Joel 'Magic' Johnson's 1987 IFMAR 2wd winning Ultima

[wydraz]

Hi All,

I'm proud to be working with Joel Johnson and many of my friends in the hobby (who'll all get credit as we go) to restore Joel's actual 1987 2wd IFMAR worlds winning Ultima to it's former glory. Yes, the actual car.

I'll be recording the re-build here and on facebook in various groups- it'll be great to see it back in Joel's hands as it was to see Jamie with his 1990 Egress

Lots more to come soon - Joel is just gathering up all he has remaining of the car (he tells me he still has the body thankfully, hopefully it is useable and using the original body will be a nice addition).

Some may know this car used a lot of aftermarket and option parts - once I know what is and isn't there I'll make a list and hope some of you can donate to this epic rebuild.

Pierre did a fantastic tribute car and has already helped a lot, thanks Pierre.

Thanks,

Dan

[TomEG]

Looking forward to this!

Tom

[variant45]

Awesome!

[Jirka]

This is going to be one to watch! Hope we will see pics and get information soon

Jirka

[Returning_Jim]

SO AWESOME!

[rangerg]

Love it, looking forward to this thread.

[alcyon]

If am not mistaken, the JJ Ultima was actually closer to a turbo Ultima, with some trinity parts.
As usual, when we bought the Ultima we thought we would get world championship performance out of the box ..

[aip47-2008]

If am not mistaken, the JJ Ultima was actually closer to a turbo Ultima, with some trinity parts.
As usual, when we bought the Ultima we thought we would get world championship performance out of the box ..

Not a whole lot of Ultima left after Joel was done.

[TomEG]

If am not mistaken, the JJ Ultima was actually closer to a turbo Ultima, with some trinity parts.
As usual, when we bought the Ultima we thought we would get world championship performance out of the box ..

Not a whole lot of Ultima left after Joel was done.

No it wasn't, but then again he was working closely with Kyosho Japan on the development, and we can see a lot of his efforts in the Ultima Pro.

[uniquenamehere]

very cool, looking forward to see how this works out...

[TomEG]

There are a few things I really look forward to maybe "finally" get an answer to....

1. How exactly did he cut the Tomahawk body at the rear?
2. Did he/where did he cut the rear bulkhead to fit the cadnicas between the bulkhead and the S32H?
3. Maybe get an exact template of the fibre-glass "half oval" that the front body post is mounted on.
4. The contents of the gearbox (inner and outer). Joel was not 100% sure what type of diff, what size the outer gears were etc.
5. Probably more, that I can't remember right now

Tom

[losiXXXman]

Pierre's done a replica of the 87 Joel Johnson car. here's a link to his gallery. http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=77&t=30992&hilit=joel+johnson+ultima+replica+1989

Might be of some help. I don't think any cutting of the bulkhead was necessary for the battery to fit, he used a longer graphite chassis by CC/Trinity or something...I have tried to notch the bulkhead on my ultima pro, to get a battery down the centerline, but still cannot get it to fit. If I change to some side swing bellcranks, it may be possible. But haven't yet found a pair to use.

[TomEG]

losiXXXman,

Thanks.
I have a pretty decent replica of the WC'87 Ultima myself. But I never really got the cadnicas to properly fit. I do have the Composite Craft/D&D/Trinity chassis.

Pierre's replica has the cells in the "===" configuration, but when I presented Joel with the following picture a few years ago, he couldn't even confirm it actually was his Ultima:

This picture, however, he confirmed to me was of his WC'87 Ultima, and that the cells in the "||||||" configuration, was what he used in Romsey.

When putting the cells in that "||||||" config, I can't really fit them between the rear bulkhead and the servo (with the "wing" cut of). It's nearly there, but not completely. I can squeeze them down, but it doesn't feel right. That's why I always wondered if he had dremeled the bulkhead, ever so slightly. If I remember correctly (I will eventually dig up his emails from our long email exchange, that went on for a couple of months) he implied that he might had done just that.

I also have trouble getting the Tekin ESC far enough down to completely clear the rear body mount (on the rear shock tower). It's also nearly there, but not completely. And that's another reason why I suspect some dremeling

Tom

[TomEG]

I have dug up the emails from Joel from 2008 when I built my replica, and he wrote that he no longer have the gear box.

So one detail that still would be unclear is the diff used.

Code: Select all

ME: I also have two different sources on the differential used. One claims it to be a standard Ultima geared diff, while the other says it was a ball diff prototype. Could you shed some light on this?
JOEL: This is one I can’t answer definitively.  My guess is I had a Thorpe ball differential in the car.

I decided to trust his guess, so I have a Thorp ball diff in my replica.

[HKS_TRD]

IIRC back in the day the Australian publication "Radio Control Car Action" had an article titled"The Ultimate Ultima" in which the author built an Ultima with every conceivable aftermarket part. This was not long after Joel won the worlds and many references in the article were made to the worlds car and what part it had compared to the authors car.
If anyone has this article it may be of help