Projects of the Past Issue.1 - HPI RS4/3 Porsche 911 turbo

An introduction...

Recently I set some time aside to browse through some old hard drives on a quest for any residual images of projects past.

Back in the early days of my projects, way before the banana era, I was always guilty of getting caught up in doing things and forgetting to take any pictures. This meant that most projects would be completed and gone before it even dawned on me to take any photos, as to me it was just another everyday thing that I had done and finished.

However, after much searching I have managed to find a few images that were taken and survived numerous drive clear-outs. Some of the images are not as pretty as our Team Banana photos, but they serve their purpose all the same. They were mostly taken on the fly, with basic camera technology of the time, and as a personal record of events rather than being for sharing or viewing by others. All the same, here we go! =D

You will find further Issues from this series in the new "Projects of the Past" tab above in this projects section.




HPI RS4/3 Porsche 911 turbo

Throughout the years I have owned and used many radio control models, sometimes building and modding them to order.

 

In 2003 I decided to modify one of the HPI RS4/3 kits I had laying about as a spare for my track car, and after looking at all the optional extras, I was inspired to add my usual twist. The kit included a Porsche 911 turbo shell, a few HPI upgrades over the standard RS4/3 kits, and was 1:10 scale in size, featuring a .12 nitro engine. It was the Porsche 911 turbo shell that inspired the main goal of the project, that being to make the car as near to the actual Porsche 911 turbo's speed as possible.


The starting point was to acquire all the upgrade parts that I desired for this venture, for which I chose GPM Racing and HPI's after market components. As you can see from the pictures, everything was converted to aluminium, resulting in quite a striking chassis, and fitted oil filled coil over shocks for better handling.

After seeing this chassis in it's pristine glory, I decided the stock engine was not going to cut it, and with some chassis modification later, fitted a .12 Nova Rossi race engine that I had tuned myself. You can see a silver rub mark that the starter box made when I was using this pullstarter-less engine on the chassis.

The Nova Rossi engine was impressive in the test runs, but it just didn't have enough speed, so I fitted the HPI twin speed gear set. With some tweaking, this certainly added some speed into the equation, but I just wanted more. For this I was going to have to change things up a bit.

Some chin rubbing later I clocked the Hyper .21 8-port big block engine on my Hobao Monster Pirate/Ofna Big Foot 1:8 scale monster truck. This engine featured a cooling head that matched the current colour scheme of the project, had a pull starter, making it simpler to use, being bigger naturally had more power, and best of all, I had just finished running it in, so it was ready to be played about with.

Without hesitation I stripped the Hyper .21 8-port down, and proceeded to tune the ports and crankshaft for a nice hike in power. The engine block was drilled for the fitment of a pressure expansion bottle to accommodate for the modifications applied to the crankshaft, and the whole thing was re-assembled, then re-fitted to the monster truck for a second bedding in process.

Engine now ready to use, I had to figure out how it was going to physically and mechanically fit into the chassis that was a whole scale smaller than the donor model. This required more chassis modification, the use of the original Ofna engine mounts, some custom mounting hardware, a custom unlimited aluminium exhaust, and creating my own hybrid clutch system, so that it would interface with the twin speed gearing while handling all the extra power.

Things were running smoothly in the first test run, but catastrophe stuck in the second. With all the additional power and peculiar weighting this car had, not only was it a bit odd to handle but it ended up snapping one of the drive shafts in the rear left wheel, and with it took one of the tie rods.

This chassis is 4WD with 6 drive shafts, so I decided to replace all the drive shafts with heavier duty shafts from Kyosho and Ofna to prevent any further failures, and replaced the snapped tie rod with a shiny new one. I also decided to change the ratio of the gearing now knowing just how much power this engine possessed, and carefully re-tuned the twin speed setup. Then gave some extra thought to the camber and toe-in, to improve handling, compensating for the offset engine weight.

Since everything was now in order, all components were fully committed, and the colour scheme had been established, it was time to finish the body shell. For this I chose an electric blue to magenta pearlescent flip paint, which I applied in two coats with an air brush. This was then backed with a heavy silver flake, to really make it pop, and finished with a nitro-methane proof barrier lacquer to protect it from the fuel. Once it had dried over several days, the polycarbonate body shell was cut out from its vacuum form, required holes were then cut/drilled and the decals were applied. The shell was now ready.

A good few tests runs under the belt, and several test locations later, I had both a place large enough to fully use it, and was ready to get some speed readings underway.

So who better to test the speed of a car than the local traffic police...? My thoughts exactly! =D
Thanks to the cooperation of the local traffic police I was able to get some accurate readings. Unfortunately this car did not reach speeds anywhere near 180+ mph, but it did go 108 mph, which I consider a win, even if the figures are slightly in the wrong order. Furthermore, this car had the exact same 0-60 mph time as its real life counterpart coming in at 3.9 seconds, and that was the final tick in the box for me! =D

Sadly I no-longer have this car, although it is probably for the best I guess. It would have spent all this time as a shelf queen just collecting dust and nostalgic looks of admiration.

It was sold not long after completing it, and fetched a pretty penny, so hopefully it is still in one piece and has a nice home.

Maybe I will take on another project like this in the future, who knows. =)











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