Some Bullet Racing/Raborn Racing nostalgia

[Johnboy72]

Fred, I can loan ya some shocks for mocking up or measurements.

[fredswain]

How long are they mounting point to mounting point when fully extended and when fully compressed?

[fredswain]

Here is a picture showing the differences between the Invencer X-10 / EM-10 car chassis and the XT-10 chassis. The top decks are also shown. These are the bottoms of the chassis. The first obvious difference is that one is longer. That is the car chassis. They both have identical wheelbases. The car chassis is longer because it has 2 forward holes to mount a body wide bumper. The truck doesn't use one. The holes behind those are for the front body mounts.

Look closely at the 4 holes in the front center of the chassis. This is where the front suspension mounts. They are closer together on the car than on the truck chassis. The top decks correspond to this so if you have a top deck that doesn't line up with a chassis, this is why. The front shock towers on the car are small individual pieces that attach on each side of the car so that front kick can be adjusted independently left vs right. The truck can use these same towers but came with a single tower. The truck could not adjust front kick independently left vs right unless the truck tower was cut or the car towers were used.

The next 2 holes back are for the steering rack.

Moving rearward, they both use the same 4L+3R battery cell orientation although it shouldn't be much trouble to integrate a lipo holding system.

The angle of the chassis sides behind the battery are different between them. The truck is shallower. Gotta clear those big tires.

The three inline holes down the center at the rear of the chassis mount the bottom of the motor mount plate. Behind this is a slot on the truck chassis but not the car chassis. The spur gear is much larger on the truck so it needed the clearance. The 4 square pattern holes at the back are for the diff/rear suspension mounts. These are spaced the same.

The top decks are clearly different too. At the front you can see the different spacing for the 2 holes that brace the front suspension mounts.

The 2 inline holes in front of the spur gear slot attach to the top of the motor mount plate. The holes adjacent to the diff slot at the holes that brace the top of the diff/ rear suspension mounts.

The very back of the top decks are clearly different with the truck having the hammerhead shape. The 2 center holes on both plates is where the standard body mount plate attaches. There are 2 different width mounting plates available that can bolt on here. The 2 wide spaced holes on the truck chassis are where body mounts can attach directly to the top deck.

These chassis details are the differences between the car and the truck version. Obviously body and wheels change as well but this is it.

[fredswain]

Plastic bins are much more convenient than beat up cardboard boxes. This isn't even all of them. It's about 2/3. I still need to go count everything in each bin. It all makes sense and takes up less space now. The molded parts are all organized near each other. The carbon parts are all organized with their kind. The RC10 and RC10T arms and telescoping driveshaft conversions are kept together. I've even got Traxxas TRX-1/Blue Eagle LS slipper clutches. Another few days on all of this stuff and then the sucky part starts. I get to organize and count screws, pins, diff parts (diff balls, rings, springs, etc). Those too will be kept together. It's just like working retail again!

[LTO_Dave]

Nicely organized!

Where did the LTO 7+4 Invencer chassis come into play? Was it an option or just a parts change during production?

[fredswain]

Where did you see a 7+4 Invencer chassis? It only existed as a prototype. It was never made for sale.

[LTO_Dave]

Where did you see a 7+4 Invencer chassis? It only existed as a prototype. It was never made for sale.

The one seen in the magazine ads...maybe it's a 7+3:

[fredswain]

That's Invencer #1. It was the only one with that chassis and top deck. Sadly, those parts are probably long gone. If they aren't, they are in a dark yet to be discovered corner at Barry's house. With the amount of stuff he had lying around, that is actually plausible.

Incidentally, I've got the original mockup of that ad and the photo negative. Remember, it was before the digital age.

Edit: I just noticed something about the car in the ad that I'd never noticed before. The shock towers, front and rear, have two upper locations. On the production car it's got only one. The motor plate is a machined piece too whereas the production car has a stamped steel part.

[Johnboy72]

If anyone else has TC shocks that can measure up before me, please help Fred out. Been swamped and haven't been able to get to my stash.

[fredswain]

Sometimes you've got to take a break from organizing and inventory to just build something. Yes I know I'm missing a wheel nut!

[fredswain]

This box contains what could be considered the last original Invencer. It's in a plain white box that didn't get it's product label attached yet. It is the final one that was packaged at Raborn/M&M Hobbies at the end of Raborn. It was the only actual kit in the entire haul and was never sealed. It's the XT-10 truck version. Even the screws have a mild patina of surface rust inside the packages. It only has a set of Proline front tires though. Rears never made it in the box. You'll have to forgive the blurry pictures. I had low light and a less than steady hand.

Anything going forward, should anything actually go forward, will be packaged differently internally with modern instructions and will have a few changes to the kit that would be noticeable from this one. The original kits were packaged in made bags that were really just plastic tube rolls. The end would be heat sealed then a group of parts dropped in, then sealed again, and so forth and so on. I'd probably separate things into individual bags more along the lines of modern kit packaging.

[fredswain]

LTO_Dave: I just noticed something else about that prototype car in the ad. Look closely at the suspension arms. You'll see lots of drilled lightening holes. The arms and suspension mounts are all black anodized aluminum. I only know this because I have the front suspension from this actual car. Now I'd like to see if I can find the rest in Barry's boxes somewhere. They may be gone but these parts did come from Barry's parts boxes that I'm using to rebuild some of his old Bullet cars so it's conceivable there are more somewhere.

[LTO_Dave]

That's great! I hope you can find all the parts to the prototype and assemble it. I had always assumed that the actual production cars looked exactly like the ad car because that's the only pic I've ever seen of one. It's so cool to actually see one of those in roller form.

And I've never seen a pic of the EDM body either. I just went by the ad and thought the 7+3 was the X-10 and the 4+3 was the EM-10.

Man, I'd love to have that XT-10 kit...wink, wink. It is almost Christmas time you know.

[fredswain]

The Eastern Modified (EM or EDM) body is a Bolink 2346 Probe Modified. If you search for it on the forum you'll probably find a picture of one.

I ordered a set of TC shocks. I have my concerns about them fitting. The front should be fine but the rears are already just barely clearing the telescoping driveshafts and these are very skinny Deltas. If I can get cvds adapted instead they may clear. The other option is to attach them to the rear of the arm rather than inside.

Today I got the urge to widen the front end to 235mm (from stock 225) and adapt it to a pan car rear end. I'm going to draw that one out for the fun of it.

[fredswain]

I decided to install the painted wedge body they used as a store display. It looks a bit weird with the rear wheels not cutout. It's got a little bit of old Jaguar XJR-12 to it although not as beautiful!