Project: Ultimate What The?

Modifications: Phase I/II... Touring/rally car

This whole mess started as my feeble attempt to test the waters of onroad racing. Up to this point, everything I had done was on dirt (all I had was my Rustler), and I wasn't about to cough up the cash to buy a 4WD sedan just to try out the asphalt. After all, I already had doubts about the level of fun I could get out of running on a course with no jumps.

However, what I did have was a growing mound of spare Rustler parts and a desire to do something with them (being the Traxxas guy at the track, I got old Rustler parts passed down to me out of charity). On one regular visit to a local hobby shop, everything came together at once. I left with some cheap sedan wheels & tires, a sheet of foamcore carbon fiber and a vivid image in my mind of a Frankenstein-esque road warrior. With simple tools and some nuts n' bolts and such, a new star was born.

On the track the following weekend, I picked up a respectable 4th place out of 6 cars in the Stock 4WD Sedan class with my super-wide, 2WD hacked-together masterpiece. However, the lightweight foamcore chassis plate split in two. (Hey, I didn't know the darndest thing about materials back then -- I saw carbon fiber and simply thought "ooh ahh that'll work.")

A couple weeks later, back at the offroad track, I was given an aging Traxxas Blue Eagle rolling chassis, complete with graphite bottom plate and shock towers and dull white nylon a-arms, c-hubs, bulkheads and body mounts. Though intrigued to see the construction of this prehistoric relic (grandfather of the Rustler), the one single item that most thoroughly caught my attention was the chassis plate, itself -- oh, so much stronger than my pitiful foamcore, and already predrilled to hold some of my Rustler components! This time around I decided to do a "rally conversion" while I built it, which simply meant installing rally tires.

Traxxas pride, Volvo pride!		A body-off portrait only a parent could love		Can we say, "outriggers?"

I didn't say it would be pretty, but hey, it ran, my first truly custom-built R/C! From stock Rustlers came its front & rear suspension assemblies, transmission, steering setup, and even battery box tray, though the latter was completely cut out of a spare lower tub and mounted in transverse configuration right near the center of the chassis. The wheels & tires were HPI's.

In practice on the offroad track, the poor thing gave a godawful performance. It was slow (badly undergeared) and badly lacking in traction and balance. But, alas, it was my baby and I loved it. Oh ok, I'll cut the crap. I didn't like it at all and all I could bare to think about it was how I was going to completely change it, hopefully into something worthwhile next time..

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