LITHGOW Underground RC co-founder Cooper Anderson, is an RC car enthusiast.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
He modifies to-scale electric cars and he's going to attempt breaking a speed world record with one on Saturday.
He said his passion started three years ago when he played around with a friend's 1/10th scale flying fish drift car.
"My original plan when I started getting into RC cars was that I wanted to make a scale version of a real life car that someone owned but that didn't turn out to plan," he said.
Soon after he made small adjustments on the cars and found a relaxing and technical aspect of tuning and modifying them.
"My next big project was a deantech D9 Bulldog, a hyper realistic 1/10 drift chassis.
"I built that to look as realistic and scale as possible, and it was definitely an eye turner," he said.
Cooper said he continued to build his collection of 1/10 drift cars until he came across the 'Arrma Infraction', which he planned to use for the record attempt.
"The Arrma Infraction is a 1/7 AWD (All-wheel drive) street bash truck. With a low centre of gravity and killer looking Ute body, I decided to make it a project to build a 1/7th drift car, which then became a speedrun car," he said.
He said it was a fast car out of the box, coming ready to run stock standard with the capability to do an impressive 128km/h.
"I overheated the stock electronics at that speed and decided it was time for something new so I converted the car from 6s power to 8s," Cooper said.
On 8s he was able to clock an impressive personal best of 228km/h down Conrod Straight at Mount Panorama.
"Swapping out the electronics wasn't the only thing that helped me achieve such a ridiculous speed," Cooper said.
"I custom made air dams for the front wheel wells, fitted some side chassis plates to reduce air going up under the body and also keep rocks out.
"I changed a few plastic parts out for some more stable aluminium ones such as the chassis braces front/rear and front steering knuckles," he said.
The next thing for Cooper was to set all the suspension, ride height, camber/caster toe in and toe out.
"...As well as the most important thing, gear ratios for pinion/spur which I'm still trying to find a good balance for," he said.
The current official world record, documented by the Radio Operated Scale Speed Association (ROSSA) is 151.18mph (243.3 km/h), which was achieved in the UK in 2018.
Unfortunately, says Cooper, to break the current world record he will have modify his RC car back to 6s.
"There are several different classes for each kind of RC car and power system. My car is considered 'electric open wheel' which limits me to only using 6s," he said.
When it comes to modifying, Cooper said sadly Lithgow doesn't have an RC hobby shop.
"It's nearly two hours to the nearest one so I make up a lot of things or order them online from Victoria," he said.
Cooper has had help along the way to build his RC car and wanted to thank the following:
- Sponsors: Cuddle Cakes and Panorama Security Services,
- Thompson's Bolts and Bearings Lithgow
- RUSH RC in Perth
He will attempt the world record in Sydney on Saturday, September 27 along with a group of other people, some who are also attempting the same record as well as others attempting different class records.