j-sou's many SRB projects

[Y'ernat Al]

Those are looking great so far. Like I said earlier, the MIP car looks great. I'd skip the red hardware as I don't think it was readily available back in the day.

x2. Makes it look funny to see anything but black oxide. At least to me. Authentic red accent would be limited to some red kyosho shocks. RCH stuff (wheel covers, skid plates, 8mm coil overs) came red (along with blue, silver, gold and sometimes black).

Definitely green with envy here

[j-sou]

Haven't had too much time to work on these lately (work, baby, house guests), but have made a little progress with this one. Finally got the trans case tumbled so i could assemble the rear end. I tumbled the hell out of it but there's still a few discolored spots that wouldn't come out. No worries, nothing about this car is perfect, so I wouldn't expect that to be either! Here's some phone pics. I'll get better pics soon with the dslr.





A few more little details to take care of, and then I'll add the electronics. I about have all of that sorted out, I just need to rebuild the period MSC that's going in it and find a new resistor for it.
And then I have to decide whether to find a body for it, or leave it as-is

[finman]

Awesomeness !

Excellent work, I've got a couple of these projects on the go and know how hard it is to find the parts.

Sorry for the questions but what's the chassis and front shocks?

Rich

[j-sou]

Sorry for the questions but what's the chassis and front shocks?

All 3 shocks are the 1/8th scale kyosho and the chassis is a copy of the crp butterfly.
You should start a thread for your srb projects!

[scootmike]

WOW, nice job!

[shodog]

That's turning out killer. You did a nice job of polishing all the aluminum parts. What kind of media did you use to tumble the gear case?

[j-sou]

Thanks shodog! It's not perfect, but has come a long way from the clapped out chassis I started with.
I tumbled the case in walnut shells. On a batch of more corroded parts I tried ceramic media in distilled water with a squirt of HE detergent and it did an amazing job of bringing them back. We should have a thread on here for general tumbler knowledge and experiences! It can save a lot of time and effort if you use the right stuff. I need all the extra time I can get these days!

[Meakz1973]

This is looking fantastic, love what you've done to bring it back to life. The front tires are awesome. I'll be posting some SRB project pics soon ... Slow process, tonight I found time to do 4 characters with tire lettering pen!

[TheSpeedway]

JSOU,
Congrats on the new baby and good luck with managing your time in the future. VBG

Your project looks good.

Reading through comments from others on what is period or not I feel compelled to speak out as someone who was there during that time period.

Keep in mind what you started with in the first photo on this thread was a survivor. That car was a correct example of what was ran during that period. (81,82) At one point my car looked exactly like that. So did many others in Colorado as well as the RC mags (California) At that time these magazines were like an insert in the local newspaper.

Following that period your mono shock car represents came the MIP setup. Many of these guys were VW guys so it was not uncommon to talk about having a car that was IRS instead of a Swing Axle. That set up was the next level and would have never been ran on that straight chassis you have pictured. Those were tossed for a butterfly long ago as one of the very 1st mods done along with the radio box. When you went nylon on the front you went with RCH arms and Towers both. If you couldn't afford both, the towers came later. Wider frontend kits were a mod that came along with that butterfly chassis. The nylon cage was something the store never sold and it hung on the wall along with those AJ’s foam rear tires.
There was no reference to Taipan or SRB. These were Tamiya cars with modifications. Those parts were designed and driven by the racing here in the USA. I actually found an article on another site where someone said these cars were the hot setup until the Frog arrived. (Are you kidding me) That’s right up there with “My first real RC car was a Frog.”

Guys may have removed anodizing and polished stuff up but there was an order that parts were available for purchase and that dictated how the evolution of the cars went. The other thing that is a little harder to track was all the innovation during that time period by folks that were fabricators or machinists. Many of us were and still are involved in 1-1 motorsports so if you ran these cars you had access to the necessary tools and materials. A good friend of mine had a Boss who would get a little more than hot when he would catch Bob machining up parts in the back at his Performance VW machine shop. Cars changed weekly. Picture that car of yours with a set of Kyosho shocks with adjustable remote reservoirs. It happened.

That sway bar on the rear was necessary to make the mono shock and swing axle business all work. We ran a Carpet track in the back of a hobby store with plywood jumps locally and a dirt oval up in Denver. The off road carpet track had us running the Rough Rider rear tires. I was the last hold out to go to the Ford F150 truck fronts. The cars would get hung up on the foam track dividers with the narrow fronts. With the Ford Fronts you would keep going but they looked terrible. Later this became Ford Front wheels with Sandblaster Juniors stretched over them with a Foam insert. This tire was only for the Carpet and sometimes on that Dirt Oval. At the Dirt Oval you would see staggered sprint car style wings that guys had fabricated from lexan sheet. When the real off road track came into existence that all changed again.

If I had all the parts that I tried along the way during the evolution I could build 10 cars. I have to say that I like the car you started with since seeing your first post of it out on the Tamiya website. I am more than little jealous that I haven't found one. I did however score an original Rough Rider yesterday finally so perhaps there is some hope.
Keep having fun and keep the photos coming.

[j-sou]

Thread from the dead- I've finally got these two about complete, just need paint. The all black car is complete with electronics, but I'll probably just leave the all white car with only a steering servo.









The white car is sporting some shock tower extenders, and a mono rocker set up that I reproduced. They came out great. This set is on bushings, but its very precise and the tolerances are tight. It works smoother than my nylon sets for sure.
A few people have asked about making them sets, but I can't do it at this time. I've got enough parts left over to make one more set and its going on another SRB I have sitting around here. I'll post up here if/when I can cut more in the future. Looking for a local spot to cut stuff for me since I'm not doing it anymore.

[RC10resto]

Very nice
you really kept with your color theme

[j-sou]

Very nice
you really kept with your color theme

Yeah that was the plan! some of my others are all mixed up color-wise, but these two I wanted to be white and black. The bodies will be painted in that theme too. Then I think its time to take an SRB break for a little bit and do some scratch building

[mk-Zero]

Wow, nice work!
I'm digging the mono shock setups you made

[tiger1]

These are LOVELY projects!! I love those rear monoshock set up!!

[shodog]

those turned out well. I like how you brought the nerf bars in closer so they don't stick out super far.