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Saito2

Super Boomerhotshoterang

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I'm a fan of the Hot Shot series. They're some of my favorite runners. This amalgam buggy, tossed together from vintage and re-re parts, is a combination of what I like about the series. 

I always liked the look of the Super Shot twin front shocks over the Bigwig's but they typically don't offer as much travel. I solved this by using CVA v2 shocks. The shock body is shorter and allows the front end to bottom out at full travel. The Boomer part comes from the blue knuckles and rear arms. As much as I love the Super Shot, I never cared for how the rear shocks were just tacked on the rear of the buggy. The Boomerang/Super Sabre/HS2 rear suspension just looked more integrated. I scratch built a copy of the HS2's rear tower to go with the re-re Boomer's rear arms. I actually like the Hot Shot's body a bit more than the Super Shot's (though strangely prefer the whole Super Shot over the whole Hot Shot) so I use this body painted in my all-time favorite Tamiya color, PS16 metallic blue. The re-re HS's dummy heatsinks were retained. It was a great little touch Tamiya offered. 

I still dig the basic HS wheels and long-wearing oval block tires the best, so they have a home here. A bit of brass/plastic ties the upper front arms together. Anything new has been assembled with the hot-screw method and there aren't any cracks in the plastics yet. I lube suspension pins and balljoints with wax to avoid dirt attraction. A Torque Tuned motor is all I need for motivation. Overpowering buggies isn't my thing anymore.

I always liked the Hot Shot chassis the best. The Bigwig's is bulky. I never got on with the Boomer chassis. It affords much better radio gear access and a great steering system. Still, I found it more flexy than the HS's, always disliked the flimsy battery door and wound up with a jammed steering mechanism on its virgin run. I also really like the HS/SS/HS2 rollcage and wouldn't give it up. It was my Optima that made me consider changing out the chassis which I finally did for a nice piece from Factory Works.

20200802_075923

The Factory Works chassis was reminiscent of the old fiberglass chassis Hot Shot competitors used back in the day. I used a SS underguard to keep it scratch-free. It retained the rollcage and offered a better steering system. A word to those considering one however. With the servo in the stock location space is no issue at all. If you consider using the optional mount designed to work with an Associated RC10 steering bellcrank, space gets tight. Its worth it. You can see it peaking out in the photo above. The setup cuts out much of the bump steer and allows more steering throw. So much throw in fact, I had to trim off the triangles found on the top suspension arms (which the original SS manual instructs you to do anyway) and mess about with the front shock's lower mountings for clearance.

The result? This thing now corners like no other HS. I used to be in the habit of flicking the trigger over to the brake side to whip the buggy around tight turns. The Optima spoiled me and I wanted more from the Super Boomerhotshoterang. This chassis and steering did the trick.The battery sits a bit further forward for better balance too. Now, I have all the steering I could ask for. The buggy just goes where its pointed. I'm a happy cat.

Its not much but I thought I'd share it. The buggy is in no way in the same class as something from Grahoo or some of the incredible craftsman on here. I'm not really skillful. Its more just a compilation of parts I like. There's really nothing too special about the buggy but I'm happy how it came together and slowly fiddling with it made it much better.

20200802_080314

 

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Taking all of these parts from different cars and putting them together to fix certain problems is pretty solid craftsmanship in my book. Now you have a cool looking buggy that drives the way you want it to. Excellent work.

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9 hours ago, foz75 said:

can you post more pics of the mods?

Thanks for your interest. Anything you'd like to see in particular? Aside from the little front arm brace I made and the rear shock tower (a Hot Shot 2 copy) most of it is off-the-shelf parts aside from the Factory works chassis kit.

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9 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Thanks for your interest. Anything you'd like to see in particular? Aside from the little front arm brace I made and the rear shock tower (a Hot Shot 2 copy) most of it is off-the-shelf parts aside from the Factory works chassis kit.

Nothing in particular, just interested in seeing how it all fits together!

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14 hours ago, foz75 said:

just interested in seeing how it all fits together!

Here's some more pics  @foz75:)

The rear shock tower made from a scrap of ABS

20200804_161444

The steering servo and Associated bellcrank. The chassis's main structure comes from the twin side plates. The chassis floor and top panels fit into slots in the side panels and are secured with zip ties. Together, they made the chassis surprisingly rigid with just a touch of give.

20200804_161327

The front arm brace and suspension shafts. Just brass strip and a little more ABS. I always liked how the Hot Shot body shows the front gearbox "bursting forth" from the bodywork, displaying some of the mechanicals.

20200804_161008

 

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On 8/2/2020 at 1:04 PM, Saito2 said:

There's really nothing too special about the buggy but I'm happy how it came together

You are too modest. Considering the improvement of the steering, Tamiya could sell this as Hotshot 2.5!

 

 

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Excellent work. :-)

Many of the Tamiya buggies suffer this problem. Indeed the Terra Scorcher also suffers from very poor travel and generally poor setup issues on its twin front shock arrangement, in many ways a retro-grade step from the thundershots mono shock that did at least offer substantially more travel!. We recently did a performance test between my terra scorcher and my daughters thundershot on our very rough back garden race track (includes jumps, steps, gravel and heavily rutted dirt), using an app to monitor lap times the thundershot on a stock 540/7.2v achieved more consistent lap times than my terra scorcher on reedy 19t/8.4v!!!

(The overly stiff front end of the TS coupled with poor travel just doesn't work on rough tracks, especially when having to power into and out of tight bends immediately following a jump, to the point I was considering reverting to the original monoshock on mine!)

I like this idea and may just pinch it by extending the front mounts for our terra scorchers to allow longer travel front shocks. Thanks Saito! :-)

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1 hour ago, mud4fun said:

We recently did a performance test between my terra scorcher and my daughters thundershot on our very rough back garden race track (includes jumps, steps, gravel and heavily rutted dirt), using an app to monitor lap times the thundershot on a stock 540/7.2v achieved more consistent lap times than my terra scorcher on reedy 19t/8.4v!!!

Thanks. I'm glad you ran that test. I used to run a Fire Dragon and Thundershot about 12 years back and always preferred the Thundershot mono shock front end. Granted, my backyard was pretty rough too, but I always found the mono shock set-up more supple over the terrain vs the twin shock front end. The TS series ability to traverse truly rough ground has always been a high point of that chassis for me.

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7 hours ago, Saito2 said:

Thanks. I'm glad you ran that test. I used to run a Fire Dragon and Thundershot about 12 years back and always preferred the Thundershot mono shock front end. Granted, my backyard was pretty rough too, but I always found the mono shock set-up more supple over the terrain vs the twin shock front end. The TS series ability to traverse truly rough ground has always been a high point of that chassis for me.

Yeah, I think Tamiya tried to make the TS chassis more race orientated with the twin shocks and anti-roll bar (which work fine on smoother tracks) but in reality the TS was never going to be competitive on the track against Associated et al buggies and yet the twin shocks and anti-roll bar made it less good as a basher buggy so in some ways it was the worst of both worlds. 

I will try adding a taller front shock mount and fitting longer shocks, will report back to see if that makes the car handle better in our track. Currently it is a mare, just can't get the power down properly due to that overly stiff front end bouncing everywhere. If I had a wider range of springs to try it could help but sadly I only have one spring rate for those small front CVA's and spacers don't really work because they splay after a while of racing and the spring rides up inside the spacer.

Oddly enough though, I was reading through the BRCA construction rules (British RC Car racing association) and noticed the 1588g minimum weight restriction. I weighed my TS loaded with a heavy 8.4v NiCd pack and it weighed just 100g over the minimum weight to enter a national event. BRCA actually only allow 7.2v packs I think so it would be even lighter. If fitted with a LiPo it would be underweight and would need ballast adding! Sort of contradicts all the stories of the TS chassis being heavy? Without the 8.4v pack I think the car weighed just 1350g (or thereabouts), over 200g lighter than the minimum weight. So I assume it was not weight that made it non competitive but rather the less rugged front suspension mounts, lack of quick adjustability of toe in, camber etc and its short wheelbase? Same probably true of many Tamiya buggy chassis?

 

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actually, thinking about it, that is the reason my Avante2001 and Vanquish runners are just useless on our track. They are just too low, too stiff and have poor suspension travel for very rough ground and far too fragile. Both of these buggies are currently broken again. I have just had to order yet another set of steering uprights (albeit the new stronger re-re style ones).

Not sure if it is just me but the Avante 2001 and vanquish last all of about 20 laps of our track before they break something (that normally costs £60 to repair) whereas a TS chassis can do 200+ laps with no breakages or worst case break something that only costs £1 to replace. The only place I can safely run the Avante is on a very wide flat section of grass or tarmac where there is no chance of it touching anything LOL

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12 hours ago, mud4fun said:

Oddly enough though, I was reading through the BRCA construction rules (British RC Car racing association) and noticed the 1588g minimum weight restriction. I weighed my TS loaded with a heavy 8.4v NiCd pack and it weighed just 100g over the minimum weight to enter a national event. BRCA actually only allow 7.2v packs I think so it would be even lighter. If fitted with a LiPo it would be underweight and would need ballast adding! Sort of contradicts all the stories of the TS chassis being heavy? Without the 8.4v pack I think the car weighed just 1350g (or thereabouts), over 200g lighter than the minimum weight. So I assume it was not weight that made it non competitive but rather the less rugged front suspension mounts, lack of quick adjustability of toe in, camber etc and its short wheelbase? Same probably true of many Tamiya buggy chassis?

 

I actually started a topic last month about the origin of the old "Thunderbrick" nickname the TS had BITD. I never understood it as the buggy felt pretty light to me.

10 hours ago, mud4fun said:

actually, thinking about it, that is the reason my Avante2001 and Vanquish runners are just useless on our track. They are just too low, too stiff and have poor suspension travel for very rough ground and far too fragile. Both of these buggies are currently broken again. I have just had to order yet another set of steering uprights (albeit the new stronger re-re style ones).

This summer I made a post analyzing the Avante/Egress design and another comparing the Egress to the Terra Scorcher (in which I put forth the theory the Terra Scorcher might actually be the better performer).

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