markbt73

Yeah, you can say goodbye to the resistor. But look at it this way: you'll be able to practice your drag-racing launches. One other thing to watch for is that the wires and connectors don't get too hot. Make sure there's some ventilation so you don't melt (and probably short) anything.

Yep. Here's what it's supposed to look like: Cars like this are why some of us Americans are so envious of other countries' vehicles. For every cool muscle car or Jeep or what-have-you, there are TWENTY of these hideous lumps of plastic running around. OK, enough of GM's styling disasters. Next....

No need for metal gears. I'd bolt a brushless onto that gearbox and not worry a bit. The worst that can happen is if you crash, the axle tubes can break off. But the internals are basically indestructible.

Very close.

In keeping with the "used car" theme, you should use 2 of those wheels, and 2 of the HPI stock car steelies, painted to look rusty. For some reason cars like that never have all 4 matching wheels.

Thanks guys. I think I'll pop into the hobby shop and see if I can look at one up close.

There's no reason it has to be metric, either... if you're in the US, look for a 2-56 or 4-40 tap and a 1 inch screw. Easy to find at hobby shops; Du-Bro sells bags of 4 of most hardware like that.

Oh, you're giving me such ideas... I see terrible things in store for my Hotshot...

A 4-door Beretta does exist; it's called a Corsica. This isn't one. It's GM, but not a Chevy.

Someone needs to do a cross between this and an old Nikko car and call it the "Baldre-Dash."

Getting warmer. Here's another angle, so you have a little more to go on:

Didn't HPI make a super-size electric RS4 that took standard-size motors? That would be a good candidate, I would think... Or the Schumacher Big 6.

Nope, smaller. Front-wheel drive.

Nope, right country, but a few years too new and wrong manufacturer. This car is on every street in the US, but probably pretty much unknown outside North America. A photo of a crunched one might be a bit unfair, but we'll see.

Tamiya Part # 9805997, 18t pinion. I'm sure if you ask around someone here has a spare (or five). Other 18t 32 pitch pinions should work, but no other size. The mount isn't adjustable. The motor bolts right in place of the 380 and its adapter plate. The re-issue Grasshopper instructions show exactly how to mount it.

Fireflite is the other model name I couldn't think of.... I just looked it up and the only two models left by 1960 were Adventurer and Fireflite. For '61, there were no nodel names anymore, it was just DeSoto. See if you can identify this quality piece of engineering:

That's totally a '60 DeSoto grille. I'm looking up the model variations now, but back then, the body/chassis was the same from model to model; only the trim was different.

1960 DeSoto Firedome, or possibly Adventurer. As made famous in the "Sam & Max" comics and video game.

Since moving to Portland, I haven't been able to drive any of my cars outside. It's winter here, and that means rain. And the nearest indoor track is 15 miles away, and their open practice times conflict with my schedule. So I have been running my HPI Micro RS4 in the house a little bit. It's fun, and the cats love chasing it, but I'm having a few problems. The slicks and low ground clearance just don't cut it for running on carpet, and the car is still a little too big and cumbersome to run in the living room. Enter the Micro-T. What a brilliant idea! But are they worth it? Do they hold up? Are they as much fun as they look? Does anyone have one?

That was my first thought as well, some flavor of Lancia Fulvia.

He what?!? If you can't or won't play with your own toys, then they're wasted on you. That said, is he hiring?

I'm not crazy about the appearance of the B4 - the shocks behind the tower just doesn't do it for me. I like its competitor the Losi XXX better from a styling standpoint. I had a B3 and it was an amazing performer and a decent basher, just a little characterless. What you'll find with the B4, and Associated vehicles in general, is that they're a little hard to get excited about; the box-stock setup works well for 90% of the time, and no hop-up parts really make a huge difference to the performance. There's just not a lot to tinker with, not much room for improvement. They're reliable as a hammer, and very strong, so if you want a car to just drive the wheels off, it's a fantastic choice. But I got bored with mine, since I don't race anymore. The DT02 chassis, to me, looks like a grudging nod by Tamiya engineers that the Associated, Kyosho, and Losi designers have perfected the 2WD buggy architecture, and if they want to be taken seriously, they had better stick to the formula. In all honesty, that homogenization of architecture is one of the reasons I stopped racing; all the cars looked the same. But this sort of no-holds-barred performance is not Tamiya's strong suit, and the DT02 has the shape but not the engineering or the materials. So it seems neither fish nor fowl, not a proven performer like the others, but lacking the quirky charm of Tamiya's older designs. What's funny is that I was looking at a Sand Viper the other day, but for a totally different reason: I keep thinking about taking a modern buggy design and adding a Wild One/FAV-style scale roll cage to it.

This is a fun thread... Gotta throw my 2 cents in. I have to go back to my analogy from another thread about carburetors. The Nissan Pathfinder out in my carport has fuel injection and electronic ignition and overhead cams, and it starts and runs reliably, even with over 300,000 miles on it. But does that mean that my old Chevy Nova, with its Rochester carburetor and pushrod V8 was useless? Nope, it ran fine too. It just needed more maintenance and more frequent repairs. The difference is that I could fix anything on the Nova, whereas I'd be lost without the repair manual for the Pathfinder. If you're complaining about Tamiya speed controls, be glad you never had to deal with the old Kyosho ones, or any of the old "wiper arm" designs. I remember actually fitting a Tamiya MSC into my friend's RC10 for him because the Associated speed control was such junk, and again, didn't have reverse. He was jealous of the speed control in my Tamiya cars, so we got one and made it work. The Tamiya 3-stepper was a huge improvement, even if we did have to screw it in place with little blocks of wood. The alternative was prohibitively expensive; an ESC would have cost almost as much as his whole car did, and he still wouldn't have had reverse. For bashing, an ESC was actually a detriment, especially since we both had a tendency to drive with the throttle wide open anyway. For a while, even after I had a couple ESCs, I still used the MSC that came with Tamiya kits because it was just easier to do that than keep swapping out the ESC between cars, and buying another ESC was an expense I wasn't willing to pay. And I never liked ESCs before the pushbutton setups came around. I never quite understood what I was adjusting with those potentiometers on the old ones. That said, the TEU101 is the best thing ever to happen to Tamiya kits, IMO. One piece of tape, a few wires to plug in, and boom, you're done. It made things much easier when I decided to get his-and-hers Lunchboxes for my wife and me; she was perplexed enough by the build process without having to set up a mechanical speedo too. I like the way it works, too, with the "double-click" reverse. And since I don't bother with anything beyond standard 540 power in most cars, the little black box is a great way to go. It really cuts down the expense of adding a car to the fleet. Now, if I had a vintage car, would I go back to a mechanical setup? That depends. If I were building something from a kit, or found a new-built or decent shape runner that already had an MSC, I'd probably leave it alone. If I were restoring something or building it from parts, there is no way I'd bother tracking down all the parts to set up the MSC. Not worth the time or effort for me; I don't care about originality that much. Back to the real-car analogy, would I bother fixing up the drum brakes on an old pickup truck? No way, not if I could just as easily bolt on modern disc brakes.

Nice-looking project you've got there. The TA01/TA02 was always one of my favorites. I have a couple tips for you: -There's a no-cost (or very low cost) way to fix the driveshaft wobble: Remove the black plastic cups that hold the shaft in place and replace them with short sections of rubber tubing (I used to use just regular old fuel tubing). 3/16 inch or 4mm inside diameter is about right. The gearbox shafts are 5mm, but you want it to fit nice and tight. It holds the shaft tight and centers it; presto, no more wobble. And way cheaper than the alloy driveshaft. BTW, this works on any car with this chassis: Manta Ray, Blazing Star, Hummer, etc. -Another old trick with these is to get some 3mm O-rings (when you rebuild your shocks, save the O-rings for this purpose) and put them over the brass ball-ends before you snap the steering links on. This takes up most of the play in the steering. -The rear arms actually give the car a little rear toe-in for stability. If you flip the arms around, this will change to toe-out and it will be hard to drive. If you want a shorter wheelbase, find some TA01 rear arms (you have to replace both the upper and lower). This is exactly how Tamiya made the SWB version of this chassis, so any of the short bodies should drop right on. But don't try to just flip the arms. -Oh, and the other bearing sizes that don't look familiar to you are 8x5mm (little bronze ones on the gear shafts), 12x6mm (outer front hubs), and 15x10mm (inner front hubs), for ease of shopping.

I believe the third pic is the bumper and body mounts for a Double Dare or maybe a Hi-Rider Vette, but I'm not positive. Don't recognize the other two.