Big Jon

Yeah, it’ll be the same.

Nah, it looks great! That’s a tough one to do, and I’d be proud if mine looked that good.

Yeah, it’s a surfactant. I use ammonia-free glass cleaner in a squirt bottle out of convenience, the sticker moves freely until heat and pressure are applied, then it’s easy to dry or squeeze out and mold to surface detail.

You really hit the nail on the head. Performance-wise, anything a TT chassis can do can be done better and cheaper by a TA, TB, or XV chassis. If you are looking for a performance chassis, start with a performance chassis. TT chassis are perfect for relatively stock running with beautiful stock body sets. They’re a lot of fun to experiment with, too. As long as you aren’t trying to run a mule at Preakness and stay within the moderate design envelope, they’re pretty OK. The buggies are somehow so boring to me that I’ve never considered one, though. The DF-03 is so much more interesting and not much more expensive, and this new TT-02B costs as much as the new TD4, which, while ugly, is a great buggy to build and drive.

A modernized vintage buggy would scratch my itch - all of the modern touches like materials quality, adjustability, lipo compatibility, wheel hexes, and so on, with vintage “playability” and good looks. I have a Super Astute too, and love everything about driving it, while lacking spares. Great buggy that needs to be modernized.

I’m using 4-40 button heads on mine. Easy to get and fit a 2.6 hole like they were made for it.

That’s way too much gear for a 540 in a Stampede! 16/90 would be my recommendation for general running, but the Arrma ESC will run a 12t 550 comfortably, which is what I’d use. Traxxas Titans are cheap, plentiful, and reliable, and shove things around nicely. The label comes off easily, too. The Titan in my TT02 rally car pulls 27/66 gears without any issues.

Please, please be a “modern enough” belt-drive wheeler with a pretty body…

If you snap the point off of an X-Acto blade, it works well as a jabbin’ tool to crimp those little ******s in a pinch. It’s much easier to form the connector with small pliers, then finish with the blade.

While your example is purely for appearance, limited droop allows higher corner speeds on smoother surfaces. Most 1/10 scale buggies don’t have droop screws, so droop is set with shock length. In general, the smoother the surface and the higher the traction, the less droop. Excessive droop causes traction rolling, insufficient droop makes the car very on edge.

The DB-01 diffs have been easier to find lately, and I haven’t seen a RRR belt available in forever, while the DB-01 reinforced belts are relatively common. I’d really like to use the 39t pulleys in my DB, too. Mine has a ton of hop-ups, so it would just be for the cool factor.

BITD, my first hobby RC was an Optima, followed by a variety of Kyosho, Associated, a few Yoks, and a smattering of Tamiyas. At the time, while I enjoyed my friends assortments of Tamiyas, they really didn’t fit what I wanted to do. That said, I had a ton of fun with a few of the Tamiyas that I had. As badly as I wanted a Hotshot, a Fox, a Boomerang or whatever, they didn’t offer the performance or durability to be competitive on track at the time, and I always preferred to save up longer and buy race chassis. Now, I have a large fleet from all sorts of manufacturers, and seem to accumulate more Tamiya than anything else. I don’t care as much about outright performance, as long as the chassis works as designed, and really enjoy building and modifying Tamiyas, and they are simply more overall fun than modern race or bash chassis.

Some are more fun to build than they are to run, and some drive so nicely that they always seem to be the one you grab. Others are too fragile or parts are too scarce to drive regularly, or maybe you have to travel too far for the proper surface. Maybe you’re the only guy in your group with a specific niche vehicle, so it only comes out for special occasions. Besides, we’re doing our part by keeping these cars, kits, and parts away from the hoarders.

Yes, you fit them to the inside only. Metal shielded bearings are relatively cheap, and have held up fine with standard rally abuse, although I’d prefer rubber seals.

The narrow bearing is the fix. I have them on my XV, and everything works perfectly.