So, I bought this car years ago from a SoCal racer, received it, opened the cardboard to inspect it and then it just returned in it waiting to be restored. The car is in really nice shape and would have made a perfect shelf queen by just replacing the chassis by a new one. But the chassis, as well as the rest of teh car, was superbly machined and prepared. The car obviously belonged to an experimented racer who knew how to best prepare and fine tune a '10. Just to name a few mods: lightened/machined chassis, early Lunsford turnbuckles, set screws were installed on every pin/axle and even in the rear hubs (I still do not see why he did that, so if anyone has a clue...), cut out motor plate, ball-raced steering bellcranks, aluminium screws wherever possible... The car was obviously very lightly run and well cared of.
So when I saw how used my now former runner (my version of the "what was old is still old, but a lot newer") was and the amount of play it had after a 6 hours enduro race that took place last year (and that my mates and I won!), I decided to use this one as a runner as I have much more spare parts for a "stock" Team Car than for a "prototype" of some sort. What is more, I really wanted to run a genuine RC10 with minimal modifications and run the snot out of it against modern buggies at my local club (I am a bit bored with running a failless B4).
Two weeks ago, I prepared it in a hurry, dropped some modern electronics, a LiPo battery with a LRP 6.5 brushless motor and speedo. The only modifications I did were to replace the slipper/top shaft unit with a B4 one and to fit B2 CVD's to run B2/B3 rims.
Erik (aka Mr. ED) was here in Belgium as well and we finally had the opportunity to go at my club and race our vintage cars together. Have a look here for some pictures and comments by Erik: http://www.rc10talk.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=10033
We had a total balst and lots of fun. My car was not dialed at all, I mainly experienced a big "wheeling" problem. I had to add many wheights at the front to calm the car down and even after some small changes, the car was almost impossible to drive easily. That was mainly due to the LiPo battery and the brushless motor that took at least 200 grammes out of the car, to the too grippy Yokomo TR-32 rear tires and to my ESC that was setted on a very agressive punch. Anyway, I qualified 2nd in the morning and had to forget about the final because my motor was totally wet and the car didn't want to even move, too bad... In the afternoon, I again qualified 2nd or 3rd, but the car was not behaving like I wanted and was way too touchy. Unfortunately, I totally missed the afternoon final and, if I remember correctly, I finished just before the last one. At the end of the day, I knew exactly what to do to make the car better and I was pretty convinced that it had much more potential.
I raced again this last Sunday (without Erik this time
) and made some small modifications: added some extra weight on the front, lowered the punch on the ESC to the minimum, used some heavier springs on the front shocks with thicker oil and made some adjustments to the slipper. The car was much more better this time, very fast and progressive. There were 7 entries in the 2wd class and I managed to qualify 2nd in the morning, but someone bumped me twice in the beginning of the final and I had lost so much time that I couldn't even think of being back in the top 3, too bad again! Then in the afternoon, I qualified 5th and finally took the 2nd place in the final. I was happy, very happy, especially considering I was running an old timer against modern buggies all equipped with state-of-the-art electronics, there was even an Atomic Carbon S2 car that was just behind me, looooool 
I'll try to report again after the next race and take some action shots this time. In teh meantime, here are some static pics:
and here it is with an awfully painted (not by me) Viper body
