nowinaminute

Surprise! You don't have to wait for an answer because I took it out after work. There were zero issues because of the plastic removal and I really beat on the buggy today, lot's of fairly big (for a DT03) jumps reaching 6 or 7 foot with quite a few face plants and heavy chassis slaps etc. the transmission appeared to hold up fine! Annoyingly, the sand was in the same state as last time only worse, every square inch of the soft sand had foot prints and the sand was somewhat compacted and firm instead of being loose and fluffy like I prefer. Removing the pre-load collars at the rear definitely helped to keep the rear wheels on the ground but with such rutted terrain, it wasn't enough once you got over a certain speed. I guess a combination of nice weather and no wind just means the footprints have built up rather than the sand being blown smooth like it usually is. I don't think they take the tractor out to rake it at this point in the year either. Oh well! Luckily, the tide was out though so I manged to open her up on 3s on the flat sand. It sure did move! Not a mind alteringly fast top speed but definitely enough to up the fun factor significantly. Massive high speed drifts and power slides, endless rooster tails and the ability to outrun most dogs including a lurcher (he wasn't far off though!) After that I went to the less walked on dunes over the other side of the beach up on the hill and the sand was much better there, silky smooth and soft. That's where I did a lot of the jumping and other general stress testing. There was no damage apart from the ESC breaking loose from it's mounting tape from all the heavy impacts. In terms of whether removing the plastic helped with temps, it definitely seemed cooler on 2s. With 3s it's hard to say because it all feels the same to me over about 60 degrees anyway but I can definitely tell you the motor cooled down a lot quicker when idle whether it had just run on 2s or 3s. It should also be easier to fit a heatsink now too.

I went a bit mental in work today and hacked a massive chunk of plastic away. I didn't even have any proper tools to hand so it's really rough at the moment. I'll tidy it up later. I basically just copied the most extreme examples I could find around the internet. I basically tried to make sure I only took away the thin solid side of the "tunnel" and made sure not to encroach into the half where it's actually two separate halves with a void inside. The only question now is have I compromised the rigidity enough for the motor mount to flex and the pinion lose mesh?

That looks very purposeful! 6s😮😮 mind you, it seems to work in short bursts on road so it should be do-able as long as you're careful. I'm pretty pleased! I was having more trouble with stuff getting in the motor itself than the gearbox. I put some silicone around where the wires go into the motor case but there's a design aspect of the gearbox that can cause problems too. That's why I suggested using that paper gasket thing when you has a lot of sand in yours. The part of the gearbox where the motor mounts isn't flat, it has reinforcing ribs and the voids line up perfectly with some of the unused screw holes on brushless motors and make a passage for sand to get it's way into the motor because there's a gap between the motor and the plastic prison that wraps around it Using the gasket should pretty much prevent it or you can just cover over the spare holes. Another option is to populate the spare holes with little grub screws just to stop sand passing through.

That's the plan, I saw someone on here putting then in the void, maybe you? Just a matter of finding the enthusiasm to strip it down lol. That was my first thought but looking back at slow motion footage, there doesn't seem to be much articulation happening compared to the DT02 with hard body so I thought it might be something to do with the weight difference. I can try it though if reducing preload doesn't help. It was probably a bit of an unfair test of the suspension anyway, foot prints in sand are a pretty big obstacle for a light 1/10 buggy, especially at such speed. And it had been raining earlier too so although dry, by the time I got there, the sand had a kind of firm shell on the surface vs the totally fluffy stuff I was running the 02 in the other day. Those footprints were the biggest issue I think though. I chose the wrong time of day. Tide fully in meaning people were walking all over the soft stuff. Cleaning wasn't bad st all. Because it was mostly dry and without salt in, most of it just fell right off and I have no fear of major corrosion. If the tide had been out and I had been on the damp stuff, I would have washed the metal parts with fresh water and put a little oil on but no need this time. Gearbox was very clean all things considered.

Took my Hotshot out for a bit while my daughter drove around in her ride-on land rover. She's 8 now so getting a bit big for it so I'm trying to get my money's worth she's only used it about 10 times! Poor investment lol. It has a remote so she spent half the time sat next to me using it as a huge RC. But then discovered she could sit in it with her feet up, using the remote to drive around instead! It's a hard life, eh?

Well, that was interesting lol. I went back to the beach. It didn't go quite to plan as I got my times wrong and arrived at high tide, doh! There wasn't any decent flat sand and people had been walking all over the soft stuff and leaving deadly mini potholes everywhere so it was tough to find enough space to work with. Why are families so selfish? It rained earlier in the day too so even the soft sand had a kind of damp mortar like quality rather than the soft fluffy stuff there usually is. Anyway! First of all, I managed to get some old Pro Line Sand Paws so I slapped them on my DT03 (they would have scrubbed like badword on the Kumamon or Holiday Buggy shell) and jeez, these things have insane grip in the sand. My DIY tyres were pretty good but these things are something else! Even on 2s it was really difficult to keep the nose down! You certainly notice the difference in weight between a hard body with a bear in the driving seat and lexan! And those tyres were just tenacious! Between the lack of a decent running space and the tyres, I found it pretty much impossible to use full throttle or get up to speed. I'll have to get some weight in the nose and come back when the tide is out. It might be worthwhile changing to my DIY tyres too for this particular buggy. They seem to be a more conservative compromise in terms of grip. The Pro lines definitely make for less stalling though! I did try it on 3s, it was more of the same pretty much. It was very difficult to get the power down without flipping. I would have had a play with the EPA given more time. It's definitely exhilarating though! I just wish there had been more space with smooth sand so I could have really opened her up. I need to take the preload collars off the back too I think, it's way lighter than the hard body '02s so with the same amount of pre-load, it's too bouncy. As far as temps go, I didn't bother to measure. It got too hot to comfortably touch on 3s but meh. Nothing melted. I tried to get some video but it's hard to drive and film at the same time when you're dealing with something a little volatile and space is limited! Here's 2s: And 3s. I struggled to go flat out on 2s so using the full power of 3s was nigh on impossible with the limited amount of smooth ground and trying to film but there's maybe one or two passes where you can at least see there's more power on tap:

It's not a "true" solid axle truck, more of a beefed up truggy but it looks **** cool. This is the kind of thing Tamiya should make imo. Tamiya are famed for quirky bodies and Kyosho come along put out an awesome looking van that can run rings around a Lunchbox. It's a pretty simple chassis and just a lexan shell but the execution is great. It looks cool and will probably handle pretty well and despite not having the biggest ground clearance in the world, the 4wd and big tyres will surely give it some half decent ability. Come on, Tamiya!

The really bad part is knowing deep down that I probably have more project hours waiting there than I have left to live and I'm "only" 36.

Or buying a vintage model, spending hours cleaning the years of dust off of it, leaving it on a shelf and then being confused when you pick it up again only to discover it has years of dust on it "but I only cleaned it....ohhhhhh"

No. You are the only sane one. There is nothing sane about forgetting which projects half of the parts you own are even for!

I like your style lol It's only a £10 motor I suppose.... ok, that helps, at least we're on the same page! Are you giving it the same aggression with the throttle as you are in the Castle video? If so, that does seem awful laid back for 3s brushless, even a cheapy. It even sounds less eager! Perhaps it was a little too much KV for the gearing and was bogging down a little and staying in the lower RPM/higher amp range? I'm guessing the threshold for that happening would be lower on a cheaper motor. I feel like my 3100 pulls harder but it's pretty much impossible to tell without comparing both in the same vehicle in the same circumstances. You can even hear that has more get up and go. I guess the sand consistency could make a difference. Soft sand is notorious for making things bog down but I don't think the other motor was delivering the goods either way. Almost too much power with the Castle in a way but it's a tricky balance sometimes. When I'm climbing dunes and in more enclosed areas, 2s feels pretty much perfect but when the tides out and you have that massive expanse of sand, the perception of speed instantly falls off and you crave more speed. When I was at the beach a couple of weeks back, a guy with an X-maxx turned up and he wasn't really that much faster when he was trying to actually adhere to the terrain on the dunes but he also had the option of just hitting the start of the dune, clearing the rest of it completely, landing on the beach and then just blasting off at 50mph. Talk about kicking sand in my face . I could keep up when he was trying to obey gravity but on the open beach it was hopeless. I know I wouldn't have kept up even on 3s but it would have been enough for the panic and doubt to set in for a glorious split second of £1000 buyers remorse I did manage to smoke a guy with a 2wd slash at the beach with my Grasshopper once using a finned 380 on 3s but the victory as short lived. A soon as we hit some bumpier sand the Grashopper assumed it's default upside down position. It felt **** good though!

You don't happen to be a member of the Jedi order? Self restraint I could only dream of.

I think it takes 5x11x4mm (tamiya code 1150, industry code MR115) x12 And 8x12x3.5mm (tamiya code 1280, industry code MR128) x4

I will answer in the form of a percentage. 98.9

Do you have an adjustable motor mount? I guess if you could run the 4300 on 3s and 20t I should be ok running a 3100. Maybe I should just man up lol Did you use sand tyres though? They seem to make quite a difference to motor load.