HOW MANY TRAILING ARM CONVERSION IS THERE FOR RC10

[LTO_Dave]

Found this kit fron The Touch while browsing the scans section:

[Jerzi]

I have of those arms. Very weird trailarm system.
Jerzi

[railey72]

Jerzi,
Please share some pics! I have only seen those arms in that ad and it would be nice to see a good picture of that system. Thanks!

[Jerzi]

I have of the arms and never installed them into the car.
Jerzi

[Dirtdiver]

"The Touch" trailing arms were made by Gary and Kristen Harvey. There motto was "One piece, solid mount, no flex" as they made their arms from polished plate stock 6061 aluminum. They made trailing arm set-ups for both the gold pan and the graphite chassis. In addition, they made wide front arms and stock looking 6061 polished aluminum rear arms. Other performance parts were front shock towers, rear shock towers and stretchable cloth motor covers in 18 different colors (with custom covers up to 12 letters).

Price list:

TF 36 - Fr Aluminum "A" arms - $30.00
TF 40 - Graphite trailing arms - $45.00
TF 49 - Tub trailing arms - $45.00
TF 41 - Suspension bars - $10.00
TF 50 - Stock rear arms - $30.00
TF 53 - Front shock tower - $10.00
TF 60 - Rear shock tower - $10.00
Motor covers - $3.00

This information was from a newsletter called Excel - The Performance Journal for the RC-10, vol 1. no 2, summer 1988, with the article titled, "The Winning "Touch" for your RC 10" by Bob Crane.

It's amazing the stuff you find in your old room at your parents house. Now if only I could find the Nickey Chevrolet Chicago Speed Parts catalog that my father gave me or....

[Dirtdiver]

The Fall 1988 issue of Excell also shows one of "The Touch" ads and lists a new item. Pinion Holder $9.00.

I'm unable to get a scan of any of these items as the parent's do not own a scanner.

[scr8p]

i'm 99.9% sure that shodog has a pair of those "touch" rear arms.

[scr8p]

found shodog's thread, but his pic was gone. but anthony posted this ad in it...

[flipwils11]

Here's a scan of the Bullet kit scr8p mentioned:

What wheels are those pictured in the ad?

[scr8p]

i forgot i wanted to add the Team Pit Stop Nova to this thread. it used the andy's trailing arms and associated rear chassis components. but the front of the chassis was designed to use traxxas parts.

[fredswain]

That BRP trailing arms looks so MIP styled.
Jerzi

Wow, even the rear tower is an MIP knock-off are those CSC sliders in the pic as well?

I thought I'd bring back an old thread so I could clear some things up. The Bullet trailing arms may have been visually similar to the MIP trailing arms to the casual observer but in reality there was nothing alike about them other than the fact that they were both trailing arms. The Bullet arms were MUCH longer than the MIP arms. They were graphite and were made by Composite Craft. The MIP arms were fiberglass. The Bullet arms also had both caster and camber adjustments to them. The MIP didn't and I'm not sure any other trailing arms did either. If you'd like to see close up photos of the Bullet arms I'll see what I can do.

Back then there was a lot of copying and many companies did take design cues from others. That still holds true today and is a reason why the front of any buggy today looks generally like those of any others. Compare them to the older cars which all looked basically alike but nothing like the current ones. Since the complaint is that the bullet rear tower looked like an MIP knockoff, remember the RC10 stealth gearbox was nearly a direct copy of the MIP one that was offered aftermarket for several years before. When the JRX2 came out with the telescoping driveshafts, suddenly there were a few aftermarket options available for conversions. Bullet was like lots of other companies of the day. They had some really neat original things and some things that looked much like others. They had longer wheelbase chassis and belts for the Optima Mid, their own trailing arms, the RC-X2 conversion which was an RC10 front end JRX2 gearbox, graphite chassis, and Bullet trailing arms. It was actually quite neat for the day. Later when Raborn Products came along after Bullet (same owner), they had some very nice dirt oval vehicles that did some things that the others of the day didn't. There was some copying but most things were merely inspired by other things and then improved upon.

[Jerzi]

Thanks...
But I have to say that MIP had also an version of carbon.
Jerzi

[Daryl Lane]

There were other trailing arm conversions besides the A&L ones???






























Sorry could not resist any longer...... I have not seen the first original trailing car mentioned "the Cox Scorpion" - which is where a lot these other kits and ideas came from, except maybe MIP's, not sure. Anyway I realize it is not a conversion kit for the RC/10 but they are the first trailing arms that Chris Allec my partner in A&L first put on an RC/10 tub car. I ran it back when dirt was new in one of the last CRP Challenges at Ranch Pit Stop in Pomona in 2wh stock. The old out back up against the go-kart track - track, very fun track to run on.

[jmuck69]

Jirka,
I can't believe you found this advertisement. I used to work for a hobby shop named "Roadrunner RC Cars", based in Houston, in the late 80's. The owner had a financial interest, and helped start Race Master. I was given a prototype of that aluminum bearing race used on the diff shaft. You used a cap from a motor brush tube to seal it from dirt, instead of servo tape over the exposed bearing...I'd love to have one of those now.
In addition to the parts shown, Race Master also made Delrin rims in 2-inch size, for use with larger tires (Schumacher Cat tires were very popular at their tracks in those days).
Thanks for posting the memory.

I used to race at Road Runner in that time frame. I ran with Frosty St. Clair, Doug Fichuk and others.

[fredswain]

I raced at Roadrunner too. I miss that place. I raced with Barry Raborn and several others whose names I can't remember anymore.