XLS re-release build.

[winner_evo]

Hi all,

I'd purchased an XLS re-re kit a few months ago along with the Pro Transmission upgrade that I'd planned to keep for a rainy day but the urge got the better of me so I dug it out at the weekend.

I bought a new kit in 1986 at the age of 14 that I built and raced for a couple of years still in it's SWB format. That car later got converted to XL/XLS spec by the friend I sold it to in 1988.

I decided to get the Masami kit and paint it like my old car from the 80's. I only have a couple of old low quality photos from back then so I'll have to call on my memory to try to copy the old paint scheme

Here's a pic of the old car from 87 or 88....




And here's what I got a couple of months ago....

[winner_evo]

The build won't be particularly fast as I only plan to an hour or so here & there. I cut out the body & wing a week ago so decided make a start over the weekend.

Started by following the the order in the manual then fully built up the Pro Transmission.





The belts are noticeably thicker & larger toothed in the upgrade pack compared to what comes with the kit.

I also assembled the bellcranks early as mentioned in other threads on here. Soldering the ARB ends was as joyful as I remember.

[winner_evo]

The bellcranks needed a bit of fettling and I found out that the CORE RC shorty lipo (as listed in the manual) is too small for the kit Lipo strapa

Been cutting out the upper belt cover today , so more to follow as the week goes on...

[NomadRacer]

This is very nice! I'm going to follow along

[klavy69]

This is very nice! I'm going to follow along

same here. Gonna live my "wants but don't needs" (at this time) life through your thread if you don't mind

Todd

[XLR8]

Very cool. I bought one of these late last year NIB from an ebay member and it came with the Factory Works carbon set. I built it using the vintage Trinity rear diff and lay shaft, orange belts, hex hardware and I intend to use it as a runner while my vintage car has been restored and retired to the shelf. I am disappointed that the release requires a shorty pack. The stick pack lipos are a little too long to fit the body and under tray so I'll need to buy a shorty.
Anyway, it's about 90% complete at the moment.
Are you going with your vintage car's paint scheme?

[winner_evo]

This is very nice! I'm going to follow along

same here. Gonna live my "wants but don't needs" (at this time) life through your thread if you don't mind

Todd

Feel free to join in fellas

Very cool. I bought one of these late last year NIB from an ebay member and it came with the Factory Works carbon set. I built it using the vintage Trinity rear diff and lay shaft, orange belts, hex hardware and I intend to use it as a runner while my vintage car has been restored and retired to the shelf. I am disappointed that the release requires a shorty pack. The stick pack lipos are a little too long to fit the body and under tray so I'll need to buy a shorty.
Anyway, it's about 90% complete at the moment.
Are you going with your vintage car's paint scheme?

Your XLS sounds very cool and I really wish I had my old cars. I think the RC10 and CAT re-releases I have at least go part way to bringing back the fun I had with my old cars.

The paint will be close enough to the old car although in the picture it was wearing a clear Parma wing but originally it had the stock wing matching the body colour, so that's what I'll go with.

[winner_evo]

So I cut out the upper belt cover, there are only the two rear holes and centre belt tension hole marked in the lexan so the two centre holes & four front holes need to be marked out as well as the channel to clear the anti rollbar.






I then fitted the rear wing & arm mounts, rear belt cover, front deck braces and front bumber.

Fitting the front assembly needs a lot manipulating as the 4 screws have to pass through the bumber, undertray, chassis, chassis braces, top deck & upper belt cover. It looks like the fit will be a bit rubbish but once in place there's no real slop, good location and the belt adjustment moves nicely.

I then fitted the lower arms and the famous crashback system...




These new cars have O-rings, my original CAT had an elastic band



The O-rings are much stronger than on my old kit.

Finishing shot of where I'm upto now...




More to follow

[XLR8]

Yeah, the o-rings are definitely a step up. I think maybe the elastic bands originally supplied with the vintage cars were mostly natural rubber and so they didn't survive very long. I remember that my dad's garage bitd was very well stocked with odds and ends so I rummaged through his collection of o-rings and found some that would fit. When I pulled the car out of storage a few years ago, those o-rings were very cracked but were still holding tension.

While the re-release uses four long M3 screws with nylock nuts to secure the front transmission, my vintage car used 8 coarse thread screws (four pan heads installed from the top and four flat heads from the bottom that passed through the bumper).

That crash back system is just one of many innovations included with this amazing car.

[XLR8]

Hey, I forgot to ask...
Since you've already dropped some serious coin on that pro diff upgrade, have you considered replacing those pesky phillips screws with some nice hex hardware?
I think perhaps it will make future maintenance a little less hassle and it's probably the cheapest upgrade you could make.

[winner_evo]

I bought the kit with Pro transmission as a bundle so there was a reasonable saving over buying them seperate. The main reason for buying the Pro Trans was simply that I wasn't limited for motor choice.

I did think about buying a screw kit but found I didn't have any problems installing 9and removing) the stock screws. The key is to use the correct screwdriver. Although in the manual they call them Philips screws, they are most definately Pozi-drive and I happened to have a Pozi-drive set.

I am going to run the car but in all probability won't see a huge amount of use.

[winner_evo]

Built up the four hubs/upper arms...



This then allowed the next step of fitting them as an assembly mated to the arms & driveshafts. I then fitted the rear shock tower as it was a fairly easy/quick fit.



So today I built up the four shocks....




So the next step is to install shocks and make up all the turnbuckles and we should have a roller

[XLR8]

Cool.
As I assembled my car, I payed very close attention to the re-release parts (especially the plastics) comparing them to the vintage parts and I found very little difference. In fact, most of the new parts are completely indistinguishable from the old ones. Apparently there was no effort made to protect the collector market. I would not be surprised to learn that the new parts were molded from the original 30 year old tools.

Oh, I did notice that the aluminum side plates are now cnc cut rather than stamped. This is good since the original plates looked a bit Kyosho.

[winner_evo]

Cool.
As I assembled my car, I payed very close attention to the re-release parts (especially the plastics) comparing them to the vintage parts and I found very little difference. In fact, most of the new parts are completely indistinguishable from the old ones.

To be honest, as I was building this car, I realised I remembered very little about building my original CAT, this was the complete opposite when I built the RC10.

[winner_evo]

Fitted up the shocks and the last of the parts were the turnbuckles and servo mounts so they got fitted too.

Now we have a roller....