Search the Community

I got caught up in the recent TA03 fever on here! So while there's nothing ground breaking in this thread, there will hopefully be something different in my take on the chassis There will be two three at least five builds in this thread: A TA03-RS 911 GT1, in 1996 Le Mans livery and nicknamed 'Code Red' A TA03F-Pro David Jun restore and rebuild A TA03F-TRF project, built entirely from parts, most of which are blue, nicknamed 'Bluebird' A TA03F-Pro 'Drift' Chassis that will be built with a liberal spray of purple aluminium parts A TA03F Subaru Impreza that was bought from Japan as a built shelf-queen to participate in the Silver Can Budget Rally Build Off First, an introduction to the 911 GT1 build...

Hi all, As most of you know my collecting has mainly been Tamiya Nitro for some time. I have just picked up another car to restore and I thought it might be good to do a restoration thread. This will show how I select a car to restore, how I analyse what I need, restoration tips etc. So, I have just picked up this auction lot from Ebay UK. These are the auction pictures. I paid £42 for the car and £8 so £50 all in. Now that may seem a lot to some if you go by the pictures however I will explain why I think that's a fair price. On first glance the car appears to be whats left of 43512 the Ford Focus WRC XBG TGS kit. The body certainly would suggest that. It does however have a lot of ball bearings on show, that might suggest a TGS-R chassis as they were ballraced. So what else can we go by? The dampers are friction shocks so that would fit. The engine could either be an FS-12SS found in the TGS range or an FS-12SW found in the TGR-S range. The two engines are actually identical apart from the carb throttle linkage and idle screw. Lets have a look at that then. OK, so that is the early throttle arm and so its an FS-12SS engine and confirms the kit is probably 43512 and its been ballraced retrospectively. Obviously lots more could of been changed but for now i'm happy. So my thoughts on the pictures. The engine has its recoil starter and its not broken. These are now nearly £30 to buy if you can find one The fuel tank hasn't got its pump snapped or the fuel connection broken. Another £14 to replace All the Tamiya radio gear is still there.(untested but a fair cost for two servos and an RX). Body is scrap but it will be cut up for paint removal practice and the wing mirrors and rear spoiler removed, cleaned and stored. The rest of the car is pretty complete. Par for the course on TGS restorations is a centre tub replacement and the underguards. The rest I will attempt to restore. The only other issue with these is the shock mounts snap on the front and rear gearbox casing. No way to tell yet but I already have new ones. So there you are, the start of the project, more to come when I get the car but here are some more auction pictures.

So I'd been hunting for my old Turbo Optima Mid for about two years, just was baffling what I did with it. Went over to my sisters tonight and she grabs this box! For some reason, I had left my old Skyline GTR and the parts of the Turbo Optima Mid at her place a long, long time ago! I have the Turbo Optima Mid shock on the GTR. It's unlikely I'll restore the Turbo Optima, it was my favourite car probably of all time and has the wear to prove it. Don't know where the tyres are and there are a couple of other bits missing, but it's always fun to re-discover the old 'barn finds'! I will say that while I didn't buy the Optima re-re, of / when they do the Turbo Optima mid SE, I'll be all over it. *The MP-5 box is just a tease, sold that one many moons ago