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Any body know if there are alloy front gear boxes for lazer and optima mid? I have an instruction book for zx-s and its gearbox is in pieces! What's up with zx-s, is it the last model ? I'm looking for front gear box s for a couple of builds and really anything will be considered.

I've never seen one, but I don't think an alloy gearbox would be necessary, at least for durability...the glass-filled nylon gearboxes were rarely a point-of-failure with these cars. Every design has its weak links, but for those cars, the gearboxes weren't it.

Just to point out - Mid and Lazer doesn´t share gearbox

No, there aren't any alloy gearboxes for the Mid, nor Lazer. There was the TMS machined nylon one but not that much demand for anything like that. The Lazer front gearbox has a notorious weak spot as in a roll over the load on the shock mount could shear the mounting lugs off the gearbox, but fitting an aftermarket shock mount fixed it for a lot less than a machined gearbox would cost.

Now the ZX-S is a different problem. The front gearbox is a multi part unit, including a lexan front cover, and is unique to the ZX-S and ZX-S Evo. It was pretty expensive, around $600-700 even in the nineties, so there's not many of them around so any spares for them are pretty hard to find.

Thanks for the info. I was hoping perhaps there was a duratrax equivelent, or something from yeah racing, gpm, or some body else. I have a lazer front box with the afore mentioned break right at the shock tower mount lugs. Also have a lazer alpha box thats mangled to the point it would need a sealant to work, but seems ok otherwise. As for the mid,, I only have 1 front box,, and enough parts for 2 more cars. The ZX-s manual I have was part of a lot that had what seemed to be a gutted zxr. Unfortunately, none of the zx-s specific parts were there.

rccars4sal wrote:Thanks for the info. I was hoping perhaps there was a duratrax equivelent, or something from yeah racing, gpm, or some body else. I have a lazer front box with the afore mentioned break right at the shock tower mount lugs. Also have a lazer alpha box thats mangled to the point it would need a sealant to work, but seems ok otherwise. As for the mid,, I only have 1 front box,, and enough parts for 2 more cars. The ZX-s manual I have was part of a lot that had what seemed to be a gutted zxr. Unfortunately, none of the zx-s specific parts were there.

The Lazer Alpha box (chassis, arms) is made from horribly fragile nylon that will crack if you happen to screw in the screws too far. That said, if you're carefull and use the wide Lazer Alpha front bumper you should be pretty safe.

Fibre-Lyte makes a carbon shock tower for the Lazer that has a bar at the top, preventing the tower to flex in a rollover and break the gearbox. Unfortunately, the Skyline Lazer Sport appears to use a shorter front mount, so you can't use the aftermarket part because the body won't fit anymore...

Fibrelyte could always make you a shorter version of the tower with the bar across

These builds will be using the "left over" parts from the shelf queen builds, so the mangled lazer alfa box with some cleanly placed black sealant will suffice. I may try to fix the zx box too, because there are enough parts for 2 ratty runners in the box. As for the mids,,, well,, have to see what all come in the next lot of parts headed this way. Am I right in saying that in the history of old Kyosho rc buggies, the optima mid was pretty much the bread and butter? Earlier models having lower production, and later models the same,, with mids being produced longer and in more variants making them a bit more accessible?

Oh back to the topic of front boxes,, theres a lazer zx-zxr front box on ebay for 80 dollars,, which I think is crazy high,, but is that a common going rate?

Imo, that price doesn´t reflect the value of the gearbox - It´s just gold digging, hoping that someone in panic will bite.

Yes it´s rare, but still injection moulded plastic -

Have patience and You´ll find what You need at a reasonable price.

Meanwhile, I´ll put 5 nip´s on the Bay, priced at 75 usd each just to show some muscle

(no they are not for sale )

Your killin me smalls!

rccars4sal wrote:Am I right in saying that in the history of old Kyosho rc buggies, the optima mid was pretty much the bread and butter? Earlier models having lower production, and later models the same,, with mids being produced longer and in more variants making them a bit more accessible?

If you look at time of production the Mid only lasted as long as the original Optima range, only a couple of years, and a lot less than Lazers. Kyosho made 5 Optima models, 5 Mid models and 4 Lazers, not including any limited edition or short run cars. The original Optima shared its suspension with the Mid, and the Mid chassis was used for some later wide touring and rally car kits, plus a narrowed Mid became the start of Kyoshos scale touring car range for a few years after the Mid ceased production. The Mid would have been the big seller though, the production coinciding with the late 80s boom in r/c car racing.

Oh back to the topic of front boxes,, theres a lazer zx-zxr front box on ebay for 80 dollars,, which I think is crazy high,, but is that a common going rate?

No, that's Fireboy doing what he usually does, he is prepared to price rare items high and sit on them until he finds someone who really wants one right now and can't find any others and pays up for it. He had sold the previous one for $10 less. You can find them for a lot less if you search worldwide. Usually they go for $20-50 depending on supply and demand. For a parts supply for a runner it's usually cheaper to keep an eye out for used examples and sell off what parts you don't want, but it is a bit pot luck on whether the front gearbox casing is intact.

Im finding it easier and cheaper to build mids. A few years ago, I bought up a bunch of lazer zx, zxr, alfa, all for cheap in busted up lots. Years before that,, it was optimas that were cheap and easy. Looks like right now the zx5 is on its way down price wise. Going to keep searching for that lazer front box. Would like a new one for when the tub chassis becomes available.

terry.sc wrote:

rccars4sal wrote:Oh back to the topic of front boxes,, theres a lazer zx-zxr front box on ebay for 80 dollars,, which I think is crazy high,, but is that a common going rate?

No, that's Fireboy doing what he usually does, he is prepared to price rare items high and sit on them until he finds someone who really wants one right now and can't find any others and pays up for it. He had sold the previous one for $10 less. You can find them for a lot less if you search worldwide. Usually they go for $20-50 depending on supply and demand. For a parts supply for a runner it's usually cheaper to keep an eye out for used examples and sell off what parts you don't want, but it is a bit pot luck on whether the front gearbox casing is intact.

I've sometimes found with fireboy that if you see something listed, listed & relisted several times, you can make him a reasonable lower offer and he'll accept it. Some of his prices seem ridiculous but I've convinced him to sell me some items by contacting him and asking if he wants to SELL something, or continue sitting on it for months. He's a good guy to deal with, but sometimes you have to get him to reason with you.

I think the rarest parts for Mids are the gearbox cases and wishbones, particularly the front for both

You can substitute with Lazer wishbones and hubs which are plentiful in supply but there are no options for gearbox cases

I'd love to see someone machine gearbox cases from Nylon for the Mid and the Lazer

There was a guy doing the Lazer front box in white nylon some years ago.
I don´t know how many he made or if they came up for sale, but they looked nice.

I can´t remember where I saw it, but google nows most things.

+1 on the MID gear boxes. They don´t show up so often, and those who does are pricey.