Late last year I've started with largescale onroad, and purchased a FG 4wd chassis. Great fun to drive, goes very well around a track, but I wanted something different. So I ordered a 2WD chassis for the project that is so far my favorite this year: a Dodge Challenger doorslammer.
I wanted to create something that would be usable on the track, but also still nice to look at when sitting on the shelf during winter time. I think there is a huge misperception going on between mostly those that use lexan bodies and hardbodies, kind of comparing how I run my SCX10 versus how I run my TrailFinder2. What I think I'm aiming at is that while indeed parts may fly off as soon as you turn the car on it's roof at full speed, the kick you get out of driving a more fragile vehicle isn't any less. You need to dose the throttle a bit better, think ahead, and like in real life, you don't want to smash it up. Where I honestly don't mind tumbling my SCX10 Honcho off a cliff, I think twice when attempting something risky with the HiLux. I hope this makes sense.
So I started accumulating parts. A doorslammer or dragster of course has a V8 poking through the hood. Due to lack of availability I scooped up the Ford V8 rather than the Hemi. Since the superchargers are close to identical and that would be the only visible part, I cut myself some slack and figured I could get away with it. After all, this entire car is just a try out. The diecast engine is made by Liberty Classics and set me back an amazing 25 dollars. Being scared to screw up is not necessary for that kind of money.
After trying to get rid of the bottom casing with the dremel and realising the thing was a chunk of 3 mm cast alloy, I took out the angle grinder and had 30 minutes of chopping fun with it, getting rid of the entire thing, leaving me with a mess that needed to be glued back together, but at least it gave me the required space to mount it over the front shocktower of the FG. I needed to be careful not to obstruct the front brake cables in any way, and used a few spare parts to hook it up and make it possible to disassemble it for maintaining the car down the road.
I made a custom line locker setup using an extra servo operated on the 4th channel. Behind the original throttle servo I positioned an extra servo with a mechanical override for the front brakes, that would not interfere with any or the standard throttle/braking functions, and allow me to do a burnout. Using some linkages, springs and collets I figured out how to set things up and finetune it to a working system.
Next up was a wheelie bar. I used a few rodends from my SCX10, threaded pins and alloy sleeves combined with the winchblock that came with my Exo Terra to set up something that looked halfway decent. The stock 23 cc engine got switched for a 28.5 BZM one, tripling the horsepower to be able to actually spin those rears. I had to adapt the airfilter setup to the reedcase of the BZM, angling it way down, but it breathes as it should.
For the wheels I chose to go with centerline rims, the fronts not made narrower to ensure I had the grip needed for the line locking system, and the rears needed to be bigger. Having tires custom made is expensive, so as an alternative I went for 5th scale F1 wheels, which have a larger diameter. I hacked out the webbing, took out the centers, balanced them as well as I could by feeling them, and glued them to the centerlines to create the stance and look I wanted. On the sides I painted some Hoosier logos.
Paint was up next. I had seen an oldschool dragster as driven by Roy Johnson in the era, with a black main body, combined with red, orange and yellow striping. Very cool. Allen Johnson, the son of Roy, is also dragracing, also for Mopar, and as a tribute to his father had a 2010 model of the Challenger painted up in the old school colourscheme. I decided to do the exact opposite. So I took the modern Mopar colours as Allen has them on his ride, the blue and white, and used those colours against a gun metal basecoat, combined with a babyblue stripe to ease out the contrast. The lines of the paint are according to the car Roy drove in the 70's, but rather than chrome details I went for brushed aluminium, bodycolour bumpers, smoothed out head and taillights, and glued windows, to give it a restomod appearance.
The original(s):
Last month I added the final touch. Using a box for cufflinks, a bag for my shaver and some fishing gear, I made a deployable brake parachute system that runs off the 3rd servo, opposite of the linelocker. So the switch operates the front brakes one way, deploys the chute the other. I used a model rocket parachute for the finishing touch, and with that it concludes this build. For now at least. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faqIvAPtETA