BritCrawler

The key there is it's the 'must-have' game. To be a 'must-have' it has to be unreservedly, unflinchingly and without doubt the most awesome racing game ever. If it's not it'll not have been worth it. *That's* supposedly why it's taken so long. Oh I do hope it gets here soon. I've had my PS3 about 9 months (bought it for the then postponed March release of GT5, oddly enough) and have probably used it about 15 times. Really sad as I love it to bits but without GT5 it's not the same. I'd still play GT4 but my PS2 is about on it's last legs.

Apart from the suspension, hubs and 4 drive shafts, the Manta Ray is pretty much the same as a TA-01 and DF-01. You can still get most spares for those, including the ball bearing kits, so that's one starting point. Also, the alloy centre driveshaft for the TA-01 (**not** the TA-02 - it's on a shorter bathtub) also fits the Manta Ray, I think. Steel motor pinions are a must on those. Stock ones wear like mad. I agree with the other threads, stick to an all nylon gearbox otherwise as the alloy gear sets wear too fast. I don't think the original Manta Ray ran Ball Diffs (its been a long time since I had mine) but TA-02 ball diffs might be a possible upgrade. Otherwise stick to the bevel gear diffs if they are in good condition. I also strongly recommend you get an Alloy motor mount as a priority to replace the crappy plastic one as they always break. The Yeah Racing one is the better one IMHO, as it's a one-piece design. The gearbox probably stripped as a result of the motor mount breaking under the strain of the mod motor. it causes major pinion/spur misalignment which is pretty fatal for the nylon spur gear! If you are just messing about, chuck a standard silver can in it and see how it goes, as I remember the Manta Ray wasn't half bad on a stock motor. If you want a bit more speed, a decent 27T, 21T or 19T might be more useful but you'll need a decent electronic speed controller with those, the manual one won't cut it for long. I've found from the TA-01s I pulled part a while back they tend to wear well. Be careful not to strip the threads in the plastic and it ought to come apart and go back together just fine. For parts eBay is your friend. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Jasons-Store (in Japan so shipping is a week or so) http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Tonys-Tamiya-Parts http://stores.ebay.co.uk/the-bitz-store All good places for Tamiya stock an Hop Up parts. http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Dinball Is a good starting place for other aftermarket alloy parts.

I have a Pre-Order in for the game and frankly I'll believe it when i put it in my PS3and find it's actually the whole game I *am* looking forward to GT5 a lot. Cannot wait to get my mits on it. Only disappointment for me is the car list has relatively few 2009/2010 model additions compared to GT4. Still, there are some tasty motors on there all the same Also they seem to have stuck with more or less the same mix of good World Circuits and lousy made-up tracks and stretches of mountain road. Get some more proper tracks in... please?! I hope the Playstation Store provides us with some added DLC entertainment to go with this, I'd love to see extra cars and tracks for sale on there.

Thanks for the tip about Masa and that mainshaft/gear, mate, got straight onto him about one. Would be sound if I could get one! Does anyone know where I could find some appropriate 12mm Hex x 5mm wideners for the DF-03? I have some beefier wheels for it that I'd like to try, but they foul the steering hubs at the front pretty badly.

Well for once my motor pinion setup was spot on - I went for the Hop-Up 23T pinion (nice and small to keep the gearing down) and it's fast and handleable, it gets warm but only warm, nothing's seriously hot after a 20 minute run out. I am generally pretty happy with it as a package, the 3Racing parts all went on really easily and fit nicely. I'm impressed by the fit and finish of the parts generally. The Titanium turn buckles are a good idea as it made adjusting the steering and camber on the build a lot easier. My only complaint is the clip-on ball joints are a little 'limp' on the turn buckles. i flipped it on it's first test run and popped one of the rear ones off the wheel hub. I don't know if there is sufficient clearance inside the wheels to fit thru-fit ball joints but i'd certainly like to try at the back. I can't do it at the front without significant faffing because the balljoints are part of the steering kingpins. I sleeved up the CVDs on the drive axles as I said to stop the pins moving - the sleeving extends back to the driveshaft to act as a partial boot to stop larger objects fouling the CVD. I've got miles of the heat-shrink sleeving so I'll strip, clean and re-sleeve the CVDs every 10 or so runs to prevent too much dust getting lodged in them. My only other issue now is I have a big of oversteer under acceleration. It might be running a tight clutch on loose ground, although it slips a plenty when pulling away, but I think it also might need a bit of tuning. Any suggestions?

It's pretty amazing seeing what kind of mods people did even back then. I'm astounded to see someone running a carbon fibre chassis pan in 1984. I thought those were a 90s invention! Must have cost them a royal mint at the time. Top stuff though

If it's killing your phone, wifi and 2.4 handsets it's something pretty strong. You don't have any Microwave transmitters, comms masts or buried nuclear bunkers nearby I take it? I've known broadcast signals, like cellphone, UHF/VHF and WiFi suffer dead spots before but for it to lose a handset that's only 50-100m away in direct line-of-sight is ver strange indeed. Would be interesting if you could find out if anything there was giving out a strong EM signature (I know it sounds all Star Trek-y) that might be flooding out your radio signals.

Believe me, for some of the popular Traxxas and HPI stuff you can get enough hop-ups to turn a 4WD MT into a Buggy and all sorts of other whacks things, like complete chassis conversions, just a case of knowing where to look. Exactly my point, they are great things to have, to build, to service, and to be honest they don't all drive like **** either

Ah yes. I get your point, but I'd go back a wee bit further possibly, but yes. You are correct, the really old stuff was less durability and more visual appeal. My bro ran a Terra Scorcher and while it was a great rig, it was regularly in bits having new arms or the like. That era was kinda of the 'inbetweeny' era, I think, where they started to go more towards mass-market, R/C oriented kits but hadn't quite got it sussed out completely.

There are a good deal of Hop-Ups out there for HPI, Traxxas and the like's stuff, I know, my Wheely King is about 80% alloy parts and hop-ups, there's very little of the original left! A good lot of them are not really performance enhancing, though. Many are just alloy Bling to make it looks pretty, or to fix known issues with the model. Don't get me wrong, some of them do make a difference.

Well, you have to consider a few things. They are a Japanese company, and are world leading experts in plastic moulding and model engineering techniques. Their static model kits are truly amazing in detail and design. They could, if they wanted to, and do for TRF stuff, push the boat out and produce the worlds finest everything. Think about it. Honda don't make too many hyper Sports Cars (NSX is about the only one I think), they do make a lot of very good, reliable and well put together cars for normal people at normal prices. Tamiya's RC stuff is the same. They don't make a lot of high-end stuff, probably some TRF kits and such, but the majority of what they do is affordable stuff for everyday people. A lot of their 'common' radio control kits are designed to a price point, and it's usually a lot lower than most other people's equivalent class vehicles, or at least if someone else does a kit at that price point they suffer issues just like Tamiya models. Take the DF-02 or DT-02 - both 110 quid in the UK most places. Now if I build one I know for a fact it will be a fun build and run well but long term it might not be as durable as say a HPI Cyber 10B. The Cyber 10B is 180 quid, though, it's almost 2x the price and has no motor included. It's like comparing a Honda Accord to a BMW 3-series, really. I don't necessarily agree that the kits are 'models suitable for radio control', I honestly don't think their RC side has been that way since the late 80s/early 90s. I have built TA-01, King Cab and Manta Ray (all 1992 era) kits and there's no doubt they are engineered from the ground up for R/C, and extremely well engineered at that. They aren't just a model kit with a gearbox. The designs are thorough and well thought out even if some of them do have their flaws. Most RC cars do, ultimately. You get a lot of bang for your buck and *that* is what matters. The nice thing about Tamiya is the entry level cost is not much and it's good value, so getting started with a model is cheap. For most of the modern Tamiya platforms (and some older ones) also the Hop-Ups are out there from Tamiya and many others to *makes* them into something more durable and more robust. You can fit those as you need to instead of dropping much more on an expensive kit in the first place. As far as working on the kits goes, I always though Tamiya made some odd decisions on some kits, but eh, they are Japanese. HPI stuff I've worked on (E-Firestorm 10T, Wheely King, RS4-S2) is always well documented with instructions that these days rival Tamiya's for descriptions of parts etc. but that's become the norm *because* of Tamiya. The quality of their stuff is undoubtable, for the price, but their approach is different to HPI, Traxxas, Losi etc, that's all

A mint one would make a beautiful shelf piece but I'd never dare run it. The design is certainly different, but it had some nasty niggles.

Well pretty-much any Tamiya kit is a joy to build, that's why I rebuild so many of mine even when they are used or pre-built. Such clear instructions, clever designs... If I had to choose I'd probably plump for a 1/10th buggy, maybe an Egress or one of their TRF kits, something that is the cream of the crop. If it has to be an 'everyday' kit then I'd probably do a Manta Ray, because that was my first proper R/C, or a Lunchbox, just because they are really cool and I've never had one

I have a TA-02 with this same issue. I have a Yeah Racing alloy steering kit on it at the moment and it's pretty crappy. They are just an alloy clone of the originals so all the same slop and movement is still there. I'd like to fit the GPM steering system (that Shy has purchased) but I'm not sure how the posts would work on a TA-02 (it's designed to fit that car though) becuase I can't find GPM fitting instructions, probably because they don't usually provide them. The TA01/02 both have posts moulded in to the bathtub chassis that the steering fits to, so providing the posts is a little confusing? I also thought about drilling and tapping the holes the track bar (bent metal wire bit) goes through o nthe Yeah Racing arms and changing it for a strip of metal with 2 screws through, would that work, do you think?

'dinball' / RCMart.com is sound, I've used them or a few things including a pretty expensive Hobbywing ESC + motor kit.

I'm planning on running it with a 19T Reedy Challenger brushed motor for now. It seems fast enough on 2S to be a scream and not end up tearing itself apart. I guess the CVD axles aren't really designed for racing with insane power

*facepalm* Yes I know both those things - it's *what type* of a balance port it is. There are at least 6 types and probably more, of which I have batteries with 3 different types between them. I read the manual, it doesn't tell you what type of balance port it is only that it is a balance plug port. I took a second look and I'm pretty sure it's a JST/XH type port, and matches what HPI and Turnigy/Zippy uses. They aren't the right type for TrakPower (they use JST/EH) or Hyperion or A123 (they both use Hyperion type). You can buy adapter cables though for a few quid, so it's not major loss. It's a lot better than blowing your LiPo by running it down too far.

These look really good. I use Hobbywing stuff already and I'm very impressed for the price they charge. I need some cut-offs for my older brushed ESCs so these look like the ones to go for. Damned clever idea too using the Balance Tap to read the voltage, it saves the balance plug getting filled with crud too Just out of interest, what Balance Tap type is that socket, it looks like JST/XH to me but I can never quite remember there are so many different types :\

The Graphite plate broke? I thought the whole idea of carbon fibre is it's supposed to be flexible, strong and light. Maybe too much resin and not enough matting to keep the costs down? I know a lot of the DF-03 parts are on revision v.2 at 3Racing now so they may have improved the strength. As for the CVDs, the one on the left looks like the pin dropped out of the cup. That's quite common on CVD axles (sadly, I wish it wasn't) I had to put heat-shrink sleeve over the cups on my TA-02 CVDs for that very reason. First time I ran it one spat a pin. *Luckily* I caught the pin and there was no damage. I planned on sleeving the 3Racing DF-03 ones before I even used them The bent one looks like the pin slipped on the *inboard* end of the shaft, and the shaft moved off-centre while it was driving, and buckled. That's not so easy to solve, but a dab of liquid threadlock or solder might stop em moving about so much. I might just do that. Thanks for the pointers anyway, it's good to know what might go wrong with it so I can prevent it At the moment all I am doing is waiting on parts... I got a HPI Brama 10B rear wing yesterday for it (moulded nylon) to replace the mangled mess of lexan that was on it. Any idea where I can get some decals?

For what it's worth, I wrote a FAQ/Guide here: http://www.markbenson.org/blog/lipo-battery-guide I have been asked many times over the same things and thought I'd blast my ideas down in a guide.

Ah, yes, excellent, I'm a regular customer of jr-rc I know from dismantling TA-01/TA-02 gearboxes they laughably thought alloy gears were a good idea in those too mixed with a nylon spur gear and diff casing. They wear like crazy. I agree. There's a lot of DF-03 and RA chassis about and they are a current sale item still so why not a hardened gear. Running alloy against their nylon gears has always been a bad idea, that's why everyone with any sense runs steel pinions.

I put in an order for some 3Racing parts, Front Graphite Shock Tower Rear Graphite Shock Tower 4x CVD axles Upper Rear Gearbox Stiffener Titanium Turnbuckles Rear Gearbox lower arm brace (basically for quicker rear gearbox strip-down) There are pads in there, but they're old and beaten flat, or they aren't deep enough to hold the shafts. I've ordered a bag from each of 2 suppliers in the u to see if one of them turns up the goods. I never have much luck with more obscure Tamiya parts and actually getting them in less than 3 weeks As for the rear gear case, the upside down crash thing makes sense, the wing is complete toast, it looks like the previous owner wasn't very good at landing it wheels-down I'll keep an eye on the mainshaft gear for sure, thanks for the tip. I can't find anywhere selling the FS-7039 shaft, any ideas?

Hi I recently got a DF-03 Dark Impact buggy. I'm impressed with the layout and the modern gearbox. It has the alloy dampers and slipper cltuch too which makes it even better. The ball diffs also make it a good drive. I do have a couple of issues, though. Firstly and worst of all is the rear drive shafts particularly keep dropping out of the cups. The left one is particularly bad. I understand they are supposed to have springy sponge inserts in the diff cups to us the shafts out and keep them engaged in the wheel stub shaft cup. It seems these are either missing or have been beaten flat on mine. Anyone got a source for replacement ones (preferably in the UK) or know of an alternative to using them at all? They seem like a bit ofa daft idea to me... Also, the rear gearbox casing has a damned great crack in the top which means the wing and damper tower flaps about. I have ordered a new set, but would like to know is this issue common in DF-03 buggies? Any advice appreciated.

Thanks for the tip. I found some original Wheels and Tyres on ePay and a new shell and decals. Early signs from stripping down one axle look like it's in good condition so I'm hopeful I can add some shiny parts to the equation and get her up and firing again

Hi, I just got hold of what i consider to be one of my dream trucks, a TXT-1 monster truck, from a contact in the rock crawling community. I've always wanted a big Tamiya twin-motor truck ever since I saw the Clod Buster in magazines as a kid. The truck is second hand, but came to me at a good price and is in generally very good condition. It's been used for crawling and has some interesting mods to it, but non that have 'ruined' it's original looks or style. I am looking, to start with, for a new set of wheels and tyres in good condition as the tyres are perished and cracked, and have had the treads cut up, and the wheels have been narrowed which makes them look less monster-truck like. I also ideally need a new shell for it. The current one is very badly scratched and will probably be fine for bashing about and playing but for looks I'd like a mint one. Also, it currently has the original 540 can motors in it from the kit (which weren't used much as it had 55T crawler motors in most of it's life) but it has no ESC. I need some advice here on what will work best. I have a few brushless systems on hand, a 4800kV Xcelorin and a 5700kV Castle system, but don't know of given the wheel size, weight and not knowing the gearing these are too fast and will over heat in such a heavy truck? What sort of ESC would drive the 540s in the mean time? I have a Castle Mamba Max and a couple of other 'standard' ESCs I can try including one small racing ESC rated down to 11T. Would any of these do for a heavy truck on Twin motors? I'd probably only run 1 stick pack or LiPo pack to start with as I don't have a matched pair of packs. I've never run a 2-motor rig or anything this size, my biggest trucks previous to this are a Axial AX-10 and a Wheely King.