aaronmihe(2)

Welome Back Willy Yeah you've summed up my plans pretty well I think. I have mine coming with 24 BBs already. Part of my is thinking of adapting a regular body onto it (only need the road car "C" trees to get the body mounts) just for fun. For any other Aussies out there, check out www.radiomodels.com.au pretty reasonable pricing and delivery terms... For a while I'll run it with stock motor and an ESC, then bump it down to a 20T or so (the lowest the ESC will support), saving my better ESC for the '03 road car. I'm just looking forward to being about to run off the track slightly and not have to walk 200m to retrieve it

Well I bit the bullet and have ordered a BajaChamp + full bearing set from West Australia. While I understand the limitations I guess I was swayed by the fact that with the addition of some 'c' parts trees (and drive axles) from a regular TL-01 I could run it as a road car as well. Shoudl be here within 3-5 days! w00t! Thanks for everyones input, it was crucial in helping me make up my mind to accept the foibles of the model. Basically now I'm ready for them and will address them as I build it

Stadium Raider just went off the list. I'm leaning pretty srtongly towards the Baja Champ still, will have to check some prices and see what else fits the budget

What kind of surfaces are your running on? I'm thinking about picking up a Baja Champ and running it around one hard dirt and tarmac mostly. The comments about the gearing and load are very very interesting ;0 A.

mmm Blazing Star is available to me at a decent price but the others are a little harder to find. I've driven the Blazing Star and thought it wasn't bad, but parts seem a little scarce here, it is an old chassis is it not? Certainly I'm looking for a thrash around car, I wouldn't think the front suspension travel would make such a big deal to me as I'm not planning on going fully offroad, just rougher surfaces? I guess what I'm looking for is basically a road car with bigger wheels and some rough terrain capability. I do the hard packed surfaces only not soft sand etc.... The casing halves not sealing is an important consideration though, I expect there's ways to get around this as the dust and dirt could be a problem, but better to not have the problem at all. Don't mind me - having a blonde moment... I meant use the lowest gearing and the 16 turn, not th e highest gearing... ie not gear it for speed! So that'd be a 19 tooth I believe However I'm open for input on gearing/motor choices I haven't seen a Baja King cheap here so the Baja Champ was my thought. I have a spare set of oil dampers and would fully bearing it. I guess I'm torn in a couple of directions, I like the hopped up road car idea which is the Baja Champ, what about the Stadium Riader TL-01 thing? I guess it's either that or a Blazing Star? mmmm thanks for the input thus far, it's helping me work out limitations etc as much as anything else! A.

OK - I know it's a TL-01, I know it's not a 'real' buggy but is it a reasonable thing to own? Basically the guys I run with here have Stadium trucks, or older Tamiya Buggies (Frog/Bear Hawk/Blazing Star type) and we run on a combo of sealed carpark type area and dirt track/grassy hard dirt as well. I'm looking for a car that can do both with ease as up until now my cars have been road only. To me the Baja Champ looks like a good combo, I guess fitting an ESC and a 16 turn or so will make it nice and fast but how does it handle? Is it a good cross-over car? From bits I've read it looks like I'll be running with the biggest (23T) pinion I can from day one. Just want to get a feel for the car from peopel that have used it and see if I'm on the right track.

I have a spare M01 A- Parts Chassis set (not the end sections just the middle main chassis. Mint new condition. Drop me a line if you're interested

What's really scary is to ring them to gett eh duty classification and rate for a particular item. To highlight the example: Aaron rings customs to get the classification for the first shipment of Micro R/C cars to Australia. A: "G'Day I just want to get the tariff classification for some new stuff I'm importing" Customs Guy: "Yeah no worries mate - what's the item" A: "Micro scale radio controlled car" CG: "Ok so it's a Toy?" A: "Yup" CG: "Right - is it a electronic or mechanical toy?" A: "yup" CG: "OK - aer they complete or do they require assembly" etc ect ect 20 minutes it took to be sure we had the right classification and duty rate. Not CG's fault, just a complicated system

Nah - import duty still exisits as the same scary relaity these days On some goods it may have been cleaned up but it's still there in some form on most of it. http://www.customs.gov.au has some info that people may find handy

Errr - I used to do this for money (and still do to a lesser extent). basically you're paying more than 10% becasue with toy/hobbys stuff there's a 5% customs uplift on the price of the good a 10% GST on the (price of the good+5% of price of good)+shipping You also may have to pay duty at different rates for different items int he order. ie the ESC may be consuemer electronics and (for example) attract 20% duty instead. There are litterally thousands of duty categories and sub categories.... Basically in part it's a rip off, and in the other part also protects Aussies businesses from being undersold too easliy. The GST (and it's predessor) did make medium scale importing wortht eh effort

Mmmm been an interesting year for me... Good bits... * Got new 1:1 car (2002 Renault Clio Sport) * Got back into 1/10 R/C * Got into the mini and Micro R/C thing * Got out of a 7 year relationship * Got ausmicro.com running * Got new relationship Bad Bits... * ausmicro.com (and the sales business attached) have put me to the wall * The whole break-up thing was pretty nerveracking * I really did break my ankle a year ago and the only fix is to get it professionaly broken! * Got back into 1/10th R/C (now that's a money pit) * Day Job restructuring means I may be jobless

I wonder what these are worth in Australia.... *podners* I've been wanting to try the Faskolor (or whatever it's called) but with an AB it's worthless. Been having great success with cans/brushes on stuff I've done thus far...

Yeah - they're the two (front and rear) gearbox case bottoms... I can get replacements I think - but at something insane like AUD60 each I think I'll helicoil and threadlock them. For the moment I'll JBweld etc .... It's a shame becuase the rest of the car was in pretty good nick, just a couple of ther stuffed holes in plastic parts and a bunch of good gear. Drives very nice but does need a better motor than the stocker 540 I have in there at the moment. Maybe I'll pick up a 23T for a short time (The ESC I'm using with it at the moment should just handle that) A.

mmmm might pop into the hardware store and see what I can find. The two screws in question hold are the front two screws holding the FRP lower deck to an aftermarket alloy front "sub frame" (thinking in 1:1 terms) - the PO used self tappers for this and every other screw into the alloy. I suppose I shoudl just try to get a new alloy bit and do it right but money is tight at them moment. Helicoils are available in that kind of size, I've done smaller ones too - these are about 3 or 4 mm self tappers..

Yup - I've raided my pinions for the 3mm grub screws... Will pick up more from LHS when I'm out that way next. they;re now seriously tightened and thread locked. Todays run went excellently baring loosing two screws from hole which the PO stuffed the threads. Unfortunately it's into one of the alloy parts so I think l'll need to use a heli-coil and machine screw instead of the self tappers.

I've been told there a few slight differences - buckles on the harness type thing... Dunno it it's true but it wouldn't surprise me. They do fit in the same place though!

Heya guys, in desperation to counteract some of the temperature (current related) issues not to mention the chronic grit fouling issues with my 12 turn powered M-01 I have fabricated a dual MSC solution. I've thrown a pic into my gallery showing the work... OK I suspect it's a little crazy and I should just try and find the AUD150 for a no-limit ESC - but this is more fun! Reminds me I finally took my TA-03F out for its first shakedown run. Lost a grub screw in a belt pulley so did half the run in FWD only Where can I get grub screws? Aaron

Yeah it's true - no speed limits on most open raod in NT. But it's mainly becuase of the inability to police them than the quality of the roads.

Jumps into the queue behind Willy - Me too! $20AU bodykits *drools* Aaron

I would but I think it becomes a logistical nightmare Afterall where do we do it? and do I really want to drive for a few hours to get there

Hi Daniel, I'll get in first by saying the best hop-up you can do is replacing every one of those plastic bushes in the car with bearings. You'll get much improved performance and durability from them. Once you've done that I'd buy an ESC - they won't make the car faster but it'll drive much nicer - Brakes are cool and much better than crunching the gearbox flinging the motor into reverse when you really need to stop. The two sport tuned motors probably will run without an ESC but again for linear power control and the like you just can't beat the ESC. Once you have the bearings, ESC and motor dilemma sorted then you can probably think about gearing. There's a lot more popele here wiser than me when it comes to tuning R/C .... I just knwo the basic stuff

Yeah - if it was going cheap I'd be sorta keen - but it's already at AU$60+ which I feel is getting 'up there'for whgatt he car looks like. Thinking of E-bay AU anyone had a look at that Sand Scorcher.... I doubt it's a car I want to own - the XC's on the other hand (knowing that a 3 speeder is out of the question) look interesting to me. Just have to wait for one of them to come along at the right price

No joke two shocks don't cut it I'm looking forward to having the TA-03 on the road so to speak - it's got all the fruit happening. Until then I'll have to make do with the M-01 unless someone really starts throwing money at me like in my dreams And cosidering the stocker friction shocks weren't working at all this should be better For some reason after about 6 years the friction shocks were/are completely worn out.

*grins* Here at work we have a few R/C nuts with a motely collection of cars and as a bonus becuase of where I work we have a large asphalt area (like a carpark but not a carpark) about 100m square - possibly bigger. Anyway - a couple of weeks ago now I screwed a 12 turn hot motor into my much abused M-01 FWD chassis leaving the mechanical speed controller intact and making no other changes (friction shocks that were worn out etc). Had it's first shakedown run today! WoohOOOOOOOOO is all I can say - this this is so fast it's amazing. Contrary to most peoples advice there was no fire from the speed control (constant flat throttle) but I did wear through a set of almost new slick tyres! The expensive Tamiya ones at that Time to switch to the bigger touring car wheels I think. For even more speed! This just reminded me just how much I love the complete super toughness of the M-01... The just keep taking abuse! However after todays run I have given mine a treat and installed a pair of 55mm oil dampers spare from my TA-03 project. Shoudl improve the dicey handling a bit Aaron

mmm just did some digging in the manual archives... Similar looking chassis but very different beasts, I think I'll just have towait until I come across a real XC chassis Aaron.