El Gecko

Hah, that's pretty much where I ended up with refoaming too... just too messy and unpredictable for the cost. If the single review on that page is to be believed, then those should work perfect. Maybe pop down there on your lunch break and inquire with a salesperson? Bring your woofer along to do a size check in the store too. Nothing worse than buying something that doesn't fit!

They made the onroad version of my car! Eventually I do plan to add headlights which will bring them even closer. Thanks! All it takes is some cutting with scissors and a bit of paint (of course mine was poorly done in the cold weather, but at least there's color on it) Oh and probably custom body mounts, too. But that's part of the fun, right? You mostly can't see it, but the rear of the main body is held on with a large twist tie

Yes, I would search your particular model like "mission 700s woofer replacement" or similar, to see if anyone has done any swaps before. At least maybe you can find the correct size you need (I forget if it's measured by the diameter of the flange or the diameter of the bolt holes) and the ohms. There's no markings on your woofer that I can see, but since the tweeter and box are both 8ohm, it's a safe bet that the woofer is, too. Also make sure it's not a "subwoofer" since those are tuned for even lower frequencies and wouldn't sound right in this system.

That right there is almost certainly the problem! I'm not sure how well those "refoam" kits work, or if they're available for your model, but I can say from experience that's probably it. The blue cylinder thing attached to the circuit board is a capacitor, and that's usually what blows (you would see the endcaps bursting but thankfully yours look square on still). If you're curious, the circuit board itself is the "crossover" which just sends the correct signal to the correct speaker driver (high frequencies for the tweeter, low for the woofer). The crossover also helps bring out the midrange frequencies, which tend to be lacking in 2-way speakers like this (2-way=two speaker drivers in each cabinet, one tweeter and one woofer). Having been the recipient of numerous broken speakers over the years, I've still never tried a refoam on any of them. Rewiring, replacing electronics, replacing broken speaker drivers for different ones, yes. But never a refoam. If those were mine, I would probably just look around for another pair of 8" woofer drivers to bolt in there (I think 8" is the right size but best to measure). All the rest of it looks to be in good shape.

Not familiar with those particular speakers, but if you can get inside the cabinets, check all the wiring at least, the connections between speakers and plugs, etc. The plugs and other things can loosen over time (with many vibration cycles). It could also be that the crossover or capacitor has blown, in which case you can try to find a new crossover (usually a simple PCB with capacitors/resistors/inducers). If you have a multimeter, you can check if it still shows 8 ohms at the terminals (unplugged from any power source). If it's showing much more or less than 8 ohms, that could be an indication there's something wonky with the crossover. And lastly but hopefully not, there could be something physically wrong with one of the speaker drivers themselves. A voice coil could have a loose wire, or the glue/foam is coming off the cone allowing odd movements. So, hard to say for sure without taking it apart and doing some testing.

Blaster got a nose job and a tummy tuck... I fabricated a new nosecone from a different kind of juice bottle this time, made a new mount for it, and lowered the front of the main body so it's mounted underneath the shock tower brace instead of over the top. Haven't had a chance to drive it yet due to the blizzard, but I'm really digging the look! I never really liked how round the other nosecone was, and how high the front of the car still was. Now it's much more svelte, with a bit of a rake even, and doesn't look totally stupid with regular buggy wheels on for once! Reminds me a bit of a Lotus or early F1, and a little of that crazy twin engine buggy thing from The Road Warrior. Also kind of looks like a fish mouth

Here's a pic of the black aluminum pieces on Black Tooth. Motor mount and L bracket for mounting the front of the gearbox to the rear of the chassis. The L bracket is always necessary, but particularly so on this car because the lower gearbox mounting point isn't exactly structurally sound anymore...

I think it really depends on why you like the models you've built in the first place. It has taken me a long time to come around, but I think shelf queens are totally fine (NIB is a whole different story). Sometimes a car (or a whole collection) can be seen as art, and the builder an artist. In that way, none of them would even need to be capable of running. They would simply need to be appreciated for what they are.

It's possible the B64 has "progressive rate" springs, which would give a similar effect to the dual spring setup. Soft through the first part of travel, so you get the handling you desire, and they get harder as they compress, which would help keep them from bottoming out as easily as typical linear rate springs. Frog/Brat rear springs are progressive rate, which helps keep the tail from dragging.

Simply, yes. However, non-simply, adding harder primary springs affects the whole handling of the car, whereas the secondary springs only affect how the car jumps (thus the focus of the video). The main benefit is that each set of springs can be tuned independently, each for their own purpose. When the chassis hits a jump, the sudden change in direction will bottom out just about any typical primary springs, causing the chassis to slap the ramp, unless you have them set quite stiff. Which affects the overall handling. Adding damping is also not the solution, for the same reason. It takes too much damping to keep from bottoming out, particularly on the ramp itself, and by then the handling will be negatively affected. The idea here is that you have already set up the handling of the car to your liking on flat(ter) ground using the main primary springs, which for a 1:10 car in most cases is softer than you would want for hitting jumps. For example, I have fitted softer springs to the rear of my DT02, which creates the handling characteristics I like. However it will slap the chassis on even small jumps because the friction shocks don't provide much damping. Enter the secondary springs: They act as bumpstops, simply keeping the chassis from hitting the ground. And instead of a hard bumpstop where the shock stops abruptly, potentially upsetting the chassis over a jump or even damaging something, the secondary springs soak up the impact and allow the chassis to stay settled and centered and in control.

Not sure what it's from, but I found a single spring in my junk bin and cut it in half. The halves ended up around 17mm long each after the cut. Wire thickness appears to be around 0.4-0.5mm, so it doesn't have much spring force, but it's enough to hold the truck at my preferred ride height in addition to the stock springs. It works on a buggy too! I have the same setup on my DT02, although I need to get stronger secondaries. I found some generic compression springs on Amazon 1x6mm OD at 10mm long, and I think the 1mm wire thickness and shorter 10mm length should make it more like a springy bumpstop than the softer/more progressive springs on the Sledge. The video uses 10mm long springs from a 3D printer, which are all over Amazon too, but I didn't see any with the same dimensions as the video springs. I'm currently using springs from the 50395 F1 front upright set inside my DT02 friction shocks (only in the rear), and it helps a bit, but they really need to be a bit stronger. Doubling up is always an option too, although it makes for a messy look and would probably be more likely to mar the shaft.

Cool what you've done with the chassis conversion. Is that a 550 motor? Those are my exact sentiments about my old Sledgehammer. It might be 2WD with an open diff, the body is a wreck, and it definitely won't be winning any crawler comps, but it's a trustworthy and surprisingly capable trail truck in any season. Big tires are always fun

I don't speak Japanese, but I believe I've arrived at the same place as the video with regard to shock setup on certain cars. For instance, I had been driving my old Traxxas Sledgehammer around with the shocks set very soft (only 4 shocks, not the full 8 from the factory), and I found that during high speed running, the truck had too much body roll for my liking, but more to the point, it was bottoming out the shocks on jumps, and even just general driving around, since the rear of the truck is quite heavy (the reason they used two shocks per wheel in the first place). I really liked the traction and general driving characteristics of the softer shocks overall, especially for trail running, so I just decided to add bumpstops at first. It was a little better, but I still had to sacrifice too much up-travel to get back to a decent ride height. Then I thought--what if I did spring-loaded bumpstops, essentially dual-rate springs? Why not! In my case, the secondary springs are a little longer and probably softer than the springs in the video, but I have them set up for my truck and a certain amount of sag. But the concept is sound. The truck drives more level, jumps more level, and still has the other suspension characteristics that make it fun to drive. Not sure about scratches and leakage as I don't run any oil in these shocks.

Love this build! I need me a CC02!

Still, we never tire of seeing your creations! re: suspension talk, I don't know that equal length wishbones would have a significant effect on handling, but I suspect not. What I do know for sure is that when the amount of suspension travel is similar in both the front and the back, it's easier to tune the suspension for different behaviors. And I suspect the additional width of the RPM kit is what makes it overall handle better than stock. Not necessarily that the wishbones are equal. If you put the narrower offset wheels on all four corners instead of the wide ones, I believe it would handle exactly like a stock truck.

Possibly some wider offset hexes on the rear would help? And/or wider wheels and tires?

Agreed! Surprised no one has made a Need for Speed comparison yet (although maybe too obvious? )

Every. dang. time. I go out with an RC.

Possibly this? The power/eco switch changes the motors from series to parallel wiring. https://tamiyabase.com/parts/2785-17325019 But any switch with the right hole dimensions should work since you just need a simple on/off function for the LEDs. It's just a matter of finding one.

Not Black Friday related, but I ponied up for some Pro-Lines, after over two years of delayed gratification! The Blaster is finally wearing the shoes it deserves

Gotta disagree with you all on this one. The Bullet was beautiful (if flawed) and I would also submit the Hawk/Radicator platform, especially the version with white nylon and gold ano aluminum like the old RC10s.

My stuff basically IS garbage, sometimes it looks like it and sometimes I get lucky and it doesn't

My interpretation of "bashing" has always been "driving your RC car, having fun, and not racing"--the key being the NOT racing part. So whether you like to drive your RC car 2mph (crawler, trail walker) or 50mph at a 10 foot ramp (send it bro), they both fall under the "bashing" umbrella. I think like other things bashing is a spectrum, and everyone just bashes to their level of comfort or capability of the car. When I go out with my cousin and his 40mph Slash, I'm not trying to beat him in a drag race or jump the same things he does, but we have fun driving our cars together, and we're not racing at a track, in an official race, so I would still consider it just bashing.

Very cool to see that Hornet with the Hotshot box. I love that he used the original Hornet shock mounts for it! Front susp. might be torsion bar, or maybe even a leaf spring under there? Looks like parallel links at least, so no crazy camber changes. Wonder if it has something to do with those Kyosho front wheels? Kyosho front knuckles/etc.? Would love to see more closeups of that one.

I will throw in another vote for Flysky, mine have been great. Cheap receivers, easy to use once you figure out that the instructions don't help at all, and 4AAs in the Tx. Pretty solid receivers, too. One of my receivers, which is NOT waterproof, was dunked in a puddle and just stopped working while driving back to me. Turned it off, dried it out for a few days, plugged it all back in, and to my surprise it fired right back up with no indication anything was ever wrong. I've had an FS-i4 Tx (the cheapest, simplest model) for about 2 years now, and it has been rock solid except one of the pots went bad. However, it's really trivial to just swap the whole sticks from left to right and vice versa, and I only use 2 channels for most of my cars anyway. The spring return typically comes installed on the right side, so I was going to switch them anyway to have spring return on the left. In practice, I actually don't mind that the right steering stick doesn't have a spring return. It's more comfortable for me if it's dropped down low anyway, and you can tighten the screws on the metal strap to keep the stick in place more solidly. The i4 has been such a good unit that I've recently gone for the FS-i6X as well, which has been a fantastic radio so far. All the switches and knobs I could ever need, enough memory for 20 models, and more adjustments than I will ever be able to take advantage of! I even sprung for the version with the upgraded firmware and 10chan Rx, and it was barely more than two pairs of tires! Highly recommend!