is that bumper wide enough!? lol. yeah, this car is for a novice driver (my woman), so the stock bumper got itself replaced. and yeah, that shelf is very dusty, lol, and i know u see the bits of plastic left by the dremel, hehehe.
specs - 380 motor, futaba 210cb esc, ( not that it matters, but the receiver and transmitter are hitec, with a traxxas servo ) and 4wd via dual shafts, using only one diff - see, both left wheels ( front left, rear left) are connected to each other by a shaft - so they spin at the exact same speed - if the left rear stops - so does the left front, so all power would go to the right tires, which are also linked via shaft.
looks kinda good with the body on, huh? well i think so anyway ! hehehe :-)
DAMAGE !
the lower right susp arm has been repaired with a piece of g10 fiberglass bolted to the bottom of the arm - see all the ugly nuts and bolts? how did that damage happen? read on.............before i swapped to the much larger bumper above, i was testing durability by driving fullspeed into a wall ( just as i had seen my woman do ! remember, this car is for her to drive ! lol ) i was hitting the wall at an angle, to see the bumper's abily to protect the wheels and front susp arms - well, the stock bumper was undamaged, but somehow the front wheel managed to collide with the wall, snapping the lower right susp arm.
MORE DAMAGE !
even after the bumper swap, disaster strikes - i was back to my collision testing, and the bumper mount rips right off the chassis - making the bumper totally useless at protecting the frontend, causing ........
yeah ! that same lower right susp arm snapped in a new spot ! right next to the hole for the pivot point - so i cant just pass some bolts through it and call it a day - still not "bulletproof"........lol
PERFORMANCE - it stinks ! lol, well, the tranny is just too ineffecient - too many gears - no bearings- and the chassis flex binds the driveshafts - so that lil 380 is fighting an uphill battle. handling is good though - very little oversteer, so my lady should be able to keep it under control. but the swap to a regulasr esc, by allowing much more current to reach the motor, has much improved the acceleration and hill climbing/pulling ability ( lol, like i even tried to hill climb or pull with this thing ! but hey ! it would do it better than it could before ! :-)
THE RANT.....LOL..... i have this car strictly for nostalgia purposes - its very special to me - back in 1988, when i first saw an rc, i got a Nikko Hurricane for christmas that year - it wasnt my very first rc, actually my third, but my first was a 10 dollar "go forward, turn left in reverse" model, and my second (nikko big bubba) i also got for christmas that year, but broke it that same day running it under a car, lol, so it was returned and replaced by the Nikko Huriicane - which is the first rc that i had for any real amount of time. i found this one in virtually mint condition on ebay back in august 2001 and had to have it. i knew it was slow, lol, very slow, but the memories made me buy it. took almost 13 years, but i got one again ! lol
and it would have stayed on a shelf for eternity, looking "factory fresh, but i decided my woman needed something better to drive than my usual "guest" rc (tyco speedwrench) - something with proportional controls, predictable handling ( no spinouts - nice and neutral, or better understeer than oversteer ), but just as durable as the speedwrench. so i first went for one of my 2wd 540 powered nikko/rs buggies - but they all oversteer like crazy - not good at all - next were various other 2wd "toy" rc i have, but all oversteer -all my 2wd stuff oversteers, so i decided to move to 4wd. an MT was out of the question because of their high "center of gravity" - didnt want anything that would roll in corners - and even if it didnt roll in corners going forward, u know it would going in reverse, lol. and my "hobby" 4wd stuff is all either vintage buggies or MTs, leaving my beloved nikko hurricane - my "shelf queen" - as the only remaining choice. the things we do for the ones we love, lol.
but guess what? this project has been shelved. ill fix the front end eventually, but for now ive moved on to a fwd project for my lady. handling will be pretty similar to a 4wd, but with less weight and a more efficient drivetrain. but more importantly, it will be much more durable than this hurricane project - ive learned from my mistakes :-)
If u email me, and please feel free to do so, include a reference to RC or this site in the "SUBJECT". i get alot of spam, so if i see a strange email address with no subject, or a subject that says "hi" or "hello", etc, im not going to read it - so u need to say something in the subject that makes it clear to me that your message isnt spam. ndumu@hotmail.com