Saito2

That Fox is in fairly rough shape, looking at the auction pics. The front arm mount is all goobered up with epoxy, so somethings broke there. The underside rear pic has one of the lower arms going off at a weird angle. Busted arm? Broken gearcase at the mount? Definitely RC10 shocks on the rear and a Kyosho gold or Duratrax shock up front as others have mentioned (tough to tell from the pic). I agree with Mrowka.

@speedy_w_beans pretty much nailed it. As I and others have suggested before, I think Tamiya USA (and likely other official Tamiya importers) is at the mercy of Tamiya Japan. I question the amount of input they have towards the product Tamiya Japan produces (although the High-Lift concept was supposedly germinated from T-USA) and often seem "in the dark" about things just like us, to a degree. I wonder, while they make orders and suggestions and such, if, in the end, they basically just get what Tamiya sends them. I don't know. As far as delays and stock status (I know its a broken record) but the pandemic has wreaked everything. Things are going to get pricey. I work in manufacturing and everything is going up, way up. Steel, wood, foam, etc. you name it, has increased dramatically in price. Each person in the chain is simply passing it down the line, eventually to the consumer. Just getting the product is difficult with the current shipping issues and material shortages. In the end, anything that was shaky before the pandemic, is now in trouble. The pandemic exposed a lot of flaws in various systems from manufacturing to distribution. I feel industries that may have been on the slow downslide have been simply accelerated by all this. Movie theaters are likely an example.

No, the G part was not cracked or damaged and I did not use locktite/threadlocker in that area either. Granted, my Vanquish was driven with care. I didn't regularly jump it and if I did, they were smallish jumps appropriate to the era. The buggy did suffer a few roll-overs (evidenced by the scratches on the small "Tamiya" sticker on the top of the canopy), but not many. The tracks it saw were outdoors and quite rough/unkept however. Honestly, the buggy only suffered three issues back then. I lost a rear dogbone. I lost a screw to one of the front uprights. Finally, the central ball diff's adjusting screw backed out once but fortunately didn't destroy the rear gearbox internal molding. Other than that, it was problem-free. I ran a Joel Johnson stock motor in it most of its life and, on rare occasions, wired in an seventh cell that sat above the battery enclosure. I had no idea the G part was an issue until the re-release was coming out and folks began speaking of it. Then again, virtually everyone ran Kyosho 4wds in my area back then, so I was then only Tamiya driver outside of some old Hot Shot buggies here and there.

The Vanquish was probably my best performing car in my original collection. I was fortunate enough to get it for Christmas (after MUCH begging to the parental units) since it was on closeout for a mere $99.00 (far cheaper than its normal $225 price tag). It was my only gift that year and it was well worth it. I was smitten with the Avante and the Vanquish was as close as I thought I'd get. In reality, it was not necessarily the budget Avante but rather the superior performer. I stupidly painted it blue and put Avante wheels on it. Years later (but still about 20 years ago now) I began to regret not going box art. When Tamiya announced the re-release I had some hope. The high price tag and pre-painted body with silver canopy decals put me off. I looked at my old Vanquish sitting on the shelf and decided to finally go through it. I wasn't going to wait to see if the rumors about clear bodies coming from Tamiya were going to be true as spares is commonly an issue as is, so I grabbed a repop body and decals. Here's what I started with, my original Vanquish and its original manual, first gone through on a Christmas night many many years ago...My folks couldn't tear me away from my work bench that night. I had waited long enough and the anticipation was great. I still remember day dreaming about it in English class as Christmas finally approached. With the body removed... Some of the weird stuff I did as a kid. I likely burned the heck out of myself on the resistor guard, hence the black electrical tape. Probably not the best for cooling in retrospect. I lost a rear dogbone once and no spares were to be found. I did have an extra from an Aristocraft Dolphin of all things that actually fit. The green twisty ties were a RC Car Action "pit tip" to help in preventing the future loss of dogbones. In pieces for the first time since the early 90's... That yellow handled screw driver was the same one I used to assemble it way back when. Cleaned and back together. I hunted down the MRC Top Gun radio and gear I saved up and bought special for the Vanquish. The old receiver still eludes me but I'll come across it eventually. Most of my cars got the cheapest gear I could find (usually Aristocraft Challenger 260s) but I wanted something a bit nicer for my Vanquish and I thought the MRC connection was cool (MRC was Tamiya's US importer back then). All done. I'm still short a left rear wheel (tossed out by my folks) so an Egress one will stand in for the moment (that side will just have to face the wall on the shelf for now, lol). I'm glad I restored it. It means far more than the re-release to me.

Welcome back!

I'm sorry if I came off preachy. I've been doing this for awhile and have just developed some opinions based on personal experience along the way. Sourcing correct, good quality parts feels like 50% of the battle when working with older cars. I can also see why my tone may have made it appear I'm diehard for carbs and points. I'm not and the extreme nature of converting the car to carb over lack of quality parts is why I posted, just to get other viewpoints. The fact is, I like fuel injected Mustangs and GM cars etc. just as much as the carb variants when reliable components can be sourced. Each has their pros and cons. I just don't like misinformation spread (elsewhere, not in this discussion) that carbs are bad, get horrible economy of won't start in cold weather. Some "Car guys" are great at spreading this kind of rhetoric. I know I'm in the minority as most folks don't commute with a car over 30 years old nor care about maintaining one that old. We are an increasingly throw-away society and goes against everything I am. Its frustrating to see consumption and waste. In the end, I apologize to all who may have taken offence to that frustration that may have seeped through. Its probably best to let the issue drop and forget about it. My bad.

I've been a professional mechanic working on cars from the early 1900's to about 1990 most of my adult life. It has been my personal experience that, for stock performance, OEM fitment, OEM quality and OEM longevity, nothing beat OEM parts. I'm not claiming OEMs are perfect but they generally have engineering muscle that dwarfs aftermarket companies and pick suppliers (when they don't produce the parts themselves) that strictly meet their engineering needs. They produce spare parts for their cars with quality, not price in mind because reliability is important to their brand. They aren't trying to undercut other aftermarket suppliers because they make cars first and foremost. You don't buy your car from NAPA, Advance Auto, Autozone, etc. That's not to say they are perfect. OEMs made a lot of junk too and sometimes aftermarket suppliers, like MOOG, can improve on that. At one time, aftermarket performance parts manufacturers tried to do that too. After all, their name was on the line which is important in a smaller niche market like performance auto parts. But, it seems many of them have suffered a reduction in quality in recent years. When I research specialist forums and I see a 50/50 success rate on a part, I get leery. I don't believe forum members make up false stories about part failures. I put more faith in forum research than "star reviews" at stores/Amazon etc. because like @Mad Ax said, people with positive experiences are likely not to leave a review which skews the percentage. If it wasn't a part that could leave me stranded in rush hour traffic, I might not be so discriminating either. As far as converting back to carbs, I don't see the big deal. People seem to act like they were these terrible things and yet we drove around with them forever until most manufactures switched to fuel injection in the mid 80's. I do understand how a variety of carbs work and how to keep things in tune. I do replace, gap and set points in distributors. I own a dwell meter, vacuum gauge, timing light etc. I've done the 2 dozen or so steps to properly set up a Rochester Quadrajet . But for every person like me, there's 20 or more that can't. The Quadrajet is probably one of the best, all around carbs ever mass produced. GM's engineering might far surpasses that of some of the aftermarket carb companies and yet most "car guys" will call Quadrajets "junk" because they have no idea how to properly tune them. That being said, the OEM fuel injection stuff like TPI was great, as long as it could be maintained with quality components.

US, PA. I converted a few cars to Pertronix when I worked at the Corvette resto shop along with my V8 Vega BITD with good results.

I know what you mean. I'm tempted to stock up on GM HEI modules for my Corvette before they're gone. HEI was a pretty great set-up and I think that's more well-known now (evidenced by HEI conversions for other makes of engines) but it had a questionable rep BITD. 9 times out of 10, if I had a customer complain about a faulty HEI, it was because they got a cheapy overseas replacement module and usually forgot to coat the bottom with the proper grease. GM parts were pretty rock solid. The ignition module just bolts to the side of the dizzy and is easy to swap out. The PIP (profile ignition pickup) sits around the dizzy shaft in the bottom of the distributor. The PIP not only handles spark chores but also provides the computer with engine position info for the fuel injection. I hate to do it, but the only cost effective way to avoid all possible failures is carb and a "dumb" distributor. Other than that, your looking at upgrading to modern DIS and injection methods and I'm not bright enough for that...analog man in a digital world etc.

You know, for all the debating I'm doing, the conversion won't run anymore money than an Egress re-re so....

That's the problem. The distributor must be removed and pressed apart to do the pickup swap. If it dies in traffic, its dead. That's one good thing about points. I can carry spares and change them on the fly. My Nova uses point to trigger an MSD box. There is no contact wear since the MSD handles it now just rubbing block wear. The points are just a trigger. Furthermore, if the MSD box dies, I can just disconnect it and the points will function like normal. And that's what drives me nuts. You could expect junk from discount auto parts chains but if you put up the big bucks for something nice like an MSD unit, you were guaranteed quality. Now the OEMs are the only sure way to get a standard of quality and they're not making parts for 30 year old cars. One top dollar MSD distributor currently cost 85% of the way towards swapping everything to a carb and its still questionable. The other factor is what's at stake. I'll take a gamble on a mere switch or non vital sensor, but not on something that will kill the car dead at 70mph on a busy freeway or in city traffic. Its an antique so the car avoids any emission inspections and I've been messing with Holleys, Rochesters, Carters, Strombergs, Webers, SUs etc. for years, even updraft carbs on old V16 Cads.

When its not raining, I daily drive a fuel injected Foxbody 5.0 Mustang. I realize the car's over 30 years old at this point, but its still a "latemodel" to me, lol. The other day my profile ignition pickup in the distributor finally started to go bad. Fortunately, it crippled the car in my driveway and not in the middle of traffic somewhere. What followed was a research trip down the rabbit hole of despair... It seems that A: only the original Ford Motorcraft pickup is a good reliable replacement part and they are discontinued, B: ALL the aftermarket replacement pickups from the auto parts stores are subject to failure at anytime, after 2 minutes of running, 3 weeks, or a year. Its a total crapshoot. C: any high performance replacement distributors (should I just replace the whole unit) are garbage compared to the stock Ford distributor and may fail or lock up at a moments notice. Its seems much of everything is made in China now and quality is in the toilet. So, now I'm stuck with a car that I can't reliably take to work, a car which is/was enormously popular. Breaking down isn't an option. Beside the several hundred bucks in towing, I can't miss work. This whole mess has me re-thinking my Mustang. Have I reached the point where the only way to make my car reliable is to de-evolve it by stripping off the electronic ignition and fuel injection and replacing it with a carb and points distributor? Its sounds crazy, but those simpler items can be repaired on the roadside if need be. Fuel economy might not be as good but I lived with carbed cars for decades and they can be reliable. Its crazy to think that a $50 part (or lack of a quality replacement) may send me down this whole conversion path. I try to remind myself, the cost of the whole carb/distributor conversion is only one monthly payment on new truck currently, but still, it seems like a sadly extreme length to have to go to for reliability.

BITD, when my only window into the RC world was RC Car Action, they spoke much more about the hex shafts giving out. Now, when I got into ORVs 20 years ago, I found more issues with diff separation than I did with the hex cups/shafts, but that's my personal experience. I do know at one point they started putting an extra pair of hex shafts in some Mud Blaster kits. Now, its wholly possible that MRC, Tamiya US importer at the time, added those spare hex shafts to some of the kits. They even mention it in the RCCA review, IIRC. So, if I had to guess, the shafts would wear more than the cups but I'd carefully examine both for wear.

http://gomachv.wix.com/gomachv GoMachV on RC10Talk has the Car Action mags uploaded on his personal site under the RCCA tab.

Also correct. The Brat and the Lancia were on the budget end while the Frog was touted as having most of the hop-ups in the kit. Considering Tamiya's earlier "competition" 2wd entry, the Super Champ, didn't have a diff, I'm curious if they meant the ORV to have one either at first, especially considering how questionably it was executed vs the durable Wild Willy variant. A lot of off road cars lacked diffs early on, even the first Kyosho Scorpions, IIRC. Diffs were available (aftermarket) for the SRBs at the Super Champ's release, yet Tamiya chose not to include one. On the other hand, the SRB's days were numbered at that point so maybe Tamiya didn't want to invest the money in a diff for the outgoing model as the ORV was the way forward. Perhaps the ORVs didn't have diffs in mind when it first hit the drawing boards but the concept was brought in at the end of the design process, as diffs were becoming clearly a desirable feature (particularly in the comp market the Frog was aimed at). The Brat was out in July of '83 and the Frog by December "83, so who knows? Just a little conjecture on my part, with no concrete basis in fact. Sorry for any thread derailment.