Dave ESPI

Got the Baja at 4:05 pm today.

Sorting out the parts and setting some up for paint shop and more fun to be done with it..... Should be done with most of it in a week. I'll post build pix as I go

Have opened the box, and now my house smells like this funky plastick/oil/new tire smell........ giving me a headache. I think I perfer the "getting High off paint fumes" smell more.

Wellhap here we go !







My cat Creamy wanted to help....... so she tooka nap. A bunch of parts I have amassed before the baja came. Thankyou to all those who hooked me up espec: Brian @ Tulare Hobby, hobby, TGN, Edd Knapp@ Fast Eddy for the Bringz, and to a few other companies who have not yet finished parts........... that need to go on this beast still. (will update pics and stats when applied)






Spareparts? oooooo an extra SPUR ! sweet.








Thankyou to my Sponsors.... LOL now have a new sticker for the back of my Snowboard helmet.




Ofcourse being a real rebel........ Gotta skip ahead and start at step fourty something..... Who wants to put together a front end anyway ?

More to come.

krayziedxc

My Feedback: (9)

how is it $812. and not Costing you more?? discounts? baja costed 850.00 look sweet!

sheograth

Looks great man, cat's nice and furry too.

Yeah the HPI baja DEFINITELY has "the smell". When I got my RTR a while back my house smelled of it too.

Dave ESPI

OK, 2 hours later, the gas tank is in, the rear suspention is going together and I'm messing with the rest of the stuff, and skipping the dif for now....

Initial impressions: WOW nice kit. HPI engineering thought out the way the locknut blocks slide into the rear uprights to make it easy to put the nuts in them. Really a "OH WOW!" suprise for me from a design standpoint. I thought "nice.. thats smart".

Only gripe, the parts bags are not really set up for ease of "sub assembly". I had to eventualy just open all the bags and dump the hardware in one section, rear end in another, front end parts in another... etc....etc. Would have been nicer if BAG A had everything for a few steps in it then you go to BAG B.... but noooooooooo you have to dig around.

The directions are "OK".

Anyone else notice the huge slop in the rear lower arm suspention carrier pins ? it's like almost 2 cm on the 108 cm carrier pins on the frame to the lower arms.

krayziedxc ; It's good to know the owner of a store, and to have weight with pulling customers in with a big ticket item sitting on the shelf for a few weeks for them to gawk at Once built, I'm letting him borrow it for a few weeks durring tax return season aswell as my FGMT.... trying to get a largescale following.... as there is not any LHS in a 100 mile radius that has anything bigger than 1/8th scale unless it flies.

EDIT: I'm going to bed.... 1:45 LOL....

I'm going to use the 805 for the throttle/ brakes.

If it doesn't fit, I'll just get a smaller HS5745 metal gear one like what I have in my FGMT.

I had the 805 sitting around, so I figured why not

I'm done for the night. Getting up early to go snowboard sux after a long day of being up early snowboarding, then spending 5 hours building..... but then again, I'm getting up early to go snowboarding... not to shovel the walk, or go to work.... although I do work as a snowboard instructor...... SOOOOOOO it's kinda like getting up for work.. LOL

I've kinda gotten a bit anal about removing the sprue tabs on the plastic parts... but it's only cause I like to NOT catch my hands on them when handling the buggies..... so it's taking me a bit longer to put it together, but will make for a nicer looking car for sure in the end.

sheograth

I notice that about all the Tamiya kits I build, theres no particular logic to how the parts are bagged.

cahonus66

LOL! Dave, I'm the same way about them tabs. After I cut them, I file them down to make them smooth.

Osirisf16

SWEET Hey Dave, don't forget to post A LOT MORE PICTURES whan you done. !!! Also, a video isn't too bad

DIABLOTAC78

man im still waiting for the darn kit[:@] are you building the shock now? be careful not to tighten the nut on the piston.

Slammed

I have never built a car yet I'm thinking of getting this I will watch you're progress

wave waker

thus the kit is way different built from the b5?

Big Boys Toys and Hobbies

krayz, Give it some time and HPI will be cheaper than that.

mmduc

just to drop a quick note, my baja ss has been completed for about 3 days now. started the engine last night, really awesome sound, and loud! pouring rain here so i wont be able to run it til monday or so. the lit took me about a week to build, spending a few hours here and there. kit went together very well! very well made. i agree with the parts bag issue, as you have to open every bag to pick parts out for a particular step, but all in all awesome product as far as quality & design.

Isle of Wight Basher

Dave, if you follow the instruction manual , it calls for you to open the lettered bags in sequence, so giving you all the hardware for that stage. It only needs a small tray to keep each stage's bits in.

My only gripe would be that this isn't the same for the plastics.

Dave ESPI

Isle, perhaps teh UK HPI are bagged better, because I was pulling parts out of nearly every single bag for most steps, or playing the "hunt down more nuts" game.

I went snowboarding today, so no progress to report right now, but a Phenominal day at the slopes. My ass is kicked for sure, so i will turn thewrench for an hour or so, but I have to be up in the morning to do it all over again and snowboard for another 2 days


woe is me... such a hard life I live at this present moment... LOL.

Isle of Wight Basher

Nope, same kit.

kurtmeyer

where are pics of your completed baja?

kurtmeyer

more PICS!!!!

Osirisf16

MORE PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

RCUSEE

loooks goooooooooood [8D]

Dave ESPI

Snowed in this morning and crappy road conditions prompted me to stay home with some very over tired achey muscles.
YESTERDAY WAS STELLAR SNOWBOARDING ! ( I work at JiminyPeak in Massachewwwwwsits if anyone wants to come ride some day).

Going to work on baja today. more pic soon.

I'm going to get it over with and build the shocks.... [sm=punching.gif]just gunnah knock um out[sm=punching.gif]

mmduc

ill post some pics soon.........the shocks wernt hard at all to build.

Johnnysplits

Hey Dave, are you gonna be using the stock bearings or are you gonna upgrade them now? Im just asking because i'll be getting the ss when I get my tax returns. Ive been debating about which bearings to get. Either the ones from teamfasteddy or the lightning ceramics from boca. It's the price difference....$80 compared to $330 Kinda leaning toward the boca bearings. What do you think? Oh by the way, I might take a ride up there in the spring and show ya the ford gt.

John

Dave ESPI

Johnny, I got a set of Fast eddies rings.

I'v also decided to sell the CY "Fullie" 26cc and replace it with a zenoah from DDM. I just trust the Zen more and have tools to work on zens.

Dave ESPI

OK, here goes.

I got pissed off at hunting around for parts. So I snipped them all off of the sprue and sorted them into front end, rear end, unknown, and sub assembly bags. I trimed them with side cutters, and the handy dandy razorblade ( who are my best friends at the moment).









Sorted parts and hardware in a plastic tub. There is a difference in the types of plastic. The stuff where heat is generated like the dif case has what seems to be a graphite mixed in with it. The rest of the car is nylon.









Decided to pain the roof to match my body color. Also am planning on doing some parts in the gunmetal color of the chassis, and the Testors paint is a really close match.





For all you horn dog perverts out there, I strongly suggest you "lube up" before insertion. The Eros Pjur is a "sexy-funtime" silicone and all the rings and parts for the shocks I roll around in it because small nicks wil cause seals to leak. It is VERY VERY slick, so have lots of paper towels at the ready.









Need a cup of coffee... to figure hout how long it is going to take me to do this stuff. I later had to reheat it for the shocks phase of the game.






With the shock insert coil rings, you need to make sure you push back the C-tab so it will not rub on the shaft or else it can score the surface and cause drag, or burrs and leaks. the one on the left is compressed more. I was pulling my hair out looking for the rubber boots.... They were actualy INSIDE the shock body and I spent a solid 10 minutes pawing through parts bags franticly trying to find them figuring HPI forgot to include them.








Reheating coffee..... gah.. this crap is taking too long. The HPI tools are really good. I do like how they included the stuff we need to do this right.







Two shox done. 2 hours.... with all pix and all parts sorted and trimmed.


Total build time sofar: 4 hours.

Hairballusmaximus

NICE!!