Nitro Mardave V12

[RCRacing88]

Hey,

Now you might be wondering what a mardave is, if so take a trip over to google images and everything will soon become apparent! They were commonly used for indoor electric racing on 4.8v NiMH / NiCD batteries powering stock spec brushed motors.

Over a year ago, a mate of mine suggested that we should get one of his old mardave chassis's and one day convert it to nitro with an odd small block engine we had lying around.

So we did... and the turn out was great.







So the mardave platform has moved pretty far since when it was really big around onroad tracks. But the chassis we used was a fairly old one which is a wafer thin sheet of ali. We bolted the engine on and carved the chassis to allow for the starter box wheel and motor backplate. We glued the original mardave gear to a spare one which was lying around in a old parts box which meshed perfectly with the clutch bell. Talking of which, we are using my Kyosho GX -.12 Engine, on 20% nitro fuel.

We drilled out an m3 hole at each end of the axle to allow for a pin to go through to hold the hex's on for the wheels. This was a challenge with limited equipment but we did it.





We mounted the throttle servo with some inspiration from other nitro buggies. I had the idea of using a 90 degree piece of plastic to connect everything up. This works great so far.



We mounted the steering servo with double sided M3 plastic velcro, and we used a brand new fuel tank which I had for my Kyosho Onroad car.



I will mention that we had no plans at all to go by, so it's truly unique as far as we can see!

We have tested it, it starts well via the starter box, but some fine tuning needs to be done to the throttle and steering to keep it going, and going straight.

We do plan on sorting the front end out, and mounting some equally larger tyres as the back as some mini pins or something similar so it can be run on short grass. Will also change the rears.

What do you think?