steelo

Ran it in the dirt yesterday afternoon. What a blast this car is to drive through sand/dirt! It is a sheer joy to watch it kick up dust and ‘drift’ through the turns. I made a bonehead mistake though and forgot to put on the rubber spacer on the outside of the spur gear. As a result, the spur gear was rubbing on the inside of the gearbox cover and created a nice indentation on the cover. It also squared off the teeth a bit, but it still seems to be usable.

Interesting….my rear shock leaked pretty badly too. I soon realized though that I put one of the black seals on backwards. The kit comes with (I think 2) extra clear seals so I just went ahead and replaced that too. Seems to be dry underneath...for now.

You should really enjoy that motor, plenty of torque and top end speed. It should be perfect for you. I'm using a 3500kv 13.5t brushless, which I believe is roughly the equivalent to a good 19t brushed motor. I chose the belt option in mine because I didn't want to hassle with constant chain adjustments. I think it would be more reliable.

The Leman's 360PT was a great motor..I think it's a 19T double. Ball bearings, rebuildable and very fast back in the day. I believe it was used in the Turbo Optima but my dad used it in his Optima and it ran great!

Do you think Kyosho will eventually stock replacement parts for it?

Excellent job on your paint. I didn’t even try to get the white under the yellow on the rear =)

Just weighed mine =) Mine: 1660g belt drive Turnigy 4000mah lipo Radient Reaktor 3500kv motor and ESC Spektrum receiver Tower Hobbies high torque servo

One thing that worries me about running it at this point is that Kyosho doesn’t seem to have any replacement parts listed. I’m afraid I’m going to break something and have it sit on the shelf forever =(

I’ve heard of people using them but never really understood why.

Here’s mine =) Paint job definitely is far from perfect and pin striping was difficult around the windows but this is going to be a light runner.

Does anybody know of a good method to keep striping tape from peeling off of the outside of lexan bodies without damaging the plastic? The body is painted on the inside.

Thank you for the link, should have searched first! =)

Hi guys, Just curious if there is a way to remove dullness/haziness in Lexan from fine scratches. I’m wondering if a headlight restoration kit might work to make it look better.

Very true, the manual really only allows you to assemble the gearboxes one way. If something is wrong/missing, you should realize that something isn’t right pretty quickly. Of course, in the case of my mistake (forgetting to put grease under a washer) you won’t realize it until 5 steps later or go to run... The belt definitely isn’t overly tight or loose. I’m thinking that it may just need to be ran it in a bit.

Looking at the manual, it looks like it’s for the adjustment of the chain drive. Should the belt need adjustment?

Ah, thanks…I was wondering about belt tension. I wasn’t aware that you can adjust it

Thanks, I've tried that and it feels about the same with/without the pinion.

Finally got my Optima built…it just about killed me. First run, everything seemed to be okay until I ran it through the grass. All of a sudden, I heard a horrible metal grinding noise. I noticed that the front diff was not smooth at all and actually made a ‘squeaking’ sound. So, I spent my Sunday evening tearing apart the front end. Come to find out, I neglected to grease a metal washer inside the differential….stupid, stupid! Now that I’ve got it put back together, both differentials feel buttery smooth but I’m having an issue with the drivetrain ‘locking up’ when I let off the throttle. The wheels don’t lock up, but it slows down pretty abruptly. I've never owned a belt driven car, so is that normal? Does it just need to be broken in a little? FYI: I have a Reaktor 13.5T/2s Lipo system and it takes off pretty quickly, but the top end speed seems to be lacking. I’m using the belt system and really, really don’t want to have to tear the entire car apart again to get to the gearbox… Please help!

Man, they make it look so easy =)

I’ve tried using the decals instead of the paint and I’ll tell you for a beginner, it’s a nightmare. First off, lining everything up correctly makes you want to pull your hair out. My hands were shaking and sweating as I attempted to get everything straight. Once I did get the decals applied, there were air bubbles everywhere. After applying a few decals, I was so frustrated that I painstakingly removed them… Could just be my incompetence when it comes to fine details....

I generally agree, the directions are pretty straightforward for the most part. There are definitely some tricky parts though. The instructions are pretty entertaining sometimes as it appears the wording is lost in translation…ie: “Put in ditch”

Just received my order directly from Kyosho last night! I’ll tell you, the kit is a work of art….plastic and aluminum are top notch quality. The only complaint would be the directions are sometimes very confusing, I think I rebuilt the differentials/pulleys about 3 times because of stupid mistakes. I’m a bit confused with step #5-6, the directions say to pull out the threaded rod but wouldn’t that make the counter gear and spacer just drop down into the gearbox since there really is nothing holding them in place? I’m really afraid of having to tear it apart again to line the gear up…

Thanks, I think I'm going to give it a try.

I’m looking at the ‘Flysky’ fs-gt3b…it seems to be very reasonably priced (around $40), with quite a few features. I’ve read decent reviews for it being a cheap radio, it has a nice, back lit LCD screen, 10 model memory, ABS, D/R, trims and people wrote that you can ‘hack’ the firmware to add features such as a lap timer. I also like that I can buy extra receivers for all of my models for ~$10 each =) Does anybody have any experience with this radio?

I would, but I’d have to order a new receiver =) For now, I’m just using an extra Spektrum receiver and haven’t had any issues (yet) Now that I think of it...being careless, I have a few times accidentally connected the Lipo battery with the power switch ‘on’ and heard a ‘spark’…could that have burned it out? I would think it would burn out the ESC before the receiver though… It's frustrating that I've burned through almost $100 on a new radio and 2 receivers...