Just thought i'd make a little build thread on the car I'm currently rebuilding.. my first nitro car - a Kyosho Alpha 3 GP.
I know it's not the most fantastic car out there and i've seen plenty of people say they're not worth it, but i'm the kind of guy that likes to do things cos I can. I love modifying stuff and building things so i decided to persist with this little fella.
Anywho..I was given it at the beginning of this year in very original condition
like this
It hadn't been used for a few years. I got it going and had some fun with it, then decided i needed more speed so bought a much better flowing exaust manifold and pipe. This actuallytook the exhaust up over the back wheel and then a modified the pipe from a Hpi Rs4 drift to make a little tailpipe that came out just behind the back wheel.
Unfortunately i didn't take any pictures of the car at this stage or at the next so I can't show what it actually looked like. I thought it looked pretty cool though, lol.
I don't know if the pipe actually made a performance difference but it sure made it louder, lol.
After only a few runs with the new pipe the main bearing in the original GX15 did this
so it was time for another engine.
I was originally going to rebuild the original GX15, but Tom at OZ RC (just before he left) gave me a GS11R to play around with, I couldn't get that to work, but Gerard found another bag of assorted Kyosho engine bits and i ended up creating a Frankenstein like GS15R which had a twin needle carby, the SP? (i think?) cooling head and used the original clutch and clutch bell. That engine absolutely screamed and made the car go really great for the three or four runs that it held together.
Pretty sure a combination of too much nitro, me not having any clue how to tune properly and just being silly with it caused me to snap the conrod. This is what the remaining pieces looked like
so now it was time for yet another engine. I'm just crazy enough that I wasn't gunna give up on it, lol.
I decided to buy a brand new engine, an LRP Z18s and figured that I might as well rebuild the whole car while i was at it, and throw in a few upgrades in the process. I bought a set of ball bearings, some gpm
adjustable turnbuckles, and some gpm adjustable alloy shocks..well they were supposed to be gpm but when they arrived they came in roadtech packaging. Supposedly the same thing? I'm not overly fussed,
they still look pretty, which is all that really matters cos I know the car is never going to handle great, and i'll only ever be using it for some street bashing anyway most likely. I'm still waiting on the turnbuckles but i put the rest back together the other night so here's some piccies.
So that's what i've done so far. Next up is to get a clutch system that works for it and some servos and radio. I'd love to fit it with a two-speed but they seem to be impossible to find.
The body is going to be painted up the Coca cola trans am mustang of Allan Moffat in the 60's and 70's
I just have to design the proper sticker package then get them made up, might even print a few so i can make a few spares. Can anyone reccomend a sticker place that could make these in good quality?
Anyway cheers for having a look at my build
..more to come
Well the turnbuckles finally arrived and were a tad too long.. no problem, just ground the ends down a bit and it was all good. Once installed i found the steering turnbuckles were hitting on the diff casing due to being thicker, so i just got a knife and cut the lump off as pictured.
Trimmed up the body and ftted it up, looks pretty good even stil clear. Unfortunately it would seem a Kyosho alpha has a longer wheelbase than hpi 10th scale cars, the difference is not too noticeable in the photos but it made fitment a little more tricky. I had to trim a bit extra off the front wheel arches and sit the body so it was as far back as it could go. Pretty happy with how it looks anyway.
a bit of negative camber
I ended up selling it a few months after those last pics were taken, so I could fund my rc8t racer project.
I never ended up getting it going with the new engine in it unfortunately, cos I would have loved to have seen how it went.
I didn't think it was a really bad car or anything, I never got it to a track so don't know how well it would have handled there, but I always liked how it sat on the road a lot more than my sprint 2. It always felt a bit more stable, probably cos of the longer wheelbase and wider track.
I never broke anything on it (except engines, lol). Parts were hard to find being such an old model, but I got lucky a few times trawling eBay and managed to score some parts lots, so they do come up every now and then. It may be a budget model but its still a kyosho, so the quality isn't too bad.
I kinda wish I still had it sometimes, but I guess you can't keep everything forever.
Fair enough. I have read a few reviews and it seems the biggest problem is the diffs.
I don't mind if it has a few problems, it was free so I intend on running it till it dies.
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