Serpent S240 to S280... or something similar

Serpent launched years ago a model called S240. This racer's objective was to be the leading edge in the mini scale racer world: carbon fiber chassis, aluminum components all around, lipo powered… But in a world dominated by Kyosho in the 1/28 scale and HPI and XRAY in the 1/18, Serpent was just in nobody's land.

Serpent S240 www.serpent.com

The aim of this project is to add one more racer to the 1/28 scale scenario.

The idea to come back to life this model and race again with it is to make it smaller and closer to the 1/28 scale. To do that, big changes have been done in order to use only new CF elements and leaving all the aluminum components. To make this conversion, you will only have to download the files, send them to a custom cutting service (or cut by your own), buy some 3mm and 2mm spacers and put everything together.

The front suspension, originally a kind of oscillating-tilting front end, becomes and sliding knuckle type. Very easy to set-up and with lots of spring rates to choose from the Mini-Z hop-up universe.

Sliding knuckle suspension. Floating servo mount.

The rear suspension now uses a suspended t-plate using the groomets from the old front end. To set up the rear suspension it’s possible to use a disc damper system or side shocks with the original top shock or an hop-up Mini-Z one. The fact that the rear t-plate is now a separate element give countless possibilities to experiment with different materials, thickness and shapes of it.

20mm diameter, 11mm wide rims. Serpent differential. Single sided lipo mount.

There are also two possibilities regarding the differential. The first possibility is to use the Serpent S240 diff, that works quite well and it’s very easy to adjust but it’s very heavy and works only with it’s proprietary rims. In this case, i designed new 3d rims that fits the wheel hubs and respect the Mini-Z external dimensions, in wide (11mm) and super wide (14mm) width. Remember also to install a smaller spur, otherwise you will hit the track with it. The second possibility is to use a LM Mini-Z differential, quite radical as change as it looses the original idea of reusing all the Serpent hardware components, but the positive point is that you can use all mini-z rims.

20mm diameter, 14mm wide Kyosho rims and differential.

 Regarding the steering, the servo is mounted in a sliding plate allowing to install 10 to 12 mm height servos with center holes distance from 25.1 to 28.4mm. 

 To resume these are the new conversion specs(with 0 offset wheels) compared to the old Serpent specs:

• Wheelbase: 102mm (116mm)
• Width: 76mm (88mm)
• Track: Front 67,5mm (88mm)/ Rear 65mm (96mm)

Download* the DXF drawings using Serpent differential, you will need also 11mm rims or 14mm rims.

Download* the DXF drawings using LM Mini-Z differential.

*NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE