markbt73

I like it! It handles well, and doesn't feel as tippy as I thought it would. The steering still feels awful to me, so I'm working on engineering a solution for that. And it feels overgeared, but most monster trucks from that era do; they were all trying to get more speed out of them. Otherwise, I'm impressed.

Hey, now I can play too! Here's the Hi-Rider Corvette that I restored earlier this year.

Kyosho front wheel bearings are 4x8mm, so you can use 5x8mm (1150 in Tamiya-speak) and they'll drop right on. The standard Scorpion rear tires might fit on Grasshopper wheels, actually. Worth a try.

Grasshopper II re-re, basic radio, S3003 servo, basic charger, and a couple decent-capacity NiMH packs. All dead-reliable, all user-friendly. 380 motor is a good place to start, and includes a brass pinion, no need to paint the body unless you want to, bearings are like $10 when the time comes.

People like Facebook and Instagram and whatnot because it feeds that short-attention-span "hey, that's cool" desire to be constantly entertained. Bored? Just keep scrolling. The trouble is that when someone does find something genuinely interesting, "Hey," that's cool" becomes "I want one," which then becomes "It took how long to make? You mean I can't just order one off Amazon? Forget it." Scroll. And I know a lot of artisans and craftspeople who resent it, because social media is the only way to promote what they do these days, but the constant pressure to feed the ever-hungry content monster means they have to waste what could be creative time taking photos or filiming reels or answering a thousand stupid questions in the comments. And doing that across three or four different platforms makes it hard to keep up. That short-attention-span focus on quantity rather than quality, that constant chase for the next scrap of entertainment, makes any meaningful discussion of craft or process impossible. It cheapens everything we as humans do, reduces hours and days and weeks and months of hard work down to a single photograph, spat out and then gone again in a blur. My more cynical side says that's exactly the point - we're not supposed to take time to consider things any more. We're supposed to see something cool for sale, be overwhelmed with the desire to own it, buy it, and then seek out the next object of desire. People complain about too many ads on Facebook and Instagram, but don't kid yourself - everything on there is an ad. You are being sold an image you want to portray, a lifestyle you want to achieve, whether it's hiking in the wilderness or exploring the markets of some exotic foreign city or covering yourself in artisinal jewelry or even curating a collection of model cars. You're not supposed to seek out information on something you're legitimately interested in; you're supposed to want what they have. Sometimes I think we'd all be better off if we just turned the whole thing off and forgot it ever existed.

So that 4-pack of Rally Legends body shells arrived, faster than expected, and with an included bonus of four sets of touring car rims. I'm stashing the two Alitalia bodies away for now, waiting for inspiration, but I'm building out the Monte Carlo Fiat and the San Remo Lancia. First, a word on the quality. Don't expect miracles. The molds are pretty good, quite good actually, but the paint/finish is only OK, and the decals are very hard to work with. They're extra-thick; I think they laminated them with a clear overlaminate, and it made them bulky and hard to bend. These will be fine for a runner, but they're not a shortcut to a really good looking rally car. For the Lancia, I decided to make it look something like the old Tamiya rally cars - the Opel, Audi, and Lancia 037 - with the wheels poking out of an off-road chassis. I've chosen a Terra Scorcher, partly because I never really liked the stock body. I think it sits on there rather well: It's just sitting on there for now, resting on the front bumper and the stock rear wing, but I think this is about where it will be. I just need to fab up some mounts. The stock Terra Scorcher tires fot tightly on the Rally Legends wheels, but I'm not sure they're staying. We'll see. The blue and white Fiat will be more properly scale, on a Kyosho Fazer chassis. This is how the body came out of the bag, but with the masking peeled off. The windows are clear on this one, but a little hazy, and there are some bleeds and runs in the stripes. But for the price, I won't complain. I'm not overly fond of the provided wheels, so I have a couple other options on order. Again, this is just sitting on the body posts, not at its final height or position. Makes a nice change, I think, from the glut of navy blue and yellow Olio Fiats that are starting to show up... I'll post some more photos when I get a chance. As for the Alitalia bodies, I'm thinking I want them to be rear-wheel-drive, like the actual cars are. I'm waiting to hear more about that BT-01 chassis that's coming soon, to see if that's an option. Or there's always RWD drift chassis... I guess we'll see how it goes. Stay tuned...

I like the wheels on the PR. Otherwise both it and the G-Force just look like Losi XXX knockoffs.

Will do. I'll probably start a long build thread for all of them this weekend.

Today I got... Rally Legends! As advertised: Two Lancia Stratoses (Pirelli and Alitalia) and two Fiat 131s (Monte Carlo and Alitalia) for $118 shipped. Even better, they threw in wheels to go with all 4! Quality seems... ok? Not Tamiya or HPI level, but as good as or better than some Carson bodies I got years ago. Strangely, the decal sheet in this one is missing the Pirelli sponsorship; I wonder if there was a dispute over licensing or something. Those decals seem to have just been peeled off the sheet. One of these is going on a Kyosho Fazer, and one on a TT02, and the others? Not sure yet.

One trick for the inside corners is to make a tiny round hole with a pin vise or body reamer first, then cut up to the edge of the hole with the knife. That way you're not trying to round out a sharp inside corner; you're never creating one in the first place.

OK, Tamiya, if you're listening, here's what I want: This chassis, with parts for all 3 drivetrain layouts included, along with full bearings, CVA shocks, a silver-can motor, and a 1060 ESC... but NO body, wheels, or tires. Sell it for $150 or less street price, and I'll buy at least 2 right off the bat.

Honestly, I have to go with the original Grasshopper/Hornet. It may not handle "well," but it's still an excellent test of drivng skill. If you can keep a stock Hornet on the track and shiny-side- up, you know what you're doing. They're cheap to buy, tough as nails, endlessly fun to tinker with, and look amazing. Honorable menion, though it's not a buggy, to the Clod Buster, for the same reasons (except the "cheap" part).

Amain has the Optima Mid and Turbo Optima on sale, which has me once again hemming and hawing over a Mid....

Amain does a good job. They're usually my go-to if RPP Hobby doesn't have what I'm looking for (they're mostly crawler/scaler oriented). I've never mail-ordered from Hub, but I've sure bought a lot of kits from them - I used to live about a mile from one of their stores. Knowing the sort of folks who work there, I'd be surprised if they were anything less than meticulous about packing.

So I went looking for a body for a Kyosho Fazer chassis I have sitting around, and stumbled across this lot: https://www.ebay.com/itm/275431573587 Four Rally Legends painted bodies for $100 plus shipping? Gotta be a catch, right? Well, the feedback all looked good, so I went ahead and took the plunge. I'll report back when they get here, which according to the listing, might take a while. If it's legit, and the quality is acceptable (for runners; that's all I'm after), this is a screaming deal.

I've got a box-stock-except-for-bearings TT02 that I'm still getting to know. It drives pretty well, even with the pogo sticks and sloppy steering. So far my only complaint is th same complaint I have with most longitudinal motor shaft-drive models: it turns easier one direction than the other. Not torque steer exactly, it doesn't pull, but if you try to turn at speed one way, it turns, but go the other way (right I think) and it just understeers unless you hit the brakes. It's frustrating. But overall, I think it's a worthy successor to Tamiya's entry-level lineage. Tough, simple, inexpensive, and easy to fiddle with. I'll probably end up hacking it all to bits and doing something weird with it eventually, but not yet.

It's an original. The re-re doesn't even have the mounting plate for the MSC, just a tube brace to bridge the gap. Nor does it include that guard over the servo saver, I don't think.

On the other Optima I restored, I just used a 32 pitch pinion gear with a 5mm center hole, and some bushings to get the spacing right. Way cheaper, and hardened steel. I'll probably do the same thing here.

The old TA01/02 touring cars came with a ball diff in the rear and a gear diff in the front. I tried swapping them once or twice and didn't really notice much difference. But experimentation is always fun, so give it a try, I say.

Probably the re-re Hotshot for me, actually. Love the look, but the bump steer, the cruise-ship turning radius, the weird shock setup, and the horrible chassis access made me not want to deal with it. It's not a kit I had any nostalgia for; I just thought it was cool, and it really let me down. I have a Bigwig re-re now that fixes all the problems, and I like it a lot more. (Dis)honorable mention: the SRB. Again, it looks fantastic, but so does the Kyosho Scorpion/Beetle/Tomahawk, and it just does everything better.

You know how sometimes you spot something you think is a bargain, but when it arrives, you understand why? Yeah, this thread will be about one of those. Behold, the $150 Turbo Optima that I bought off eBay last week: Cheap Chinese wheels and tires, a chopped-off bumper to clear them, and a Castle brushless system that absolutely doesn't belong (and seemingly doesn't work). But on the other hand, it's a complete vintage Turbo Optima in decent shape. Or so I thought, until I started taking it apart. This is why I've given it the name Project Speed Holes. Someone made Swiss cheese out of all the aluminum parts, I suppose in an effort to "lighten" it. Half the fasteners were missing or loose, the other half were seized. That's one of the steering bellcrank screws sticking out of the chassis rail there. It's a permanent resident of that hole. But on the other hand, it has an original Option House belt-drive conversion in good shape, four good original gold shocks, and all the plastic parts are fine. In fact, some parts are nicer than my restored shelfer Optima; I may do some mixing and matching. I can work with it. I've ordered new rails and plates, re-re parts in gold, because they're all I could find. It'll be fine. This will be a runner anyway. It will get either a re-re Javelin cage or a Marwan Optima body; I haven't decided which yet. I have both. Wheels and tires are still up in the air; I'll try a few things and see what works best. Stay tuned; this could get even uglier.

I was just trying to figure out in my head how many parts are in a Grasshopper kit. Unless I'm forgetting something, it's around 180 parts including fasteners.

Had to Google her, as us Yanks are unfamiliar. My goodness... Anyway, nice work! My wife and I recently were forced into an impromptu remodel of our entire downstairs, including my workshop/office. A sewer drain backed up and flooded everything about an inch deep, trashing the carpet. It has taken three weeks, but we finally have everything cleaned up, new click-lock flooring installed, repainted, reorganized, got rid of a lot of things that were just taking up space. it's much nicer now. Feels good to tidy everything up, no matter how much it feels like a waste of time before you start.

Salute! (Just kidding, nobody liked the Salute.)

I would guess that most people won't get any benefit out of most hop-ups. Careful assembly and setup, correct tires, and driving skill all seem to be far more important than chasis or shock material. And drifting too far away from the factory-recommended setup on a car where everything is adjustable, like an RC10, can make it drive a lot worse. Sometimes fixed suspension links are better. And we all know, even if we won't admit, that stock plastic parts are better for durability than shiny blue aluminum. However, I will amend that with one thing I remember from my pan-car days: switching from a fiberglass Bolink Eliminator to a graphite RC10LSO made a huge difference. Not that it was immediately faster or anything, but changes in setup actually did something, rather than geting soaked up by chassis flex. But again, it made it easier to get "dialed out." Suddenly tiny changes to one thing would cause new problems somewhere else. Maybe that's what the RC10 guys were talking about. The only cars I've ever really gone crazy on hop-ups for were a TL01 and my first Clod Buster, which ended up a full-on ESP Clodzilla III eventually. The TL01 speed-tuned gear set and TRF shocks made a big difference, I'm not sure the lightweight carbon drive shaft or ball difs did anything. And I know the lightweight alloy king pins didn't do anything except look racy and make me feel cool. But sometimes that's enough... Obviously a stock Clod and a full-race Clod are completely different species. Is one "better" than the other? Hard to say. More capable, certainly. More durable, maybe. Cooler? ...Yeah... More fun? That depends.