Vajra

[94eg!]

Ah....here's one that with the modified front shock tower and 88/11 Avante rear wing mount. Not bad. Wonder how it looks with the big tires...

http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=52376&d=1385076559

http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=52376&d=1385076559

From this thread: http://www.ultimaterc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194173&page=2

[Nitomor]

I forgot all about the Vanquish, thanks for that link, interesting. And thanks also Max for the tip on the hubs, I was looking at the yeah racing black ones for my Avante BS build, didn't realise the stock ones were a weak point.

I tried the Vajra out tonight around the house, the servo and poss saver is going to definately need uprating. The Futaba servo I'm uskng was 3.2kg/cm at 6v, but at 4.8v which the stock esc puts out, its only about 2.8 which clearly isn't enough. The same servo works fine on the Aero Avante and GF01 it seems but not on this.

In other news, I ordered the Egress undertray, so we'll see if this can be made to fit and how far off it will be.

Cheers

Nito

[94eg!]

It will work with the Avante rear bumper, but you will have to trim the rear of the tray to be flat (instead of cupped).....then secure it to the hole in the bumper with a screw & washer (the holes line up perfectly). If you omit the bumper completely and replace it with the egress undertray standoff, it will function much better (snap-pin and all).

My 2001 undertray mounted on an Egress chassis with an Avante-1988 rear bumper (sorry no good detail):

Something always struck me odd about the 88 bumper though. To me it seems like there is a way to make it work even better with an egress/2001 undertray, but I couldn't quite figure it out at the time. I think if you cut the chassis mount stalks down shorter, it will mount higher up to the top deck. This would allow for a basic screw-in body mount to be used (like what's at the front) without making the tray hang TOO low. I may mess with mine again one day.

[Nitomor]

Lovely picture and cracking looking model there, I can't make out the undertray there or did you leave it transparent and cut the rear down, in which case I can just about make it out?

[94eg!]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes the tray is clear and you can only see it where it wraps around the lower chassis plate. The tab with the body mount hole was cut down so there is only a flat triangular tab sticking out with the hole in it. I'll try to take a better photo of it if the kids aren't being crazy this evening.

Wish Kamtec would have sent my stuff back to me. Then I would have had my extra Vanquish body wing and 2001 undertray to mess with. That's what I get I guess.

[kontemax]

Kamtek are no serious imho.

Max

[super gripper]

So you pay all that money for a Vajra and you get plastic shocks that's outrageous ..................

[Nitomor]

Metal bodied cylinders would be nice but the CVA's work well and look stealthier (and it is cheaper than the Avante). I can't say that bothers me nearly as much as the disappointing packaging though lol!

[Tamiya Era]

OHH man!

Glad to see this Thread!

[Nitomor]

Thanks, nice signature you have there!

So I bought the Egress undertray mainly to protect the carbon lower deck and also keep,it as clean as possible. I also had to buy the Egress threaded snap pin posts to retain it (luckily it came as a bag of 4 even though the Egress only appears to use two of them for the undertray, turns out I needed to use 3.). The front setup looked the same but I thought the rear might be a struggle as the Vajra has a rear bumper in the way of the the rear post mounting point as shown in the Egress manual. Too engrossed in that, I just cut the tray out as indicated. Here it is pre cutting...

Front mounting points

Fortunately at the rear I was able to fit the snap pin post straight to the rear bumper with only minor notching required to the undertray.

It doesn't fit that well with the Vajra shell, I'll need to get some velcro.

Much worse on this side. With hindsight I shouldn't have cut down the side of the undertray to the denoted area, leaving it taller down the flanks to match up better with the Vajra shell but I was being too hasty to just get it on. I may be able to patch something up with Velcro, part of me thought about just buying another one and do it right but at £22 they're not cheap!

[ChrisRx718]

£22?!

Could you just paint it black so it looks like part of the chassis?

[Nitomor]

I will be painting it anyway. It's the overlap I'd like to resolve though. Both aesthetically and to prevent excess muck getting into the tub. I'm planning for this to be a runner.

Cheers

Nito

[Thommo]

Muck will come into the tub through the front wheel arches mostly anyhow, just run with it !

Tough call I guess

[94eg!]

So what I was saying was to cut the bumper mount posts shorter so the rear bumper mounts higher. Then the rear-end of the undertray won't sit so far away from the chassis plate. I'm sure after some running it's just going to fill up with debris.

[Nitomor]

Thanks, I'll look into that too.

Finished trimming the undertray this evening, I won't be painting for a while until the weather gets better, I'm tempted to mask some of it off when I do paint it so some of the carbon lower deck is exposed.

I've ordered a hop up for it and now need to also order a beefier servo, probably another low profile Savox servo as used on my WT01 build, being low profile it hopefully won't extend beyond the top deck either. In fact Savox have just released a black limited version of this very servo complete with black lead, perfect for this and the Avante build when funds allow!

Thanks Thommo, I'll see what I can do to cut down on dirt entering the tub at the front arches, the chassis is too nice to get filthy!!

[ChrisRx718]

Mask off the Tamiya logo to expose the carbon weave - it would look ace!

[Nitomor]

That would look very cool, would take a fair bit of effort...hmmm, thanks. Guess I'd have to trace and cut out a logo by hand.

Cheers

Nito

[Effigy3]

That would look very cool, would take a fair bit of effort...hmmm, thanks. Guess I'd have to trace and cut out a logo by hand.

Cheers

Nito

Rather than trace out and cut masking tape you could use liquid masking instead.

. It's not a complicated process but you have to make sure that you build up a thick mask using multiple thin layers. Do not score the body cutting the mask!

[94eg!]

I imagine the thin curve-able strips of masking tape I cut with a straight edge and lay by hand will produce much straighter/cleaner/parallel edges than attempting to hand-drag a razor across liquid mask (or even tape). Of course I say that cause I don't have a very steady hand.

[Nitomor]

Thanks for the suggestions, I have some clear ultra mask, I may have a go with that and see! I don't have that much time at the moment so I think paint may have to wait for a little. I've never used liquid masking before, I'd like to give it a try sometime. Thanks for the video link, I'll go off and watch that now, cheers.

[Nitomor]

It has been a while as I've been away from RC for quite a while this year, however yesterday and today I decided to finish off the Vajra. I eventually ordered the black limited Savox low profile servo I mentioned earlier in the thread and have had it for many months waiting to go on.

The plan was to fit this more powerful servo and at the same time it would hopefully look better cosmetically. I've done away with the Tamiya esc too and fitted a quicrun 1060 lipo compatible waterproof jobbie. The savox limited edition black servo has quite a bulky (and I think shorter) lead, which meant needing to relocate the receiver, where again I took the opportunity to house it in a TT02B receiver box which I'm using on quite a few models now just to keep the electrics safe from poor weather running, puddles etc and it keeps it looking neat.

So here is before;

and after with the low profile servo, weatherproof receiver box and Quicrun 1060 esc ;

Next up was paint. I've discussed colours above, looking up vajra on the net brought up lots of gold coloured type thundebolt weapons I believe, with some spiritual significance. Anyway, on discussion with the missus, she came up with gold first off, which was totally coincidental because she was unaware that I was already thinking along those lines, for her the red decals would be set off with gold.

So onto paint, I used createx wicked pearl gold and airbrush, backed with black then clear coated on the underside. For the undertray I masked off the part where the carbon chassis was so it could remain on view.

results below;

 

Decals next...

[Nitomor]

First off the undertray, masked off to show off the carbon deck, still needs some touching up after final fit and trimming...this is the Egress item so not standard fare for the Vajra...

Onto the decals, part of the reason for choosing gold was because it would compliment the decals well, stock box art is black with chrome wheels, since mine now has black wheels a light coloured body would be the sort of reverse of box art. I'm delighted with how it came out, the pictures don't do it justice and please do excuse the poor quality pics I'll try to get some better ones in due course!!

So there she is in all her glory!!

cheers

Nito

[kontemax]

Is it normal a so high rear end?

 

Max

[Nitomor]

In the pictures without decals the body is just resting on the posts, which is why it looks high in the side on shot with just the paint, you can see the body posts barely protruding. I haven't changed anything with height and can't say I've noticed it looking too high. In the decal pics it is properly mounted hence you can see the posts pokong through.

cheers

Nito