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]

Vintage RC Mags

This is just a quick post to show the vintage (and a few not-so-vintage) RC magazines I picked up tonight. I haven't really gone through through them yet, but it looks like there are mags from at least the early 80's, into the 2000's. (4 out of 5 of these magazines are even in plastic sleeves) So far, I've seen some RC Car Action, RC Model Cars, ROAR Rev-Up, Radio Control Car Racer, Radio Control Modeler... even some newer Xreme RC. When I get the time, I'll go through them better, maybe catalog what's there. I may even PDF some of the older ones...
Here's a pic of the haul. (excuse the quality... I had to use my video camera to take the photo)

LeMans 240ST

Once again, my buddy Joe Bielski has hooked me up with another bit of vintage Kyosho goodness. He hooked me up with a Kyosho LeMans 240ST. This, along with the Kyosho Gold shocks he gave me, is going into my Ultima. Looks like I'll have to buy Joe a case of beer.

LeMans 240ST specs:
cage 540 type / 4 min race / 22Tx1 / 0.80mm / bronze bushing / 24.000rpm / 7.2-8.4V

Sometime this week I should be getting my fiberglass upper plate & rear shock tower I ordered from Dave (aka DW911) from RC10talk.com. I've cleaned all the bits and pieces of the Ultima, so once I have the new parts, I can put it all back together again. I was thinking of putting the original mechanical speed control into this buggy, but I'm not sure if it would hold up to the 240ST. I think the Ultima II I bought on Friday comes with an old Novak ESC. I might just put that into it instead.

[/Tim Sanderson]