- Dirt oval custom RC10 -

[Asso_man!]

Long time I didn't acquire a proper RC10 (the Chinese re-re display toys don't count) and this one is one of a kind. Reggie just grabbed it for me as the seller wouldn't ship overseas. I'm not an oval guy in general as this discipline never took off here in Europe but I am for sure a huge fan of molded carbon applied to RC and thought this one would go along quite well with my COMCOM/Fibre-Lyte collection in the collection lol. Any info on the custom molded carbon tub would be great, looks like the car comes from SoCal... Does anyone recognize these steering bellcranks as well or are these also custom made? Can't wait to grab it. Plan is to make a good cleaning/resto and probably leave it as is as much as possible. Car also came with a Futaba remote and a few not so fancy oval bodies. Update once I get it so stay tuned!

Pics from the auction:

[Phin]

Saw that car when it got listed and it was very hard to resist pulling the trigger on it.

Very cool car to have in a collection. 'grats.

[ChisaiKuso]

A few thoughts:

1) I don't think that calling this a "pan car" is technically correct.

2) The design of this chassis makes very little sense to me. I don't see any slots or holes for battery cups that would allow the batteries to be mounted in the left side of the car. That would seem to indicate that the intended design of the chassis is to move the almost negligible weight of a receiver or an ESC to the left side of the car. That doesn't strike me as being worth the effort or the cost. Very interesting...

3) Congratulations on an awesome find. I look forward to seeing your build thread on this one.

[Asso_man!]

A few thoughts:

1) I don't think that calling this a "pan car" is technically correct.

2) The design of this chassis makes very little sense to me. I don't see any slots or holes for battery cups that would allow the batteries to be mounted in the left side of the car. That would seem to indicate that the intended design of the chassis is to move the almost negligible weight of a receiver or an ESC to the left side of the car. That doesn't strike me as being worth the effort or the cost. Very interesting...

3) Congratulations on an awesome find. I look forward to seeing your build thread on this one.

You're right about the title mistake, I dumbly copy/pasted the one from the auction. I fully agree on the design flaw as well, would make much more sense to place the battery on the left side, looks like it's still feasible though. Thanks for teh congrats guys, really happy with this one (so far)...

[scr8p]

There are other companies that made an offset "oval" chassis where the pack was inline with an area for left side electronics placement. So, its not really out of the ordinary. Plenty of guys ran converted oval rc10's without offsetting the battery.

[GoMachV]

Exactly, left side weight/radical offset isn't always the most important thing. Very cool chassis- I saw it's well and had a hard time not going for it!

[LTO_Dave]

I saw that too, but wasn't very interested since the seller never sent any pics of the chassis bottom after I asked for some.

It sure looks beefy and is definitely a cool piece. What are your plans for it?

[MayorRC]

Very interesting find! Excited to watch this build and hopefully find out who makes that chassis.

[Asso_man!]

I can't believe you were all about to let this one go, especially you LTO Reg grabbed it for me and was the only bidder at 75$ Really got it for a bargain I think. I will send the seller an email today and ask about the chassis origin and history. Plan is first to try and have it cross the ocean safe and sound. Then I think I will just take it all apart, clean and replace what's needed, polished shocks will have to go. I might replace the dyed nylon parts as well depneding on their actual shape. I'm also curious about the underside of the chassis. Looks like there is already a few extra holes in there. I would love to mount my MIP 4wd 1st gen kit on this one, but then it will have to be an oval 4wd racer and not an off-road buggy given that that chassis shape will not allow for any buggy shell to fit. We will see anyway, this must be like number 15 in the resto/building queue

[xxx2fast4u]

Very cool find!

[Asso_man!]

The car arrived yesterday and I'm really stocked about all the thinking and creativity that went into it. Everyhting is really well done and thought of, the tranny is butter smooth and so is still the diff. Rear dogbones and driveline is slightly rusted but other than that, it is a true time capsule from 85'ish. I think I will just disassemble it and give her a good cleaning and leave everything as is. More to come as I start working on it.

[LTO_Dave]

It took 5 months to ship???

[aeiou]

That's a pretty cool car, David. Not just the chassis, but the bell crank and shock towers as well. It'll be interesting to find out more about it.

I always thought that mounting the electronics on the left side had more to do with protecting the gear versus improving the handling. Maybe it was just my dirt oval driving style that made me think that way (frequent contact with the wall).

[Asso_man!]

It took 5 months to ship???

Well as the seller wouldn't ship outside the US, Reggie grabbed it for me and as I wasn't in a hurry and he was busy, it just arrived a week ago.

That's a pretty cool car, David. Not just the chassis, but the bell crank and shock towers as well. It'll be interesting to find out more about it.

I always thought that mounting the electronics on the left side had more to do with protecting the gear versus improving the handling. Maybe it was just my dirt oval driving style that made me think that way (frequent contact with the wall).

Yes it's a really cool car, a lot of thinking went into it and it took some smart engineering and craftmanship to make it happen. I tried to get more info from the seller but he received teh car in a trade or something and didn't know much about it. What is for sure is that this car was designed to win and that not a single detail was overlooked when building it. Everything is really neatly executed, even the choice for electronics is killer.

Here are some pictures before I started working on it:





So I started disassembling and cleaning this old boy and results are good so far, I spent a lot of time cleaning the metal parts as most of them were covered with rust. The chassis is really uber light, probably lighter than a stock graphite chassis and it is super stiff as well although it has more flex than a graphite. It is made of glassfiber layers and resin and a layer of carbon or two were used to color it black. There are some spots were you can actually almost see through the chassis. While the top is super silky and smooth, the bottom is quite rough and bumpy, which is of course a result of the molding/forming process than built up the layers starting with the top of the chassis.





The shock towers are also remarkable, they are both home made ones and super thick (4mm). The rear one is a work of art in terms of engineering and really look the trick: you can actually quick change the ride height by simply moving two screws that slide into notches. The previous owner also marked the different angles right and left for a perfect adjustment every time. Pictures tell a thousand words:







Next is the home made bellcranks: they are machined out of aluminium, unfortunately not ball-raced but they do include bushings and slide over nicely machined alloy sliders. They were painted with a kaki paint that looks a lot like what would be used in a military workshop? Anyway, I had a tough time cleaning them and could't afford to make them shiny so I left them with some kind of patina:



High-end electronics for the era: stock Reedy motor (Cadillac address) with plenty of life left in the brushes, very nicely soldered / Novak 4 ESC in perfect shape with the old style switch / Futaba High Speed Low-Profle servo FP-S132H / Futaba FP-R102H receiver. They will all go back in place. Last but not least: a good old trustworthy Futaba Magnum Junior to control that beast.





Here are some parts that got totally cleaned (up to the last e-clip) this weekend and already partially re-assembled:



Lastly, I'm trying to salvage the tranny halves by soaking them into a peroxide bath. I don't want them dental white, but they were really too much yellowed:



To honour the creator of the car and for respecting his awesome job, I plan to replace as few parts as possible on this car and to preserve it as original as I can. The only things that will need to be changed are the 4 wheels and I might add some Tecnacraft or Lunsford turnbuckles just to make it even more look like a true race car. I also have a brand new Andy's bumper hanging around to replace this one. More progress soon!

[Asso_man!]

Had some spare time and decided to slowly put some things back on yesterday, so far there is not a single new part on it, including hardware! Has anyone ever seen this type of nuts used on the rear top shock mounts and shock tower? They are plain metal "nyloc" ones. I also found some washers with a yellow edge. These and the bellcranks might come from the same workshop where the previous owner built the car?