Over the winter I decided that I wanted to do a Street Eliminator build. Specifically, I found that there's an IROC-Z body available from Delta Plastiks, and I needed an excuse to buy the body... so Street Eliminator. My pride and joy is my 85 IROC-Z (hence my username), so when I saw this body I had to get one.
Here's a couple pictures of my IROC. Here's what it looked like when I bought it:
Here it is shortly before I pulled it apart for an LS swap (that still isn't done):
And one pic at the drag strip before I pulled it apart. That motor is now in my 88 GTA, waiting for me to finish that project up too. :roll:
I decided to pick up an SC5M, since I wanted to use a mid motor design, plus I wanted a chassis that could be set up to handle well so that I could also use the car as a large GT or Touring style car if I got bored with the drag race thing. As with all of my builds, this one was done with budget in mind. While it wasn't a cheap build, it was much less expensive than it could have been. The B5M/SC5M chassis is a little bit older now, but is still a very modern design compared to rear-motor designs, and can be bought very affordably.
Realizing that it's not a whole lot of fun to drag race by yourself, I ended up picking up another vehicle so that I could build 2. That way I'll have somebody to race with. Since I was already building an IROC-Z, it was only appropriate to build the other one as a Fox Body Mustang.
I decided to build the cars in slightly different ways, rather than have them identical. Part of this was born out of necessity... the Mustang body is designed to work with a buggy-width chassis, while the Camaro is designed for a full SCT-width chassis. Beyond that, I also decided that I wanted to experiment with different transmission setups. I put a 4 gear into the Camaro, while the Mustang is utilizing a 3 gear transmission.
4 gear:
3 gear:
Aside from the servos, both vehicles use the exact same electronics. The only reason that the servos are different is because the Camaro chassis came with the Savox servo, and I had the Trackstar servo so I threw it into the Mustang. They're pretty similar, and they won't impact the cars performance anyway.
For the motors, I decided to go with something that I already have experience with. I have a sensored Hobbystar 550 motor in my Yeti, and the motor is a monster. The Hobbystar is a budget-based motor, but because of its 550 size, should have more power than I'll ever be able to use, and should tolerate short runs even if geared up. Because of the huge current that this can will suck on 2S, I felt like I couldn't skimp on the speed control, and went with the Mamba Monster X. This ended up being almost 1/3 of the whole budget, but what sold me on it, aside from its current handling, is the aux function. We all know and love what the aux function does for drag brakes, but you can also set it up to control the torque delivery to the motor. This will really help me dial the car in to whatever traction conditions I'm experiencing when I'm using the cars. It will help me ensure that my son will be able to control his car, and should eliminate the need for constant laptop tuning to the ESC.
Other differences in the cars include the wheel & tire package. For the Mustang, I went with the JConcepts Startecs, wrapped in the Proline Hoosier drag tires. I'm also planning on running a set of 2.2s with some sort of street-type tires on the car.
For the Camaro, it got a little bit trickier. Because I want a realistic look, buggy tires weren't going to cut it. They look way too small in the large wheel well openings. Stadium truck tires might be a hair too big, but they look better than the buggy tires.
The next problem was finding a wheel with the correct offset. The Associated Stadium Truck wheels stick out too far. The best fitting wheels I could find were Losi stadium truck wheels. They're the right offset, but because they are tucked so much further in, it severely limits my steering. Since I want a stock IROC-style wheel anyway, I'm going to have to resort to designing my own and 3D printing it, so I'm going to try experimenting with a 2.2 to 3.0 wheel (like an SCT wheel) but with the stadium truck wheel width. Hopefully I'll be able to keep the front tires glued to it.
One last difference is that right now, the Camaro chassis has foam bumpers front and rear. The Camaro body is very thin, and not only do I need to protect it from crashes, but I need something up front to keep the body from flattening at higher speeds and disrupting the handling. I bought a front foam bumper for an X01, and shaped it to fit the Camaro body. I attached it to the chassis by making my own Kydex upper and lower mounts. I'm really happy with how it came out:
For the rear I also tried out a bumper, this time a front bumper from a Traxxas rally car. Right now it's just wire-tied to the SCT bumper. If I end up needing to install a wheelie bar, I'll have to get rid of the bumper, but if I keep it, I'll build a better mount.
Anyway, that's about where I'm at now. I need to get some tires for the Losi wheels, and then I'll be able to start driving them and tuning the suspensions.
The Camaro will get painted up to look either like my IROC, or like a stock IROC.
I'm not sure what color I'm going with on the Mustang, but it will be done up to look like a stock-ish street build, not a full-on drag car type of build.
For anyone that made it this far, I've also got a video on Youtube:
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