Big Jon

I have found the “reinforced” hard plastics to be much more durable, regardless of brand, with the exception of old Losi carbon parts, which were made of glass.

I’ve had good luck thinning Tamiya paints with Tamiya retarder and/or Tamiya lacquer thinner and brush painting. I’ve also used Mr. Leveling with good success. For white, I use Tamiya white primer, and I cannot successfully brush paint any yellow, so that’s always airbrushed.

Those steel wheels look great! How did you narrow the fronts?

That’s pretty cool. My current record is 14 miles and some change with my Element Enduro. Going hiking this evening, in fact.

Believe it or not, the Titan 12t is manufactured specifically for Traxxas to their spec, and is of higher quality and performance than generics or even the Arrma 12t. They’re surprisingly decent. (Can’t believe that I’m saying something nice about Traxxas electronics)

The hobby was in a slump. 1/8 scale nitro was big, as were nitro monster trucks. Nitro requires a lot of commitment and maintenance, so people were getting in and out of the hobby quickly, and nitro had increased run time and speed expectations, so electric wasn’t very popular. As Lipo and brushless became viable, and the Slash was released, we entered another boom phase that was dominated by RTRs. Lipo and 2.4 ghz allowed the scale/trail segment to blossom, with large groups finally possible and long run times. I think that Traxxas marketing outside the hobby has been a double-edged sword. They’ve brought countless people into the hobby with trucks like the T-Max and Slash, but have really pushed the hobby away from kits and have slowed development of niche vehicles.

I experimented a few years ago with one of my Slashes, using various arms and wheel offsets on the rear to widen and narrow the rear track. When the rear track was wider than the front, the truck had very hard turn-in oversteered badly. The narrower I went on the rear, the softer the turn-in and the easier the oversteer was to control. It was difficult to completely lose the back of the truck and much easier to catch, and it lost the terrible weight transfer to the outside front that Traxxas 2WD vehicles have. If I were having problems getting a car to turn in, and everything else failed, I might try widening the rear track.

Man, this looks like fun. Looks like a perfect yard truck, and if it’s as much fun as the the GF and G6, I’ll be happy. Nothing wrong with a million gears!

I’ve been looking for the carbon reinforced belt covers for years, and I managed to get a RRR chassis (square lipo, cut for the chassis heatsink) recently.. I really wish they weren’t so hard to get parts for; I wanted to run this one hard.

The XV-01 is probably the least flawed chassis Tamiya’s done. It does exactly what it is supposed to do right out of the box; the Pro kit did more, and if you want to go fast, it’s really cheap. It still drives better than it’s completion on a wide variety of surfaces (have not driven an XV-02 to compare)). They are just exceptional. I wouldn’t let the suspension mounts deter me , I’d just add them when building if I intended to run off-road much. I had been running my car hard with a hot boosted 13.5 for several years when I posted the NN4 spacer failure and fix on Ultimate RC - it’s the weakest spot in a strong transmission, not a fragile or defective part. Really fantastic chassis, can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed mine. It’s still my favorite runner, and still fun to tinker with. It’s a decade old now, and, with the exception of JIS screws, feels entirely modern. A Pro II kit would be great. The TD-4 will probably get a stand-up shock variant with an attractive body, as will the TD2. Hopefully, we’ll get different bodies for the laydown versions and truck variants. While the TD isn’t a race chassis, it’s an interesting high performance kit that’s pure Tamiya and very high quality.

BITD, there was a company here in the States that made a bunch of Grasshopper parts, and they made a gearbox stiffener that ran from hub to hub. Can’t remember the name, though. I might try the old drywall tape and Shoe Goo on the wing mount, and use both hardware and shoe goo or clear servo tape to hold the wing on. Maybe even reinforce the wing. Race wings hold up much better than kit wings, although they are too wide for vintage buggies.

I am dying for a King Cab rerelease. They were such a nice blend of early monster trucks and the next stage of stadium truck evolution. Even with their flaws, I think that they’re perfect examples of Tamiya philosophy. Very good performance, smashing looks, fun to play with, and superb build process. I’ve wanted one since they were new. I’d like a Monster Racer just as much. I hope you enjoy it! There are lots of King Cab/Astute parts on Shapeways if you need replacements.

Totally off topic, was that offered as a kit, or is it a special kit with special hop-ups? Magnificent, that’s just an incredible Mini4WD.

Those are awesome diffs, for real. My ancient, heavily used XV still has the original plastic internals! The diffs started as TA06 rear diffs, and have been used in most of Tamiya’s higher-level gear drive transmissions since, from the TRF201 to the TD4. Really good diff, and you can get ball diffs, spools, even one-ways to experiment with. Much better than the TT02 diffs, although I’m hoping the XV02 diffs are of much better quality, even though they’re enormous.

My TD4 is almost exactly like his, except mine has Yeah shocks! I’m probably going to end up with a very similar Avante scheme too. Man, Tamiya really whiffed it with the TD bodies regardless of the names. I keep waiting for them to grow on me and they really haven’t at all. Both bodies are oddly shaped with strange proportions, and they have warts. I didn’t even get a matching Mini 4WD. This great-looking Revive body has me exited. With so many unused parts on the trees and so many unused holes on the chassis there are, I wonder what the next bodies will be?

Which rear axles did you use? The centers of most wheels are too thick for the Tamiya CVDs, so I’m using DF-03 wheels on mine.

The Avante one. It looks like it should! I really like the Azarashi body, too, just not $100 bucks of like.

YES! Scored the last Revive body! That’s the one I really want.

Alright, this ugly duckling has been out for quite a while now, and, while I think that the chassis is a winner, I still haven’t warmed up to this homely body. The Revive body is essentially unobtainable, and I’m not aware of other options. None of the buggy bodies I have floating around the house are even close to being close, so I’m out of ideas. I’d like mine to look as good as it runs. You lads have any suggestions?

Yeah, just overpowered. I don’t get it, either. The whole point of big power is control and grunt, with enough wheel speed for the flats and long climbs. Bouncers have a little popularity around here, if you want to see a great way to destroy parts fast. Anyhow, the Japanese guys look like they’re having a great time, and I’m envious of the British club scene and meetups. I enjoy low key competition, while more serious has become a turnoff.

Are these U4 or crawlers? My trail rigs have big power (3800kv Castle on 3S), my U4 rig is 10.5 on 2S because it’s very light, relatively speaking. The trail rigs might run 12 mph or so, maybe not that fast, while the U4 might touch low-20s. I ask because some guys around here set up their crawlers to run ridiculous top ends and wonder why they’re always breaking stuff.

That was usually part of the “prep” that went into a racing stock motor, although I don’t recall buying them with leads. Super rad caps soldered, magnets zapped, brush leads soldered to brush hoods with mega silver solder, hoods aligned, timing at ROAR legal, special brush compounds, specific brush springs, crazy rotor stacks. With all of the national and local brands, and Trinity/Epic dropping something every other month, Ernie Provetti got for-real rich off of racers $28 at a time. Those racing motors were incredibly fast, and made RC racing expensive. That guy killed slot car racing with trick of the week motors and by getting on the board of directors, moved to RC and did the same thing.

BITD, Trinity was the sole importer of Sanyo sub-C cells. You could buy them unmatched by the case, new untested cells, which is where the various battery companies sourced their cells. Each battery vendor had some mystery matching system and claimed they had the best. Basically, the cells got a few break-in cycles, then were tested for capacity at a set discharge rate, voltage, voltage under load, internal resistance. Some were “pushed” with a number of high current charge/discharge cycles to break down IR and increase voltage, typically SCR cells. Typically, full-sponsored drivers got the very best cells, sponsored guy without a battery sponsor got the next, local fast guys got the best of the cells that made it to hobby shops, and we got whatever was left over. There were plenty of “sport matched” packs available, which were matched packs of the good enough cells, and “sport” packs, which were the cells that were left after all the good and good enough cells were gone. This was a time when we were all struggling with run time and performance through the run; while the first few laps might be OK with a random pack, a good battery was much faster in the last half of the race and could tolerate more gear while still making time. Now we gear for performance and heat, then we geared to make time. While they were expensive, cell matching chargers were available to regular customers. It was not at all uncommon for hobby shops or groups of friends to buy cases of loose cells and match their own. I used to buy my SCE 1700 cells from the LHS for between $15-$25 a cell depending on quality, and each cell had a label with all specs and a discharge graph. Very much the same situation applied to stock motors. There were some really, really fast completely legal stock motors out there. Every motor supplier would buy cases and cases of them, test every one, do all the blueprinting to the good ones, test them again, and apply labels. A good stock motor was an entirely different beast that an over the counter one. The Reedy Stock that came in gold tub RC10 kits was a dog compared to a Reedy Stock racing motor, and with Trinity controlling that market too, Trinity/Epic based motors were usually amongst the fast ones.

Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty feels close to 1,000,000 cst oil, is easier to clean, and cannot leak. I tried 1,000,000 in an unsealed diff with RTV sealant - once. What a mess. Spools/lockers are tough on CV axles, even on crawlers. I’ve broken front axles on every crawler I own except the Twin Hammers (which is a fast U4 rig with a Silly Puttied front diff).

The RX cost is what’s kept me away from Sanwa. Of course, Futaba S-FHSS receivers ain’t exactly cheap either.