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This 1/12 was made by Masami's father. The chassis came from ABC hobby. I remember, i have seen this car in around 1986 or 1987 in the Japan National 1/12 Championship.

looks like excellent engineering. how did it perform? did masami drive it?
thanks for the pics

I thought all the suspension stuff, ie shocks and arms, was illegal per the ROAR or was it IFMAR rules. Not that ROAR applied where Masami raced. I bet bill can answer or comment on this one.

Very cool car.

I dont "think" it was until the late 80's or perhaps even early 90's that the independant suspension cars were banned.

I remember running AYK Cyclones and Parsecs up until 89 or so - I dont "think" there was any ruling then from ROAR (as we pretty much followed the American governing bodies rules). I do remember the independent front end on the associated though being the car that finally put a nail in the coffin of the IS 1/12th scale cars. Associated were killing everything with that car - it was after that they they banned suspension damped/wishbone fron and rear indepent suspension systems.

My memory is a bit hazy from those days, because I had pretty much moved over to off road exclusively and did not run them alot - only "largish" meetings.

Some fo the designs that the Japanese companies like AYK, ABC and Kyosho had were simply amazing and increadibly complex....they drove really well to.

The car above is certainly a stunner - look at that fine machining work - awesome.

cheers

Darryn

karnivool wrote:looks like excellent engineering. how did it perform? did masami drive it?
thanks for the pics

I remember that Masami got the 2nd in the A main . The champion went to the Kyosho factory driver Mr. Junichi Koma. At that time Masami was stlll a young kid without any factory sponsor, it is really hard for him to beat the Factory team drivers.

I am pretty sure there is no "ban" on independent front suspensions. Only the REAR has to be a straight axle. I just looked in my ROAR rule book just to make sure, and could only find the front suspension mentioned. Looks like a legal car to me. -Jeff

Jay Dub wrote:I am pretty sure there is no "ban" on independent front suspensions. Only the REAR has to be a straight axle. I just looked in my ROAR rule book just to make sure, and could only find the front suspension mentioned. Looks like a legal car to me. -Jeff

You are probably right, it may just be that everyone abandoned the independant front ends because they were too heavy - however I am sure I remember them bing "canned" by the governing body. More than happy to be told otherwise - dont have the rulebook in my hand - only a memory!

Back when this car was around - suspension systems were definately open - heck - they even allowed 4wd cars to run with the 2wd. Pretty much anything went back then with suspension.

It seems though that the fastest option in 1/12th is rigid rear - semi front. Not much has changed in a long time. It is only now, with the advent of Li-Po and brushless that we see designs changing a little.

Cheers

Darryn

I would imagine the only reason the AE monoshock front end is not around today is that the sliding pillar type stuff works just as good or better and weighs less. HPI had a 1/12 car with a double wishbone full suspension front end that looked like the AE "new" front end, but that seemed to die a quick death.





Actually, the Masami car looks like it would totally legal today

Ditto...

Yep - absolutely, the current set up is more than enough. With the limited amount of "damping" required on the front of these cars, you wonder why they ever bothered.

Then again - if they hadnt of bothered we would not have the awesome cars we have today. Thank god for ingenuity and progress.

Cheers

Darryn

There were many good reasons for full suspension in 1/12 cars in those days.

Racing indoor on carpet is a very much non-Asian thing back then. Most competitions in Asia back in the 80s was outdoor on tarmac that are not purpose built for 1/12 RC cars. Even though I believe this Masami car was raced indoor.

Indoor carpet track is very much an American/European thing because of cold winter weather. Mind you, most Asian countries (with people that can afford RC racing) do not have a long meaningful winter. In here I am talking about, say, 6 months of cold/snowy weather in the mid-west. Even in Japan, they do not have tons of snow and super cold sub-zero temperature for too many weeks in a year, except up way north.

Outdoor make shift tracks simply demand a lot more in suspension, and there are more variables in the conditions.

Compare with the other countries, Asians/Japaneses are more in tuned with modifying their cars. It was not uncommon to see close to box stock 1/10 buggies racing each other in the US (for example in the early 90s), on the other hand, you almost never see a box-stock car being raced in Asia. Stock motors (regardless if it was Mabuchi, Johnson, Reedy, Yokomo, or Parma, may be except Trinity Monster Stock) were simply laughed at and tossed away in a heart beat.

One of the reasons, probably, was that American cars, such as AE RC10 are darn good from start. The idea of racing 'stock class' was totally odd in Asian context. To a point that the Japanese sort of created a J2 class for 1/12 in 1986, catered for cheaper cars that were more affordable for newbies, even though mild modification was still allowed.

very trick front and rear suspension. love it.

very nice

That is so cool, and even today, the new World Championship winning Yokomo has IFS.

I knew I saw this car somewhere...I finally found it. The hand built car that Masami's father did was a rework and retuned version of ABC's 1/12th scale version called the Piste. Although the suspension was revamped and the rear motor and pod was taken from Kyosho's plasma, you can see that Masami was definately expose to numerous and various design and engineering. Masami and his father pretty much took the best of what was out there and combined it into one winning car...pretty much like how it is today. Here is what the original ABC car looks like: http://www.retromodelisme.com/voiture_pages/1271/piste-1-12-abc-hobby.html