A-Main Bullet Fwd 4ws RC10 conversion Tribute build

[GoMachV]

Everyone I have spoke to that ran these or against these said that they made so many changes during production no two were alike lol. I'm wondering if the cutout could be original. Obviously the new holes are not, but that could be original.

It was posted in the lightweight thread, I asked the person that posted it and the person that quoted it if they were ok with deleting it until after the auction. They were ok with it and changed their posts.

And yes, I won it it wasn't getting away!

[Asso_man!]

Some strong lobbying efforts there to keep it for you You deserve it anyhow. I'm looking forward about what kind of extra info it brings up.

[GoMachV]

I could only imaging its fate if it fell into the wrong hands!

[LTO_Dave]

I saw that auction, thought the steering looked like the Bullet car, but dismissed it as another ebay hack-job. Boy was I wrong.

Does it have the original shock towers? And does the rear of the chassis have a slight kick-up?

[GoMachV]

Does it have the original shock towers? And does the rear of the chassis have a slight kick-up?

The rear tower is correct, but the other one is a Fox I believe. Obviously the gt bulkhead is wrong too. The chassis should have kickup in two spots but as pointed out by phin it appears to only have kick at the bumper. We will see....soon!

[Phin]

Yeah, there's a kick-up between the trans mount holes and the front arm mount holes on the manual car but there doesn't seem to be one on the auction car. The kick-up would be right between where the rear arm mounts are and they look like they're mounted pretty flush to the chassis. Maybe the anti-squat on the mounts is negating any kick-up in the chassis? The bottom looks pretty flat too though.

That chassis adds more speculating to a car that already has so many questions attached to it. It's fun. That bellcrank not being in the manual makes me think it was a later addition, but if it was a later version was the chassis made flat as an improvement or just because Eugene Hobbies ran out of double kick-up material?

Then again, the auction chassis also looks narrower than the manual car. If that was because of a hack job, maybe the offset battery part of the chassis got cut off and the oval version of the Bullet didn't use a kick-up.

[GoMachV]

Well Phin, I would say you were pretty close! Could even be running changes as the width is perfect and the individual front and rear sections are perfect- just the overall length between is a tad off. Towers turned out great too, you can kind of see the holes line up perfectly

[Phin]

Nice. I don't feel too bad about that.

Are the front bellcrank holes off like the rear one is? Looks like the auction chassis might have had the four brace/battery lift holes cut out since none of the holes that might be them are countersunk.

Also what kind of material is the core of that chassis made from? In some pics it looks like fiberglass and in others it almost looks like wood.

[GoMachV]

I'll have to take some better pics. The core looks like the losi white core (foam?) But these were laid up garage style from my sources so hard to say. Only one kick up and that is the bumper so it makes the instruction manual chassis incorrect.

Edit....it's wood.

The steering holes are further apart than the manual car. The battery holder holes may not be the ones I show because it's missing one hole on the other side. Strange it lines up tho! And in the correct spot too. I have some more playing around to do, but I'm amazed how close it is!

[GoMachV]

More pics.

Bellcrank is two pieces glued. Can't tell if it's homemade, it's not super symmetrical but looks like the same wood core material as the chassis

The battery mounts/ chassis braces are in fact cut out as phin mentioned. The servo mount holes are very close, and the bellcrank holes are further apart.
Also the rear bellcrank mount hole is in a different spot, but I can't tell for certain which it is. The hole that is intact is not perfperfectly centered.

[GoMachV]

Also found this interesting. The kyosho drive washers are machined to fit late tamiya wheels

Shock tower holes are not centered. Likely not stock

Chassis is well used.

[Phin]

Hah, I had the same idea for using bearings in the bellcranks...funny that it may have actually been a thing.

It would stray from the original design, but you could glue a small piece of 1/8" thick fiberglass underneath the bellcranks, just at the pivot point, in order to make each crank thick enough to hold a couple of 1/8"x5/16" flanged bearings, top and bottom, instead of standoffs.

You'd need a small shim between the bearing and the chassis to keep the outside edge of the bearing off the chassis.

Also pretty funny that, being made from wood core graphite, A-Main might have sourced the material from DA like we tried doing.


I'm genuinely thinking that the chassis may be a later iteration and the zero kick-up was something done to improve understeer. I'm not a suspension guru but I remember reading somewhere that Pro-Dive on a FWD race car isn't a bad thing? Certainly not a bad thing for getting new chassis made.

[sschering]

Is that core MDF or some kind of ply? the carbon looks like uni.

[GoMachV]

It looks like a ply

[Phin]

Can get balsa and birch core from Dragonplate in twill weave but they never replied to me when I asked if they'll do a kick-up.