Street Scorcher Project

[steelo]

I have a re-re Sand Scorcher that was hardly ever ran because it just didn’t handle well on any surface.  A few weeks ago, I got bored and decided to ‘convert’ it into a street rod. This involved tearing the entire car apart, including the gearbox and cleaning it up the best I could. I decided to double up the fragile fiberglass chassis plate with a carbon fiber one and bought some new wheels and tires for the front and wide slicks to use on the rear. Another issue I had was with the terrible stock steering. I eliminated the clunky mechanism altogether and opted to use direct servo steering. I found a servo saver off of ebay that worked to prevent damage to the servo after I inevitably crash it.

 

 I was hoping that the wider rear wheel stance would improve stability, but the first run on asphalt was not pretty. The car would roll over in dramatic fashion if I turned the wheel while going over 5 mph, it seemed like the slicks were gripping too much, causing traction rollovers. To remedy this, I adjusted the camber of the rear wheels so that mainly the inside of the tires are making contact with the ground. Unfortunately, this involved some tweaking of the shock mounts to allow this but it seems to work. I was very pleased with the handling afterwards, no more traction roll tip overs unless I drive it stupidly. The steering is now about as good as any other RC car I own and the car finally tracks in a straight line. I’ve also noticed the gearbox doesn’t sound like it’s grinding and the top speed is quite a bit quicker, which is probably due to the oversized rear wheels. Before these mods, I’d probably rate it a 3/10 in handling, after these modifications, it is a solid 7/10…I finally have a Sand Scorcher that is a blast to run on asphalt =)

 

Here are some pictures of the disgusting gearbox before it was thoroughly cleaned and the car after the modifications.