Project: Ultimate What The?
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Modifications: Phase IV... J-SPEC!
It is widely believed that the original J-SPEC car was the Phase I Ultimate Rustler in disguise. Sure, that's the story the Rustler would have you following, but it's simply not true! The original, J-SPEC 1, was actually the Ultimate What The?! Pictures don't lie!
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| Of course it looks odd, it's the What The? |
In this setup, the car was running HPI Super Nitro (SN) black mesh wheels with SN soft rally tread tires, and a matching SN Lancer Evo body to top it off. My idea was to use a truly offroad capable platform to make realistic rally cars that could run on the local stadium truck/buggy track. Unfortunately, Bandit rear arms ended up being too hard to come by, and I had to do a lot of custom tricks to make the front track narrower. Lastly, SN wheels & tires weren't exactly common, being super-sized touring car dubs.
I did end up trying out this chassis configuration in the first J-SPEC race, though (see the J-SPEC photo gallery -- it was running the Porsche body by race day). It actually worked out quite well! It was a little bit lacking in rear traction due to the forward-mounted battery and small tires, but all & all I was pretty happy with it, while it lasted.
In the end, I did the right thing and settled on standard 2.2" stadium truck wheels for the spec:
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| Ok, so it ain't perfect |
In the setup shown above, I was actually running my very first hop-up wheels and tires, HPI Super Stars with Pro-Line Road Hawg tires all around. These were the practice rims for the Ultimate Rustler, back in the day when it was running the Volvo wagon body later adopted by the What The?, running around makeshift tracks set up with orange cones in parking lots at 10 or 11pm at night, rain or shine.