SNAKEBITE

Have you got a photo of the old Escort body please?

My shop was Beatties in Brighton, by Churchill Square. Used to bash the car up during the week in the school holidays, then go and get new parts at the weekend! Plenty of hop up parts and stuff for the wish lists. In latter years there is the Model Centre on the A24 in Worthing, still going strong luckily and plenty of choice!!

Lovely looking car! It doesn't look too beaten up either, a real bonus. The Falcon was the car I had back in the day and I loved it, shame I got rid of it....... The reason they put oil dampers on there is to improve the handling and reduce the bounce of the car. By removing the oil you are reducing the handling capabilities of the car.

Adding to Prescient's post I'd add Sussex Models in Worthing, but obviously not a holiday diversion! Quite a lot of stuff but the witty banter and customer interaction is non existent. They mainly communicate in grunts!

Is this on the clear bodies (inside painted) or the hard plastic bodies?

Whenever I go out I carry my small tool bag. If it can be fixed, the tools and generic spares will be to hand.

Well, he's yet to bring it in, so no progress.......

Something that is always handy to have around in your workbox/shed/nan cave is a "Zeus Book" http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Zeus-Precision-Engineers-Metric-Data-Book-Chart-Charts-Reference-Sizes-Tables-/310893777034 Worth it's weight in gold.

The *** factor soon wears off. Running after cars and putting them the right way up for your kids whilst trying to drive yours soon loses its appeal! I bought the Rising Fighter for my son at Christmas and he loved it. I tried to update the suspension and have had nothing but "issues". Now if I had endless spare time these issues would be fun and interesting to deal with, however I have had to try and fix the problem whilst doing all the other things that need doing! If you have time then go for it, if you don't then go for a chassis that just works, my DT-03 Neo Fighter is perfect. Now I'm not complaining as such, as I have learnt a lot from the tinkering, but sometimes it's nice to just pick the cars up and just drive them!

Thanks for all the help guys! @TurnipJF To be honest there is nothing wrong with the original CVA shocks. I just bought the Absima ones because I wanted to get what I thought was a hop up. Something alloy and a bit flash looking! @Greg M Thanks I'll have a look. @Mad Ax I think the shocks had too stiff a spring rate and possibly over damped. It seemed to be launching it off the ground due to it being too stiff. I think. My experience with off road RC buggies is limited to what we did in the 80's and what I have done so far this year. Not a lot. I am an engineer though so do have a basic understanding of what is happening, plus a bloke I work with used to work in the car design area, mechanical not the styling, so has a lot of 1:1 experience that has seemed to transfer nicely. @Prescient I'll look at your post in a moment. @ThunderDragonCy Damping was going to be my next port of call. I was going to test run what I have, then strip the shocks and drill out the piston if required.

What do people do when fitting Absima shocks to a Tamiya chassis? I have fitted a set to my son's Rising Fighter and have found it to be a bit, well, a bit of a hassle. I wanted to cure the whole pogo thing, so thought a new set of shocks would be the cure. Now I'm not after perfection, as I fully understand the limitations of the chassis design but just wanted an improvement. After buying the shocks and fitting them it just made the situation worse, so I investigated further. As a result I fitted the modifications shown in my other thread. In addition I refitted the springs from the original shock units as they are a lower rate. I've yet to run the new set up but I think this is as good as it is going to get. I bought a set of Absima shocks for my DT-03 Neo Fighter but have not yet fitted them as I am not sure they are going to be worth it. If I do fit them what will I need to do to make them work?

I have a Neo Fighter and for just bashing around I cannot fault it. Mine is completely unmodified, purely for the reason it just doesn't need to be for what I use it for. (It did come with the Torque tuned motor and CVA shocks as free hop ups though). I do have a set of alloy shocks to put on it, but after the fun I've had with my son's Rising Fighter's suspension I've not bothered fitting them.

Okay. I suppose at £130 there isn't going to be too many floating about!

That's some serious cash right there. What makes them so expensive?

@TurnipJF I have yet to run it so cannot comment fully. I have made it as strong as possible from a design point of view, and don't foresee any issues, and could always tweak them out in any future designs. @i_am_scarecrow Because I make them at work, costing me nothing, I would not want to sell them. However I would be happy to make the odd set up and pass them on as a favour. As far as I'm concerned that's what it is all about.

I only have to see my son driving his Tamiya and the abuse he gives it to see that Tamiya are a decent manufacturer.

Not polished. It came up a little rough, but this was a prototype so I wasn't going to waste time if it wasn't any good. Not tested it yet, but printing a thicker cross brace as we speak because I think this one will break around the suspension mounts. I split it putting the screw in, so tapped it out and put a mc screw in instead. I'll swap it out on Monday, it's got another 3 hours printing and I'm off in a minute! To be honest it's a runner not a shelf car so I'll doubt I'll polish it anyway!

Not been there, but remember Beaties in Brighton. As has been mentioned, buying online kills local shops.......

(All being well I should have pictures linked to Photobucket!) After ruining the suspension on my sons Rising Fighter I researched the modifications possible and copied what I saw as being the best. It was a first for me as I drew up the parts in Inventor, a 3D modelling software programme we have at work and then 3D printed these parts off. Technology is moving on and I needed to catch up. I can draw up anything by hand and machine it in the toolroom but was losing pace on the new technology available. I did feel a bit guilty about stealing Ampro's design but at £25 a go I figured I'd try it myself.

Please don't take this the wrong way, it isn't meant as a criticism, I'm purely asking from interest. Does spending nearly £2000 on a project actually make that much of a difference to the end product? Is it cosmetic or functional?

We have a 3D printer at work and I'm going to have a stab myself. There is a video on youtube that deals with the mod, and also a front suspension mod that was described as being very fragile. I'm happy to have a play around, but ultimately don't want to spend a fortune on something that could go towards a DT-03 chassis car like mine.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/MK4U6FK88/416001-01-rising-fighter-suspension-side-mounts?optionId=58535643 @ ThunderDragonCy Is this what you meant?

Thanks guys. @nowinaminute That block looks very good. I am going to try a few things first, but that's definitely a good fall back plan! Thanks.

Well we took my son's rising fighter out on Saturday. I'd fitted the Sports motor and the new shocks and all it did was pogo to the point that it spent more time on its roof. Not too happy, it means a whole lot more fiddling before it works well. Thinking of changing the shock oil and drilling the piston holes out so the suspension works. If that doesn't work I don't know what to do!

Cheers. Looking at the other shock I could see what I had happened, although I couldn't replicate the issue! The replacement one I machined up is a couple of mm longer giving a touch more compression, so hopefully it won't happen again!