Today I used one of my pieces of scrap CF to make a center diff brace with an extended shelf for the ESC. It will extend out towards the front of the car, so I can use the stock length MMP wires without cutting them or adding extensions. With the ESC and motor mounted to the center diff, and servo and RX mounted to the servo mount I'll be able to remove the electronics from the vehicle with 7 screws, and won't need to disconnect any wires. This brace also allows much easier Slipperential adjustment with the lipos still in the vehicle, with a wide opening directly over the adjustment ring.

I also purchased a body today. It was actually an auction on Ebay, when I saw the body I had to have it. Paid a little more than I wanted to win it, but I'm typically very frugal with my RC purchases, and for once I decided just to splurge (if it wasn't for one guy bidding 5 times in the last hours it would have been way cheaper! :grrrrrr:). I will leave you guys in suspense until it arrives... :wink:

The only thing I am waiting on to finish assembling the vehicle are some stand-offs to mount the shocks. Those should be here in the next few days, then it's all systems go!

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030240.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030242.jpg

Man, you been splurging with all that carbon fiber.

LOL! I guess all the money spent isn't as easily apparent to me since I've had a lot of it sitting here for awhile. The CF chassis was the main thing at $100, but that's not much more than what I would have paid for a brand new 7075 alloy chassis. The other stuff was either very cheap (ackerman plate, scrap pieces) or I already had it (servo mount, front brace, shock towers). Bill from IGT Hobbies gave me the plastic IGT towers for free just to learn if they'd fit. I'm putting the CF IGT towers on hold for now since I just spent my RC money on a body, but they'll come eventually. Those are really the last pieces of CF that will be going on the vehicle.

I am going to have to sell some motors and a pan car to fund some carbon fiber myself. Your ride inspired me to go carbon on one of my gtp.
Waiting for Ipanema to sell the speedrun body that is in the works.

Oh yeah, I saw you guys posting about that. Pretty cool to see a 1/8 body made exclusively for speed runs, sounds right up your alley. I chatted with Jspeed a few times on RC Tech, very nice and knowledgeable guy, answered a few questions for me when I first decided to do a GT conversion. I just kind of wish he wouldn't push his products in every single post. I mean I have no doubt it's good quality stuff, and nothing wrong with a little promotion, but it seems a little overboard to me. The wide rear tires are a good idea. If they ever got them in radial I would definitely try some.

So you going to do your own chassis out of CF sheet? It's nice that the GTP chassis is flat. If I knew I was going to do an on-road at the time I bought my Jammin chassis I would have had him leave out the kick-up. But at least if/when I decide I want to make my own CF chassis (probably after this one dies) I can just use sheet CF and not bother with kick-up. I've seen where people heat and bend CF, but I'd rather not deal with it at all.

Anyway, can't wait to see what kind of CF goodness you have in store!

Well, I discovered my RCM mount has a slight bend. The deflection is about 1mm at the outer end. I decided to order the Jammin/NEXX8 cam motor mount (OFN41125), but I will also keep the RCM mount and try to straighten it out.

Hooray, I officially have a roller! (I still need to adjust the shock settings, toe, camber, etc., so I do know they look a bit off)

I decided to go ahead and order the CF towers, and those along with the body should be here early next week.


http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030248.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030250.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030251.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030252.jpg

Man, that will be one hell of a rocket.

Today the body showed up. It's the Kyosho Inferno GT BMW M3 body, now discontinued by Kyosho. The pre-drilled body mount holes lined up, I just need to do a few adjustments to get the body to sit perfectly.

Eventually I also want to get one of the Deltaplastik bodies and try my hand and painting, but when I saw this body I had to have it.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030253.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030256.jpg

Got some more "bling" going today! Swapped out most of the M3 nylock nuts to red anodized alloy versions.

I was kind of wondering about the strength, and if the alloy ones would be too weak, but I think they should be fine. I left the hingepins and chassis braces with steel ones just to be safe, and all the M4 size will be left as steel. If it was an off-road vehicle flying off of jumps then I wouldn't trust the alloy nylocks, but this will be a relatively low stress, low impact vehicle (unless something goes terribly, terribly wrong... :whistle:)

Didn't plan on running the mudguards, but after giving it more thought I'm going to put some on (need to buy new ones, old ones are pretty beat). Even though I won't be in mud they should help keep pebbles and other road debris out, and more importantly help protect the body from getting destroyed in the case of a side impact crash.

Tonight I rebuilt the Revo shocks. I swapped out the standard Traxxas alloy bodies for MIP black alloy bodies (never knew MIP made these actually, a guy offered them to me on RC Tech when I posted a WTB looking for the red GTR bodies, which I'm still looking for if anyone happens to have some). I also built the shocks using the Traxxas variable damping kit. The instructions suggested putting the valve on the bottom for on-road use, allowing faster compression with slowed rebound, so that's what I did. Used the #2 pistons (1.0mm holes) and 60wt oil. The front springs are 25.0 lb/in and the rear are 23.4 lb/in.

The only slight issue I noticed are that the threaded shock collars are a bit looser on the MIP bodies, so I'm going to look for an o-ring to use with them, or just use 2 collars on each shock and use one as a lock ring.

Last thing was order up some new mudguards. Got some red ones, they are from the older Ofna 9.5 buggies, but exactly the same as the Jammin guards aside from the color. I just hope they are truly red and not pink (looked a little bright in the pic, hard to say). If they are too bright I'll probably return them and just get the black ones.

That body is pretty scale mang.

That's why I liked it, and for the IGT RTR bodies you don't really see them much compared to like the Ferrari or Aston Martin. When I get a Deltaplastik body to paint myself I'll probably go with something sleeker, more built for speed.

On a side note I still can't believe how big these 1/8 GT bodies are. Just so much different than a 1/8 buggy body, they make the chassis look tiny! Plenty of room inside now, so I'm definitely going to make a camera mount for my FlyCam looking right out the windshield. Bought it a long time ago but never ran it in a car. I even have the cable to power and control the cam directly from the RX. I want to make a video where the run from inside the car is synced up to the EagleTree data gauges. Saw another member here post a vid like that and it looked really cool.

a really nice build !!!! :great::intello:

hope to see a vid as soon as possible :whistle:

Thanks! Unfortunately it's going to be a little while until the snow clears. But the winter has been mild here and it's been really warm the past few days so hopefully spring is coming sooner than later.

I got my CF towers in, but they don't quite match as I had seen in pics. The rear uses a fine weave CF while the front uses a wider weave (same as the rest of the CF stuff I have). It's kind of a petty thing, but I really want them to match, either both fine or both wide weaves. I emailed Max Velocity to see if I can trade one of them in for a version to match the other.

One nice thing about the Max Velocity towers is that they offer an extra set of shock mounting positions in the middle. The stock towers only have the top and bottom sets of holes.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030257.jpg

This is the most beautifull and well thought out custom 1/8 onroad build. Good work, can't wait to see more:yes:

TG

Thanks man! Right now I'm waiting on the Viper 1/8 motors to be released, I really want to try one. If they aren't released by the time the weather clears up I'll start with a Tekin and get a Viper later.

Not much left to do on the car. I decided to hold off on mounting the CF towers until I can get a matching set. Little things like get a red servo horn, waiting for the sideguards to arrive, and build a camera mount.

I also have some pieces of Delrin sitting here, so I'm trying to figure out how to do some rub-strips for under the chassis. Going to bring the Delrin over to my local machine shop and have them cut it into 3mm thick strips if they can, same thickness as the DE Racing skids.

Hopefully will have some progress soon and I'll take some updated pics. The most recent pics show a regular center diff, but I did install the Slipperential now.

Today the red stone guards showed up. They are definitely a good color of red, not pink, but I still didn't really care for how they looked. I like the red highlights of the concave washers and nylock nuts, but the stone guards were just too much. So I'm going to order the stock black ones instead.

Not a whole lot to update on the car. ESC, RX, and servo are all installed. Now I'm just saving up for a motor. Been trying to get everything adjusted for a base starting setup, thinking about picking up a few setup gauges to make it simpler. Can't wait to try her out, it's been a long time coming.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030274.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030276.jpg

Any chance of you putting the ESC in between the battery's somehow? ESC looks kinda out of place on that sweet setup.

What type of motor are you throwing in there? Sensored tekin maybe?

Sweet ride!

Thomas G

I can flip the center diff brace around if wanted, but for now I'm going to leave it as is. I agree it does look a little wonky but the wiring works out very well this way. And I already shortened the RX wire on the ESC LOL!

Motor will be sensored, a Viper or Tekin. I was going to run 4S with a 2650kv, but I just picked up some 3S 3200mah hardcases, so now I'm going to run 6S with a 1700kv.

6s on 1700kv. I'm guessing the Cheat mode will not be used then.

I got some parts to start on my jammin truggy conversion. It will be my platform to try out the cheat mode on 4s with a Tekin 1400kv motor. I know it works in my Rustler with 30 degrees Cheat. But the Jammin is a whole lot heavier.

I'm a little stuck with the gearing options with the Ofna cam motor mount. The max pinion with a 46T spur is 16T. Even with 1700kv on 6S that only makes for about 47mph. I thought that would be fine but I was told I'd need about 50-55mph to keep up with nitro GTs. Is this right? I'd like to use lower kv but I'll have to ditch the mount (although I did just buy a Nexx8 that it can go in). I do have the RCM mount still, just need to straighten it out, maybe it will allow a larger pinion.

What is the max RPM you can use CHEAT with?

I made a CF center diff spacer today, which is needed because the diff is flipped around. It covers the stock spur clearance hole, and allows clearance for the spur on the opposite side. It raises the center diff by 3mm.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030277.jpg

Max rpm with cheat? Dunno. Max timing for the motor was 30 degrees. Motor wasn't hot after a pack. But it was cool to see the Rustler pop a wheelie when the CHEAT kicked in. That was something the LRP 2500kv motor couldn't do. I'll mount the Rally body on the Rustler for more weight and play with the settings some more. I'll probably slap on the heavy beadlocks for more resistance and see what the ESC does.

What I'm mainly getting at is you said for 6S and 1700kv motor you assumed I wouldn't use CHEAT. Why is that?

Finally had some time to myself and did some measuring for you. I bench tested the 1400kv Tekin motor with the MMpro on 4s. Seeing the data I believe you can pull of the 6s with Cheat enable.
I used my Rustler with 58/25 gearing with the wheels suspended. I can only see the rpm in live mode and for some reason can't get the rpm readings to save.

4s Regular 10 degrees timing was a bit more than 22000 rpm.
4s CHEAT 30 degrees timing was a bit more than 33000 rpm.
Cheat 50 degrees timing on 2s was a bit more than 33000rpm. This was pulling 70+ amps and got hot really fast.

So I looks like I went from 1400kv to 2000kv with 30 degrees timing. Pretty cool.

Excellent info, this is good news. I switched my mount back to the RCM mount so I can fit a larger pinion (Ofna cam mount will go in the Nexx8 I just got). With that and CHEAT mode I can get away with a lower kv motor. Gotta play with the speed calc a bit more now, but I think a 1400kv will do the trick.

I was comparing my 2S 5000mah hardcases and the new (to me) 3S 3200mah hardcases, and they both weigh 277g. Pairing them in series the 4S setup would be 74Wh and the 6S would be 71Wh. So the 6S should provide similar runtimes to the 4S, or even reduce current draw a bit to squeak out a little extra time.

EDIT: Looks like with the 6S and 1400kv setup I can gear 46/20 and get about 48mph. Then I can dial in a little CHEAT to hopefully get to around 50-55mph. Should shape up to be a pretty decent setup. It's about time I jump on the higher voltage, lower kv bandwagon.

Not much to update. Still waiting on a motor. Been waiting for the Viper sensored to be released, but I think it's time to just go for a Tekin.

Leaving for Orlando next week, so I'll probably pick up a motor at one of the LHS down there and head out to the Kissimmee track for some testing. I really need to get this thing on the road!

I was all fired up after work today to get the GT finally out on the road for some testing. I bought a Tekin motor on RC Tech that showed up today and also stopped by the LHS to pick up a new SR300 RX. The motor is great, but the RX was a dud right out of the box. Called Horizon and they were kind enough to send out a new one right away, no questions asked. They told me to toss the other one, but I'm going to tinker with it a bit to see if it's fixable.

The guys at the LHS said they are going to run at Kissimmee Raceway on June 5. I'm going to do a bit of road testing beforehand and then hopefully get it dialed in on the track.

Here's a few pics of everything RTR minus the RX.

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030337.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030338.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030339.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030341.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030342.jpg

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f1...3/P1030343.jpg

A work of art! Every piece is chosen for perfection and I really hope you'll have lots of fun with it:yes:

Thomas G

daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang
looks really sharp!

I weighed it today and it turned out a little heavier than I thought, right about 3550g RTR. Not a pig by any means, but I thought with all the CF it would come in a bit lighter. The only parts I know of that are heavier than stock are the alloy diff cups and hardened steel internals. Maybe the tires are heavier than off-road buggy tires since the rubber is thick and dense. Guess I'd have to weigh them separately.

I pulled an RX out of one of my other vehicles because I couldn't wait any longer. Just zipped up and down the street about 5 times, and I learned:

A) As expected, this thing absolutely screams!

B) The sensored operation is awesome (currently set to smart sense mode). No cogging at all even rolling forward at a snails pace. I was pretty amazed at how slow it could actually go, definitely glad I went sensored.

Next up will be digging out the EagleTree to find out what kind of power this thing makes. I really wanted to go for a 6S lower kv setup, but I found a good deal on the Tekin 2650kv. Beside that, I have many pairs of 2S packs, only one pair of 3S. Even if the runtimes are a bit shorter I'll be able to run more without waiting on packs to charge. Eventually when it's time for new packs I'm definitely going for 6S though.

Nice build, I like the appearance and the layout. Do these rallygame bodies require a longer wheelbase than 1/8 offroad or are they the same?

Personally, I would place the batteries as close to the centerline as possible, to minimize roll inertia. If you switch the location of the RC and ESC, the COG will be lower, also reducing roll (better handling). Then the power wires look like they could be shortened a lot (less power loss). Further, I would check if the shock standoffs are stiff enough. With the shocks this far from the shock tower, they see a lot of bending load. Shorter standoffs or some with a wider base would reduce compliance.

Most rallygame and GT bodies fit standard 325mm buggy wheelbase. Kyosho has the IGT2 which uses 360mm truggy wheelbase, and they make the longer bodies for those vehicles. My car is 325mm wheelbase, but when the chassis needs to be replaced I think I'll go for the 360mm.

The standoffs don't flex as of right now, but any firmer of springs and they would. I already planned to make some braces to go between the standoffs, just haven't got around to it. Made out of CF of course.

Had a great day at Kissimmee Raceway. I was the only one with a 1/8 GT, but I was happy to just get out on a real track. Car performed great, if not a little hot. Motor maxed out at 165F, ESC a little less. The ambient temp was 95F, and with the track surface temping at up to 135F means the air above the track was even hotter than ambient. So overall, temps were pretty reasonable. Some of the 1/10 TC guys were coming off at 200F+, saw lots of smoked motors today!

I did a lot better at getting around the track than I thought I would. Started off focused on being consistent even if I was a bit slow, and by the end of the day I was making great times. No big crashes either.

Used my EagleTree on one run. Max spike down the straight was 90A, producing 1225W.

very nice car ....... waiting vids in a race ;)

After doing some testing with my older FlyCamOne camera I determined the quality is just too poor. So I'm going to pick up one of those Ebay keychain cams (1280x720 30fps H.264 video) and get some on-board footage.

I have one of this keychains and a turnigy mini camera 20usd from hobbyking ......... and sincerely are shits :( ....... te quality of the vids are very bad ...... Overcoat if you use mounted in the car