[Zimmie]

Heya folks,

I am a Tamiya Fanboy....straight up. I remember being a kid and buying RC Modeler mags in the late 70's, to drool over all the awesome toys. Sadly, most of the drooling was looking at the adverts for all the Tamiya kits, as RC Modeler is/was not a ground based RC magazine. None the less, lots of great memories . It wasn't 'til the late 80's that I could finally afford a "hobby grade" RC...the Grasshopper!

Well, fast forward to now and many, many RCs later...


I have always wanted to get into 1/8 scale but Tamiya only offers a nitro version, and well, I wanted electric, so I made my own...queue the organ music!

without further ado...here is what I did to accomplish my conversion:

Tech details:

Mugen MBX6 ECO motor mount - modified to fit Tamiya diff. A direct fit to the existing chassis, but I had to make a top diff plate out of Carbon Fibre and cut the Mugen top plate so that all I had left were the bearing retainers...then custom fit the CF top plate. Also had to shave some aluminum off the inside of the Mugen mount, as the diff was binding.

Losi Eight-E spur gear and diff cover- direct fit onto the Tamiya diff

3mm Carbon fibre used for everything.

Brake line cut into 8mm sections for the raised CF battery stops (Big thank you to Henry @ TheZoomRoom...his inspired idea!...and he supplied the brake line...give that guy a hug!)

TT02 - receiver box (Again, thanks to Henry for rummaging through his parts wall for this gem) - Also used some parts off the plastic tree for mounting the box to the CF

A whole bunch of different screws, locknuts, and Tamiya spacers!!!

Only had to drill 2 holes in the chassis - for the radio tray

Carbon fibre was cut with a scroll saw using a metal cutting jewellers blade. The blade was .4mm thick and was only good for 20cm of cutting before it became too dull...it was slow going. The outsides of the CF were shaped using a belt/spindle sander (much faster and accurate...yay!!). The insides were done with the scroll saw/spindle sander/files. All holes were drilled with a press and backed with wood to eliminate tearing...and use a sharp drill bit! Always wear a respirator/mask when working with CF!!!!!

All in all, wasn't too hard to do...just need a whole lot of patience and....measure 10 times before cutting!!!

In the pics, I have a SC motor in it as I don't yet have a proper 1/8 system for it (it still pushes this beastie around quite well). A Tekin RX8 Gen2 will fit perfectly behind the radio box (this was planned for).

I've put 4 packs of hard bashing through it and no problems...I just need a track to see how it truly handles.

Cheers,

Zimmie

[rushabh]

This thing looks amazing..
ive been wanting a 1/8th scale buggy for a while and this is looking really sweet