The "idea" came to me on a whim a few weeks ago and I figured I'd search around to see if anyone else has tried this. At least as far as I've searched, I did not find anything. Ok, then <cracks fingers>. The concept is pretty simple, as the bulkhead and gearbox mounting holes are well-aligned to just flip everything around. There is a bit of cutting you have to do to the chassis to make it fit, but otherwise it slots right in.
Some things I haven't covered yet in the videos are the need for longer screws going into the motor plate from the chassis, to keep the chassis from flexing either forward or backward. I did that already, but just haven't made a video for it yet. The aluminum brace which attaches to the top of the gearbox and runs against the bulkhead won't quite work the same in a mid motor configuration. If you think about it, in rear motor config, if the car is going forward and flips over, the tower gets pushed back, which pushes the bulkhead back and can snap the top of the gearbox. That aluminum brace resists that force; however, in mid-motor config it is flipped around and so the brace won't protect the gearbox as much. It may still help a little, as it is spreading out some of the stress applied to that region, but only time (and some horrible driving which I'm not prone to) can tell if it still helps at all with this configuration.
I also added a front brace supplement and modified rear tower, both from Factory Works. The rear tower fits a B6 wing mount, although I find that the wing looks like it's leaning backwards, even with the wing mount spacer that's supposed to lean it forward. I lightly modified the way the wing mount mounts to the tower, to give it more forward lean (will show up in the next video). Body is also cut and wasn't too bad to make it fit correctly, although I would say it helps to screw an extension onto the rear tower to help brace the top of the body. Otherwise there's just not enough support to keep the body from sloshing around if it flips over or something hits it from above.
General thoughts so far on this project:
1.) I do like the idea of a mid-motor XX and, at least for now until others start copying it, it is unique. The Atomic Carbon XXX mid-motor conversion was pretty cool, but custom jobs are always more fun.
2.) As far as vintage mid-motor buggies go, I have this, a Tekin RC10 mid conversion, and a Kyosho Rampage Pro electric conversion. The Losi is probably the lightest, but also possibly more fragile in certain areas (front arms come to mind) and certainly harder to work on and tune. The Kyosho is much easier to tune, as it was designed as a nitro buggy and so naturally has a mid-motor configuration. Just makes it easier to reach ball studs, tune gear ratios, etc. That Kyosho has also been my benchmark to-date for vintage 2wd buggies, as nothing else I have comes close to it on the track. We will see how the "XXM" compares when it's ready. My original plan was to run my TRX3 (maiden run) this year at VONATS and bring a Pro-X as backup, but now this XXM has me thinking twice. Spoiled for choice...
3.) Worth noting that this is a XX and not a XX-CR, for which the rear pivot block assembly is a little different and so a mid-motor conversion for that will be largely the same story but may require some minor tweaks.
Getting old sucks. 2+2= squirrel!
