White Supra Gen1 Chassis with Mini-Z Tires

Yellow Nissan Skyline Gen1

Metallic Gray Mitsubishi Lancer VIII on Evo

Blue Honda Civic Coupe Gen1 with Body Kit

Black Hummer H2 with Off-road-Kit

Orange Ford F150 Truck with slammed wheels

Orange 2009 Dodge Challenger on Evo

Honda Acura RSX Gen1 Switchback with Body Kit

Did I forget anything? No … I didn’t forget anything but I omitted three cars and some bodies.

1. A dark-gray Gen 1 Skyline
2. A silver Evo Skyline
3. A blue Evo Ford Mustang 06
4. some trucking Bodies (Hummer H2, Nissan Titan, Ford F150)

Why did I omitt them? The Mustang is still “New in Box” while the Gen1 Chassis of the Skyline is used for a 3rd party Subaru Body, which is very much XMOD … and the silver Evo Skyline is being transfered into the project car for this site.

Now, besides the XMods there are also the Mini-Z cars, not as many but a bit better:

Nissan Skyline 2000GT on MA-010 AWD Chassis

BMW M3 Coupe on MR-02MM ASF Chassis

McLaren F1 on MR-02MM i-Series Chassis

Nissan Skyline GT-R on MR-02MM ASF Chassis

There is still some important stuff to do though. For the ASF chassis I do not have a working transmitter. i do have a KT18, but it needs to be fixed, since the steering return Pin broke inside the case. This is a common problem with those transmitters and does not require much to fix.

The AWD Skyline does need a set of new rims, although I like the style of the current ones. The original style I cannot apreciate somehow.  The BMW is, from what I can see a Body by i-Waver and was actually lowered a bit by me, I just thought it sits to high to look great. The McLaren currently has a broken H-bar and the mirrors are missing, but replacement for the H-bar is on the way … and the Skyline? Let’s leave it at that and make it a training body … come to bodies, I still have a couple of bodies, but they will be featured a different time.

Then there is only the Mad Bull Monstertruck to talk about … but di I really? No, it’s been covered already on this Blog.

There is only very little work involved to make the Body fit the Chassis. This work needs to be don at the front- ans side body-clips. The front body-clip is a bit to wide for the AWD mounting post, so you need to sand down the sides until it slides in without force. You’d rather take off a bit more than required so the the symmetry of the set-up is kept instead of more on one side than the other and the whole set-up is asymmetrical.

the same applies for the side mounts which are glued inside the body. They needs to be sanded down a little bit to make the body slide over the chassis like intended. If you have done this, you should have a nice Body for your drift-car … and it should look like this:

Shakotan-Boogie Jun’s Skyline on MiniZ AWD

Shakotan-Boogie Jun’s Skyline on MiniZ AWD

Currently I still have the original Wheels of the Subaru on the car, but I do think it does look quite nice. I still have a set of 6 spoke AWD wheels here, but they are intended for the Yellow X-Mods Skyline.

I also have a set of Upgrades for the chassis lying here, the “Graphite Front and Rear Gear Box” by 3racing. The installation will be covered on my new site www.mini-rc-tutorials.com once I get around to do it.

Silver Shakotan-Boogie Jun's Skyline

Silver Shakotan-Boogie Jun's Skyline

Silver Shakotan-Boogie Jun's Skyline

Silver Shakotan-Boogie Jun's Skyline

It will need a little bit of modification to fit on the AWD Chassis which I had in mind for it. Currently there is a Subaru on that chassis. The modifications should be straight forward and will be published on my new site Mini-RC-Tutorials (in German).

Skyline Body left side

Skyline Body right side

Skyline Body rear

Skyline Body front

Next step is to take out the white primer and prime the body in white, obvious, isn’t it? The yellow colour is ordered and hopefully will arrive next week.

FAS Nissan Skyline GTR - front left

FAS Nissan Skyline GTR - left side

The work on the X-Mod Skyline has started by getting rid of the previously mentioned “imperfections” and paint stripping all over.

X-Mods Nissan Skyline GT-R 2

Skyline GTR Body stripped and primed

Jacko L. of FAS has given me following info about the body modifications:

Our car has a Top Secret hood, and Garage Saurus carbon fiber front diffuser, side skirts, rear spats and Nissan factory carbon fiber rear diffuser.

Those changes are mainly small additions to the existing Skyline body which should not be to hard to recreate from what I can see. The Top Secret Aero Bonnet will be the most difficult piece to model. It is a recession with a “spoiler lip” around it.

Since the rest of the car is stock and the original wheels seem to have been used that area should be done by preparing and painting the rims which are with the X-Mod Kit.

X-Mods Nissan Skyline GT-R 1

X-Mods Nissan Skyline GT-R 2

The Mustang is still in box, but that won’t be forever. Unfortunately for you that is the reason why there are no pictures yet. instead you can have a quick glimpse at the chassis, which has been upgraded a bit with alloy parts in the area of the rear end.

X3200 Chassis (evolution type) 1

X3200 Chassis (evolution type) 2

What stroke me a bit is the bad finish of the product … OK … thy are painted but that paint job is far from perfect. The rear bumper of the Skyline had a fingerprint on the inside (yes, now I can identify the culprit …) and the there was a huge grain of something enclosed in the painted windscreen.

Then there is a red Hummer H2 which I bought yesterday … again it has some imperfections in the paint job, but I thought all the excess plastic scrape-off in the gearbox was a bigger issue. It showed up when I installed an AWD Upgrade to the trucking chassis.

Trucking Hummer H2 1

Trucking Hummer H2 2

These “imperfections” I think where the reason that the price dropped by half in just a few weeks. Overall they are no reason not to buy them little machines and also nothing what a little bit of paint stripping, sanding and painting can not fix.

The idea behind TTTT is to recreate the truck trial off-road frenzy on your table top. Usually the first images you see of new creations are posed in front of the PC (on Keyboard, Mouse, Calculators, etc.) and if you are lucky, you get a little video where that machine is actually running a “ad-hock” trial over whatever is available. Then there are the folks who build little trial course which can be put on a table top for your fun.

In general I seem to find more information about TTTT in the German parts of the Internet but I am aware, that this frenzy is swapping over the other parts of the world as well. It is something for those of you who like the model railway scales without having to care about the railway part.

Actually, to be really honest with you, “Table Top Truck Trials” is just a subset of the bigger field of “Table Top Trucking”. TTT is the same size just the topic is a bit different. It’s about functional models. The smallest working rc car I know of is a 1/87 scale SMART, but I heard rumours about N scale developments which go beyond the normal trucks and buses.

The site itself is about micro models in general so you can also find information about micro planes, construction machines, ships and submarines … talking about that, they have the smallest working submarine in the world (certified by “Guinness book of records”).

Atomic Differential

Atomic Motor

The parts are compared to their originals which are always in the picture together with the tuning parts. Since the Kyosho comes with a standard and the so called eco motor there are 3 motors in the second image. The new atomic motor has already been put into the rear end of the chassis. Now only the ball differential is missing.