A mate of mine has persuaded me to have a crack at racing again after a near 20 year hiatus, so this is going to be the car for my comeback (that makes it sound like I used to be good - I wasn't). It's going to be raced at Eden Park which is mostly astroturf, very bumpy with a couple of big jumps. My plan is to quickly sort the car out for my first race on 2nd December, then over time modify it drastically to bring performance up to towards the modern stuff.
My budget is small hence rehashing old kit and family commitments mean that racing won't be a regular thing and testing will be virtually non-existent, so changes and mods are down to (in no particular order) experience, knowledge, guesswork and gut feeling.
To kick things off with, this is how it arrived. The shell is new and just painted, but I won't be running (and wrecking) it, instead I'll run an old shell to start with and put this on a refurb to be sold.
Under the skin, the roller driveshafts, slipper clutch and ballraced steering is all present. An old and battered Lipo cell was included and there's a carbon front brace to strengthen the lower mounts.
Work needed to progress quite quickly as I have a lot to learn about modern electrics, so the car is not the only thing that needs preparation. First of all it was stripped down to the bare chassis which is straight and in relatively good condition, just a few scratches as you'd expect and two holes drilled for the servo.
As I am about twenty years out of practice, I suspect there will be a lot of crashing going on to start with. So with budget in mind and after a long discussion with a mate, we decided I should start off with NiMh cells and a brushed motor and upgrade early next year if the bug continues to bite. So first issue is where to position the (very kindly loaned) cells. Being larger than the old NiCads, it obviously doesn't fit under the rear bulkhead, so the obvious position is widthways across the chassis:
But I'm really not happy with the weight distribution like that, so it must be made to fit down the middle. I have worked out what I need to modify to make it fit, so this is how it will be configured:
Next job is cleaning up various parts and to start reassembly. Basic spec will be:
* Replace roller driveshafts with plastic (don't want to damage those precious things!).
* Modify rear bulkhead to accept larger cells.
* Build up 2 or 3 sets of varishocks to different specs to allow fast setup changes.
* Reassemble with high tensile allen head screws wherever possible.
* Fit Cougar 1 front wishbones to lengthen the wheelbase.
* I'm toying with the idea of fitting the Bosscat Works rear suspension arms and hubs as they give the same wheelbase, but slightly longer links. Only concern about this is spares...
Anyway. Onwards with the build.
) and should improve handling characteristics over the standard items.
