B4 Bonanza

[Dazza]

I believe its time for me to do a B4 build thread... I've had a few B4's and a T4 for a while now, then I traded a B4.2 for some radio gear and a few Tamiyas for 2 more complete cars and a load of spares. So now I have this mountain of parts that I am going to turn into a B4 timeline with a factory team T4 thrown in for good measure.

Step 1 strip it all down and give it a clean:

[Dazza]

Step 2 - on to the building.
First up is a rebuild of my original B4 Team kit that I purchased new a few years ago. I hardly used it at all and it has never had any parts replaced, so it doesn't have any carbon components, but the plastic all the parts are made from is much harder than the more modern versions.
Front end build completed:


Rear end build completed:

[Dazza]

Shocks are now in place, so I suppose its time to finish this one. Its only about 15 years since I first built this car; that should be sufficent time to ponder the correct sticker placement... Now where did I put that body.

[Dazza]

A nice fresh sheet of stickers that I never used when I built it originally.

[Dazza]

I've put a few stickers on it for now, not sure about the minimalist approach so I might add some more later.

[XLR8]

Very nice build, Dazza.
I think the B4 is an amazing race car. I have a B4.1 and, performance wise, it really doesn't compared to the earlier RC10s - not that the earlier cars were hard to drive but with the B4 it's so incredibly easy to go fast. The car just stays planted and handles great.

[Dazza]

Thanks Doug, I always struggled with off road back in the day so I didn't venture too far from pan cars for racing. Since I've started racing again its been on road again - mainly the Tamiya classes with my son. And I really enjoy the collecting and building side so that's why I'm here. But Your enthusiasm is making me think maybe I should take one of my RC10's to the track and give it a try. After I've finished building this lot of course!

[Dazza]

Righto - on to the B4 Factory Team then. This is the only carbon chassis of all the B4's I have. It was in need of a tidy up with a bit of CA needing to be removed - this proved to be no problem with the Acetone on a cotton wool ball trick I learned here at RC10 Talk. I then used a bit of car wax to get rid of the nasty white dry finish left after using Acetone.

Front and Rear Built:

[XLR8]

Thanks Doug, I always struggled with off road back in the day so I didn't venture too far from pan cars for racing. Since I've started racing again its been on road again - mainly the Tamiya classes with my son. And I really enjoy the collecting and building side so that's why I'm here. But Your enthusiasm is making me think maybe I should take one of my RC10's to the track and give it a try. After I've finished building this lot of course!

Back in the day, I'd race just about everything - off road, on road (road course, oval), dirt oval, carpet oval. Although I very much enjoyed all forms of RC racing, I was especially drawn to off road - maybe because it's 3-dimensional. If forced to choose only one class to race, I'd probably go with off road and probably 2WD.
The body on your first build looks great. It appears to be a little different (much better actually) from the one on my B4.1 - is it AE or aftermarket?

[Dazza]

Thanks Doug, I always struggled with off road back in the day so I didn't venture too far from pan cars for racing. Since I've started racing again its been on road again - mainly the Tamiya classes with my son. And I really enjoy the collecting and building side so that's why I'm here. But Your enthusiasm is making me think maybe I should take one of my RC10's to the track and give it a try. After I've finished building this lot of course!

Back in the day, I'd race just about everything - off road, on road (road course, oval), dirt oval, carpet oval. Although I very much enjoyed all forms of RC racing, I was especially drawn to off road - maybe because it's 3-dimensional. If forced to choose only one class to race, I'd probably go with off road and probably 2WD.
The body on your first build looks great. It appears to be a little different (much better actually) from the one on my B4.1 - is it AE or aftermarket?

It sounds like your back in the day was a bit better than mine In New Zealand we didn't have that many options - on road was 1/12 or 1/8 and off road was 1/10 dirt only and I couldn't afford an RC10 back then. A mate of mine had one though and he gave it to me when he left the country. That was the second car in my AE collection - I didn't realise it was a collection back then, but it sure is now!
The body on my B4 is the standard kit body. It looks real good but is designed for old school electronics, so it won't fit an esc with a fan on it in the standard placement. You would need to use a centre mount platform for it. I think most of the newer body's have a bulge in the sides to accomodate the fan. I should get to those pretty soon

[Dazza]

I've fitted the shocks on the Factory Team B4 now, selecting the best of 4 sets. Out of the 4 sets I was lucky to be able to make up one with acceptable wear on the blue alloy balls for the lower mount - they seem to wear out real bad.

Front and Rear Shocks mounted:

[Dazza]

Next we have a couple of shots of the car pretty much complete with wheels on and a servo to hold the steering in the right place:


And a couple more of the car complete with the body on. I bought this as a Factory Team B4 a while back just because I thought the body looked real good. Apparently its a factory painted body for a RTR B4.

[Dazza]

Next up is a B4.1 - this is also a Factory Team car and one of the B4's I swapped for some Tamiyas that I no longer needed. This car came in a collection of 3 with one having a broken chassis and also a whole load of parts. The Factory Team 4.1 parts were nicely distributed across the 3 cars and also some in the spares. So it took a bit of careful identification to piece this car together. The bonus was the V2 shocks for it were still in the kit numbered bags - so no worn out lower mount alloy balls

Front and rear build shots - I'm mixing the camera angles up a bit to provide some variety.


And with the new shocks now fitted: