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Man did you frankenstein that one! Awesome job though. You wouldn't have any film clip on how it behaves in action?

(Ooops, double post..)

Thanks

I made a short clip at a spot with a decking with well defined wave pattern.
It was with a supershorty LiPo and 27T Roar Stock. Hornet is quick and very light. Still unpredictable.


For the fun, have a look at this old one. It is completely differnet because track had unpredictable bumps everywhere.
My Hornet is there, at the time with Sport Tuned and heavy NiMh. Otherwise all stock. See if you recognise the car doing forward flip and what not else

Great clips! Thanks! You are a true Grasshopper/Hornet believer. Also nice to see a good old Buggy Champ on the track together with those newer buggies.

i see Hornet is the only one braking before the jump. It's not very good at jumping?

Glad You liked them.
And thanks for the believer-comment, I guess I have never abandoned the car during the last 11 years, although I found it too frustrating to run races with after 2 events

No, the Hornet does not handle jumps and bumps well.

I looked closer at the video and the made a list of cue points for when The Hornet appears.
While it looks crowded, there were only 4 cars: Losi JRx2 Pro (purple), Rough Rider (bluish), The Frog (white with red roof, big front shock tower and gigantic spoiler) and The Hornet.
( vimeo.com/1698551 )

0:03-	lets Rough Rider pass and start chasing it down main straight at lightning speed
0:10-0:11	bounces to the left at beginning of quarter pipe for no reason
0:33	falls off to the right at main jump in the background
0:44-0:46	bounces and skids to the right at main straight
0:47	forward flip!!
0:53	lands on the roof in jump. The Frog is passing by.
1:13	falls off to the right at main jump in the background
1:29	overshoots and looses traction in quarter pipe and crashes
1:34-1:39	lands on its feet and continues

It looks like the Hornet is fast all the time and breaking was almost not necessary It just suffers from some surprisingly sudden and random bouncing of the rear end in all directions. Oh, and the front end does it own thing also by not always keeping the wheels pointing in the direction you steer, but that's another topic

Wow. Again, it is quite interesting watching these very different cars race on one track together.

"....surprisingly sudden and random bouncing of the rear end in all directions"
- That would be caused by those balloon tires, I would imagine.

Probably the balloon tires had some influence on bouncing, but I think not major. There were soft foam inside even.
Anyway, I stick with the theory that the the motor moving about, almost like a catapult, is what provides most of the bad rear end behaviour.

That's me driving the Rough Rider !!
Great fun and great to meet like-minded people.

Yes, I think is it is a fact that in many ways the axle-mounted motor does interfere alot with the suspension function and vehicle travel. The size and weight of the motor in relation to the axle and car in general is very large. Add to it the momentum of the 27T 540 forward/backup and you have a motor with a car mounted on it.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to do any physics investigation with the smaller 360 motor, as the permanent motor for this car. But then the car will become too lame for me anyway, and I would probably loose interest. I want it to work so much but at this point I fear that may be a vane wish only, and that it is impossible to make Tamiya's original design to work well.

You hit the proverbial "nail on the head" with the axle-mounted motor set-up of this chassis.

My results with the the 380 motor on 3s were surprisingly well. Manage the heat and you've got a good balance of weight/torque/top end that suits the limits of what this chassis can do.