speedy_w_beans

Are you looking for the complete kit or just the body? One of the newest releases, 58739, seems to have that same body shell included. The body and stickers for 58739 are available as spare parts.

I think the warehouse is a separate entity. The few times I ordered something from TamiyaUSA I seem to remember the box showing up from a Mitsubishi warehouse. Maybe the arrangement has changed, but it seems like some of the delays could be attributed to the warehouse being separate from T-USA itself.

Well, four years later I'm still driving this Speed3. It's gone from 85k miles to 135k miles. Recently I was getting some loud buzzing/vibration in these cooler mornings as I would accelerate, and especially when turning right. First thought was it might be a heat shield, but poking around the firewall and exhaust I couldn't find anything loose. Along the way I found a turbo bypass valve hose that was starting to crack, so it was replaced with a silicone part (same price as OEM part) that matches the silicone turbo inlet pipe. Looking for the noise a few times I thought about the polyurethane motor mounts that have been living in this car for the past four years and decided to put the OEM rubber mounts back in. All I can say is, WOW! All of my buzz/vibration issues have completely disappeared. The transmission chatter I used to hear at idle is completely gone. You can hold a normal conversation with a passenger while driving around now, but still get a little exhaust note and some intake whish when accelerating. Lesson learned, stick with the OEM rubber motor mounts unless you're building a dedicated track car. All other aspects of the clutch job from four years ago are still holding up well. Other items have come up and have been addressed: A truck in front of me dropped a small rock and cracked the windshield; that was replaced. One of the screw covers on the windshield cowl broke and wouldn't click back into place; it's been replaced. The heat shield between the floor pan and exhaust started to disintegrate; fortunately I found a NOS OE part on eBay and replaced it. Surprisingly, the plastic surrounding the radio antenna mast on the roof crumbled in my hand one day while washing the car. I think it was maybe $12 to get another mast to screw onto the base. The lift struts on the hatch became weak and wouldn't even hold the hatch up in the winter. New units from Stabilus went in. As far as 18-year old cars go, I'm still quite happy with this one. It has plenty of zip to deal with the daily commute, and is enjoyable for random drives in the hills of NC.

Started a new job in mid-2019 and haven't had much time to play with the toys since then. I still stop in and lurk from time to time, but sitting down and making the time for the hobby has been almost impossible. I'm in that "dark" period now.

I was checking the actuarial life expectancy tables this evening as I'm contemplating an earlier retirement and wanted to think about the household budget and savings in those terms. I feel pretty good overall but was shocked by how few years my wife and I have left, statistically speaking. Between the two of us the issues are accumulating, including cataract replacements, bone spurs, and high blood pressure. Historical family medical issues suggest this is just the beginning. Despite buying body shells and a few additional kits, I haven't touched RC hardly at all in the past four years. It may be time to start downsizing, something along the lines of Swedish death cleaning.

I went through this a few times as various free photo hosting sites started posting ads on top of my photos, started charging or deleting, or migrating photos to new frameworks breaking the links. Alas, all my build threads are now missing the photos on TC. I've reached the conclusion the only way to preserve images and maintain stable links is to pay for it. Eventually I may register a domain name and pay for some low-level, minimal hosting just to keep a stable set of links for my photos and videos. After a decade of this I don't see a better way to guarantee access to the content.

May as well buy from AMain then if you're sourcing from a US retailer...

Hi folks, I stopped maintaining this thread awhile ago. There is a part 3 with a different maintainer you should use to enter speed runs. Thanks.

Shipping costs have been a pain point. It's almost better to advertise locally and remain patient.

No regrets selling off my DT02/DF02 gear. Some regrets selling bodies that took time to mask, paint, and decal. Instead of getting bored with them, I should have saved them for runners. I plan to never sell my TRF201, DB01, CR01, TA, TB, Group C, F104, or RM01 kits, or other brands with comparable specs.

I've mistakenly swapped M3x10 and M3x12 screws from time to time. At later steps I'm missing the right screws and am not sure which earlier step I used them...

Not my entry and not a Tamiya, but this guy generated an impressive 208 mph in his Hobao. Here's a goal to shoot for:

https://www.autoblog.com/2023/05/16/the-little-car-company-previews-final-tamiya-wild-one-max-launch-edition/ Fun!

A Reddit thread on this subject... "If you are spending close to the $300 mark or higher on a Tamiya kit, you're better off with something like the Arrma Typhon or Senton. It will be far more durable than any Tamiya kit." "Tamiya’s good for retro/nostalgia. They’re not generally competitive when it comes to actual performance or innovation, but if you like old-school RC it’s hard to beat Tamiya." "Tamiya vehicles are more like expensive model kits with electronics, the plastic feels more more brittle than other manufactures and they will break far more easily and often. They do not make for good bashers or racers. They are fun to build, but the overall quality isn't near as good and I think they are overpriced." "i was out of the scene for a bit, then my 4 year old and my buddy wanted to get into it, so i bought a tamiya 2wd buggy. 2 weeks later i bought something else. i put a 2500kv brushless in it and it was fun, but not remotely competitive to be fast or strong enough to take a bigger motor or even do a decent jump properly. I got a 2wd rustler and it's night and day better. i took the buggy out last week just to shake the dust off and it broke. tamiya discontinued it recently or else parts are impossible to find. just skip the tamiya step is my opinion." "Tamiya is more for the model train/plastic model building types imo. Tamiya has been around forever and jas great stuff for a certain person. Traxxas, Aarma is probably where you want to be. Problem I (and many will agree) have with both brands is the proprietary batteries and charger." "Stock Tamiya kits are great but I'd say they have a durability and performance threshold. If you wish to go faster than 25mph or take jumps/do vertical falls greater than 5 feet, you will need to upgrade parts."

I've been watching this Youtuber named Metal Complex lately, and his videos about the knife collecting hobby sometimes strike a chord with me. What I find interesting is some of the thoughts he expresses are very similar to thoughts (at least thematically) expressed here for RC cars, and similar to thoughts my wife shares from women she sews and quilts with. I know we're here for the RCs, but to me it's fascinating to see the parallels in distinct hobbies. The production runs, limited editions, clones/knocks, secondary markets, forms of enjoyment, hoarding/collecting, rationalizing, customizing, etc. are the same in most hobbies it seems. Trying a little bit of everything, and finding a favorite niche... Mistakes like collecting too quickly... The joy in simply collecting... I also watched, "The PEZ Outlaw," the other night on Netflix, and there was a critical turning point in the story where the smuggler's original candy dispenser designs were copied by the company he was sidestepping, and they devalued his investment. This sounds very parallel to investing a lot of time and money into vintage kits only to have Tamiya re-release the kit again. It was an intentional strategy/tactic by PEZ USA to stop an overenthusiastic gray market importer; in Tamiya's case I think the high values of certain vintage kits were simply an indicator to the company there was pent-up demand for certain re-releases. Regardless, there's money to lose when a manufacturer or importer decides your high-value collectibles are a little too valuable. Anyhow, it's simply fascinating to see these patterns in other areas of life and relate them back to the hobby we love.