Turbo Scorpion ?'s

[XLR8]

Okay, this is only the 3rd Kyosho I've owned ever and the 1st in nearly 30 years so this is somewhat new to me. Can any of you vintage Kyosho aficionados out there identify what this part is and what it does? There's a hook-like feature so perhaps there was a specialty motor cover for this car bitd and it was secured by this part? I'm curious; it doesn't appear to serve any purpose.

Also, throughout the instructions, they are very specific about where to apply lubricants but, for some reason, we're not directed to apply oil to the front arm pivots. Why should we not lub these pivots?

[GoMachV]

The motor brace was designed for a tie wrap to go around the motor

I don’t lube any suspension parts myself

[XLR8]

Okay, thanks GoMachV.

[Basher67]

I never put lubricants on suspension parts because it seems to attract dirt and which leads to binding, grinding, and premature wear on the parts at the pivot points. Kyosho Loved to use "zip ties" bitd for all kinds of things.

[Lonestar]

Tamiya has always recommended greasing their suspension plastics I did as a kid... and once I started racing I figured out I had been wrong all these years.

[XLR8]

Great info, thanks everyone! I have some of this Bel Ray lub that I use for my bike chains so I may give it a try here. Come to think of it, I may have used it once on my CVA's. It sprays-on wet and dries like paint. I guess I'm one of the old-timers who still thinks that metal-metal bearing surfaces must have some kind of lub or they will fail.
As for the motor bumper/ tie wrap thing, that's a real head scratcher. I guess if you ran the car head-on into a light pole, the impact could cause the motor plate to bend. I dunno. I do have some trees in the back yard so I guess I will go ahead and install it.
All that said, I cannot overstate how totally impressed I am with the quality of this kit. From presentation, to packaging, to fit and finish of every part, this thing is stellar and a joy to build.

[XLR8]

It has a "rear roll cage" but it doesn't provide much protection for the motor and it's very flexible. Kudos to Kyosho for thinking to add such a part which could make the car a bit more crash-worthy.

[XLR8]

Do you recall if anyone actually competed with these cars? I have no experience with RC off-road prior to the RC10. What was the car to beat back then?

[DennisM]

SRB´s were the buggy´s to beat and Scorpion was king.............................................. until the birth of the RC10B

[XLR8]

Thanks Dennis. Do you mean SRB as in Tamiya Special Racing Buggy? (Full disclosure: I didn't actually know what SRB stood for so I had to look it up). My first surface RC was a Sand Scorcher and I owned it for a few years then started racing with an RC10 mid '80's. I had tried to convert my SS to a stock 540-class oval track car but couldn't sort out all the handling problems so I gave up and bought an Ultima. I'd always attributed the SS's foul handling characteristics to it's high rear weight bias combined with that swing-axle rear suspension and the lack of a diff.
Do you know if the Scorpion from that era came equipped with a diff? If so then I reckon that alone would place it well ahead of the SRB. IMHO.

[XLR8]

I remember seeing a “Franken-buggy” where they’d adapted an SRB gearbox to an RC10. In fact, did I read somewhere that the Stealth was developed using the Tamiya gearbox as a template? Anyway, my Sand Scorcher was very fast… in a straight line… it just wouldn’t corner predictably.
My perception of Tamiya is that they’re focused principally on scale accuracy and less on race track performance. This is just my personal perception and I’m certainly not knocking scale accuracy by any means. Apart from the very few cars from them that I’ve owned, I really have very little experience with Tamiya or Kyosho.
I completely forgot about the Tomahawk. I’ve looked upon Kyosho as having shared their “scale” roots with Tamiya but they tried quickly to move into the performance market; especially with the release of the Optima Mid and the Ultima. Again, this is based upon my limited experience. However, I do know first-hand that the Ultima, out of the box, was an amazing car to drive; probably miles ahead of the early metal suspension cars. I had the first Ultima at our local track in Illinois. I bought it from a rival hobby shop which totally PO’d the owner of our track’s shop (I learned a valuable lesson). What was the agreement between Kyosho and Cox?
I really don’t expect this Turbo Scorpion re-release to perform very well. BTW - my back yard track is very tame, so I’ll go easy on the metal parts. My connection with this car is purely nostalgic. I’m an old guy who prefers vintage stuff; old cars old motorcycles and old RC. If you handed me a modern buggy, I probably would post on ebay. Apart from an interest in the technical aspects, I really don’t care for the modern stuff. Anyway, thanks again Dan for taking time to reply to my post. I’ll probably return again and again to read your posts; there’s a lot of interesting information.

[XLR8]

I'd like to fit the light buckets with proper LED's. I've never ran a buggy with functioning lights and I think this might be kinda cool. Anyway, I have those funky dim off-blue ones from RC4WD, Yeah Racing and others but I also know there are better (brighter) ones available but I'm not sure what to get. Do ya'll have any recommendations?

[XLR8]

For those who have completed their TS kits, I'm wondering if you could chime-in on your experiences applying the decal set. Reason for my question; Nearly every panel on the body (except the top) receives a complete decal wrap. So Kyosho expects us to simply paint the body one color (white) and let the decals take care of the rest. So, at the decal seams, do they fully cover the lexan or are there places where we should strategically brush-on some dark blue before spraying the white? I'm thinking that recessed area around where the roll mounts and those recessed ducts might need a little extra attention or there could be some white peeking through. I've studied the boxart car closely and I'm pretty sure Kyosho has painted the blue panels so everything looks perfect. Anyway, please let us know your experiences with the decals? thanks

[ahenderl]

For those who have completed their TS kits, I'm wondering if you could chime-in on your experiences applying the decal set. Reason for my question; Nearly every panel on the body (except the top) receives a complete decal wrap. So Kyosho expects us to simply paint the body one color (white) and let the decals take care of the rest. So, at the decal seams, do they fully cover the lexan or are there places where we should strategically brush-on some dark blue before spraying the white? I'm thinking that recessed area around where the roll mounts and those recessed ducts might need a little extra attention or there could be some white peeking through. I've studied the boxart car closely and I'm pretty sure Kyosho has painted the blue panels so everything looks perfect. Anyway, please let us know your experiences with the decals? thanks

This is how mine came out. The body is simply Sprint White...no blue paint at all...I used only the decals. For the driver, I masked off the interior compartment and painted the red for the driver's suit from underneath. The black for the interior was painted on the outside of the lexan instead of underneath. The body came with an outside mask so it was easy to trim to paint the black. I sprayed yellow into a paper plate and brush painted the gloves. All the rest is supplied decals.

Is was a very easy to do & I think it came out great. Then again...this is not going to be a shelf queen. I built it to play with. It's a toy. If I spent weeks painting it I probably wouldn't want to beat the heck out of it.

It is about 75% box art inspired and the rest was simply what looked good to me at the time after breathing paint fumes and after knocking back a few "co-colas".

[ahenderl]

Anyway, please let us know your experiences with the decals? thanks

Anyway...I have to say I was happy with the decals. I used a little soap mixed with water and they were easy enough to apply. If you look at my pics close-up you will see a few bubbles, but those were taken the day they were applied and have since gone away. The decals are thin and very pliable which is a good thing, but if you attempt to apply them "dry" and need to pull them back off it could be very bad. Use soap and water to get the positioned, squegee out as much air and water as you can and then use a hair drier to get them to stick after they are in place. Don't worry about small bubbles...they will eventually permeate out.