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Ok, so i had several Optima Mid runners bitd, in fact I hankered after one as soon as they were released.

We purchased an Optima Mid Turbo almost immediately, and I ran that at club level in standard form for a short while with a decent amount of success.

We then purchased a very wide looking carbon fibre chassis for it to enable us to use a saddle pack configuration; SWB. I have no idea what make it was but i do recall it being very wide and square looking. I will definitely have it somewhere so hopefully i will be able to dig it out at some point. Any ideas?

The original metal chassis is here:-
Instruction manual:-
We then saw the release of the LWB Mids so went in that direction. The SWB CF chassis was replaced with a longer carbon fibre chassis, and we then added a Yokomo body to the car and raced it in this format for some time. As we amassed spares we realized we had sufficient to build a second car so another chassis was purchased and a second Mid was created - albeit with the metal uprights and so on.

The first car was eventually reconfigured for indoor carpet racing and dropped to the deck, foam tyres and home turned alloy rims. I still have this car somewhere but cannot lay my hands on it for whatever reason. It is buried in the depths of my parents loft, but i will attempt to locate it along with the SWB chassis so hopefully somebody can ID everything. From what i recall it was extensively lightened and drilled out.

Anyway - what i currently have in front of my is the remains of my second Mid, which looks a bit of a mess. The chassis looks similar to others i have seen online.
So my next plan is to attempt to find the missing car and the swb carbon fibre chassis. I know they will be around somewhere....

If you dont find the chassis i have one. Unused but it was build sometimes in the -90.
I think it was composite craft who made it.
Jerzi

Thanks Jerzi - only just seen your reply. It was a Trinity chassis we had - having spent a bit of time messing with the car over the past few days the make popped back into my head. Basically the same as the Composite Craft version from around the same time.

Well i still haven't managed to locate the lowered carpet racing Mid, although we have had a quick hunt in the loft. I shall keep on looking, but for now i have started cleaning up and looking over the second LWB Mid platform. There are at least 3 bodyshells for these cars which are also missing, as well as a couple of bumpers. I know i switched the original narrow one almost immediately for a wider option, so the unusued original and the wider one must be around somewhere. I did find the original swb top plate, belt and upper belt cover when looking through my stuff though.

A quick rummage through my boxes of spurious spares has uncovered a complete set of new looking graphite uprights and suspension plate parts for the 'Turbo' Mid, so i have swapped those on to the chassis which i posted earlier with the aluminium versions. I guess i must have purchased them as spares at some point. It also already has the rear sway bar and the front ball joints (with holes) for the front sway bar, although that bar itself is still missing. I am sure most of this stuff will surface now i know what i am looking for. Things have become somewhat hazy over time, but a lot of good memories are flooding back when tinkering with this car. I also found a set of 2 new and 2 lightly used UJ's so they will go in also. The car currently has just one of the Turbo-spec (i think?) turnbuckles, so i will have to have a hunt through my stash to locate the others....

I also spotted that the rear wishbone mount plate has been 'dad-modded' to shave an nth of a gram off, so i will be keeping that feature for definite. Made me chuckle when i saw it. I also have two wing mount girder thingies, one of which has again been trimmed at the top very slightly, so i have fitted the trimmed one.

I have also only managed to locate one pair of our home made alloys - fronts - which i have mocked up to see how it all looks. There will be another couple of sets at least somewhere....

Considering this has only just come out of hibernation in the loft it doesn't look too bad so far really. I will have to see what else i have and what is well and truly missing to finish it all off. Are the turnbuckle sets tough to come by? Anything else i need to look out for? I do know i have a spare pair of diffs and gearbox internals as i saw them when going through my stuff.

Nice work so far, it's fun restoring your old cars, for the memories they bring back. I look back on digging out my Optima after a few decades of it hiding in a closet in an original Kyosho bag, laughing at my poor attempt to mod it into an on-road chassis and decided to return it back to its original off-road state.

How are your wheels mounted? 12mm hexes wouldn't be very easy to fabricate, I'd imagine.

That car doesn't look bad at all. Good luck with your project!

Yes i have a fair few of my old cars to bring back to life. Kind of a tough one to decide whether to strip some of them (the runners) and change them to modern electronics, or just keep them as they are. This Mid was almost fully stripped so an easier call to make - not hard to just add modern batteries and motor etc.... It is in great shape - the underside it completely unmarked. I should have all of the original bits and pieces for it to complete it (somewhere), assuming i can dig them out. I have several large boxes full of loose odds and ends.

LOTS of memories associated with the Mids as they were my breakthrough cars really.

The wheels were turned up in my dads shed on his lathe and he just added an inner taper to mate to the UJ's, so when the outer nut tightened down it locked into place and drove fine. We never had any issues with this method of fitment. Very simple. The Yokomo ones he made didn't even have outer nuts, just a smooth finish and were attached using an inner grub screw only. Never failed on us either.

Those are some nice custom wheels! I love me some aluminum wheels...nearly all of my builds began with a set of great wheels. I see all the boring modern dish wheels used for racing and it is to snore. ZZZzzzz.... A unique set of wheels really sets off any car from the crowd.

Well a few minor developments on this/these.... firstly i have located a photo containing the Mid still in SWB format but boasting the wide saddle pack chassis. You can just about make out the saddle pack configuration batteries. The second shot is a later one of the same car - we never used the Kyosho bodies after we had switched to LWB, and instead went with Yokomo shells - in this case a YZ-10 shell painted orange and purple. I am still missing a few bits and pieces (I still expect to come across another Mid somewhere in the loft). The rear alloy wheels and mysterious-make front bumper still haven't been located.
I have, however, come across a NIB SWB Trinity saddle pack chassis so I can at least rebuild my original SWB Turbo
Plus a few other spares.....

Memory alert... i just remembered we used to use that white fibreglass(?) tape to secure the saddle packs into the Mid.... using the extra slots in front and behind where the cells sat, which is why you cannot see any real battery straps on the grainy early shot of my car. Totally forgotten about that until today

That's a nice collection of Mid parts Dinglem. You appear to have a steel idler and that rectangular rubber piece that attaches to the upper belt cover above the motor is kind of rare. There is one posted on ebay now and the price is ridiculous.
What is that round aluminum (?) part with 6 holes sitting next to the idler? Is that some kind of special spur gear hub?
I definitely remember the days when we used fiberglass strapping tape to hold our saddle packs.

Yeah, there is a huge box of odds and sods from our racing days - they were just the bits that jumped out at me. I have several sets of the belt covers and rubbers, swb and lwb versions, and i know there are two ball diffs at least, roll bars and the like. I also think i have a few of the SRM(?) intermediate gears, and what appears to be an unused 'Turbo' front shock tower. The original gold swb metal chassis is also around, being the thicker, countersunk version.

I would imagine the 6 hole item is some sort of spur gear adapter maybe? We always ran SRM 64dp gears on all of our cars. I also have a massive box of UJ's and several sets of OH shocks. There should be a complete Mid rigged for carpet racing (GEC Stafford in the UK) somewhere also, but i can't seem to find it at the minute. More time in the loft coming up.....

I reckon you have a gold mine there.
Do you know if the Mid chassis plate is meant to be dead flat (apart from the bends along the sides of course). I've seen two plates (both are SE's) that have a slight downward angle at the front where the trans mounts. I'm guessing that either it was part of the original design or maybe a previous owner did this to increase belt tension. I don't know but it's curious that both plates were from SE's that came from entirely different sources.

My original Optima Mid chassis was flat as far as I can remember.

Yes, flat, I agree.

Well, 2 years later and after much digging, the home-turned 'Dadmod' rear alloys finally came out of hibernation today!

These were used at GEC Stafford indoor club on our carpet racing Mid for several years.... around '88 onwards, so lots of sentimental value here.

They even still have a bit of a shine and the foam looks surprisingly good. To say I am chuffed is an absolute understatement.

....and a day later, the home made jig for the alloy wheel hole placement