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I finally got around to fabricating a bumper for this car. It just didn't seem right to simply slap on the stock Optima bumper, because it's so far from stock. Barney deserves something original and unique. I wanted a bumper with a little "attitude", something that was better suited to this beast. I liked how my design worked for CYANide, but needed something more robust. I based the Barney bumper design off of my CYANide template (top of last pic) but bought some 3mm thick Kydex, which is thicker than the stock Optima bumper.

I'm almost finished...I just have to drill a couple more holes ahead of the square opening, add a few notches at the bottom to clear those 2 bottom frame rail screws, heat-gun it to give it an upward angle, and lastly, heat the "teeth" and bend them upwards.

If you ever race Barney, i pray for the marshall!

LOL I doubt I'd ever be able to get this car in a real race. No matter which class I'd choose, it would probably break a dozen rules.

I finished the bumper tonight. I even filed a shallow angle on the inside leading edge of the square hole so the bumper will fit nice and flush on top of the front diff bulge, just like the stock bumper does. I drilled a pair of holes so in addition to the usual rear-ward mounting holes on the frame rails, it mounts to the front 2 holes of the chin undertray. This is how the JG Mfg. aftermarket bumpers are mounted. (The JG bumper, however, has a more simple, rudimentary design; it's just a straight, flat piece of Kydex forced to bend in a curve around the diff bulge, and looks like crap when you see it from the bottom.)
I didn't want to use the Optima's usual honkin' big center bolt to mount it right against the front of the chin piece because that just ends up bending it all to hell in a front end collision.

After bending it in the usual place and bending up the "teeth", I made sure the larger 2.2" tires wouldn't make contact with full steering, and all looks good. The reason I even included those teeth was so that I could bend them at an angle such that the bumper would deflect from rocks & big bumps, just like the stock Optima bumper has that bent-up leading lip.

After all was said & done, it's significantly more sturdy and more rigid than the stock bumper, but it has to be because this car is quite a bit heavier than an Optima. And now, Barney actually has teeth.

I must say that's looking real nice! Well done. Time for a nice shell methinks!

Very nice job on the bumper Marc.

Well done as always.

Thanks guys! The shell should get painted in a couple weeks, I'm out of town for most of next week on business. If it turns out how I envision it, it'll be a doozy. I just hope I've learned enough from my mistakes with the first 2 of the threesome to do it proper.

I'm near the end of the road with this project. The body's painted and protected (hopefully enough) with 3 or 4 coats of Duplicolor Crystal Clear and even some Shoe Goo in some of the Optima's weaker body areas, like the front body mount, sides, and the area surrounding the rear shocks/tower. I have a few minor tweaks before I turn him loose, I think the wing needs a slight bit more angle. I'm aiming for the green lines edging the wing to be more or less horizontal.

That is one nice Optima, congrats!!!!!!!

Have been waiting to see the painted body. Nice job. Very appropriate.

Thanks for the comments, guys. Well, I did a stoopid today...I spent about an hour twisting & bending a new wing wire, until I got it just perfect...but this wing is almost symmetrical front-to-rear and a bit hard to tell which is the front or rear without paying attention to the paint, and long story short--after it was aligned just right, I realized the wing had the wire mounted backwards. (facepalm smiley would've been perfect)

So, off to make another wing wire. (It would be a lot easier if the wing buttons & holes, that were already drilled when I got it, were the same width as the wing tubes, but the tubes are about an inch wider apart than the holes so I have to do some rather finicky bending after the wing is already mounted on the wire.) Arggh...

Got the wing done, it has the angle I wanted and I also positioned it a tad lower and more forward so air should flow more smoothly from the roof-line up to the wing. Barney looks like a monster compared to a stock Optima, so I thought I'd share some comparison pics.

Oh man, I ve been scrounging the net to find some of the alloy parts and hop ups in your build,, no luck! That is a trick buggy!

rccars4sal wrote:Oh man, I ve been scrounging the net to find some of the alloy parts and hop ups in your build,, no luck! That is a trick buggy!

Thanks! Some of those alloy parts are for more modern cars and you can still buy them (and they're all quite inexpensive, too!), but some modification may be required. The rear control arms/hinge pins are GPM arms for the Tamiya DF-02 and swap right in for the Optima rear arms; front C-carriers are GPM for the Kyosho Kyosho TF-3/4 and knuckles are Duratrax DTXC9953 for the Maximum ST, they're practically a direct swap for the Optima knuckles and fit quite nicely inside the Lazer carriers. The rear GPM arms are about 5mm longer than Optima arms so you'll need to upgrade to some 68mm Lazer CVD's.

Actually, the only really rare part was the rear hubs, which I bought from EvolutionRevolution here. I've never seen another set on eBay since. However, I believe you could use Yeah Racing #M05-007D2BU hubs, I used those with my OptiMutt Optima Mid project and they fit quite nicely with the aforementioned GPM alloy arms. As long as you have a good selection of alloy spacers with 3mm inside diameter, you can get all these parts to fit beautifully with almost no play or slop.

I gave Barney its first test-drive last week. I had the punch set pretty low as the Tacon 11T is a very torquey motor, but even then, giving it a full goose at mid-speed and I popped a wheelie for a brief instant. Here you have the first battle scars. Other than that, the car drove beautifully, turned very well--definitely less understeer than my stock Zebra Optima, understeer which is pretty common for the Optima. Probably the wider front track, better & bigger tires & wheels all helped. But since no wheelie bar exists for the Optima, I wanted to fabricate some kind of protection.
I saw that it would be pretty easy to bolt on a rectangle of spare Kydex to the motor guard, so I got out the hacksaw and file and fabricated a wheelie pad. (You'll note I already have a Lexan under-frame protector but it doesn't extend beyond the rear gearbox.)
And here's a pic showing the maximum wheelie angle the pad will permit; at least now I won't have to worry about wheelie damage!