TOPIC:

Carbon Fibre Manta Ray with Avante body shell

Hi Guys, this will be mainly a series of detailed photographs showing the changes I have made to my original Manta Ray, I know many of you know what the inside of a Manta Ray gear box looks like
Many years ago I used to race this chassis with a Parma 1/10 scale BMW 3 series body at the WLRC in west London. The modded Manta Ray was quite competitive even against the specialist Shumacher and Yokomo on road chassis.
I even won a BRCA 'B' final once!

The modded chassis has the following parts:

1. Hansell Composite Carbon Fibre chassis
2. Model Motor Sport Ali shock towers
3. One piece machined lower wishbones
4. Tamiya Ali shocks
5. CF drive shaft
6. All ball-raced
7. Universal joint drive-shafts
8. Ball-raced Nylon steering swivels

Back then the ESC was a Tekin 411G and the motor I ran was a Trinity triple 13 wind with 1700mah Nicad.

I fly RC planes now, including a model F16, but it was the Manta Ray that got me into the hobby and I thought it might be fun to convert it into a brushless system like my other models.




Close up of rear gear box




Front shock towers




Side profile




Parma 1/10 racing shell. Airbrushed this myself....the furlded flag was the tricky bit




Rear suspension showing alloy shock tower.




Front suspension showing nylon swivel arms.




Fastrax wheel with radial tyre for on road use.

Manta, Can you say me where is your carbon chassis from? please?

Hi stingray

I'm not sure if they make them anymore but the sticker on chassis reads:

Hansell Composites Ltd.
Fibre-Lyte
tel.0642 713129 That's a UK telephone number.

Anyway that's how the chassis looked before the brushless conversion. I had previously removed all the gears cleaned and replaced them. Some of the steering armed needed their ball connectors replaced but almost everything was in good condition. Of course after my previous mods was very little original Manta Ray left....but you know what's is like when you start modding......

I dont want to run the car in the BRCA series again so I just wanted to convert to a lipo brushless system as all my nicads have long ago been recycled.
I know in race form you have to use 2S lipos, but I have a large collection of 3S 11.1v lipos from my RC planes so I'm going to use them. Because of this I have to be a bit careful with the wind on the brushless motor and the size of the ESC.

In the end I went for Turnigy Car 60A ESC, and 13Turn 3000kv brushless motor. At the moment I've put a 18 tooth pinion on the motor. I've also fitted Fastrax wheels with radial tyres for on road use.




Turnigy Car 60A esc and 13 Turn 3000Kv brushless motor. Shiny and very blue




Motor side view.




From the front Deans connector attached.





Turnigy Car 60A Speed Controller

I must have missed the topic (and especially the pictures!) just before the site went off line for maintenance.
Sounds pretty awesome so far....
I do think Fibre-Lyte still make the chassis by the way.

I like the bloo too

Hi Edou

Yes you are right. I just found that out too...thanks

Superwide wide angle view

The lower wishbones are machined out of one piece of hard nylon like material. I can't remember where I got them from but after nearly 20 yrs they are still in almost perfect condition.

Are these vintage cars capable of running a brushless setup? Few people I have spoken to have said the brushless motors are savage and will rip the gears apart in older cars.

Avante2001R wrote:

Are these vintage cars capable of running a brushless setup? Few people I have spoken to have said the brushless motors are savage and will rip the gears apart in older cars.

Broadly speaking I'm going to say "yes" - there's a lot of variation in motor power battery technology and voltage, and the strength of the gears.

For a start, brushless does not automatically mean ludicrous power. The ratings adopted by manufacturers are not that helpful TBH, kV means number of 1000 rpm per volts (so a 3.7kV motor at a nominal 7.2v = 26,640 rpm). "T" is not directly related to the number of turns a brushed motor would be (so a 13T brushless is less powerful than a 13T brushed motor) ... also note whether the number ends in a whole number or 0.5T - a half number means a a 540 motor sized rotor in a 540 sized can, whereas a whole number means a 380 sized rotor in a 540 can - and a lot less torque.

A lot of brushless speed controls can be tuned for timing (advance = more power), "punch" (how aggressively the motor accelerates to full power), which also have an effect on gear life expectancy.

So does battery type and voltage - Ni-CD and NiMH are "old" tech, Lipo is newer & faster at giving out its power, for example.

What I'm trying to say is there's a world of difference between a 19T brushless motor running on 7.2v Ni-Cd or NiMH, and a 5.5T brushless running on 2s (7.4v) Lipo with maximum punch.

Driving style will have a bearing too - being sensible with your throttle thumb will be a lot easier on the gears than slamming it from one extreme to the other.


Gears can suffer with age quite badly - as well as with exposure to air, UV and solvents/lubricants. I've shredded the gears in a Holiday buggy and a Sand Rover with 380 motors & 6v Ni-CD Other cars too with fairly modest motor/battery combinations.