JK Racing's 91 build...not a replica, a racer

[vintage AE]

About time Joey

The shell looks awesome and will suit the car nicely. Yup, first roll with hurt, but after that each one will get easier.

[JK Racing]

The body made it's way home with me last night. Absolutely a stunning all paint (except the painters logo/name around the windshield) body.

[JK Racing]

I had pulled the early lunsford turnbuckles off before that picture above. I have also rebuilt the rear shocks, adding the needed limiters to reduce the droop.

Knowing I am going to use a shorty pack, I started thinking how I could do it without drilling new holes or using a large foam spacer. So I had a thought...what if I turned the back battery tray around? Then another idea...what if I mounted it upside down too? I could tuck the receiver in there and hide the wires really good.

Well...let the pics speak for themselves:

[JK Racing]

Motivation now in high gear...I tackled trimming and mounting the body.



Wasnt feeling the black wheels, so swapped on a some yellows and mounted up the wing.



Servo should be here in the next few days, then just put a pinion on and start doing some shakedown runs

Oh...I will put on some chassis tape before it hits the track.

[slotcarrod]

Car looks great, love the innovative idea of flipping the battery box. Perfect spacer for a shorty pack and tray for esc. Sticky lead weights can easily be hid under it too. Hope you don't shatter parts like Anthony and I! Niki is working on a better stronger plastic compound than what NY Shapeways provides btw.

[lmwong]

Really nice racer! What black wheels are those? I'd prefer the white dished wheels over the yellow to go with the rest of the body.

Bravo!

[flipwils11]

What a fabulous result. I also really like the upside down battery tray!

[Beau S]

The graphite drag link, flipped batt box for rx cover/esc shelf, & black rulux wheels.. Very nice touches!!

[JK Racing]

Good catch Beau on the drag link. I'm slowly making them for my cars as I find a minute here and there.

As Beau said, the wheels are JConcepts Rulux. Fronts are B4, rear are Mini E-Revo (and only come in black), with HPI hex adapters. Not ideal for racing, the recess for the wheel nut is too tight for a standard wrench to get in there (made for the metric e-revo nuts).

Rod, still waiting on my servo, so I haven't had a chance to shatter parts yet. I know my driving, I think it will be 2 laps into shakedown/practice when I bust something

Looking at those pics...my workbench is a cluttered mess. I really need to take time and clean it up/put things away

[JK Racing]

The final package will be awesome

I'm always shocked at how you guys can paint a shell like that BEFORE cutting it... because when you cut it, especially an RC10 body which is a PITA to cut properly with the shock towers and all, there is no way you won't damage/scratch some of the paint...

Anyways - looking forward to the final pics!

Paul

Paul, what I do is 2 things.

First, when I get the body from the painter or I finished one myself, I put a couple generous coats of clear inside the body. Learned this when I started using water based paints and how easily they scratched. Lately when I paint, I am also laying down a generous final coat of either white or black, depending upon the colors I am painting, before the clear.

Second, I take a lot of time trimming. Away from the final cut lines first, then closer with very sharp lexan scissors. If I have an area where I know the scissors will mess up the paint, I avoid it and come back later with a dremel and a sanding drum (top of the rear shocks is a perfect example). Taking little nibbles at a time. I go over all the curves I cut with the sanding drum to smooth them out. A final edging with a fresh x-acto blade to ensure any flash from the sanding drum is removed. A blast of air from the compressor gets all the sanding dust off.

[JK Racing]

Got my servo about a week back, but work and home have taken up my time. So today I started working on mounting it up. Couldnt for the life of me get it to sit right...just stumped. So I took to this site and realized I had to trim the ears off...DUH!

So after trimming the ears off and pre-wiring it for my JST equiped transponder off to work on placement. Used a heat gun on the servo & chassis, then heated up the tape as well after it was on the servo. Very strong hold now.

I used a Turnigy/Trackstar TS-D99X shorty servo. Man these are quick little buggers!

[JK Racing]

Finally got the quick video uploaded...

[youtube]WEgsytRhqb8[/youtube]

[JK Racing]

Finished and completed. Tested out front of the house, nothing but grins







And it is just a little tiny bit underweight

[JK Racing]

Took it out to the track last night. Did a couple shakedown laps in the few minutes I had for practice. High speed off power steering is amazing, low speed steering suffers quite a bit, but I did have the wrong springs up front (green). Back to the pits before racing and swap on black front springs. Talking instead of looking at what I am doing....crack goes a front arm. Misaligned the screw to the bottom of the shock. No worries, little CA and some ZAP to harden it, just like new...

Took it out in the first heat and found the front springs made the low speed better, but not great. Now the front was woefully undersprung and had the hops in the high speed corners...so to rethink the front set up and get some weight in there (my first though about the low speed issue). Rotation is fine, the rear comes around, it just needs front bite. On power low speed push as well...I am using the right tires, because I used them on my B3 and Gold pan in other heats on the same night without those issues.

For the record...car jumps smoother than any other vintage racer I have. Just soaks up the giant supercross type jumps we have. Indoor clay, pretty good bite, would say med-high to high bite. Relatively smooth surface, with little ruts & dips as expected. Speedwise the car is a rocket. 17.5 in blinky/non-boosted geared at 33/78 with 100C orion shorty pack was ridiculous fast.

With about a minute left, the front just didnt look right when taking right hand turns, maybe my CA fix didnt hold...so as I passed the finish line to complete my Q1 run, the arm let loose the rest of the way. I guess that is what I get for running replica arms on a racer

[Seabass]

Joey the car looks great and I am glad to see another one being driven.

I actually had to watch that servo video twice because the speed was unreal. I run Savox 1257 servos which are fast but that was ridiculous. Thanks for the pics and look forward to additional pics and reports on how the car runs.

Jake