Leopard 2 Sportline. Making the car better.

[MadMax]

Here is my new FG Leopard 2





The car is rather good, but to make it more reliable the car need to be upgraded. So lets start

The first thing that was upgraded is the radiobox



MCD radiobox installed. Battery and all other electronics are sealed now.
Alloy diff tube



Alloy FG gear carrier and steel cat5mfg gear



You can also see that the servo moved closer to the motor, because with long linkages the controlling of brakes and throttle is very inaccurate.

The exhaust it also changed. The std exhaust took away power from the motor because the exhaust tube was installed right in to the muffler and the exhaust had less output diameter


Fuel tank vent

With the standard one the motor worked very bad.

Hpi wheel adapters.

The standart wheels are too bad for winter use and small for our track.

First tests...

...showed that the suspension is too hard and the front ground clearance is too short. The front and rear shock are the same length, but the front suspension is not fully work, because the front lower arms can not drop lower, because of the chassis

Chassis mod:


So now the front shock travel is fully used :lol:



But there is another problem- steering turnbuckles can not work lower, because of the stupid 4wd conversion diff housing. So i cut it:



And now front suspension and steering work ok


And the ground clearance is good

(i have no clean dirt busters, so the photo is with tarmac wheels, but they are the same diameter.

Other ugrades:

All bearings fitted on ca-glue, servo saver modified (no free play (up-down)), fuel tank support changed to old (FG marder) support (the fuel tank is now lower)

This is not all upgrades, i will male some mods and post here some new pics in future

There will be some serious upgrades, such is front suspension support brace, because the chassis flexes and can be bend in front

 

[dwarfy]

Cool :cool2: Nice idea with the throttle/brake servo. Did you make the ally bracket yourself? What is the black stuff on the servo - is that plastisol for waterproofing?

 

[whittron]

Cool car,i don't know if i would have ground the chassis like that,hopefully you don't have any issues with spitting out dogbones of jumps,should have had drop adjusment screws.

 

[Mike1970]

Cool car,i don't know if i would have ground the chassis like that,hopefully you don't have any issues with spitting out dogbones of jumps,should have had drop adjusment screws.

He's ground the front of the chassis not the back, it's the same mod I did at the start of last season.

 

[whittron]

I don't understand why anyone would have to grind there chassis if there is a problem with the arms hitting,for the price fg shouldhave taken care of that,and the cutting of the front 4wd case,i wouldnt even waist my money if i had to hack the car up like that to make things work right,i always thought the leopards were nice machines until i saw this thread.

 

[Mike1970]

You wouldn't drive a single large scale car if you didn't modify it in one way or another.
The droop issue has been sorted by FG.
The tank idea is always a good mod although they do have a breather hole in the cap
The exhaust mod if also worth doing
I wouldn't have changed the radio box
I don't see the point in relocating the servo
The diff tube is a noraml mod that most people do.

Cutting the diff housing, I can only assume that the guy has decided to run his steering arms close to the hub.

 

[renbar]

everthings got room for improvement its the best part of the hobby for me,,,,i like most of whats been done on this,i don't think i could fit a mcd radio box on my car but the size of mcd one you can get rx+kill switch+battery in a mcd one i can only just get rx+k/switch in the fg one but its a tight fit

 

[whittron]

You wouldn't drive a single large scale car if you didn't modify it in one way or another.
The droop issue has been sorted by FG.
The tank idea is always a good mod although they do have a breather hole in the cap
The exhaust mod if also worth doing
I wouldn't have changed the radio box
I don't see the point in relocating the servo
The diff tube is a noraml mod that most people do.

Cutting the diff housing, I can only assume that the guy has decided to run his steering arms close to the hub.

Ah i was wondering why he cut that away ,i think i would have tried to avoid that,looks like it made the front a little weaker,taking away two areas to bolt it down.

 

[MadMax]

Cool :cool2: Nice idea with the throttle/brake servo. Did you make the ally bracket yourself? What is the black stuff on the servo - is that plastisol for waterproofing?

Yes, i did the ally bracket myself. The black stuff is just a usual sealant.

But this is just a quick mod, this is not a final version. The final version will be with separte servo for throttle and brake. The throttle servo installing have also 2 variants
1

2 the carb shaft will be directly attached to the servo shaft

Engine controlling become very accurate.

I don't understand why anyone would have to grind there chassis if there is a problem with the arms hitting,for the price fg shouldhave taken care of that,and the cutting of the front 4wd case,i wouldnt even waist my money if i had to hack the car up like that to make things work right,i always thought the leopards were nice machines until i saw this thread.

Because Leopard 2 is not a totally 2wd car. This is a car with rear wheels drive witch have some parts from 4wd version. Chassis, fuel tank support, front diff box, servo saver, and 4wd arrangement

You wouldn't drive a single large scale car if you didn't modify it in one way or another.
The droop issue has been sorted by FG.
The tank idea is always a good mod although they do have a breather hole in the cap
The exhaust mod if also worth doing
I wouldn't have changed the radio box
I don't see the point in relocating the servo
The diff tube is a noraml mod that most people do.

Cutting the diff housing, I can only assume that the guy has decided to run his steering arms close to the hub.

Exhaust + fuel tank mods = Leopard motor start working much more stable and power was a little increased. All the tubes of exhaust now have the diameter bigger than the output diameter of the muffler and they do not resist the exhaust

The battery in sealed radio box = battery long life. If you run the car on clean track- that is ok. But we do not have clean tracks here and the battery gets in to the water and dirt. I have an interesting picture, but i can not find it on my computer. This is a picture of Ni-MH battery without plastic cover. The cells are all in rust, dirt and the wires just decayed. 10 mounth use battery :lol:

The point of relocating the servo is in long linkages removing. Sometimes the carb just freezes in winter and the throttle can not close. Long linkages can pull, but they can not push. Short linkage can close the carburetor, even if it is stuck, and the spring on the carburetor can not close it. Snow, dirt - the result is the same.
long linkages are hanging out and controlling become not accurate

Ah i was wondering why he cut that away ,i think i would have tried to avoid that,looks like it made the front a little weaker,taking away two areas to bolt it down.

The front is weak even in stock variant. The plastic diff box can not really hold high impacts. After this mod the front become weaker, but this is no problem, because i will make a support brace from the chassis to the upper alloy plate.
And another support brace from the upper plat to the shock tower, because it is also weak

 

[dwarfy]

You have the steering servo and receiver box fixed direct to the chassis - is this standard on this model? It looks tidier than having a secondary radio tray. Does the secondary radio tray not provide a slight protection against direct shocks or does it not make much difference? I might go for this mod & the throttle servo mod on 1 of mine to tidy things up & see how it goes

 

[MadMax]

Leopard do not have radio tray. Here is standard:


The radio tray can help the chassis resist the impacts of the front suspension, but only if it will be connected with fuel tank and motor. Or at least have the brace to the chassis.

If you mean the standart servoplate like on FG Marder or Baja

well it help, but reduce the problem of chassis bending only on 30% ))) The brace is the only way that will help (picture #1)




It is so interesting. FG is a very simply designed car. But many interesing mods can be done I have practically nothing to do with my MCD... all mods are small and not global, and it is boring

 

[dwarfy]

How did you fix the brace at the engine side? I can see that making a big difference to the strength of the chassis.

 

[whittron]

If you ask me if i was going to buy a brand new car andhad to do all that stuff to it i would have found a diffrent model to purchase,i have 5 5th scales and never had to go through all that to make it dependable or stronger.

 

[MadMax]

How did you fix the brace at the engine side? I can see that making a big difference to the strength of the chassis.

If you mean the photos 2-6, this is another interesting mod, that my friend did. The engine sits a little high on the chassis. This braces for engine make the engine sit as lower as it possible. Engine crankcase is also modified. I do not know the details, this is not my own mod

Photos 1-6 i will try to make on my Leopard soon

 

[dwarfy]

If you ask me if i was going to buy a brand new car andhad to do all that stuff to it i would have found a diffrent model to purchase,i have 5 5th scales and never had to go through all that to make it dependable or stronger.

I wouldnt say the standard Leo is weak or unreliable. In fairness, the majority of mods MadMax has carried out to his Leo are for personal preference and to suit the conditions he runs in over there. don't knock the guy for adding his own personal touches.

 

[Mike1970]

I keep saying this but people don't listen.

There isn't an original car out there, everything has been changed in one way or another from pipes, wheels & tyres, paint jobs, mods, pipes, clutches and anything else you care to mention.

Making stuff the way YOU want them is all important.

With the exception of people talking bollocks about engines and pipe (because 90% of them don't have a clue) I applaud anyone who makes something for themselves. I may not agree with it or see the point, I may even think it would make things worse - but hey, it's model/toy cars, they're there to be played with.

 

[renbar]

spot on enjoy the hobby thats what its about

 

[whittron]

I wouldnt say the standard Leo is weak or unreliable. In fairness, the majority of mods MadMax has carried out to his Leo are for personal preference and to suit the conditions he runs in over there. don't knock the guy for adding his own personal touches.

Im not knocking the guy i just think hes hacking up a good car for nothing,do what ever mod suits ya but when you start cutting stuff up thats another story.

 

[MadMax]

All manufacturers make mistakes. All people make mistakes. Sometimes manufacturers are too lazy to make a good car at ones. Sometimes it's a marketing course. I don't care.

Give a model car to a good professional engineer (which is developing 1:1 cars or planes) and he will find a lot of constructive mistakes practically in all model car

There is a task - make the car competitive. And i must suit the car to the conditions where i will run it. May be for soft German tracks the car suit ok. But the Leo i bought is too weak for our track. Hpi bajas break chassis on this track, shock shafts and body shells. My Leo is the only one FG car in 2wd class. All cars are hpi bajas.
I don't care is it new car out of the box or used car. If i need to do something that i think will be better for me, i just do it. And then i check for results. This cut front diff box is just a test. If i have enough time, i will make normal wishbones mounts like on competition version.
But with this reinforcements for bad track the car can be indestructible on soft track.

The ideal car is the car that you build yourself

Here is an album with many other photos https://picasaweb.google.com/106119954870517607138/FGLeopard2SportlineFAQ?authuser=0&feat=directlink

My version of the car is the last version ? If there is a new version of Leopard 2, where i can see the info about it ?