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The weather is variable this afternoon, but it is raining. As planned earlier today, Shocks!

First you take the shocks bodies, and you remove the piece where the piston rod goes and you work out the tools for the shocks mounts (yes, there is tools , just like the Javelin – no pictures for those).


You have the seal to put in place. Some people find this difficult; I struggled a bit when building the Turbo Scorpion, but once you’ve understood how to do it is pretty easy and quick. I align the part with more material with the places where there is no thread, and push the seal with my nails, slowly, thread by thread alternatively on the right and left side of the part. It moves down to the end of the thread. 


And I repeated that 4 times as there is 4 shocks. Next I laid down the part for each shock to make sure I’m not missing anything with a proper double check before starting to assemble


I then assembled the shocks piston. Seems I missed  a picture here as I don’t have it (maybe was too much focus on what I was doing 😊)
I then use the Tamiya tools tray to fill the shock bodies and to proceed to the insertion of the piston rods.


And finally, I got all the hydraulics assembled, full and closed. But for this time one of the front shocks was not perfect. The first body I tried to assemble was giving me issues. When the piston was failing to move properly inside the body, I thought that maybe one of the part was not properly cut from the tree. But I did try the same piston on next shock body, and that was not the same. The shock body had apparently a surfacing issue. I don’t like to stop on a fail situation, so I assemble the 3 other shocks and start to think about my issue. I did use 1200 sand paper on the biggest part of the piston, doing multiple try until it moves as freely as the other one, and finally closed the fourth shock. Manufacturing issue? I’ll drop a mail to Kyosho and to my dealer for advice in any case.


Next is the setting rings for the shocks. There is an o-ring inside, you must oil it, and it becomes very difficult to put inside the setting ring, but it went well and at the end, I’m ready for next steps


Finally, I have four proper shocks 😊 (first time I spend that much time to do 4 shocks – about 2 hours – the front shock issue made a lot for this)


Next step was to put them on the chassis, and nothing to highlight here it is the same as the Javelin


Next I went to set my RX, and check the steering servo was centered before installing it in place. Basically, it’s set to 0 on the trims, I installed it and adjusted the steering rods to have it perfectly straight at 0. I set it this way also on the Javelin, and it’s perfect (and since I mounted the steering rod earlier, this step did not took as long as what it was with the Javelin 😊). The RX is also positioned in its definitive place.


Next I installed the motor in the chassis. And the wheels... One screw remains, it is for the driver head 😊








That’s it for the chassis. There is still a bit of work for the ESC, as I did not mount it yet. I will have to do some soldering for this. And there is the paintjob for both the driver and the bodyshell. I will need to cut the body shell first. But I won’t do those today!
 

While looking at the 3 Kyosho Legendary series I have at home, I noticed the shocks have the same internals between the Javelin, the Turbo Optima and Turbo Scorpion (I check the instructions manuals). They use the same cluster, and the only difference for the Turbo Optima is the color of the cluster (black for the Turbo Optima, red for the two others). Other difference is the externals where the Gold version from the Turbo Optima has a setting ring with a threaded shock body.

To be noted: those Gold shocks exists in Red, as HG shocks for the Turbo Scorpion, in case you want to make a Turbo Javelin but keep it the way it is in terms of colors...
This is wrong. Optional HG Shocks for the Scorpion seems to be much more complex than the Turbo Optima Gold ones. They are red, and springs are black.

On the OTW102 parts broken, I just did a design in Tinkercad, I will have to print them once I restart my printer.

I also sent a message to Kyosho, we'll see...

This chassis is crazy.

stingray-63 wrote:

This chassis is crazy.

Not sure this is the right term
Looking at it there is a lot of attention to details. it's almost perfectly balanced once the battery (lipo) is the battery tray. I believe it would be even better with a NiMH or NiCad battery.
There is 10 screws to untight to adjust chain tension. The design is smart, everything goes into its place, and there is no room left, and everything remain easy to access...
What is actually even more impressive is that Akira Kogawa, the guy who designed this car, designed it while he was not even 22 and had behind him a few other cars from Kyosho on his CV (and for most, they are really important in the history Scorpion, Beetle, Tomahawk, Turbo Scorpion, Fantom EP, Plasma and Blizzard) (* I found a screenshot of the site www.dirt-burners.com with those data, unfortunately, the site is no longer accessible)... And yes, you may say crazy, but i really see something different when I compare to the contemporary cars from that period...

That being said, there is a lot of details that are different in the re-released Kyoshos. It looks the same, and lot of parts are compatible with their former siblings, but when you look in details, they are not the same:

• section of the chassis rail is not the same (larger on re-release)
• materials are different. Wishbones from the original Optima were a weak point, the new one are quite resistant
• Front under guard and under tray are thicker - all metal parts, basically
• gearbox have been thought for brushless and modern technologies
• almost hole the screws are placed within the chassis with countersunk holes
• ...

At the end, it was already a great car initially, it is just magnified... And the same goes with all Kyosho Legendary series... And this guy is present on quite a few groups related to the Kyosho Scorpions or Kyosho Optimas on Facebook. He is listening the users, and that is probably how he is working toward improving those cars...

silvertriple wrote:

On the OTW102 parts broken, I just did a design in Tinkercad, I will have to print them once I restart my printer.

I also sent a message to Kyosho, we'll see...

Got a very good feedback from Kyosho today by mail. They are sending me replacement parts...
For the defective shock, they are asking me to send them for analysis, but as it is mounted now, I'm just keeping the way it is as with the sanding done on the piston side, it seems to work the same way as the other side (and I actually don't know on which side the defective shock is :-D).
I also mentioned the screws which seemed to be longer than the hole they should go in within the U shaped support to fix the front under guard (I had the same issue with the Javelin), but I had to precise further as it seems they don't have the same instruction manual in front of them. I sent pictures to be more precise.
And it seems the OTW126 will be back in inventory very soon so I may finally have a runner rather than a wheelie car

Thats great to hear. I had a similar experience with Team Associated years ago and they were great also.

Glad you were able to get it resolved

Kyosho is quite reactive, actually.
The guy who replied my initial mail replied my second mail this morning at 6:00am.
The two screws which I thought are too long are shorter (3x8 rather than 3x12) within the pack of the alu option part. Plus the fact that the part mold seems to indicate that the screw in there should not be longer than 8 or 10 mm, it is making some interesting elements going in the same direction. The guy will get back to Kyosho Japan to get clarifications.
For the small story, when assembling the Javelin, I had the same interrogation, but did not ask Kyosho team.
It's quite good to see they are responsive...

That's a top after sale service. Congrats.

Yeah, I'm impressed by their after sales service. That being said, i'm surprised. It seems I'm the first one to report the issue on the front U shaped part screws. Is everybody running option house parts with their buggies or keep it New In Box?
Maybe most people won't bother about those details.
However, the guy confirmed i'm not alone to report the issue with the sway bar attachments... He suggested to mount the part on the balls on a flat surface before mounting the balls on the car to avoid the issue (which is not as per the instructions...).