Rejuvenating the Zebra Optima

[Coelacanth]

Gary's right. Those white spoked rims realy are awful on this classic. If I were you I'd be snapping up a set of these in a heart beat!

http://cgi.ebay.com/LOHAS-vtg-tecnacraft-style-wheel-off-road-Kyosho-TAMIYA-/270638775406?pt=Radio_Control_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3f0353fc6e

These will finish this car right off!

Thanks for the comments, guys. This will be a runner, as will my upcoming build. I don't believe in shelf princesses. I like the lower profile and higher clearance of wheels like these 5-spokes, at least for offroad use.

Bormac, those LOHAS rims are gorgeous--but that's the difference between $15 and $68, eh? Very tempting though...

Marui hunter 73, I have plenty of original Turbo Optima wheels & tires...maybe 4 or 5 full sets. I can go old-school with a turn of the box wrench.

EDIT: Thanks for the lead on those LOHAS rims, bormac...I've done countless eBay searches but never searched for "tecnacraft", and never noticed those until now. I appreciate your tip!

[sgirouard]

Entertaining build you have here. Mate please stay with the Option House gold shocks. Not only do they work well for this car but they look and are 'period correct'. In my opinion you cant go wrong with Option House gold shocks on an Optima.
I run them on mine and they are PURRFECT!

I agree here. An optima without gold shocks is like cake without frosting.

[Coelacanth]

Well, I've got the frosting for both cakes now. When you see how I'm putting together my second Optima, you'll understand better why I'll keep the Goldies as spares. It's a color scheme thing.

[sgirouard]

Seems like it's gonna look real nice.

PS I have a set of those Option house Blue shocks...actually I have 2 sets of rear option house blues. They're on an old Kyosho Big Brute. If I could find 1 big brute shock, I'd set that back to original and shelf the blues until something more deserving came along.

[Coelacanth]

My Optima's first run in 20-some years just happened! I installed an LRP AI Auto Super Reverse ESC I bought from sneako43, put in my slowest motor (Lemans 480 Gold) and slowest battery (25-year-old 6-cell matched Sanyo pack) and went for a boot. I have some tweaking to do with the powertrain, but the suspension was perfect. I could take a rounded curb head-on with no scraping/bottoming out or bouncing. I forgot how great these cars handled the bumpies! With the larger-diameter lower-profile tires & wheels, the acceleration was a bit underwhelming but it was already getting dark in my 'hood and I didn't want my first street run to end up under a 1:1 car's tires.

I think she's ready for my 4-minute 14-turn motor from that era and my new Duratrax 4600 8-cell battery pack.

[Coelacanth]

I just finished authoring my first video ever, and my Turbo Optima was my first subject! Check it out--and let me know what you think, I'd appreciate your feedback...and yeah, I know my driving skills suck, but part of that is the car's fault...it just has too much power. Hard acceleration makes it fish-tail all over the place! It sure is fun, though.

[tim.sanderson]

Good job. It looks great. It's pretty peppy, even with a 25 year old nicd. I ran mine a few weeks ago for the first time too. I should have recorded it too.

[Coelacanth]

Good job. It looks great. It's pretty peppy, even with a 25 year old nicd. I ran mine a few weeks ago for the first time too. I should have recorded it too.

Actually, it was a new 8.4V DTX4600 NiMH battery. With the motor I have installed, on a dirt road anyway, it's more than I can handle with my driving skills--which are also 20+ years old.

[bdrmbully]

nioce . pretty quick for a chain drive still. nicely done man.

[walfre]

Chain 4 life!
Great job, man!

[Coelacanth]

I wasn't even looking for these, but I discovered some Trinity gold kingpins on eBay totally by chance, and picked them up for my Gold Celebration Chassis Zebra Optima.

I also finally got around to polishing some aluminum wheels. They aren't exact matches but it's very hard to find 4 matching aluminum wheels for an Optima these days. All you ever find is a pair here and a pair there, usually at ridiculous prices. The 2 sets look close enough, anyway, and the same-sized tires fit the wheels. The tires are a brand I'd never heard of before, Troll Tires, and I loved the angled spike design the moment I spotted them...anything to make one of my cars unique and distinctly different is one thing that really motivates me. I got the 4 pairs of Troll tires from mrlexan on eBay, a full set of mediums and a full set of softs. and mounted the medium set on these wheels with some foam inners.

[Coelacanth]

I picked up this set of JPS Optima wheels recently and wet-sanded/polished them up like the other set...I've never seen this wheel design before. Does anyone else have these, or seen them before?

[RedScampi]

Marc, about those wheels on the right in your pic. I have a set of front narrow rims that I have been trying to find a match for forever:

By the way, that Optima looks killer with those rims and tires!

[Coelacanth]

Marc, about those wheels on the right in your pic. I have a set of front narrow rims that I have been trying to find a match for forever:

By the way, that Optima looks killer with those rims and tires!

Thank you. Regarding those fronts, are they 2WD narrow or 4WD narrow? The problem with these nice aluminum wheels for the Optima is they're all about 1.5" wide...it would be nice to have a matched set with wide rears & narrow 4WD fronts.

[RedScampi]

They're 2WD unfortunately. Would look great on an Ultima!