The Racing Factory Blog

The Scalpel is built! Very quick to build with so few parts and it looks very good all built up with the carbon fibre parts and red anodized aluminium parts.

The electrics are still waiting to be installed. The brushless motor requires a different motor mount so there was an unexpected delay due to this.

I painted the body though so here are a few photos of that.

Time for the next steps.

Damper built, the manual does not suggest using any grease or oil but I used a fairly thin grease to get some damping effect.

Damper and battery holders installed.

Another view of the smart battery holders.

Rear axle and diff assembled. The included diff parts look to be quite good quality and the diff feels smooth.

Rear axle installed with left side wheel adapter.

Almost complete.

Here a couple of photos of the chassis fully assembled with the included tires installed, without electrics.

With GP cells.

With unpainted body cut and fitted.

Time to start building. Overall the build went fairly smooth although the manual is not as clear as I would have hoped.

The first step for me was as usual prepping all the carbon fibre parts. Never fun but the result is worth it. Since the chassis and most other parts are 1,5mm and a fairly soft carbon quality this step was not as time consuming as usual. Obviously there are a few holes in the carbon fibre parts on this car that you should leave alone, i.e. T-bar and front suspension holes.

As I have mentioned in my previous builds of the TRF415 and TRF501, I follow this guide when preparing carbon fibre parts.

All carbon fibre parts ready.

Front suspension.

Front axle & uprights.

Assembled.

Rear pod with beautiful red anodized aluminium motor mount, left plate and lower plate.

Carbon fibre T-bar attached.

T-bar posts with o-rings.

O-rings under and on top.

Beautifully formed upper carbon fibre plate and damper/antenna mount attached.

Damper plates with springs and preload adjusters and rear upper carbon fibre plate.

Full view of the chassis so far. Quite beautiful, ain’t it?

Front bumper and front & rear body mounts.

Towards the end of last year Robitronic presented their Scalpel 1/18 carpet racer.

Here is Robitronic’s own presentation of the Scalpel:

Robitronic introduce the first real 1/18 electric Pan Car ever. This ultra-lightweight Pan Car-Style Chassis contains a High Performance POWER 300 Motor and is prepared for a 4 Cell-Battery-Pack. The high efficiency Drivetrain, the ultra low Point of Gravity with a GT-Style-Body with high Downforce, the ingenious Suspension and the Factory-glued Foam-Tires makes this Car into a Rocket on the Track.Recently I built one of these little cars for our shop RacingFactory.fi.

I will post photos and comments from the build.

The Scalpel comes packaged very, very nicely – this seems to be a common feature with all Robitronic products today.

Here’s the included “LMS” type sports car body uncut and unpainted.

Manual, pre cut window mask and stickers.

Parts bags.

A small photo-review of the Robitronic Scalpel to come.

Last part of the TRF501X build then.

Since the 501 I built will be a display model for RacingFactory.fi I decided to paint it like the one in Tamiya’s promotion pictures.

That is the car of Tamiya – TRF Japan driver Satoshi Maezumi. His bodies are painted by Takashima Design, one of – if not THE- best RC body painter in the world.

I can paint nowhere as good so my version had to be a bit more simple. I’m pretty happy with the end result this time though. It’s ok.

The wing included looks very high downforce/drag. It can be cut to any size you want obviously, and has marked trim lines for various heights.

As you can see I left it very high and cut off very little.

The included underbody together with the body itself seal the chassis very well against dirt. The included welcro-straps means that basically the only places dirt and dust can enter is at front through the openings for the steering links and through the cooling airflow openings.

To finish off with a few photos of the buggy with the painted body mounted.

Final part for today. Tommorrow I will post some pictures of the painted body, underbosy and wing!

A few photos of the wheels and wheel fastening system.

Rear wheels.

Front wheels.

Front and rear.

Rear wheel fastening system.

Front wheel fastening system.