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My good buddy James offered me an Ultima Pro XL in appreciation for completely rebuilding a couple of his Schuey CATs for him. Unfortunately it wasn't selling when he put it up on ebay a few times and Im kinda glad it ended up with me after all.
Not happy with the original gearbox i wanted to swap it out for a Triumph unit which I got in a trade with Roger from this forum (thankyou again mate). Back in the day I did this same conversion when I turned an Ultima into a truck and I remembered how good the trans sounded in comparison.
Ive also had a set of wheel adapters that alloy Yokomo rims to be mounted to the Ultima so they had to go on. The original body of the Pro didnt realy do much for me so out it went and on went an AE Viper shell. The paint scheme didnt come off as neatly as I'd have liked but Im happy with it for a vintage runner. At some point I would like to mount a rear wing and find a set of rear universal swingshafts too.
I'd like to say a special thanks to James for a great buggy and Im looking forward to running it at a race track soon-

Very nice Jason. I didn't realize that the viper body fit the ultima so well.

Regards,
Roger

Thanks Roger. When I was looking over the car at James's house I was hard pressed taking this one on as the original body didnt realy appeal to me that much. Then James went into his shed and came back with a new Viper shell and he sat it on the bare chassis and told me to try it out. Im realy glad he did.

I fitted a 12 turn motor and wired the esc today then took it out for a burn in my street. The car is a weapon! The trans sounds soo smooth after i replaced the spur and pinion.Thanks again for the trans- Im stoked!

The triumph spur gears are really getting hard to find.

With the right center bushing, you can use a standard spur on the triumph. Traxxas has those "pegs" that they use on their slipper clutches that are inserted into the 1/8 inch holes of a standard spur. I use to run a losi gear (blue profiled 92 tooth) on my triumph transmission BITD.

That car looks really good...I may need to build one of those. Does anyone know where to get a triumph gearbox

Regards,
Roger

I really like what you have done with this car Jason,thanks heaps for all the help with my Schumachers.Really looking forward to seeing this car run.

nice car !! i like the newer body you mounted and kept the back end of the body on.i did the same type of thing with my pro xl and mounted the viper body but I hacked the back end off.plus im running my battery across the chassis so the body sits too low.i like how your battery is mounted better.i too have the triumph gear box on mine.

I like the car, and the body too! This kinda reminds me of a discussion I had with Kris Moore about his Triumph @ the ROAR nationals one year (1991 I think). He had mounted a Stealth tranny in the car and was running a Turbo Mirage body. I think he ended up tenth that year- car was really quite good. Anyways, is the Triumph tranny a direct fit for the ultima or does it require some mods? -Jeff

Jay Dub wrote:Anyways, is the Triumph tranny a direct fit for the ultima or does it require some mods? -Jeff

hello Jeff,

The diff pulley of the transmission sticks out of the case. You'll need to grind off a bit of the chassis to get it to fit correctly. You don't have to go throught the chassis...I guess it depends on how thick your chassis is.

Another solution would be to make a thin spacer that fits between the trans and the chassis. The spacer will have a hole so that the diff pulley will spin freely. You just need to be careful because if you use too thick of a spacer, the trans will not line up with the bulkhead.

I made a spacer when I fitted an MIP trans to my jrxt. The spacer for the ultima will look similar.
Regards,
highwayracer

Very nice work! I think the body looks great. I bet you could add a wing using some wing mounts like these: http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXKA33&P=7

I did a similar thing with my Turbo Optima. I used a piece of threaded rod so I could connect the shocks and the wing mount to the same hole in the shocktower. Works well.

id like to see a more close up shot from the top of the servo mounting and whats the lexan on the front sides all about?

Looking really good Jason.

RC10 shells were a very popular choice for heaps of different cars back in the day - such a versatile shape.

The dirt shields are very effective - good to see more and more people running them on the older cars.

Cheers

Darryn

hehe, looks like a triumph without the weak nose to me. Well done.

Why don't you use the already installed spoiler tubes?
Make sure to use some longer hinge-pins on the arm mounts and put a home-made brace over them at the front: that's about the only weak spot left now I guess.

I was thinking about using him using the wing tubes too. I never liked the way those worked. For some reason, I would lose my wing more often with my Ultima than with the RC10's similar wing setup. I'm guessing it's because there's a lot more exposed wing wire.

I believe the wing tubes on the ultima was shorter than the ones used for the RC10.

Some extra pics of the car with electrics fitted. Im impressed with the car, plenty of 'push' rather than a heap of oversteer-
The trans is ultra smooth and a great choice in the end. With a 12 turn 'Hara' motor fitted this call hauls @$$.
The lexan side peices were put into place to try and stop some of the dirt flying in to the radio gear.