Well, if you looked at the model in the listings, it is a picture of mine. Ioriginally had a Trinity Monster Revenge stock motor in it and a Futaba MC330CR ESC. It handled well and was quite quick, but not good enough for me. I then bought and intalled a Novak GTS ESC and a EPIC 13x2 motor. The car runs like it is on fire now and still handles like a dream. Tamiya did a wonderful job not only on the chassis, and drivetrain design, but also the rubber compound on the tires is very worthy of a racer. It hooks up good in dirt, but does not wear down fast on Tarmac. I have 2 runs on the stock motor and 6 runs on the Modified 13T motor and the treads are starting to show some wear, but very slightly.
As for durability, the Dark Impact is great. I hit a wood picket fence at full speed and came away with just some white scuff marks! Nothing broke! I can not saythe same for the fence as I took a 4 inch by 1 inch chunk out of it......LOL
Now for the bad things! Since my motor was a special motor, it is designed a little different that your regular end bell. I had to shave some of the chassis where you insert the motor to get it to fit and mount right. Tamiya could have gave a little more room for motor mounting to allow for different set ups. As for the battery compartment, it is way too enclosed. My battery packs get way too hot and this is due to a modified motor I know, but being so enclosed and wrapped in hard plastic doesn't help. I think it would be best for tamiya to come out withn aluminum battery door to help get rid of some of that heat.
If you plan on purchasing a D.I. make sure your gear is small enough to fit as Tamiya designed it to be very light weight with minimal chassis. So space is tight. A full size ESC or big receiver will not fit. I even went as far as to take the receiver circuit board out of plastic case and put in balloon so I could mount it where I wanted to, vice it being crammed right up against my ESC which is about the smallest ESC you can get.
For more info, visit my showroom listingsof the D.I.
Here is the build review of the dark impact, the new 4WD off road racecar from tamiya.
First off, go and find yourself a 2.5mm drill bit and small manual drill unless you have a very good grip. Now to the box, all the plastics are in there own bags and the rest i.e. metal and gears are in another bag. As I’m sure we all know (but never do) you should read the manual all the way through before starting, and if you do this then at the end you have another picture of the neo shot (the car that never was) to brighten your expectations of this kit.
Anyway the first thing you have to do is build the rear diff and this is of a touring car design but with hard metal out drives instead of plastic. Simple, light and hopefully effective so make sure it’s nice and tight and there is the added bonus of shims to make it fit like a glove into the rear gearbox ass’y. Next are the counter gear (idle) main shaft (spur drive) and propeller shafts; these are also shimmed for a great fit. Next fit the top cover, motor mount, spur gear and motor with standard gear ratio of 9.17: 1 with 0.6 pitch gears. Now it’s time to finish the rest of the back end with rear shock tower held firmly in place with 4 not 2 screws then the wing mounts and you get a spare pair of them as well on the spru. Wishbones are very hard and feel very solid and have three shock positions, a place for the roll bars to fit and have shock mounting positions at the rear as well? Is the suspension reversible? Rear hubs are again touring car style with a grub screw holding the shaft in place and this is where you need the 2.5mm drill as the hole the grub screw goes into is not made and you have to make it yourself so make sure it’s a 2.5 not a 2.7 or your grub screw will not have anything in the hub to screw into, so no E clips to fall off but a drill to find (I don’t like this idea and will fit standard ones on the race car) The only other thing about the rear end is the lack of anti squat, what is that you may ask? Well ill tell you, on all good off road cars you have a degree of anti squat and this means that the rear wishbones are angled up at the front end to help it ride (get over easily) the bumps in the track like the front end is on all off roaders. Fit the rear gearbox ass’y to the chassis and it’s on to the front diff.
This again is like a touring car one plain and simple with shims for it and the propeller shaft and that’s the front gearbox, easy. Fit the shock tower to the top (again with four screws) and then you fit (what the DF-02 needed) a front lower wishbone holder to the chassis with posts for the touring car style steering. Put the easy but weak steering together and fit it, then screw on your front gearbox to the chassis not forgetting the prop shaft witch is very light and feels strong. Fitting the front wishbones is easy but don’t be put off with the fact that the 48.5mm shaft is too long, they are the same on the back and I don’t know why? The front hubs are the same as the rears so get out the drill again and the kingpins are from a TA-05/04/EVO’s with left and right-handed knuckles. Fit that all together with the standard 4WD size dog bones (drive shafts) and that’s the drive built.
Now on to the most annoying part of the car: the shocks. These are yet again touring car shocks with big shafts in them and are very weak for off road use. They are the same as the DF-02 and DT-02 and if you build them and stop before filling with oil you can see that the when you hold the shock body the shaft when full out can wobble from front to back and side to side. I have the blue upgrade shocks on my DF-02 and DT-02 and these are no better and will leek when used on a real off road track with jumps and hard corners. The only thing you can do is use the TRF silicon o-ring set part number to fit one good o-ring in the top and a metal bushing or hard plastic spacer in the bottom to stop it doing this (the best thing is to put hi-caps on it as they are still the best) After you build and fit the shocks it’s radio gear time.
The steering servo is in the back of the car 108mm away from the steering ass’y so don’t bother putting a great torque servo in it as you’ll just bend the rod and still get bad steering and the next thing to do is find a nice small receiver and Speedo to fit in the little gap they give you. Don’t put your Speedo on its side or you will burn the side of your body and there is no vent hole in the body to get air in to it to keep it cool. Now for the first time ever we have a set of wheels you can put other makes of tyres on WHOOPYY!!! The old problem with every tamiya wheel was the rear set where not wide enough for everyone else’s tyres to fit properly on and you would get bulge in the middle without even running it so I finally can fit the race tyres I need to standard wheels AND there BLACK YESS! Fit the wheels, front and rear bumpers and make the battery stopper pin ass’y and the car is done.
The body is very nice, very low and very tough for a tamiya and is easy to spray (no masking) then fit the decals. There is one note for you all about the decals THEY STRETCH so when you come to fit the big black/red/white star on the side you will be wise to fit it gently and only cut off a bit of the backing at a time, start at the bottom and work up and then along to get it right because if you try to pull it off it will stretch and not be easy to put right. All in all not a bad car and it should go ok when they bring out roll bars and a slipper clutch plus you can fit the very nice 70mm DF-02 cvd style uj’s in it. It will be interesting to run at kiddy and all the other meetings this year and it means that I can finally put the DF-02 on the shelf where it was always meant to live and off the track as the evil-ution will be the spare car for this season.
And as it says on the wing sticker BUGGY RACING COME & GET IT.
Reviews
Tamiya King
Well, if you looked at the model in the listings, it is a picture of mine. Ioriginally had a Trinity Monster Revenge stock motor in it and a Futaba MC330CR ESC. It handled well and was quite quick, but not good enough for me. I then bought and intalled a Novak GTS ESC and a EPIC 13x2 motor. The car runs like it is on fire now and still handles like a dream. Tamiya did a wonderful job not only on the chassis, and drivetrain design, but also the rubber compound on the tires is very worthy of a racer. It hooks up good in dirt, but does not wear down fast on Tarmac. I have 2 runs on the stock motor and 6 runs on the Modified 13T motor and the treads are starting to show some wear, but very slightly.
As for durability, the Dark Impact is great. I hit a wood picket fence at full speed and came away with just some white scuff marks! Nothing broke! I can not saythe same for the fence as I took a 4 inch by 1 inch chunk out of it......LOL
Now for the bad things! Since my motor was a special motor, it is designed a little different that your regular end bell. I had to shave some of the chassis where you insert the motor to get it to fit and mount right. Tamiya could have gave a little more room for motor mounting to allow for different set ups. As for the battery compartment, it is way too enclosed. My battery packs get way too hot and this is due to a modified motor I know, but being so enclosed and wrapped in hard plastic doesn't help. I think it would be best for tamiya to come out withn aluminum battery door to help get rid of some of that heat.
If you plan on purchasing a D.I. make sure your gear is small enough to fit as Tamiya designed it to be very light weight with minimal chassis. So space is tight. A full size ESC or big receiver will not fit. I even went as far as to take the receiver circuit board out of plastic case and put in balloon so I could mount it where I wanted to, vice it being crammed right up against my ESC which is about the smallest ESC you can get.
For more info, visit my showroom listingsof the D.I.
Evoman
Here is the build review of the dark impact, the new 4WD off road racecar from tamiya.
First off, go and find yourself a 2.5mm drill bit and small manual drill unless you have a very good grip. Now to the box, all the plastics are in there own bags and the rest i.e. metal and gears are in another bag. As I’m sure we all know (but never do) you should read the manual all the way through before starting, and if you do this then at the end you have another picture of the neo shot (the car that never was) to brighten your expectations of this kit.
Anyway the first thing you have to do is build the rear diff and this is of a touring car design but with hard metal out drives instead of plastic. Simple, light and hopefully effective so make sure it’s nice and tight and there is the added bonus of shims to make it fit like a glove into the rear gearbox ass’y. Next are the counter gear (idle) main shaft (spur drive) and propeller shafts; these are also shimmed for a great fit. Next fit the top cover, motor mount, spur gear and motor with standard gear ratio of 9.17: 1 with 0.6 pitch gears. Now it’s time to finish the rest of the back end with rear shock tower held firmly in place with 4 not 2 screws then the wing mounts and you get a spare pair of them as well on the spru. Wishbones are very hard and feel very solid and have three shock positions, a place for the roll bars to fit and have shock mounting positions at the rear as well? Is the suspension reversible? Rear hubs are again touring car style with a grub screw holding the shaft in place and this is where you need the 2.5mm drill as the hole the grub screw goes into is not made and you have to make it yourself so make sure it’s a 2.5 not a 2.7 or your grub screw will not have anything in the hub to screw into, so no E clips to fall off but a drill to find (I don’t like this idea and will fit standard ones on the race car) The only other thing about the rear end is the lack of anti squat, what is that you may ask? Well ill tell you, on all good off road cars you have a degree of anti squat and this means that the rear wishbones are angled up at the front end to help it ride (get over easily) the bumps in the track like the front end is on all off roaders. Fit the rear gearbox ass’y to the chassis and it’s on to the front diff.
This again is like a touring car one plain and simple with shims for it and the propeller shaft and that’s the front gearbox, easy. Fit the shock tower to the top (again with four screws) and then you fit (what the DF-02 needed) a front lower wishbone holder to the chassis with posts for the touring car style steering. Put the easy but weak steering together and fit it, then screw on your front gearbox to the chassis not forgetting the prop shaft witch is very light and feels strong. Fitting the front wishbones is easy but don’t be put off with the fact that the 48.5mm shaft is too long, they are the same on the back and I don’t know why? The front hubs are the same as the rears so get out the drill again and the kingpins are from a TA-05/04/EVO’s with left and right-handed knuckles. Fit that all together with the standard 4WD size dog bones (drive shafts) and that’s the drive built.
Now on to the most annoying part of the car: the shocks. These are yet again touring car shocks with big shafts in them and are very weak for off road use. They are the same as the DF-02 and DT-02 and if you build them and stop before filling with oil you can see that the when you hold the shock body the shaft when full out can wobble from front to back and side to side. I have the blue upgrade shocks on my DF-02 and DT-02 and these are no better and will leek when used on a real off road track with jumps and hard corners. The only thing you can do is use the TRF silicon o-ring set part number to fit one good o-ring in the top and a metal bushing or hard plastic spacer in the bottom to stop it doing this (the best thing is to put hi-caps on it as they are still the best) After you build and fit the shocks it’s radio gear time.
The steering servo is in the back of the car 108mm away from the steering ass’y so don’t bother putting a great torque servo in it as you’ll just bend the rod and still get bad steering and the next thing to do is find a nice small receiver and Speedo to fit in the little gap they give you. Don’t put your Speedo on its side or you will burn the side of your body and there is no vent hole in the body to get air in to it to keep it cool. Now for the first time ever we have a set of wheels you can put other makes of tyres on WHOOPYY!!! The old problem with every tamiya wheel was the rear set where not wide enough for everyone else’s tyres to fit properly on and you would get bulge in the middle without even running it so I finally can fit the race tyres I need to standard wheels AND there BLACK YESS! Fit the wheels, front and rear bumpers and make the battery stopper pin ass’y and the car is done.
The body is very nice, very low and very tough for a tamiya and is easy to spray (no masking) then fit the decals. There is one note for you all about the decals THEY STRETCH so when you come to fit the big black/red/white star on the side you will be wise to fit it gently and only cut off a bit of the backing at a time, start at the bottom and work up and then along to get it right because if you try to pull it off it will stretch and not be easy to put right. All in all not a bad car and it should go ok when they bring out roll bars and a slipper clutch plus you can fit the very nice 70mm DF-02 cvd style uj’s in it. It will be interesting to run at kiddy and all the other meetings this year and it means that I can finally put the DF-02 on the shelf where it was always meant to live and off the track as the evil-ution will be the spare car for this season.
And as it says on the wing sticker BUGGY RACING COME & GET IT.