Restoring my old 1989 Kyosho Raider for my son.

I got this around 1989 when I was in Jr. High. It was my first hobby grade R/C kit after my first R/C car that was a black Nikko Typhoon from Service Merchandise.

I ordered it from Tower Hobbies along with the Kyosho Pulsar Pro 2000 transmitter/receiver/servo package. Drove it for a few years, then left the hobby for around 20 years. I happened to dig it out of my parents' shed so that I could see if I could salvage this and a Kyosho Tracker that I had sitting in there for my son.

Straight out of storage. The Manual Speed Controller that you see on there is a newer replacement from the Kyosho that I got later on. The one that came with the car is an even older model with all the contact points exposed... which I still have. As you can see... the stock leMans 05 motor is still in there. Unfortunately, I painted the front wheels green, and the rear wheels I traded for a set of 3 different ones back when I was younger. The rear wing is something I added on later from something else. Anyway, took it out and started cleaning it with a disposable toothbrush.

I ordered a body from ebay since my original one apparently went missing, and it had a terrible paint job anyway from what I remember. My son likes the color blue, so I decided to paint it a metallic blue.

Finally got the car up and running using a Hobbywing Quicrun 1060 Brushed ESC, Airtronics 371W receiver paired with Sanwa MK-V Transmitter. The original shocks/dampers were in bad shape. 2 of them had cracks in the tubes which was fairly common for this car. I took them off and replaced them with Kyosho FD-37 FD-38 ultima oil filled dampers. I also painted the wheels I had back to white.

Ordered some repro decals made by MCI Racing. Not exactly the same as the original kit, and definitely not the same quality... but for this project, it'll do. I think it looks great now!

I have an old brushed twister scorpion motor that I might stick in this, and I'm considering upgrading the kyosho servo to maybe a savox servo or something stronger. I'm also looking into seeing if there is a way to improve the tie-rod/turnbuckle system that it's currently using to help it turn better.