Hornet & Grasshopper mods

[MJJ1543]

Hi Folks,

First time poster although feel like I know the site quite well as I've been trawling it for data for some time. Apologies if I've got this in the wrong section, Mods feel free to redirect....

So I'm another 50-something reliving his RC youth. I got my Grasshopper for Christmas 1984 and it's probably lived in my folk's loft longer than it was actually used. However, about 10 yrs ago I dug it out and got it running again, then it was retired once more, and now I have kids it's made a reappearance. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it and I got carried away and now have 2 grasshoppers and 2 hornets. All the others are re-release models and were bought in various states of disrepair to restore & modify, the latest Hopper is a rolling chassis only.

I'll put some photos up as we all like pictures. The red one is my original Grasshopper, still running an MSC (with fuse). It's now a bit of a 'Trigger's Broom' with only the tub and body still original. It has Hornet suspension and I fitted a Sport Tuned motor but it kept blowing the fuse so now runs a Torque Tuned and goes like stink.

The Yellow Hornet is fairly stock apart from wheels and that Sport Tuned motor. This was a basket case when i got it.

The MonsterHornet is a hornet chassis and ancillaries with a Kamtech body, Monster Beetle wheels, Lunchbox front uprights, steering arms, bumper and wheelie bar, alloy rear hubs and homemade brace bar, and 10T pinion on the 540 motor. The body mounts are some generic items of the i/net.

So, that was a long-winded intro. Now to my question - i have picked up Grasshopper re-re chassis with the intention of seeing how fast i make it run (on a budget at least...). I've got a 17T motor to drop in it and i'm sticking with brushed and NiMh - i don't want the fuss or worry of LiPo whilst I'm trying to get my kids interested. Anyway, i want to lower the car without adding unmanageable camber to the front. It occurred to me that i might be able to reverse the front wishbones (turn them upside down) which because of their shape will drop the suspension but retain a sensible approach for the tyre to road. That's the theory anyway, before i go cutting and moving brackets around i wondered if anyone had done this already. I suspect the reason I can't find any comments on this on sites such as this is that it doesn't work but i thought I'd ask the questions anyway.....

[markbt73]

Nice collection! One of my favorite chassis as well. To answer your question - yes! You can flip the stock suspension arms over. You need to figure out a way to attach the U-shaped shock mounts; in the past I've cut off that round plastic lump on the bottom of the arm. You'll need shorter front spring shafts, and short springs. Pan car front springs work, but so does a ballpoint pen spring cut in half.

You can also use Grasshopper II front arms, they have shock mounts built in, and will widen the front track about 13mm for some added stability. They'll mount upside-down too.

[MJJ1543]

Mark, that's good knowledge, many thanks. I had also wondered if the GII arms would fit a Mk1 chassis but again couldn't find any info, so you've answered two questions in one for me. My son's birthday is at the end of this month and he's got a GII Black Edition already waiting for him, i may have to borrow the front arms to see how the Mk1 sits with these on! My daughter loves the Monster Hornet above as it's more manageable for her.

Thanks again, I'll put up some further photos as this progresses.

Cheers.

[MJJ1543]

Just to update this; I tried the G2 arms upside down and the angle of attack is wrong unfortunately, leaves zero suspension travel so I've dismissed that idea. I've also, for the moment anyway, decided against fitting the original G1 arms upside down, mainly because in order to fit the U bracket I'd need to remove the plastic screw receiver underneath the arm and also part of the arm reinforcement as well leaving it quite frail.  Instead I've just fitted the usual arms, right way up, but used 3mm spacers to reduce the travel of the front damper rods. This is about as much as I can get away with whilst still keeping a reasonably flat profile of tyre to road. I've also removed an equivalent amount of the springs so that they're not pre-compressed. I've also added a 3mm spacer inside each of the rear damper bodies (original Frog dampers) to reduce the travel of the rear rods as well and again reduced the spring length.

So, it's sitting a little lower. I  might play around with different wheel combinations to get it lower still. Currently I've fitted Rising Fighter wheels and the fronts are a surprisingly large diameter.

Hopefully the 1060 ESC should arrive tomorrow and I can try to set it up. The Surpass motor I bought came with an ESC but I can't get it to work properly with my antiquated 27mhz receiver & transmitter - it only stops running when the throttle tab is fully forward, and each time I switch it on it does something different - either the brake function is fully on between forwards and reverse or it's not on at all, and sometimes the motor runs more quickly in reverse than forwards. It was cheap so I'm not moaning, hopefully the Quicrun 1060 will perform more consistently.

I need to think about a body shell for it at some point. I have a battered Hornet shell which will do to start with but might buy a Fire Dragon repro shell for something different.

Some pics below for your gratification...

[JimBear]

@MJJ1543 - I like the stance of your Grasshopper, and the Rising Fighter wheels/tires look good too. Something about the dampers looked familiar ... and then I remembered my Brat "project" upstairs. Will be interesting to see what sort of body you end up with.

[MJJ1543]

Hello again,

ESC arrived and set up easily. I got the Grasshopper running last weekend with an old Hornet shell on it and it absolutely flew on tarmac, didn't corner too badly either which surprised me. Started to strip the knobbly Rising Fighter tyres though after about 20mins. Bought some Carson wheels & tyres afterwards and first impressions aren't great; haven't given it a good bash with these yet but on the patio they don't offer any grip at all. I'd point out that I have other Carson 'off road' sets and they are much better, whether the difference is down to compound or tread pattern I don't know.

I bought myself a repro Fire Dragon body shell  intending to fit it to this hot Grasshopper but have since had a rethink. I have a hankering for something a little more modern and have an eye on a Racing Fighter which I think I'll put the guts from the grasshopper into so it'll have the 17T motor and ESC etc.

So what to do with the Fire Dragon shell - my poor old 1984 Grasshopper, the red one in the photos above, was taking a beating to its body (it's not often right-side-up) so I've decided to mount the shell to that one instead. Painted it (I'm no artist as you'll see..) and fitted using Hornet mounts at the rear and an after-market mount at the front and styled out with some 3D printed wheels and chunkier tyres I got off the Bay. Pics show it before I've got the Frog hex adapters fitted at the rear.

Some photos below of the 17T grasshopper and my 1984 original with the alternative shell.

[JimBear]

@MJJ1543 The Carson tires, well - on one hand ours haven't worn out, but they don't grip like the Tamiya ones (but those go bald in a short while). Is it the Carson ones on the black rims? I like the look of it, sort of Mad Max vibe. The red and white Michelin one also looks nice - like a Formula 1 racer.

[MJJ1543]

Yes the black rims, very wide and not very buggy-like. I have another set of Carson’s on 5 spokes I think that are narrower and have more of a mud pattern tread which grip very well on my Hornet with a sport-tuned 540. Maybe this 17T motor is just a bit too much for them.

[MJJ1543]

Hi, just to update this for those that are interested - in summary the quick Grasshopper discussed above has turned into a monster-type buggy, as i ended up buying a 2nd hand Racing Fighter. So, some photos of the group attached. 

The Grasshopper buggy (the instigator of this post) now has MB wheels and tyres, the Fire Dragon bodyshell, a 17T brushed motor with a 10 teeth pinion, uprated steering, LB longer uprights, bumper and wheelie bar (which it does need!). It's quick but just about manageable in a small garden.

I did the above as i ended up buying a 2nd hand Racing Fighter which i also upgraded with a 13T brushed motor, a steel 17T pinion (tried a 19T but it was too much as it doesn't get used it in vast open spaces). It also has various other bits added such as much stiffer rear springs, rear bumper, reinforced M parts and a few other bits I've since forgotten. It's very quick. Having only had experience of the Hornet/Grasshopper chassis previously, to say the handling of this is like chalk and cheese is an understatement - it's a revelation! It actually goes round corners.

The Grasshopper2 was my son's birthday present, he loves it but having stuffed it under a patio chair and breaking the front suspension mount he wanted it turned into another monster machine. So I did a chassis transplant and fitted various LB parts, and the suspension reinforcement parts from the Rising Fighter (same chassis). It's still got the 380 motor which is surprisingly quick but i suspect he'll want an upgrade to a 540 before long.

The others I've already posted above, my original Grasshopper Mk1, a Hornet Re-re, and the Monster Bug which is basically a Hornet with a beetle shell.

Oh, and a further observation on tyres - I found 'Louise Rocket' rear tyres are incredible for tarmac driving on the Racing Fighter, best yet and I've had loads of trouble with LunchBox tyres rotating/wobbling at speed (unsolved).

All great fun, but as my enjoyment mostly comes from the building/modifying of these i'm not sure how much more involvement I'll have now, i'll probably leave them for the kids to enjoy as they should.

Hope you enjoy the photos.

 

[SlideWRX]

On 3/13/2024 at 12:08 PM, MJJ1543 said:

...Instead I've just fitted the usual arms, right way up, but used 3mm spacers to reduce the travel of the front damper rods. This is about as much as I can get away with whilst still keeping a reasonably flat profile of tyre to road. I've also removed an equivalent amount of the springs so that they're not pre-compressed. I've also added a 3mm spacer inside each of the rear damper bodies (original Frog dampers) to reduce the travel of the rear rods as well and again reduced the spring length.

So, it's sitting a little lower. I  might play around with different wheel combinations to get it lower still. Currently I've fitted Rising Fighter wheels and the fronts are a surprisingly large diameter.

I did this back in the 80's with my hornet, with an ~10mm spacer from some rubber hose in the garage.  Rather, I think my dad technically did it for me.   The only local racing at the time was in a parking lot and I was interested in making it perform 'better'. With the original Hornet front ribbed tires the camber didn't hurt it much.  It eventually wore in a new flat face on the tire.