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khyzersoze

Restoring my old 89 Kyosho Raider for my son.

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I got this around 1989 when I was in Jr. High. It was my first hobby grade R/C kit after my first R/C car that was a black Nikko Typhoon from Service Merchandise.

I ordered it from Tower Hobbies along with the Kyosho Pulsar Pro 2000 transmitter/receiver/servo package. Drove it for a few years, then left the hobby for around 20 years. I happened to dig it out of my parents' shed so that I could see if I could salvage this and a Kyosho Tracker that I had sitting in there for my son.

Straight out of storage. The MSC that you see on there is a newer replacement from the Kyosho that I got later on. The one that came with the car is an even older model with all the contact points exposed... which I still have. As you can see... the stock leMans 05 motor is still in there. Unfortunately, I painted the front wheels green, and the rear wheels I traded for a set of 3 different ones back when I was younger. The rear wing is something I added on later from something else. Anyway, took it out and started cleaning it with a disposable toothbrush.

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I ordered a body from ebay since my original one apparently went missing, and it had a terrible paint job anyway from what I remember. My son likes the color blue, so I decided to paint it a metallic blue.
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Finally got the car up and running using a Hobbywing Quicrun 1060 Brushed ESC, Airtronics 371W receiver paired with Sanwa MK-V Transmitter. The original shocks/dampers were in bad shape. 2 of them had cracks in the tubes which was fairly common for this car. I took them off and replaced them with Kyosho FD-37 FD-38 ultima oil filled dampers. I also painted the wheels I had back to white.
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Ordered some repro decals made by ******* Racing. Not exactly the same as the original kit, and definitely not the same quality... but for this project, it'll do. I think it looks great now!
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I have an old brushed twister scorpion motor that I might stick in this, and I'm considering upgrading the kyosho servo to maybe a savox servo or something stronger. I'm also looking into seeing if there is a way to improve the tie-rod/turnbuckle system that it's currently using to help it turn better.

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Looks great! The Raider is a really underrated little car. It's not a racer, obviously, but it's a fantastic fun runner, tough, and has a good vintage-y vibe to it.

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My kids drive 2 Raider runners, and they run them HARD!! The shock bodies do crack after some abuse as you've seen, the replacement shocks you are using will leak badly after some runs because there is no seal at the bottom of the shock body, the rod simply goes through the plastic. Almost any modern shock will fit to replace them should you choose to. Kyosho gold shocks look awesome and fit perfect but they are expensive nowadays, they came stock on the Turbo Raider.

Weak point is those dogbones with the plastic midsection, the plastic part cracks and the dogbone breaks in half. Cheapest solution to this is to get OT6 dogbones from the vintage Ultima/Optima series since they are all steel, cheap and easy to find on ebay. I think your Tracker might have them too, check to see if they are same lenght

Gearbox has many gears, ball bearings make a big difference in performance and run times on this model. Gearbox is apparantly weak especially with hotter motors but Ive never had any issues with mine despite all the abuse, Im using the stock 540 motor.

The rear orange wheels you painted white came with the Turbo Raider and use a much more common tire size. Ultima, Optima and Lazer also used different colors of this wheel. And that rear wing came from the Raider Pro.

Raider is pretty unique as it is 2WD with mid mounted motor, handles a lot better than other beginner's buggies from that era. Looks awesome in blue, will have to try that when my kids bodies wear out

All references to repo decals, bodies etc is banned btw

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My kids drive 2 Raider runners, and they run them HARD!! The shock bodies do crack after some abuse as you've seen, the replacement shocks you are using will leak badly after some runs because there is no seal at the bottom of the shock body, the rod simply goes through the plastic. Almost any modern shock will fit to replace them should you choose to. Kyosho gold shocks look awesome and fit perfect but they are expensive nowadays, they came stock on the Turbo Raider.

Hmm, that's interesting. The ones I put on have built in O-rings to seal them from leakage on the inside. If you look inside, you can see 2 orange colored o-rings. I don't think it'll leak, as I've run it a few times already.

Weak point is those dogbones with the plastic midsection, the plastic part cracks and the dogbone breaks in half. Cheapest solution to this is to get OT6 dogbones from the vintage Ultima/Optima series since they are all steel, cheap and easy to find on ebay. I think your Tracker might have them too, check to see if they are same lenght

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Yup, my son already snapped one of them when he drove into a tree root. I replaced it with metal dogbones of the same length, but not OT6. Didn't find out that OT6 were the correct ones until later. The ones I have work, but I suppose I can change to OT6 later if I really want to.

Gearbox has many gears, ball bearings make a big difference in performance and run times on this model. Gearbox is apparantly weak especially with hotter motors but Ive never had any issues with mine despite all the abuse, Im using the stock 540 motor.

I was on the fence on getting ball bearings for this car. Maybe I will now if it makes that much of a difference.

All references to repo decals, bodies etc is banned btw

Oops, had no idea. Will make a note of that in the future.

On another note... I really hate the tie-rod/turnbuckle + servo setup on this car. Any ideas on what I could replace them with so that the tie-rod doesn't rub the bottom of the chassis? And maybe hopefully improve the turning radius.

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Hmm, those shocks sure look like the ones that came with Ultima 2 and Outlaw Ultima, and those leak like crazy. Unless Kyosho made a revised version of these that I have not seen so far. How does the O-ring fit in the shock body, as you cant unscrew or dissamble the bottom part?

As for the steering, it definately isnt the best out there even by vintage standards. On my kid's cars when one of the front wheel gets an impact the steering rod goes right through the servo saver and gets stuck there. I have been thinking of replacing the steering setup with something like a Kimbrough heavy duty servo saver and some proper steering links and ball ends, Ill let you know how this goes as I'll try to work on this during the weekend

Here's one more upgrade I recommend: replace the brass pinion with a steel one as it will wear out eventually

Here's some of my Raiders, you can see the different variants. First is Turbo Raider which came with gold shocks, bearings on the diff (on the diff only, what a joke!!), Outlaw stock motor, and upgraded Ultima orange wheels. Second is the Raider Pro, a later varaint of the Raider series. Different body and decals, wing is on plastic wing mount screwed on different rear shock tower. New wheels and tires, but the front tires are the same as the original Raider. Suspension parts are now held using screw pins rather than hinge pins held by those tiny hex screws, they tend to unscrew by themselves because of the vibrations. The 2 red ones are first gen Raider and a Raider Pro, those are the ones that my kids bash, back one has Proline wheels, gold shocks, full ball bearings and it drives great!

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I also restored and repaired a Kyosho Raider.

I translated from my blog: http://reparar-cochesrc.blogspot.com/2018/02/restauracion-reparacion-de-kyosho-raider.html.    
 Sorry for my bad translation.

The car was like the picture: dirty, without motor, the speed controller did not work, tires that are loose from the rims, ..

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I should clean and change the shock absorbers:
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The car needs a motor. Before I must clean and grease:
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Cleaning and whitening the wheels with hydrogen peroxide:
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In the end, I paint the wheels with the  white paint. I also placed a sponge inside the tires:

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I paint the letters of the tire with the white paint:
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I lubricate the transmission and the gears:
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I place ball bearings instead of plastic bushes:
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The motor is type 555 rewound by me so that it is faster:
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I adjust the  15 teeth pinion:
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Replacing front shock absorbers with other oil shock absorbers:
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The rear shocks work well (they were previously replaced by the previous owner):
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The receiver is Sanwa brand with the old standard; it is valid for an old Sanwa servo but is not compatible for a modern ESC:
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I made an adapter for ESC (reversing + and - wires):
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The car is already working well:
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I will paint the body another day:

 

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Don't throw away the red shock collars, they work as great replacements for the ,prone to cracking, Ultima ones 👍

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I have not thrown them away. !!
I use these shock absorbers  in a TL-01 chassis  intended for a rally car.

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With time, also the dogbones have been broken.
Solution: Aluminum or bronze hollow spacers (the dogbones have been glued with epoxy-glue).

Also the HPI 06006 dogbones (70mm) can be compatible.
 

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On 1/18/2019 at 11:07 AM, korreka said:

With time, also the dogbones have been broken.
Solution: Aluminum or bronze hollow spaces (the dogbones have been glued with epoxy-glue).

Also the HPI 06006 dogbones (70mm) can be compatible.

I think Kyosho used dogbones of standard lengths. Kyosho OT-6 steel versions also work.

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