Frederik

Yeah hahaha, and I can't put the servo lower since the servo horn linkage has to fit under it, as well as the steering rack. It is all very tight in there.

Hey there Candyman, yes I thought the same, and it is in fact a low profile servo you see in the pictures. Here is an older pic before I switched, compared to new servo, huge difference! It used to touch the hood:

Another recent update, with the motor sitting just a bit too high to have a realistic fake engine position (it would touch the hood!), and the fact the 540 sized motor has too much power anyway for dirt driving, I bought a cheap tamiya 380 sized motor to try, it is much smaller! I had to make a small adapter plate (out of sintra since I was really lazy and wanted to try mounting it to the tranny). It should overheat pretty easily, but it was cheap and I wanted to try, anyway I am always limiting the throttle on the radio to make it more driveable. So I guess we'll see if it melts Now the motor sits at a much nicer height!

Also since I have recently sourced a large sheet of black Sintra (similar to Komacel), I got started on a dash. It is pretty much my first scratch work with plastic stuff (except a small start on the floor of my Hilux build). I don't yet have all the tools to work it, for now a big yellow Olfa construction knife, a piece of very fine sandpaper (too fine), large and small dremel sanding drum, a dremel sherical metal bit and some Gorilla Gel glue. I would need some mini files and other grit sandpaper, and a smaller blade to make it a bit easier. But not too bad of a start I think! Plus it is black and already looks a bit like alcantara leather lol! Some reference pics, a carbon fiber Escort dash to go in group 4 racing cars, and an actual interior pic: I don't have much pics of the process, but I just sandwitched about 5 or 6 pieces and started dremeling. At first the dash was too thin so I added another layer and reworked it: Then carved out the under part and the inside of the cluster the best I could with my dremel bits: The dash does not quite go low enough, in the reference pic there is an additional piece below the cluster (same height as the steering column). Maybe I'll skip that one if I go for the group 4 interior look. Also started to think of some seats, I want to find a good balance of simple design since I'm a noob, but also ok looking. And good news is the two 1S separate lipo packs are just about the right size to be hidden where the seats should be. I thought they'd be too big or to forward, but from reference pics they'll be ok!

I removed the Toyota and put some color on it, still need at least one coat on the head but looks kind of cool I think! I tried to grind down the underside of the motor to make it sit lower in the engine bay, but there is not a lot of meat before I reach the bottom of the cavity between the two valve cover...

Pics after I received the dimension rc engine compartment, it is nice but it is quite a bit too big to look realistic.. Maybe I will use it anyway, but I would have liked it to be smaller.

Funny you mention it! That’s exactly what I’m after! I started looking for 1:10 scale 4 cylinder engines to put on the motor and would like to know the options, if you know other models I have not seen. I don't styrene just yet and I thought I'd take a shortcut and find something already done, and not outrageously expensive. Since the motor is pretty wide I was thinking of something with 4 individual intake horns on the throttle bodies, these end up pretty wide usually so it should hide more. Also was thinking of a twin cam engine so it hides more, and I came across the Toyota 4E-AG from Dimension RC. It is my favorite for now, fairly expensive though, probably worth it, but I'd like to know who else you guys know does a similar engine so I can ponder more options. This one is made for drift cars so it only has the top part of everything, I'd have to build something to at least cover the sides of the motor. It seems like the 4E-AG was swapped on some MK1 and 2 Escorts so it would somewhat make sense Thinking it would fit nicely in there : Would look similar to these:

Since the steering servo was contacting the hood and preventing from having a front structure I bought a low profile servo (feetech brand, I almost got a Savox but cheaped out at the last minute..) Fits much better now! I can put the front piece I made a few years back, and it hides the servo pretty good! And it now clears the hood, I can even put a radiator on it to hide the top of it some more, and add a zip tie radiator in front of the servo. What dya think? :) Oh and while I had the motor out I put the right one in place, the Tamiya sport tuned. I initially thought the gold lettering on the motor would look good, but I changed my mind and put it underside to have it all black. I think it will blend better until I put an engine on it.

Hahaha yes it looked very realistic lol! But I could not have driven it through dirt and snow without it disintegrating in a year so I had to paint! Thanks for checking in on the progress ! Today I started assembling even if the paint was not 100% hard. I could see the bolts work the paint, but I kept assembling anyways. The front part with the steering and servo mounting is quite a pain for assembly, you need to remember to put this before that, and there are screws and nuts that are very hard to put in place. And also when the cage is in, it is very hard to work in the small space! For instance bolting the frames to floor from the inside. I put nyloc nuts almost everywhere this time since it is likely one of the last time I assemble it ? for now. Ok now for a bunch of pics They might be out of sequence but somehow imgur decided to upload them in a random order (I'm guessing depending on their size) : Suspension, sitting and fully compressed (shocks bottomed out) Now that it is painted I realize I have not finished the front panel where the lights are etc. I'll do that later, but it'll be bolted anyway (not soldered). I was thinking it would be cool tho have the body in parts, like opening hood or dismountable front fenders and doors. But that would be pretty complicated to keep all aligned, and I'm not sure I'm want to dive into that kind of stuff. It would make more sense to make an minimalist interior and then paint the body. Just not sure what type of paint these retroracing bodies are good with. I'll have to reasearch again, I think it needs to be waterbase to not make the body brittle. Left to do: - white caulking for the various holes and cracks in chassis - body mounting - batteries mounting (the separated saddle packs 2s) - route wires for motor and steering servo through firewall - front disc brakes (and maybe rear) - mud guards - Paint body, bumpers and wing (need to find a way to attach them maybe I'll just glue them on?) - Fake engine on motor? The motor is pretty big in the engine bay so it will be hard to make it look legit since the engines are often pretty small in these! But there is also often the 4 individual intakes that poke to the side of the engine, so maybe I could do that to hide more of the motor underneath. Hope you guys like it! Fred

https://youtu.be/ZBNyU9Lz3q4 I started the process of disassembling to clean up and prime. Also I want to finalize a few things before I put paint and it will be easier if disassembled (I'd like a front strut brace and to finalize the 4 link boxes which are currently open ended). Chassis without all its guts, looks kind of cool! Would only need a car chassis rotisserie in a scale garage to look legit lol! But looking at the next pics it looks as if I'm going to need restoring first lol! That looks like some nasty rust! But it is mostly surface rust mixed with residual gummy flux from the solder. I thought having it all in pieces I'd snap an exploded view of it all laid out:

Hey sorry buddy I did not get a notification from this post! Because of what Photobucket did to everyone using their service all pics in my threads stopped working.. They ask for like 400$ a year for the 3rd party hosting to work. I am slowly switching to imgur but in the meantime all old posts are not working anymore.. It kind of slowed down my work even more lol For now I am fixing the link on my thread at scale4x4rc and once I am done I will copy the posts to here. http://www.scale4x4rc.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1059884#post1059884 I have done a bit recently, nothing pretty but I cleaned all the mating surfaces for the rear wheel tubs (some rust formed I guess I was too slow lol), adjusted the clearances so the solder can sip in and hold and soldered the tubs to the chassis. First I had to drop the axle so I don't burn up all the plastic parts with the torch That's some impressive suspension travel for an on-road lol! All fluxed up and ready to solder, I added 2 bolts to each tub so it holds in place while I solder it: And the soldered result, pretty ugly solders as usual but I will clean them up a bit so it looks a bit better (remove the big solder balls that formed at some places) Next up I think will be the rear side panels I formed recently, will solder them to the tubs. Then I can resume working on the cage because I have something to attach it to (the tubs). I will let you know of the progress, have a Happy 2018! Fred

Haha the kids showing phone tricks, reminds me how my first boy shown me you can do 4 fingers gestures on the iPad lol She is probably already rearranging your icons, including deleting what you dont need. My youngest is 3yo and what works with him is I do the throttle and he does the steering (on a Tamiya Lunchbox). I can make sure he does not crash it and I set the throttle limit to like 25% anyways (so his older brother can play with it too). A zootopia FJ sounds cool I'm sure she'll love it, make sure to post some pics. Never had a CC-01 but I hear they are a nice customizable and fun platform if you use it for what it is made, trails and not crazy crawling stuff.

I am just back from the garage doing the other side tub, and cutting the side plate to shape. Car starting to look more put together, it is nice to see the chassis have some inside space with the sides, should look neat with the cage attached to it. Did a more solid brazing job on this side, but the sheetmetal warped quite a bit, had to force it to shape a bit. Oh and the round is slightly not symmetrical between the two tubs.. but so many things are crooked on this car, still happy with it so this is not going to bother me! On to a few pics: And I am pretty happy with the new future shocks location, they will be muuuch further apart and this will help the handling a lot, I probably won't even need a sway bar. The next pic you can see the distance difference between the shocks turrets I just made and the current shocks location. Previously with the shocks so inwards, the suspension was very soft for body roll, and not so soft for bumps. It should also help slide instead of wanting to roll over! Gd'nite! Fred

Now tonight I made some progress on.. don't know how to call it.. how do you call the rear door cards on a 2 doors car ?? On 1:1 most of the center section of that panel piece is cut out and filled with what I guess is.. automotive cardboard lol might just do that and cutout the center to save some weight when the pieces are done. Still need to work the chassis a bit so the tub fit better but I'm getting there! Sorry for the bunch of pics with little progress but that's how I do it, the turtle will get there!

Thanks yoodoo! They are street jam drift wheels, and I think the best place to get them is in the link below, you can choose the offset 3 6 or 10mm, and also there are other models of the same type of fake sidewall wheels: http://www.rc-race-and-drift-japan.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=91_94&sort=20a&filter_id=49&page=2

Lol! Thanks Al, last night I made the second wheel tub vertical piece, and also I made the rounded shape of the tub for the first one pretty pleased! The brazing is pretty harsh but I am a complete brazing noob so I guess that excuses it lol I will make an inside wall of the same metal under the rear side windows, like you can see in the resto pic below, so that is why I made the outer piece with all those tabs ready to braze to that future piece. Hope you like the little progress!

Thanks Alex! I want to make it white, white chassis and body, I think this is because I have Simon McKinley's white Escort engraved in my mind and can't think of another color. My vision is a Group-4 white car just prepared, and no sponsors yet, just white. Yes maybe this kind of blue details, but I am still leaning more towards white only, with black details (grille, rock guards) Hahaha it has been so long since I started this build that I am not too sure anymore what we talked about or not lol! I don't recall you posted it though. Looks nice

Thanks bieomax for chimin in! It was 4.35 lbs last time I checked (with everything on board). The cage and tubs will likely end up adding quite a bit of weight though.

So I had to veer off a bit of the cage and work on the rear tubs.. spent a few hours trying to find the best shape. Thing is while at it I thought I should correct the shocks placement and put them in between frame and wheel instead of being too narrow (close to diff). It has been bugging me for a while for a few reasons, it was not accurate, it caused the car to roll too much, and the shocks had to hang too low to the ground (too big of a bracket at the axle). So I started by removing the reinforcement I had soldered to the side, and made a big notch for the shock: This is the shape I came up with, it is only the vertical piece of the tub, with a shock hole integrated. The shock hole protrudes higher than the tub and will have a pin through to hold the shock, and likely a cap on which the roll cage tubes will attach to. I might shorten the cylindrical tube a bit once I am sure of final position and shock mounting height. Maybe you noticed, the cylinder part is brazed first brazing ever for me haha! Takes some crazy amount of heat compared to solder. The idea is to braze the tubs as a unit (will be like 3 or 4 pieces probably) and then solder the tub assembly to the chassis (cannot braze it since the whole car will melt under the heat) Not a big update as far as amount of parts, I was hoping I would at least have one tub completed, but that's the result of a few hours of head scratching ans scrapping some air duct pieces I'm still happy with it because I found a way to do this in one piece, with the shock hoop thing integrated.

Made some tests for roll cage design, only mock ups using solder wire and tape. The design will change but it helps gets the ideas coming and refining. Can't start the rear part yet since the wheel tubs are not there, and the tubs top part is where all the back tubes meet. Front doors will have X and not just one diagonal, but did not bother for now. My reference pics are google search for group-4 escort mk2 I have received the brass tubes for the cage this week so that pushed me starting the design a bit The solder wire is a bit smaller than the brass tubes which are 4mm but it still ok for design, easy to bend to shape. I made new calculation since I thought maybe 4mm was too small, but the wheelbase scales at 1:9.57, so the 4mm tubes scales perfect for the 38mm tube dimension I was targeting (38.28 mm). Though I just read sometimes the main hoop is 45mm.. but I guess I'll be fine

I made the second side last night, went pretty good and the result looks better than the first so I guess I am improving somewhat Nice to not have holes in there anymore! Next is to do rear wheels tubs from similar material. Sorry for another set of pics looking almost the same lol!! Ready to solder: Soldered, and also cleaned a bit of rust and gunk off the chassis here and there: As a bonus I also accidentally made a custom scale sword from solder dripping on work bench Fred

Last night I made the front fender thingy, the rounded part that protrudes inside the car and allows the wheels to turn. So I have one less hole in the floor now! Started with a brake cleaner bottle: Fits almost directly! Needed to trim the hole just a little bit. Also the can has some kind of plastic coating inside, I burnt it off with the torch, also burnt the paint and it was all very easy to buff off the remains after that. Then the real work started: Held in place with a clip: And soldered (I drilled two holes for M2 screws to hold it in place secure while soldering, then removed the screws): Clears the small wheels good: And clears the larger wheels just fine too! All in all still ugly soldering but it seems to hold good, and I might put some JB weld when all done before painting to hide whatever is not nice enough.

Thanks bieomax, yes I think I'll keep it in front, for the added driveability. It sticks a bit too high to hide it though, nothing will fit between it and the hood. If I replace the servo with a shorter low profile one it could work to hide it though! But not sure I want to fork out the additional cost of a low profile high torque servo for now...

The other night I noticed quite a few type of cans (brake cleaner, compressed air can) have their top area shoulders really rounded, it looks like it would be the perfect radius, and it is steel, so I think I got my solution for those front wheels holes in the firewall, just need to empty a can, cut it and solder it in! No pics of that yet though, it is just at the idea stage for now. Last night I made a significant change in direction, in steering direction that is I took a servo and put it in front of the motor and it looked as if it could somewhat fit with a linkage going under the motor. With the cable steering having quite a bit of memory steer (does not return to center exactly) and lots of force and speed loss in friction moving the whole thing, I thought it was worth it to try. The servo is reeeeally close to the inside of the hood, like half a millimeter. Same goes for the distance between motor and the end of the chassis. Pure luck that it fits It is easier to drive since I am able to use 100% of the available steering rack travel, whereas the cables were not able to pull all the way to the ends. Also quicker steering and more precise, I think it will be worth it, and I won't have to tuck those cables around inside the car (and I could not make tight turns with them too..) It is uglier, but I like the added driveability. Someone suggested I should fit a low profile servo so it does not poke as high and I could hide it with a radiator. Might happen at a later time. So all in all pretty happy I made the move, even with all the hours invested in doing the cable setup.. The steering linkage is just a piece of autobody sheetmetal cut to shape with two small holes for M2 bolts. The thing is getting pretty complicated to pull apart now though lol Motor, steering mechanism and servo all crammed in the same spot. Quick vid showing the new setup: Also when it was still working with the cables, I did not document it but experimented with relocating the potentiometer from the servo up front, so the servo sees the steering rack position instead of the servo position at the back. I was hoping this would eliminate all the memory steer. I made a test with a cheap servo (to avoid hacking a 100$ servo for that lol!), it kind of worked but the servo was so weak it could not even move the steering rack by itself so I dropped the idea, not wanted to sacrifice a high torque servo. It was quite interesting though, found a neat way of rigging the pot to the front steering rack, drilled a hole in the pot shaft, put a very small tube inside it, and a small wire that is allowed to slide inside the tube, so it can transfer the lateral movement to the pot without binding. BTW in that video the high torque servo is still using its internal pot, I was just testing the pot mounting.

No I have no brass sheet, only steel sheets like the floor. I would like to do the inner rear fenders with some sheet, under the rear side windows area. And in all the reference pics above you can't see the trunk from the inside, maybe I'll try to replicate that too. Not sure where I would find brass sheet? I'm in Quebec, Canada, and can't order on that site mentioned above. Wondering if brass sheet is much lighter than the steel I use for the floor which comes from thin air ducts? I used this: