Hi all,
This is my entry for the 1/18 scale competition that ends this week, let me give you some background - a few months back I purchased a 1/18 HPI Micro RS4 roller from reaper which I believe he got from xmod noob so it's been all around the world
I used some ProPulse parts to get it back up and running at which point it was fun but not really fast enough for me, in talking to reaper he mentioned a 540 motor mount for it so we did some research but couldn't find any of them anywhere however whilst looking around I came across a
site that contained one of the most amazing chassis setups I've ever seen, they manufactured them in limited runs between 2004 and 2006 and finally sold of the remaining stock off in 2007, all attempts made to contact them via the web site failed and I was kind of bummed but not to be disheartened I continued to use the internet to research the two guys responsible for the chassis kits eventually finding one of their personal web sites, I shot him an email got chatting with him and convinced him to dig through his part boxes to see what he could find, amazingly he came across a complete Ice Blue SSG Micro Hybrid Conversion Kit:
This one was released in May 2004 in a limited less than 40 run, he combined the kit with a few of the new kit parts and sold it to me
So this is what I got:
The kit even comes with this nice little warning about it all being copyrighted and you not being allowed to rip them off
As you can see mine is signed which is totally going to increase future value
Also don't think you can just go on eBay and pick one of these up, they are incredible hard to come buy as less than 500 chassis kits total where ever made.
The motor mount is from the newer style kit hence it's not in the same blue CF but it has been modified to accept a wider range of motor styles.
Overall the kit is amazing, everything fits together perfectly, they could have thrown in a Carbon Fiber bumper just to finish if of but otherwise this is one of the sickest platforms I have ever seen (oh and GPM make a CF bumper so I ordered one of those
)
The one thing mine didn't have was the instruction manual and with all the supplied hardware:
It took a little trial and error to get it all assembled:
But eventually I was up and running with the stock motor mount:
Which incidentally I could have stuck with but that sucky little high torque ProPulse motor just wasn't cutting it:
What a rubbish top speed
Instead I wanted to run this bad boy:
For those interested that's a 1/10 scale 15DT Team Mtronicks Racing 540 motor
You have to do a decent amount of sanding to get the motor mount to align right but here it is once completed:
and then installed:
As you can see it's a tight fit
At this point I still planned on using the ProPulse ESC and RX but as it turned out the ESC was damaged which I guess was a good thing because it probably wouldn't have supported that monster motor anyway
So out comes the big boy in the form of a 1/10 Msonik 4 RV15 ESC funnily enough it pairs up perfectly with that motor (thanks reaper
) once that was installed this started to look a little bit more like the supercar it's supposed to be:
At this point I still had a number of parts on order so I moved on to the body, you need something wide to fit the chassis and as I didn't want to spend anymore money on this I used what I had purchased from Dale which was a 150MM Vauxhall Calibra DTM Bodyshell as it turned out it wasn't quite wide enough
but as I had done all the painting and sticker work I stuck with it:
Stickers are courtesy of Xmods International.
These are my most recent photos:
Some of which you may recognize from my competition entry.
The final parts list is as follows:
1/18 HPI Racing MRS4
1/18 Aktion Racing Ice Blue SSG Micro Hybrid 540 Conversion Kit
1/18 150MM Vauxhall Astra DTM Bodyshell
1/18 ProPulse Racing 27MHz FM Receiver
1/18 HPI SF-1 Servo (Standard Torque)
1/18 GPM Graphite Bumper Plate
1/18 Universal Micro Antenna Mount
1/10 Msonik 4 RV15 ESC
1/10 15DT Team Mtronicks Racing 540 motor
1/10 30T Robinson Racing 48 Pitch Pinion Gear
1/10 Associated Vcs Micro Shock
1/10 Associated Spring Blue Medium
1/10 Associated 25wt Shock Oil
Custom 7.2V 6-cell Elite 2200 4/5SC Nimh pack
Let me know if you have questions or want to see something specific hopefully you will like this as much as I do.
Questions and comments welcome.