Project Jacked Rabbit !

[vwguru75]

Okay. I have a confession to make. I've been straying from the quarter scale stuff a bit lately and have been dabbling in...............5th scale Baja cars.

These cars are about 30 pounds or so and run 30.5cc motors and motivate pretty well. It got me thinking and I decided to begin a quick little project.

Project JACKED RABBIT !

I've decided to take a 230RC Zenoah motor......... add a modified 30.5cc head kit and stroked crank and transplant it into a clean Raco Rabbit I have. With any luck, it'll hang the front wheels but time will tell. The Raco cars are closer to 20 - 22 pounds and I'm hoping the weight savings and the mild muscle motor will be enough to produce a Rabbit on steroids.

I've got the motor mounted and added a modified FG pipe to it. I have wheel hubs in the works to put current, easily replaceable Baja 5b wheels and tires on it. Front hubs are completed and rears are in need of two more steps to be completed. Carb has a totally different position on the motor and is in need of a little creative thinking but should have a working throttle/brake by the weekend once some parts arrive.

This is the "donor" car that's under the knife before mods:





More pictures to come hopefully later in the week.

[Al Gibson (QSL)]

Nice project. Looking forward to the pix. Al

[PTModIT]

Are you making just one set of the Baja hub adaptors or will you make more? Would like to see pictures of them.

[vwguru75]

I plan on making a couple of sets for a couple of my cars. I'll show pictures later in the week and you'll see them and see they are easy to replicate. Sorry for the suspense.

[vwguru75]

Carb installed and linkage working smoothly. Cable pulls throttle and standard push brake linkage was retained from the Rabbit, only repositioned the arm on the brake cam. I had to put a return spring on the cable to help return the throttle and clearance the plastic fan shroud a little to avoid having to purchase a new intake manifold that was about a quarter inch taller ( $35.00 !). Choke lever had to be trimmed a little to clear the bulkhead. The carb mounted cable bracket, 30.5cc stroker kit and air filter came from DDM. Still need to replace fuel lines as the old lines are too short to reach new fittings.





I should get some time to finish the adapters for the wheels tomorrow or over the weekend and will post some more pictures. ( I should clean the little Rabbit some too, last time I ran it the grass had been cut recently and there was dew on the grass. The thing looks like it was shaked in a bag of wet dead grass. )

[CALracing]

Looks Good, grass and all.

[vwguru75]

Got a little done today. Rear hubs are done. Fronts should be in a couple of days, when I have the time to put into them. Have to make some threaded bushings to bring the 3/8-24 threaded spindles down to 1/4-28 to mount the front hubs. Got one done but need to pick up some material tomorrow to make a second. Tossed a couple of mock-up wheels on to see how she is coming along.

I used adapter hubs for FG cars to take Baja 5b for the rear. They have plenty of meat on them to drill to 3/8" to fit Raco rear axles. I left a step inside to put an allen head bolt in to hold the hub on similar to how Raco does for their hubs. There are two grub screws on the hubs, one into the keyway and the other into the side of the shaft. Time will tell if this holds up, but it's all that FG is using so I'm rolling the dice.

The front I used are Baja 5b hub extenders for 4wd cars. The Baja axles are small enough to leave enough material to machine the hub to take inner and outer bearings, similar to the type that Pacesetter uses for their front dragster wheels. I'll try and get some closer pictures of the hubs.

Engine is in with new fuel lines and ready to fire. Still need to put my receiver in and set end points and such on radio. Looks like it should be rippin next week if all goes as planned. Now..........to figure out how to video and get it on here???

[Mike Casey]

this is a really cool concept to get these things more modern. Its going to be a fun driver. The first qscale I ever drove was a JR.

[vwguru75]

I have had well over a dozen rabbits in my time Mike. The only thing I hated was finding decent tires. This should fix that problem!

[vwguru75]

Front hubs are machined and ready to take bearings. I'll hopefully get a few minutes later in the week to press them in and mount the wheels and tires on the car. I had a little setback with the engine giving me problems that ate a bunch of time over the weekend, typical with all new pars and all. Fired the engine for the first time since I build it and had some bugs to work out with fuel delivery and tuning. Should have that worked out now.

Here's a picture of the hub machined down to size and a wheel with a hub and knock-off installed. The hub was turned down for length in a mini lathe and then bored with an undersized 1/2" reamer to take a 1/2" OD bearing with a 1/4" ID. I'll be changing the tires to an off-road set.

[PTModIT]

Hi, How's the project coming. Are the hubs finished?

[vwguru75]

Hubs got finished up and everything close to test running. Got hung up with the engine tuning and walked away from it for a bit. Was having some fuel delivery issues, possible vapor lock or weak fuel pump diaphragm. I built the engine but the carb was questionable when I put it on. I'll try some larger fuel line and worst case pick up a new carb if I have to. Guess it's been a little more than a bit?? When it gets warm I'll fire her up again and get the carb straight and take her out for a blast.

[PTModIT]

Do you have the part numbers for the front and rear hubs you used? Thanks.

[vwguru75]

I don't have part numbers, sorry. The fronts were made using a rear Baja 5b hub as a core and the rear was a 5th scale truck hub. There are a number of things to change but it was an easy starting point using existing parts as stock to machine what I needed.