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wtcc5

wtcc5's The Boomerang

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I am a bit late with this thread as I own this car already for nearly a year. As my Boomerang is a little different, I thought I share its story here

This car has a strange connection to my childhood even though I never owned one as a kid. My dad started with R/C in the late 80s. When he brought the Thunder Shot kit home, I was so excited. For the time he build it, I never left his side. I clearly remember the price tag. The 379 DM (German Mark) felt like 4000€ today and even though I wished so hard I could have one, it was clear I will never own one. And of course at that time I didn't expect or beg my parents to buy one for me.

Well my parents were always generous and months later I got my first R/C car:

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A Taiyo Jet Fighter. Not cheap, but what a great car! It was perfect for my age. We made drag races and "raced" both buggies hard. It was great fun. For its price (I think it was below 100 DM) it was really fast, tough and had an uncomplicated battery management (8xAA). They could be changed or directly charged in the car. I remember the steering was straight or full lock only, which was annoying. I also loved the design of the car very much. At that time I didn't knew it was a copy of the Boomerang with some decoration of the Bigwig. After two years then I had one chrash with the car and the rear axle broke. That was game over for this car. My dad and I couldn't come up with a solution to repair it.

 

Thirty years later I had the idea to revive some childhood memories. I bought my father the Terra Scorcher as it is similar to the Thunder Shot and then searched for a decent Jet Fighter. Before I could find one, I stumbled over the Boomerang and instantly saw the resemblance. The decision was clear to go for a Boomerang. It was no problem to get the Rere in Germany last year.

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Opening the box already had so much emotions.

 

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The build was a lot of fun. I am always stunned about the complicated parts geometry.

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I reduced all cables to a fitting length.

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The chassis design is a mix of elegance and roughness:

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In between my build, my father finished his Terra Scorcher:

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What a beauty :wub:

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As we know from the box. The Boomerang is white and has the rear wing located very close to the body. In comparison to the Taiyo Jet Fighter, it also has no air scoop behind the driver and no lights in front.

First step: The right color:

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Second and third step: Something, every purist will condemn: I bought Bigwig and Kumamon tractor body parts and adapted them for my Boomerang. As last change, the rear wing had to move rearwards.

And that is the result:

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You might have noticed the tires on the pictures above. I didn't intend this car to become a just-build-shelfqueen. But spares aren't easy to get for many Reres and so I saved the original tires and also bought a new set of wheels. The chassis and arms got some protection for the first offroad run:

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I also don't want too much dirt around the electronics and additionally sealed the chassis:

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And then it was time to race it hard!

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I also made some videos, but these didn't came out good, so I spare you these.

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Up to now all the reports were from 2020. I woke the car from its shelfqueen status yesterday with the aim to run it next weekend. Today it got a new motor and the electronics chamber got resealed. I test drove it and everything is fine. After my last outdoor-offroad-run with @Quincy (Top Force Evolution), I really have to praise the Boomerang gearbox: It is dustproof. A calming aspect.

Ready for the next dirt run:

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Great build thread.  There is nothing like running RC with your dad.  I just recently fired up my brothers grasshopper from 1984 and one of my cars and had my dad run the grasshopper as I ran my HCT.  It was great fun!  I love what you have done with the color of your boomerang.  Looks better than box art and those tires are Blazing!  I also like to "correctness" of the air scoop and the lights.  Nice work.

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Great build thread and great looking buggy! I love the result with the air scoop, the lights and off course the colour. In my opinion better than box art. 👍

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Thank you both for the kind words!

 

Sunday the weather will be fine, so Quincy and I will run our buggies.

When I ran the boomerang for the first time offroad, I wasn’t convinced by the damper setup. So I pulled out my competition 4wd buddy and compared both damper setups. The boomerang was really bad. First the resistance of the damper until the rod moves was very high, then moving the oil was much too thin to dampen stronger shockwaves. Especially the rear damper were bad in these categories. I disassembled them and found the black o-rings causing all the resistance of the rod. I replaced them with TRF ones (old ones I had laying around) and put in blue 600cst oil. Much better!

Now the front. Monodamper... hmm ... rod resistance was ok, but the piston movement still was strange, because the the three holes were very small... less than half a millimeter in diameter. I tried different oils, but never reached a satisfying behaviour. So I widened the holes to one millimeter. That made it much better, but still the front always bounced. Again testing different oils didn’t cure that.

I was for a long time checking out the Hotshot, as I like main chassis-body concept very much. The monodamper front and rear are a no-go for me. Videos of it running on rough terrain look horrible. So the Super Hotshot sooner or later crossed my search. The Bigwig also has four dampers on a similar chassis like the boomerang. Both cars have different types of front shock tower. The former concept would easily work with the boomerang. Searching Tamico I found the Super Hotshot parts. Unfortunately the upper shock mounts were sold out.

I nearly forgot this topic for two days, when my brain remembered and then gave me a solution. I 3d-printed the lower shock mounts and used a aluminium profile for the upper mounts. It took half a day until the second optimized design met my standard.  My dads Terra Scorcher (it lives at my home) had to donor its front shocks. Again I tested different oils. I now settled temporarily for 1000cst, but 1500-2000cst would be better. The dampening is now a lot better. No bouncing :)

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The design looks like it came that way from Tamiya and I didn’t butcher any parts for this mod. All plug‘n‘play and easy to return to normal spec. This is now my Super Boomerang B)

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First test tomorrow.

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The Boomer looks fantastic with the extra parts and yellow paint.

I found on my Thunder Dragon the main issue with the front mono shock is the spring stiffness. I have ended up running a Tamiya 53440 yellow on road spring and it works much better. 

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Great story Kevin, from behinning with the old pics till today!:D

As soon as I read Boomerang in your other thread, I knew it wouldn´t be a stock one for very long!:lol:

Like all the mods, so cool. But what Kumamon parts were used? Interisting donor car!

Wish you all the best for your outdoor session with Quincy! Hope the Boomer sucks up the bumps as @Quincy´s Evo!

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Another thing I forgot:

The Terra Scorcher looks supercool in the more bright blue, too!

Did your dad use PS30 instead of PS5?

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@ThunderDragonCy: Full of wisdom as always :) Thank you for the suggestion. A different spring could cure the bounce I guess. Even though I found the Boomerang front spring too soft already... If you lift up the front of your Thunderdragon and let it go, does it have a bounce in the end?
 

@ruebiracer: The Kumamon parts on the boomerang are just the black lights next to the cockpit. Regarding the Terra scorcher, I already ordered new front shocks for it. My conversion just came too late, so the Scorcher had to give up the parts :rolleyes:

I will need to check the color code my dad used. I think it is brilliant blue.

 

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Great story to get back into your history with your Dad ..

Love the colour of the boomerang. Plus nice extras and thought gone into it .Hope you continue to enjoy them both together...

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I am pretty sure @Quincy and I found a dream spot to run our vintage buggies. The weather was perfect again. I even had a little sunburn.

The running itself was not as perfect as last time. Mechanical failures cut our tracktime short. We could repair some damage, but an electrical defect in the late afternoon, meant the end for the Boomerang...

It started with a nasty highspeed rollover for the Boomerang, pulling the lower damper ballcup off the rod. The repair went pretty fast, but it could have been the end for the front arm, thinking about it now... Half a battery later, Quincys Top Force copied my move. The buggy landed on its tires, but the fronts had pointed in different directions... One of the steering arms was broken. With no spare parts, we successfully improvised a servoarm to do the work. It worked pretty well, but took a lot of time.

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My next runs were strange:

1. Something was binding in front. After a longer check, I identified the droop being too small, causing the bones to bind in the outdrive. Two millimeter shims in every front damper cured that problem.

2. The behaviour felt not right, with the car developing understeer. I checked and found dead ball bearings. Two more died a run later. Luckily Quincy had enough.

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After that the car was handling great (ok it could have more steering throw for my liking) and it was a lot of fun chasing the faster Evo.

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Then one or two batteries without failure happened, until the UGT motor decided to slowly die in my Boomerang. It looked like it was just dust at first, but after cleaning and a short good run, it happened again and shortly after the motor made no turn anymore.


I will disassemble the car later this week (or next week, depending on my work load) for repair and a little improvement on the steering rack.

Action Videos will follow soon!

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Nice action shot of your Buggies. It's no fun when the cars didn't work as they should but the location looks like a lot of fun. And the weather couldn't be better as it seems. I am a bit jealous. Here it is currently a permanent mix of rain and snow. 

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The weather is a real gamble at the moment. Yesterday was perfect. Today it snow-rained the whole day at 2*C. The days before weren’t as good also. Luck is on our side!

The spot is perfect, I forgot to post a picture earlier:

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And here the videos:

 

Boomerang

 

Evo

 

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@wtcc5 congrats, your Super Boomer looks gorgeous! The extra parts are a great add on because of how well you've integrated them. Definitely the best Boomerang I've seen so far, the added front lights really do seal the deal. 

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Great photos and videos!:) The location s not only perfect for driving, but also for nice photo shots and videos!!

Guess you used your Gopro for the vids? Quality is really good without too much shaking!

And great, that you both could repair some of the damages to continue driving. It´s these situations you cannot avoid sometimes. Being on the perfect spot and then have a little error or damage you could cure in 5 minutes at home, like change a ball bearing or @Quincy´s steering knuckle. Never had one fail on my Evo back in the days, if I remember correctly. Sometimes it´s just bad luck.

Your Boomerang is so great, like the look and the improvements. Especially the short front dampers don´t destroy the look as much as a Supershot setup!:)

And it looks much meaner now, even standing near the iconic Top Force Evo!:)

 

All the best for your next trip to this site, with flawless fun to drive, hopefully!

Enjoy the site, before something is built on it!

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@ruebiracer: Jupp, the vids are made with my GoPro 8. I also couldn’t believe how good it removes all my shakes and vibrations from running like a madlad after the buggies :lol:

 

Right now the Super Boomerang lies in parts on my table. It has several performance harming issues. Starting with the steering rack, that catches fine sand and then gets stiff. The weak servosaver cannot take so much load, which in the end results in even less steering throw. Then the rear arms are also are not moving freely, because of the fine sand. The esc somehow ate a lot of sand even though I sealed the electronic tub very carefully. My guess is, that this caused my electronics problem. I am thinking about attaching the esc upside down to the dust cover next time together with the receiver. Luckily the gears are all fine.

I want more steering throw for the next run. So this is my development goal for now.

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