Kyosho Raider Overview

Yesterday afternoon, my Kyosho Raider arrived in the mail. At first glance, the car (other than the body) is in very good shape... even better than I was hoping. The body has some tears in it, and some pretty big holes have been torn where the wing/body gets screwed to the chassis. I knew before buying the car that the body was in rough shape, so there's no disappointment there. This car is basically bone-stock, and looks to have very little wear and tear on the chassis. The car has the stock friction dampners on all four corners, but the good news is they look to be the same size as the Ultima's original red oil-filled shocks. Since I'm putting a set of Kyosho golds onto my Ultima, that frees up the red shocks for this project.

The tub chassis is in great shape, with nothing more than minor scratches/scuffs on the bottom, and no cracks, holes or gouges found anywhere. The only thing that is missing from the car is the front bumper. As a result the front counter sunk screws that should have held the bumper in place stick out a little bit. No big deal, I may just counter sink the holes on the chassis so the screws sit flush, until I can track down a bumper.

The front wheels tires look to be in good shape too. One of them doesn't spin very well, most likely due to an over tightened wheel nut, and the fact that there are bushings (most likely plastic) instead of bearings. One day I'll get around to upgrading both the Raider and Ultima to bearings.

The motor is the LeMans Stock 05 motor. I'm not sure of the specs for this motor, but I imagine it's not far off from the basic Mabuchi/Johnson 540 'silver can'. The other side of the gearbox shows you the possible pinion/idler gear combos you can have. I guess you could buy different sized idler gears in order to increase the number of possible gear ratios. I'll have to check the manual out for more info on this.

The back wheels appear to be stock, but the tires definitely are not. A previous owner has upgraded his stock tires to a set of ProLine Octi Grabs. They are quite soft, and are not at all crusty like vintage buggy tires usually become.

'Kyosho' is stamped all over the car. Here are three of them. There may be more, I just haven't noticed any yet.

[/Tim Sanderson]