs? or were they custom made just for the stealth?

also what's going on with roger curtis in this picture?



"@ Peakey - We took all the '91 Stealth Cars back after the race. No one was allowed to keep their cars. We did have a lot of cars at the shop but ended up destroying most all of them when we moved the shop from Costa Mesa to Lake Forest building."

AHHHHHH!!!!

[Niki]

were those rear motor guards cut from rc10 tubs? or were they custom made just for the stealth?

I think ASC6311 from Graphite added with 2 holes for Stealth chassis mount. Dims match. We used standard holes because ASC6311's are so rare we didn't want to drill any extra holes for those parts that might be found. That's the reason SLS part is also available. As SLS part obviously isn't as good as original 6311, I added some functionality with "skid plate" shape to protect chassis rear end.

-Niki-

[littleVETTE]

the reason i brought up the question about the rear motor guard was because i was looking at my team car, and the motor guard just seems a little shorter than what's on the stealth buggy. seems like the stealth buggy's is a little wider and longer. my team car's motor guard....



and the stealth car's motor guard. also take a look at the last two photos from steve husting. two different mounting location holes for the chassis.





if you look at the bottom of the stealth you could see that theirs is a little wider than the stock motor mount plate on my team car. look at the width of each "rib".




-rob

[Niki]

Original Stealth chassis rear end is narrow compared to RC10 Graphite. Standard holes on ASC6311 are too wide to be used. That's is the reason for additional holes on Stealth mounted 6311's. That's my vision...

[tiger1]

If that is the case, then can we use the original piece on this stealth car??

[Niki]

Original ASC6311 motor mount brace can be used on NIX91 without drilling extra holes. Check out assembly drawing on NIX91 topic.

[bully]

You can get the rpm motor guards direct from them , they are the standard associated part just black... In case anyone wants an aluminum one...

[tiger1]

Original ASC6311 motor mount brace can be used on NIX91 without drilling extra holes. Check out assembly drawing on NIX91 topic.

Thanks Niki

[Asso_man!]

You can get the rpm motor guards direct from them , they are the standard associated part just black... In case anyone wants an aluminum one...

I can't believe they still have some left as I pretty much snagged the whole remaining lot a few years ago!

[jwscab]

Had them as of a few months ago, I snagged a few.

[fredswain]

So who is going to be the first person to build a 4WD version of this car???

[mk-Zero]

So who is going to be the first person to build a 4WD version of this car???

I was thinking that would be an awesome build just a few days ago. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before someone (*cough* Jeff *cough*) does it