Nitomor

Looks like we’ll be testing ebay/paypals buyer protection! I guess its a waiting game now!

I shall look forward to buying one of these and monsterising it!! It’ll make a great basher with its long stroke dampers and its sturdy bathtub (apart from battery ends), shame they didn’t enclose fully like the big wig chassis.

I sold everything I owned lol to pool it all together, along with the job I was working during holidays from age 13 so I could afford a bike at 16 as my parents eventually gaved in to letting me get a bike on the proviso I bought it myself! I think I got about £400 for a job lot sale for the Manta ray, a Clod which I had bought used, and a bitsa pumpkin that once 95% complete with loads of new parts as well as all chargers etc etc. The Manta Ray was the first RC I built myself. I bought an Aprilia AF1 50 in 1992, 77mph (indicated) rocketship, it was awesome, the first time I took it out is one of the most memorable moments of my life. Not as fast as your RD350 (bet you wish you kept that ;p ), but it handled superbly. Sold that to fund an RS125 Extrema at 17, which predictably blew up and the piston got replaced with a Malossi 175 big bore kit, that flew and to this day I reckon its one of the best handling bikes on the planet! Even in 125 trim it was blitzing the big 750’s and litre bikes of the day (exups and co) through the lanes. Obviously motorways it didn’t have the legs but still it topped out at nearly 130mph (indicated).

Yay for the Manta Ray. I will be buying one. My favourite RC back in the day, got one at 14 and loved it, only sold it to scrape enough funds for a motorbike once reaching legal age. I too missed out on the rere. Funny the love for the DF01 was only being discussed just the other day on here!

Not the best feedback score either but we’ll see. It’s a bit of a gamble but it might pay off. I’ll be delighted if it is as I was about to buy one for £30 odd and this gets me 5 for £26.70!

Thanks for the heads up. Just bought 5nr and it applied a discount so paid like £25 with free postage. Hope they are all legit inside and not replicas. There are some really good fakes of stuff coming out of China, I’ve seen some hks replica stuff for 1:1 that look identical in photos until they are in hand and even then not so easy to distinguish! If they are knock offs at the end of the day its less than the cost of one legit, and if they are legit then its a proper bonus! cheers Nito

I have exactly that problem running CW01 Montero wheels on my Hornet! ^

I think for those type of jumps you will definitely be wanting to look at suspension. It a dead cat bounce as they are currently set up and as stated above, it's a heavy old rig. The WT makes a big difference with suspension upgrades, I have yet to address this on my Kong as I haven't finished the shell yet. I'm hoping the GPM WT01 towers might fit front and rear to allow longer travel shocks circa 93mm and the mid ones might just need upgraded dampers (shorter than 93mm though as I'm not sure how easy it would be to improve on the damper fittting but any bottoming out would likely be taken up/transferred by either of the other two axles.

Oddly, given how I feel about the movie, the Leia Poppins scene was one that I personally didn’t mind, it was nicely shot to give Leia her force glory moment doing something we’ve never seen the force do before and a touching homage to Carrie in a nice peaceful framing of her as we know and love her, it’s about the only scene in the film where the pace slows down to an acceptable level and actually gives a moment for reflection and contemplation. In fact I’d go as far as to say that was actually a scene I appreciated. What did annoy on the Leia scene was how Admiral Ackbar was despatched without a seconds mourning, they all got sucked out into the vacuum of space yet Poe opens the door back up for her without getting sucked out, really poor continuity there, I know you go to the cinema and suspend disbelief at the door but its hard when the physics is not even consistent within the same scene. While we’re talking about the force, super Kylo who can freeze laser bolts in the air and touch knock people out and take what he wants, gets bested by the red gimp guards, requiring Rey’s assistance. What an utterly pathetic fight scene that was. Bring back Darth Maul, the only cool thing to come out of EP1, proper fighting Sith lol.

I so hope they rerere the Manta Ray. I had one bitd when I was 14 and thought that Tamiya would never be able to improve on it, it was such a good runner and so robust, I loved it. Unfortunately I missed out on the rere! It really was an evolutionary step for Tamiya, a quantum leap in RC’s imho.

I kind of like it how it is, makes the sparkelescent paint pop. The decals are too intrusive in that they leave very little paint on show. I need to do something with the canopy glass though so may apply selected decals to it when I get some time. For many of the reasons above I don’t want to plaster it with the Avante name because it isn’t.

There’s all the rere shot cars too, Hotshot, Boomerang, Bigwig.

Cool bits; Millenium Falcon cool screen time - never get enough of that. Lightspeed carnage. One of the coolest moments of the film. Hey, why did no one think of that before! I think I fancied Admiral Holdo a little too. Er, grasping at straws now, I didn’t know X wings could hover stationary in space, it would have made blowing the deathstar a lot easier lol. Everything else was pretty crap. Maybe slicing snook dog in half and needing a lightsaber like a hole in the head, if the rest of that scene wasn’t so **** cringeworthy. I’m struggling to give the rest more than 4 to 5 out of ten. Bad bits...I’ll let some others take the lead before I launch into a tirade. It was poor poor poor, I really cringed at so many scenes. By the end urgh, I was actually looking forward to Finn getting consumed by the cannon, shame Rosie went and saved him. Better still had it taken the pair of them out to save any more poor casinoesque scenes from future movies, eurgh. Not to forget all the BS political messages clearly apparent. I’m hoping the next film will go the way of Dallas, Rey waking up and finding Luke in the shower on porg island, after she just woke up from obviously having a really really bad dream lol!! Apart from getting it on with dreamy Poe at the end lol.

I like my Aero Avante, it’s a good performer and the best looking of the DF02 shells IMHO. It also has stronger gear internals than the TT02B I believe. I run mine monsterised of course

The motor should be the easy bit, it’s the centre diff that I feel will be the harder part and mating that to the props, but then I’ve not really gone off piste to that extent on a chassis before, probably childs play to many on here!! edit: yours doesn’t seem to have the same frat tranny as mine, poss easier then, yours must be a different version to mine or maybe its just the photo angle. I note the later TGM-04 chassis has single dampers. Double edit!: thoroughly confused, so yours is TNX and mine is a TGM-02 it would seem! Are they very different? They look fundamentally the same chassis below the ally top plate. I had never heard of the TNX but then I don’t follow Nitro.

Fantastic stuff, always love watching what WT builds lead to. Subscribed

^ I’ll be following that, as I have three of those chassis to convert. Hate nitro so would like to get mine useable with electric power

That looks great @Juggular , I also planned to paint the exhaust silencers/manifold.

It’s the reason why I haven’t finished my Bigwig since March last year, just because I hadn’t got around to engine detailing and painting shell. I want to make ht leads and air filter, paint rocker and ribs on the rockers etc and make a little dizzy for it!

No, would need to be second hand but many have been lightly used as they were horrible PITA nitro!!

If you want large Monster Truck like Clod that will scoot, the awesome Terra Crusher but converted to electric?! They are proper heavy duty, 1:8 scale.

WT01!! (Personality, scoot and retro in blackfoot guise!) Or DT03T in Monster Racer guise...

Or DF01 Racing Lancer (Dakar esque) for euro 69.99 on special... https://tamico.de/Tamiya-Racing-Lancer-Team-Repsol-DF-01-Bausatz-OHNE-Licht_1

You’re not overtightening or using the wrong screws by any chance. I’ve never stripped one of those. My main runner is running brushless and has had some serious abuse, somersaults and all sorts! Tamico can take paypal... Gearbox halves; https://tamico.de/Tamiya-A-Teile-WR-02-WT-01-0005713 or complete gearbox including motor I think... https://tamico.de/Tamiya-Getriebe-fertig-montiert-WT-01-WR-02G-8085027 With torque tuned motor... https://tamico.de/Tamiya-Getriebe-montiert-mit-Torque-Tuned-Motor-fuer-WR-02C

Not sure where yours broke, you can get these extended GPM turret mounts which will strengthen the top points, none for the lower that I’ve seen. After running these rigs brutally for years I’ve only broken one casing and my son one. Both of them on the rear box after hitting the rear wheel hard on posts. Damaged Gbox GPM extended mounts