Banzai Racer making it's way closer to the track!

After receiving the Vendetta SCT, it only made this Banzai racer closer to being able to run at the local indoor carpet track.  After converting some of the SCT part's over to run this Banzai setup, this is what I have come to. Still needing to order the wheel's that this will run (HPI Cup Racer), finish the painting, and finally do the decal work.  As mentioned before, this will be a "Hello Kitty" themed #5 Banzai carpet racer.  This is now running the longer wheel base SCT chassis, drive shaft and ofcourse the battery strap.  This setup has the ball differential's in the front and rear along with the carbon fiber servo hold down.  This will be running a stock brushed setup for stock class racing.  I did have to make my own rear body mount's to run this body.  I fabricated a rear mount to use the ST body mount's (picture's below).  This is also running the ST arm's all around along with the front and rear shock's and shock tower's.  Enough yack and onto more picture's of the progress that has been made and the rest of the Vendetta clan!

NOTE: The ST is now running the SCT arm's on the front and rear, along with the wheel's.  Setting this truggy low to the ground give's it a pretty sweet and unique stance.  I am thinking of keeping it this way as the look has grown on me more and just flat out looks cool!

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Finally the Short Course Truck!

Finally received a Vendetta SCT!  Seemed like a long time looking for one has finally paid off.  This truck came with some goodies.  More goodies than I thought would be in it.  Sort of like opening present's on Christmas.  When I got this I tore into it to find it had the carbon fiber servo hold down, upgraded drive shaft output gears, aluminum front lower arm's, upgraded unknown green color spur gear, 3 deg toe in rear mount and after further taking it apart, I discovered a set (front and rear) of ball differential's.  A nice score and a top needed upgrade. It did come with the Tactic 2.4 Ghz receiver and the stock esc, but did not come with a motor nor a transmitter.  Who am I to complain after finding the small list of upgraded item's.  Onto a couple more picture's as this SCT did not last long before converted to the Banzai racer!

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Progress On The Banzai Racer

Have made some progress on the Banzai Racer.  I have laid down a white and black 2 tone paint job.  The hood and rear still need the florescent pink racing stripes.  This shell I had to end up painting myself, which I have no experience what so ever at doing.  My painter ran into health problem's, which is more important than this body being painted.  The theme of this shell will be "Hello Kitty."  No this is not my type of paint job, this is actually my fiance's indoor racer.  She is picky and not much into RC's, so one of the way's I got her closer into the hobby was letting her pick her own ride.  She went with the Phat Bodies Banzai shell and is going to make it all "girly" lol.

For the Banzai body, you need to run a long wheel base Vendetta SCT chassis.  After what seemed like a long time of searching and looking around, finally lead to me scoring a pretty nice SCT.  Once the truck get's here I will than have more progress shots.  Another thing to remember with this shell is the body mount's.  I am running the TC mounts in the front and also the rear.  The rear are not quite long enough, so that lead me into fabricating my own mount.  Or really just raising my original mount high enough to be able to clip the body onto the chassis. The next couple of picture's show's my custom fabricated body mount.  Hope you all enjoy where I (and also my fiance) has gone with this project.  It is very close to being a runner.  Finally!

Note:  The current "mock up" wheel's in the first image are exactly that.  A mock up.  We are looking into either running white HPI wheel's which will than be dyed pink or the black chrome HPI wheel's.  We are still not 100% positive on which we are going to run.  

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Vendetta TC Mid Motor, 8 Cell

After wanting to equally distribute the weight of my TC, I began this project.  This project I am wanting to keep the stock chassis.  I moved the motor to the front, moved the spur gear to the middle of the drive shaft, and going to have to make my 8 cell battery pack, which will be a saddle pack, 4 cells on each side of the drive shaft.  After alot of measuring and drawing up on mspaint, I came up with what I need to do and how much room I have.  Basically using all the space available, I can get all that I want in it.  Enough talking and onto the project of where I am at and what has been done.

Cover Image, All back together.

The design image's which I did in mspaint.  Not bad for using mspaint really, lol.

Overall layout of part's.

Battery setup, wiring and layout.  Notice the 2 cells are stacked.

Drive shaft modding, had to redrill the shaft for the pin to hold the spur gear.  (undetermined on if I am going to run a stock rc18 motor mount or the motor mount that will support the bearing which is for the carbon fiber vendetta tc chassis.

Notice: I actually have 5mm extra space from my first measurements above for the battery cell's.  The image above was made without the car fully apart.

Picture's of modded stock chassis, Cleaned and shaved down to level it out so everything sits flat and not at angles from the embossed area's which came stock, such as the area's under the stock battery location.

Which now lead's to the ending point of how far I have gone.  Still waiting on the motor and esc to show up.  Once mounted along with whichever motor mount I decide to use, I will place my order for my battery cell's and get them done up and placed into the car.  Than finally I will have to make a top deck, or just 2 battery hold down's.  Wanted to start off the new year with a project, and this is what I had envisioned when I picked this TC up.  Still having thoughts on doing this setup with an aluminum or carbon fiber chassis for the long wheelbase Banzai body, which I have coming in the mail.  Hope you all enjoy, be sure to share my blog, join my blog and check back with my blog.  Happy New Year's, lets make this one a great year!

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