Boomerang Dual Front Suspension Mods

[Anand]

Hello members,
I am new here, and this is my first post! Been lurking here for some time but only registered yesterday. What an awsome forum this is . I am a big fan of the 80's RC buggies and so when I got back into RC after a gap of 10 years, the first thing I did, was get my self a Boomerang and then a HotShot. I also love Kyosho Optimas and bought a NIB Turbo Optima from a friend in Hong Kong (God bless him!) It was expensive but what the heck i am re living my childhood

I like the low profile look of the optima front shock tower and since I always liked modifying things to suit my preferences, I initially used the RC channel HotShot suspension on the Boomerang while I waited for my HotShot to arrive in the mail.



Then I ordered the Radshape front shock tower and trimmed it down and added 3 Racing DF03 Blue Aluminium shocks.





I used a supersabre rear shock tower as the rear shocks were not long enough to be used with the original. Runs quite good1
Anand

[tiger1]

nice work, very nice

[peetbee]

Looks nice, but way too much ground clearance at the front.
Tamiya used to make a twin front shock conversion themselves. Still show up occasionally on ebay.

They used to mount behind the wishbones using a bracket in the rear hole on the bottom wishbones and there was an alloy bracket either side on the gearbox mountings. They shouldn't be hard to replicate using flat alloy (the originals were kinked out to make the shocks more upright) you'd just need some spaacers.

it transformed the handling as the original monoshock was dire - it still couldn't compete with mids and cats of the time tho!

Not mine, but one from tamiya club.

[xxxmain]

Looks good. I'm loving the dual front shocks instead of the mono.

[tim.sanderson]

That looks cool... very modern. I like the look of yours over the tamiya mod. I agree about the ride height being too high, though. It looks like you could make a taller (carbon fiber?) shock tower, but you'd lose that 'low profile' look you mentioned you were after.

[Mr. ED]

I converted mine to dual shocks using bigwig parts. No idea how the both solutions from tamiya compared in performance though. Must have been about 20years ago I did that, cr@p I'm getting old

[xxxmain]

cr@p I'm getting old

LOL, we all are... that is exactly why we are all trying to re-live our childhood by building vintage cars!!!! Ha ha, I love getting old though! My vintage cars were never in this good of shape when I was a kid. Oldness lets us afford the best toy car parts the world has to offer

[peetbee]

LOL, I must be getting old too, cos when I was a kid, these weren't vintage cars!
I wish I could afford all the best parts/cars that I'm after!

[Anand]

Thanks gentlemen, I agree that the clearance is high and its actually causing the car to oversteer . Also since the rear suspension is also sprung hard, the car does "mini wheelies" in grass and does "side roll overs" my 6 year old son loves it!!

I decided on this set up because I don't like the front shocks sticking up too much or else I imagine I would have had more options. Even with universal joint drive shafts in the front, there was some binding earlier with the RC channel suspension, but now there is none with this set up and the car is pretty quick! All in all I am thrilled!
Regards,
Anand

[peetbee]

Glad it's an improvement!
Would Associated or Losi springs fit those shocks? If so you might be able to use truck frotn springs on the rear to soften it up a bit.
Normal buggy front springs might reduce the ride height a little to prevent binding, although at the expense of up travel.
They might give you some tuning options to cut down on the oversteer/grip roll!