Saito2

I have a set of radio gear that uses the old Futaba G connectors. Does anybody make an adapter connector/pigtail so I can plug a Tamiya ESC into the old G plug style reciever? I have been using it with MSCs up until now but need to use an ESC for its latest installation. Thanks.

I know exactly how you feel. Despite all the cool tuning features on some brushless combos, they just feel a little "off" compared my experience with the good ol' brushed stuff.

Does anybody remember if the the Jr versions of the Thunder Dragon and Fire Dragon were released before the 1/10th scale versions? I vaguely remember seeing them on hobby store shelves first. The reason I ask is it might explain a question I had about the Jr version since I was a kid. I always wondered why the Jr versions did not have accurate front suspensions (two upright "coil springs" vs "CVA type", mono and twin upright respectively). If the Jr versions did come to market first, they might depict them as the optional body sets (which appeared first) on a Hornet-type chassis.

With Tamiya's current model output, they seem to be straddling the line between past and present. We have new releases sharing shelf space with re-releases (and now re-re-releases). Here's an idea for a couple of models that are nostalgic but not. Old but new. Why not bring out a Winger kit on the Boomerang chassis and a Super Dragon kit on a Thundershot or Hornet chassis? These two optional body kits could finally be married to actual mechanicals. Do some fresh, old-school boxart and we'd have a new kit that would be just like the old days. It worked for the Thunder Dragon and Fire Dragon back in the day.

I was exactly in your shoes when I got back into the hobby 15 years ago. I left and Tamiya was at the top. Everybody knew it and had one. I got back in and suddenly Traxxas had taken over. Fewer and fewer people were building kits here in the States. Now, as for the rest of the world, Tamiya is still pretty well known. As for parts support, I've read MRC (Tamiya's old importer before Tamiya USA was formed) was not the best to deal with in the US. Perhaps that's why hobby shops jumped ship when Traxxas ramped up the whole RTR thing. Who knows? To be fair, even back in the day, Tamiya's lacked radio gear. A radio set usually came with the transmitter, receiver and two servos however. The lack of BEC in the speed controllers bothers me as well though. On the other hand ESCs were quite expensive back in the day and now they're just added in the kit. Its an improvement, even for a MSC diehard like myself. The good news is Tamiya is forever. Traxxas can be fad-like at times, but Tamiya (with its lengthy history) will always be around and loved (somewhere in the world, even if its not in the land-o-Traxxas US).

Sorry, what I meant by this statement was rear oil shocks and a body mount hole in the front of the chassis. The chassis has standard Hornet/Grasshopper springs up front. Sorry for any confusion. The buggy is indeed Tamiya. It has the Tamiya logo on the front of the chassis tub along with "made in Japan". The uprights must be aftermarket (or another brand) though, as they do not resemble Tamiya F103 uprights. The diff also has the stepped center shaft which seems to lock it down as an early Hornet. I'll try to post pics tomorrow if anyone still cares but I think we have an answer. Thanks for the wealth of info presented here.

I was digging through a box of parts I got in a trade years ago and found the remains of a Hornet I didn't know I had. No body, battery cover, bumper or wheels but some things stuck out. The front uprights are black (aftermarket, non-Tamiya?) and held in place with kingpings that use e-clips, not the usual screw pins. The rear gear box has a small plastic tab protruding from the front of it, at the pivot. The reinforcement ribs on the axle tubes are shallower as well. Inside the gearbox I found black plastic bushings. Even the normally small bronze 850 counter gear bushing is black plastic. Also, there are no reinforcement ribs on the backside of the large side bevel gears. Since it has oil shocks along with the body mount hole in the front of the chassis, I assume its a Hornet and not an early Grasshopper. I've never seen black bushings before.

It is an interesting platform. In many ways, a great improvement over its DF02 predecessor. Oople.com did a nice review of the Keen Hawk, the second car in the Dark Impact DF03 series. At one time, there were a great deal of hop-ups out for this car but now many are gone. It was released with great fanfare to a starved customer base at the time. Unfortunately, several issues conspired to take it out of the limelight. It suffered from a fast wearing allow gear in the drivetrain. The DB01 also came right after it which proved to be a great platform that overshawdowed the DF03.

I totally agree with this. A Lunch Box gets assembled and will run trouble free for 10 years. Every Blackfoot (or any ORV chassis) I get my hands on gets a full run-through of little tweaks to make it bulletproof. I drill out and make brass bushings for the front arms and rear trailing arm pivots to reduce slop. I reinforce the H1 front arm stay and rear trailing arm shock mounts. The flexy front rear shock mounts get tossed for handmade FRP pieces. The steering servo usually gets relocated to the center with new HD steering rods. Of course, the gearbox gets some type of reinforcement to keep the gears from skipping. It's all part of the fun and gives great satisfaction. ORV trucks really are fantastic to bomb around with.

I had the option of buying a Lunch Box or Blackfoot back in the 80's and went with the Lunchie. I'm glad I did. I saved my pennies for eons and it would have been quite disheartening if things went south with a Blackfoot purchase. Thorp setups back then weren't cheap for a kid mowing lawns for money. That being said, the Blackfoot is a better performer. When I finally got one used back in '02 or so, I was impressed how much more stable it was over jumps and such than the Lunch Box.

Thanks guys!

Thank you. And thanks for posting that article.

Anyone else find the Bigwig kinda cheap? I mean, for being what it was (top car at its time plus the 10th anniversary car) I expected it to be priced at Super Hot Shot levels. The price seems quite reasonable to me.

I despise the look of current race buggies with a passion. Tamiya could make cab forward bodies work and look good, but today's stuff is ugly enough to break a mirror if placed in front of it. In the end, racing is always function over form. Tamiya could (and have) compete with the best of them. But trust me, even if Tamiya got out of racing all together, they're still laughing all the way to the bank as the worlds largest producer of RC. I think of it this way, people may lust after a Lamborghini Countach (though in some ways they are horrid to drive) but won't ever obtain one but a lot of people have driven VW Beetles. VW Beetles may have been everywhere but still instilled a love in many of their owners. A Hornet is much like a VW Beetle in the RC world. I've never felt any love for an RC10B4.

I have the opportunity to grab a used Grasshopper 2. My question is, does the Grasshopper 2 use the same rear wheel adapter as the Super G? I had a Super G as a kid and my parents threw it in the garbage while I was at college for reasons that STILL escape me to this day as I was still puttering about with RC at the time. Anyway, I was stripping it down for a rebuild when they threw out the chassis/gearbox/body, but still have the shocks and wheels that make it a "Super G" as these items were already off the chassis and tucked away. The Super G uses day glow Wild One type wheels if memory serves but I don't recall if the regular Grasshopper 2 wheels (which I believe are a different style) used the same wheel adapter. Anyway, it'd like to recreate my Super G if possible.

The Avante and Egress are beautiful works of art but I'm going to say the Super Shot. I mean, just look at that thing. It oozes aggressiveness. Mine's intimidating me right now just sitting on the shelf plus it has ALL the hop-ups. In all seriousness, its a good question you posed and am interested in the answers.

Now see, here's the problem with that. I'm trying to be a good boy by messing about with my current RC stuff but now I really want a Wheely King. Then my collection gets bigger and my wife starts rolling her eyes at me. Darn it, you guys are a bad influence for my addiction.

I've been looking over Axial's new SMT10 truck but just can't justify spending $400 on an RTR that's slow out of the box as well. The idea of getting a Wheely King and modding that crossed my mind too until I looked over at my CR-01. Does anyone have any thoughts on converting a CR-01 into a monster truck? Looking at the gear ratios, it's going to need Clod tires just to get some speed out of it. The Clod being 30:1 and the CR-01 being, at best, 32:1. I don't want to tear the axles and such up if they couldn't take the strain of the bigger tires however. Anyone have any tips or ideas to consider? Thanks.

Didn't the mag start out as quarterly? Those were the days. In the early issues you can see the writers trying to get a footing in this land-based hobby. RCCA quickly hit its stride and wasn't bad at all. They were even critical of poorly designed cars. Columnist like Dick Brinton and Bill O'Brien (who I found on Clodtalk) often offered straight-talk on cars. Sadly, the magazine became a love-fest, where everything was great, no matter what. Some of those other brands were neat but they weren't Tamiya. We're spoiled by descent cars like HPI and Traxxas. Tamiya's rep for solid vehicles and great instructions was also built on the fact those older manufactures weren't all that great often times. Vague instructions and missing parts weren't totally uncommon.

Well, Tamiya USA did not exist back in those days. Back then, MRC was Tamiya's importer. Tamiya formed Tamiya USA after the two went their separate ways. However, I don't seem to recall the announcer mentioning MRC in the promos (I could be wrong) which meant who he was is anybody's best guess.

Hey, not bad! I've never seen that approach before, but I like it a lot. Definitely going to give a try on one of my ORVs.

Great point! I think its this balance of fun or precision that's makes Tamiyas such interesting runners. We all seem to have our preferences. For me, a DT-02 or even Blitzer handles too well but a Hornet, not well enough. I enjoy ripping around with a Super Champ, Wild One or Fox much more. I have a fleet of big monster trucks but always keep a stock Clod on hand because I like watching it bounce about.

Great topic! The Super Champ drop is definitely one of my favorites. I love seeing the Bruiser barreling down that dune. It looks like such an improvement over the earlier Hilux video where the trucks are slowly descending a hill and bouncing all over the place. Speaking of bouncing, I love how Clod Buster bounds all over the place in its promo. The sheer size of it coming along with a Lunch Box is impressive too. The Thundershot always seemed to float over the rough terrain on camera, compliant and supple. On the audio side, I laugh when the narrator says at the 3:45 mark on the Lunch Box promo, "Yes, fun, fantasy and an American dream. It can all be yours with the Tamiya Lunch Box". Wow. Now that is quite a statement. The Wild Willy promo is great. "...jump turns are easy with this fun-filled vehicle" What is a "jump turn" exactly and why does the narrator say fun-filled like he's about to get a root-canal? "Wild Willy will bring enjoyment to all that operate it and to those who just watch its amazing versatility" um, uh, no comment on that quote. I swear someone drops the cue cards at the :50 mark "those large tires are not just for show......they really absorb the ...shock... and they really propel the vehicle in amazing performance." One of my favorites though is the awesome 70's music in the first SRB promo, which actually lacks narration.

I'm sorry if this post drags on, but I have some questions that have been stacking up about the ORV drivetrain for some time now. First, is the ORV diff really a defective part on it's own? Tamiya doesn't seem to think so as they did nothing to improve it on the re-releases, but I feel that's only half the answer. I think the diff is fine depending on the application. It gives no problems in the Hot Shot but pops and separates in the Wild One/FAV or ORV cars. So is the diff really at fault or is it how well its supported? Here's one of my points. I'm starting to hear that the new MIP ball diff is becoming THE solution to the ORV's woes. Now that's fine and true. I am very very happy that MIP produced it. It's greatly appreciated but there are other ways to fix the problem we've been doing here for years. The classic Oldfrogshot screw mod or supporting the gearbox plates in some manner both work and are cheaper. Next there is the issues of halfshafts. I never had a problem with hex-headed halfshafts. Others have and Tamiya has seen fit to upgrade to dogbones which work great. The CVDs seem to have issues however. In fact, going back to Frog re-re dogbones appears to be the fix for the faulty CVDs. It seems the MIP diff is meant to work with the CVDs, or do they work with the dogbones as well? In the end its all about personal luck and experience I guess. For my part, using nothing more than Sport-Tuned type motors, I've never had diff issues with a Hot Shot-series car, an ORV Frog or Blackfoot (I know I'm in the minority when speaking of the Blackfoot), but I have had lots of diff issues in the FAV/Wild One. I've also never had hex or dogbone issues but haven't tried the CVDs so I can't comment on those other than what I've seen on the forum. The reason I drag on about this is a friend is considering a Blackfoot but is scared off by the price of the MIP diff (which I personally find very reasonable) as he's gotten the gist that it's required to run and ORV monster. After explaining cheaper solutions to this and getting into the CVD issues, I realized the quagmire of problems, solutions and different experiences we've all had with this fun but, at times faulty, platform. Again this is not a put-down of ANYTHING MIP (or those involved in getting it produced) has done as they should be greatly applauded for the risk they took to produce such a top-notch part. If you want to put some real power through an ORV gearbox I imagine its the way to go. I sincerely don't mean to step on anybody's toes, just wanted some clarification.

I'll just say "you're welcome"