1/24 SCALE 914 BODY ON AN R/C CHASSIS
So now you have your 1/24 scale Lexan 914 body, and you want to put it on a chassis.
Here are some tips for mounting it on a radio controlled car chassis.
There are a variety of 1/24 scale remote control cars available. The most important
thing when looking is that it can accommodate or be modified to be the correct wheelbase
and width. The 914 bodies have a wheelbase of approximately 100mm. For a stock body,
you want a width of about 65mm. For the GT body, you want a width of closer to 71mm
to fill up the flares.
I chose to use a 1/28 scale Kyosho Mini-Z to mount my body on. So this writeup is
based on that car and some of it's variants or knock-offs.
In the Mini-z class of cars, there are 2 types to choose from: The Mini-Z, and the
Palm Runner: They look very similar, but are really quite different when it comes to
features. The Mini-Z has digitally proportional steering and throttle, a rear differential,
and is generally about twice as fast as the palm runner. The Palm runner has on/off
steering and on/off throttle, a solid rear axle, and generally about half as fast as
a mini-z. The Mini-z is also fully supported in terms of parts and hop-up items.
If something breaks, it is easily replaced. The palm runner has no replaceable
parts - so if something breaks - you are out of luck.
Summary: The mini-z is a much better car, but if all you want is a chassis to put
the 914 body on with very occasional r/c use, then the palm runner will be fine.
BUYING A CAR:
If you have decided to go with the Mini-z, there are 2 manufacturers. Kyosho and LXX.
They seem to be identical, but the Kyosho may have better quality control.
The Kyosho costs about $100-$120 from many sources (probably your local hobby shop).
Tower Hobbies Mini-Z Link
The LXX Scale-Z is quite a bit cheaper. There is only one source that I know of
for this car (Hong Kong). But it is available for about $45 shipped.
ToyEast LXX Link
If you are searching for them on e-bay - be aware. Many cars are advertised on
e-bay as Mini-z, and can be very cheap - but unless it specifically says Kyosho,
then what they are really selling is the palm runner (look for names like HeiPao
or Tokoro on the packages).
If you have decided to go with the Palm Runner, there are a number of sources
and manufacturers: HeiPao and Tokoro are most common (Kyosho also makes the
original Palm Runner, but has been discontinued). Most cheap "Mini-z's" on
e-bay are actually HeiPao cars. Buying one of these is fine and should run about
$20 shipped.
OK. Now that you have the car, you need to modify it. The main modification
is to extend the wheelbase. This is done easily by making a new H plate with
a piece of flat plastic, fiberglass, or metal. The H plate serves as the rear
suspension, so ideally, you would make your replacement H plate out of something
flexible - some 1/16 inch fiberglass is ideal. If you aren't really going to
drive the car much, then don't worry about the rear suspension and make it out
of metal if you want. You need to extend the wheelbase by 10mm, so simply use
the old H plate as a template, and make a new one 10mm longer.
Picture shows bottom side of Mini-Z on left and Palm Runner on Right. Original H
Plates are shown to the side and have been replaced by longer, red fiberglass H-plates.
Now that the wheelbase is extended, you just need to mount the body. Most R/C
cars mount their bodies with body posts and clips. However, most of you probably
won't want to do that because it is kind of unsightly, especially on this size
of a car. So I mounted mine with velcro. The velcro won't hold the body on
that well if you run into walls, but for occasional use, it's fine. In front,
I simply applied velcro to the top of the front suspension area and the front
underside of the front hood of the body. This provided about the right height
for the body on the wheels. Note: anywhere you are going to stick velcro inside
of the lexan body, cover that area first with masking tape. That way, if you
ever need to replace the velcro, you can remove it leaving the tape in place and
you will not damage the paint. Also cover any areas inside the body which may
rub on the chassis or wheels with tape - it will protect the paint from rubbing off.
The rear of the body is more difficult to mount. If you have made your
replacement H plate out of something non-flexible, then you should be able to
simply add velcro between the body and the top of the motor pod. But if you
retained the rear suspension compliance, then you don't want to do this because
the rear suspension will want to flex which makes it inappropriate for body
mounting. On my mini-z, I simply used a flat piece of plastic and drilled
mounting holes and secured it to the chassis using some existing mounting holes
(one was used for the antenna). The flat plastic extends back under the body
engine lid area where it attaches with velcro. If you have the palm runner,
you cannot mount a flat piece of plastic in the same way. So instead I used a right
angle piece of metal and glued it behind the battery area so that it extends to
under the body engine lid area.
Lastly is the antenna. You can drill a hole in the body for the antenna to pass
through, or make an internal antenna. I chose the internal antenna - you will
lose some range on the radio control by doing this, but mine was still fine.
Simply get some wire and cut it approximately to the same length as the original
antenna. Bend it around the top of the chassis area and secure it wherever
you can. You can probably even bend the original antenna, but it is pretty
stiff and might break.
If you bought a GT style body, the stock wheels will not fill up the wheel wells
very well. To solve this, you can buy wide wheels and wide tires for these cars
that should fill the wheel wells up nicely. But you are likely to spend
$20-$25 doing this, so it is not cheap (especially if you only spent $17 on the whole
car to start with!). Below are links for the tires and wheels I would recommend:
Wide Aluminum Wheels (pair)
Wide Tires (pair)
That's it. You now have a 914 body mounted on a mini-z or palm runner chassis. Have fun.
demick@yahoo.com