Maiden Voyage

Indeed, today was the day for the maiden voyage of this rebuilt Hybrid Optima Mid. But first the preparations to get to there.

Remember I said that the ESC needed rewiring for the receiver? I used a 1x3 .025 square pin terminal strip to connect the two units. Neatly finished off with some clear shrink tubing and now we have a simple rewired ESC control connector.



This is how it dressed out in the car; a bit of a service loop, cable draped over the battery holder, and a bit of double sticky tape on the backside of the connector.



Overall, a pretty tidy wiring solution if I do say so myself. Here you see an ancient NiCD 6-cell battery pack which a friend brought by a few days ago. To my surprise, all the cells warmed up fairly evenly and peaked just fine after two false starts.



Remember my complaining about the radio battery connection being glitchy? Well! Look what I found in an old cable bin in the cabinets! An extension cord from game system of some sort. Having ohm'd out the wires and determining I wasn't going to melt my battery pack, or zap the controller, I plugged the two ends of the cable to their respective sockets and it worked! This makes me a very happy camper.



I also said the car weighed in at below ROAR legal weight of 3-1/2 lbs in this Stock Class configuration... here it the proof [you'll have to take my word on the zeroing of the scale though]



After a cold run on the scale to check for serious flaws, I was confident enough to push some power through the car. Here you get the same first look at performance as I did. Thanks to my wonderful wife and her extra-ordinary skill in following fast moving objects with the camera.



I am indeed pleased with the performance. I'll do some more video analysis but I can swear that the front end was nearly off the ground, and if traction was improved, they would have been. I was well impressed with the cornering stability as the car actually pulled into the corners under power.

It has been a great adventure to bring this hidden treasure back to life. I am also glad to have documented the intricacies that make up this absolutely unique manifestation of Kyosho's finest machines. I hope you too have found a gem or two of wisdom from these pages.

Please feel free to add comments or question and if and when I see them, I will do my best to reply.

Peace; Out!