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Hey Everyone! I'm new here and I am in possession of some classic Tamiya vehicles that require restoration. Not sure which to start first, so I'll let you guys decide! Once one of the cars wins, I'll document the restoration process for the group. I'll keep the poll open until Friday 9/22.

I was recently thinking of getting a cheap buggy that doesnt need much upgrades and thats has it own style and is fun.I came up with the grasshopper and the hornet.But i noticed the grasshopper is cheaper is there any reason why?

Hello everyone! All most finished with this project and wanted to show it off to some people who would appreciate it.

Hi all, Been happily buzzing around with bone stock stuff but having attended a few full-sized Autocross events and loved them, I can't help but notice the similarity between these cars and the Grasshopper/Hopper2 and Hornet. Most Autocross cars run replica Fuchs alloy wheels, however... so I'm wondering whether a set of Tamiya Fuchs could be used on on a Grasshopper without major surgery? I guess rally block tyres would be the best option to retain some kind of capability! Here's what I mean by the looks... All and any guidance gratefully received!

Hi all Anyone have a basher body or new one? Thanks

So ive been knocking together a Sand Hopper, this required body mounts, they attach using regular tamiya screws to the regular mounting holes on the chassi. To fit the shell i trimmed down the point of the chassi to the level of the bumper mounts and notched the bottom of the front of the beetle shell maybe 3mm. (ignore the hole in the battery compartment, it is unrelated to mounting the shell, my 2s 5000mah battery didnt fit so i removed the rear wall of the compartment and cut the hole in the top so the power/balance leads are protected inside of the tub.) Files are oriented for maximal strength when printed, the prints will require supports. ADDITION: Made a cover for the point of the chassi, file attached. SandHopperShellMounts.zip frontcover05.zip

The threaded part of the re-re rear axles is remarkably shorter compared to the original ones. (Original is on the right, re-re on the left) Not an issue using the kit wheels but as I'm building the re-re specifically for speed runs ( I don't want to put this kind of stress on my original) I want to use wheels with 12mm hexes. I used the aluminium 2015 Frog hex adapter for this on my original without any issues but on the re-re it seems not enough thread is left on the axle poking through the wheel to reach the locking part of the lock nuts 😪 Has anyone of you guys ran into this issue and how did you solve it?

Hello everyone, I'm very new to Tamiya and RC cars in general, so am looking for any advice. I've recently built my very first RC tamiya car (Monster Beetle) and what a beast it is! I just love how it can go on all types of terrain, especially on grass, without a hitch. Overall very happy with it! My grandad recently got one after seeing mine and choose the Grasshooper, however both him and I are very new to the RC car scene and didn't realise how much it struggles with grass. As that is the primarily terrain he will be driving on, I was trying to find ways of helping his grasshopper out. All I could think is he needs bigger wheels in general, so attempted to put my monster beetle wheels on his... the rear wheels managed to get on ok, but the fronts kept on scraping the 'arm' (not sure if correct terminology) and wouldn't spin around at all. So I'm just asking if he would need bigger wheels, what size of wheels he would need and/or something else? Thank you!

Im repurposing this thread to keep my builds in one place, leaving the posts about my TT02B Scorcher, linking to my Terra Scorcher thread for the pics and comments for when i put it together but i dont expect there to be much more happening in that thread. My Terra Scorcher build. Hey all! A couple of days back i started a Plasma Edge 2. This is the first ever kit im building and my first hobby grade RC car since a Marui Big Bear i had back in the nineties. (Had two or three toy grade cars since) A couple of years back i got back into RC with building/flying fpv drones and foamboard planes, was good fun but ive since fallen out of that, too much repairing compared to RCing, im hoping a car will be a bit less maintenance per battery pack In an earlier thread over in Other Makes i showed off the 3d print that got me back in RC this time, after getting that together i wanted to pick up a kit. I was looking between the Plasma Edge 2 and the Neo Fighter, both look real good but since id never had a 4wd i decided on the TT02B over the DT03, even tho it cost a bit more. Following the instructions to get it together was very straight forward after looking at a couple vids in preparation and building a 3d printed 1/10 rwd buggy a little earlier. As for pics of the build process ill go with "draw a circle, draw another circle, now draw the rest of the f###ing owl" rather than spamming lots of pics that most of everyone will have no interest in seeing. I followed along the instructions, only difference from box stock was adding in ball bearings. Since getting it to the above state ive had it out for a little test drive, so happy with how it moves, even if the ground was mostly frozen except for a little patch of gravel at work. Today i properly attached the antenna holder using the top hole on the inner servo mount, added some foam to the underside of the battery hold down to prevent rattling and added little shelf where a battery voltage alarm was attached as i dont know what, if any, lipo cut off the carson dragster 70A esc has (it was included in the kit rather than the tamiya esc i was expecting). I also designed and printed 10mm extensions for the shocks to hopefully give a bit more ground clearance. Sadly they turned out to be a bust as the arms will not go more than a mm or two lower. Was expecting them to be able to go down at least 10mm since they go up more than that but the cups for the drive axles hit the arms just slightly below horizontal. To get a bit more clearance ive put in an order for some 96mm tires on 12mm hex rims, its not a huge step up so hopefully ill be fine without changing the gearing, the rims should be large enough that they will fit over the axle carriers, offset wasnt specified but in case the included rims arent good ill just 3d print my own to fit. Until the new wheels (and some other random bits) arrive i figure im going to paint the body shell, from my tabletop mini hobby i have an assortment of acrylics and an airbrush, seeing that the proline body colors are water based i feel relatively sure they are also acrylics so i think ill be fine with what i already have. Im having a hard time deciding on how id want to paint it tho, the strongest thought i have is red because "Red Wunz Go Fasta", i think it would look nice with the visible black parts of the chassi, white shocks and black/white/blue/yellow of the decals. Will update upon more progress.

£99.99 but, if you sign up to their club, you get 15% off first order https://www.hobbycraft.co.uk/tamiya-the-grasshopper-rc-model-kit-110/643109-1000 Code is sent within about 5 minutes of registering Not sure if they still do, but they also used to send you a £5 birthday voucher too

Since this seems to come up every once in a while, I thought I would write this all down in one spot for the sake of posterity. SRB (Special Racing Buggy) wheels can be placed into (3) groups: 1. Rough Rider/Buggy Champ. 2. Super Champ/Fighting Buggy/Sand Scorcher. 3. Ford Ranger XLT/Brat. The RR/BC wheels are 1.7”, 5 spoke, and silver. The Fast Attack Vehicle uses the same but molded in brown. All of these sets use the square block style road/sand tires. The SC/FB/SS wheels are 1.5”, 5 spoke, and white. These are also used on the Grasshopper, Hornet, and Frog. All of these sets use the same ribbed sand tire on the front. On the rear, the SS and GH use sand paddles, and the SC/FB, Frog, and Hornet use the spiked off road tires. The XLT/Brat wheels are 1.7”, 8 spoke (thanks @mtbkym01), and white. The front wheel on these sets are the same width as the rear so all four wheels use the same square block tire as the rear of the RR/BC. There are some variations to these such as the Jun Watanabe Hornet (black wheels) and the Brat blue edition (black wheels). If anyone else would like to info or corrections, please do so! Also, this might be a good place to list 3rd party manufacturers that made wheels or tires for these cars or in this size range.

Back in 2012, the world was a different place. For starters, I did not have a Tamiya Striker - until late in the year: Apparently, I had a hankering for something very different, and the Striker was unlike many things before or since. The "sharp wind-cheating Formula 1-style body" [- Tamiya promotional video] and the desire to "hit the trail and strike out the competition" [- also the Tamiya promotional video] led me to acquire one. It was put together during my time in post-secondary school, which meant minimal effort to get it going. The only chassis modification I made at the time was adding the Team CRP front chassis brace and bumper set for the Futaba FX-10. Stickers, different tires, and a painted helmet were all I needed to "enjoy" the Striker experience. I ran that car for two years, after which its run time became sporadic (I even half-heartedly listed it for sale in 2016), to be resurrected in 2021. For all that time, the car retained its controversial front swing-axle suspension. Accompanied by a heavily rear-biased weight distribution and pure friction dampers, the understeer was very tangible. Initially, I accepted it as part of driving a Tamiya Striker, but over time, the intrigue of a double-wishbone conversion at the front end lingered. The time finally arrived when I pushed the Striker a bit too hard and broke both front suspension arms: My wallet made the decision for me to finally abandon the stock front suspension setup: not only were front suspension arms scarce, but they were expensive! It was cheaper to attempt modifications than to shell out for NOS parts, and so the trials of customization and testing commenced. The first iteration used Grasshopper II parts: Citing similarities between the Striker and Grasshopper II, I came to learn that about the only front-end components those two models had in common were wheels and tires. I did manage to make it functional, if not entirely useful... And so begins the modification of a humble Tamiya Striker!

This should be fun - only my second build, after a lunch box during the lockdown. I bought this kit off @Grumpy pants and have a few hop up parts (green trim) - but basically going to aim for the box art. What I really wanted is a fun car that behaves like a monster truck, on a modern chassis. I'm hoping I get the same fun as I do from the lunch box.... but with a wee bit more steering. This will take me ages, as I like to sit down for a short while every night, have a drink and listen to radio 6. If I do it too fast I'll only have to buy another one . I'll post a few pics as I go.

Soz if this is a silly question..I tried to search the forum for specific 'Grasshopper' builds but doesn't seem to find anything.....just finished my DT03 and found the forum a massive help...apart from it causes my wallet untold damage with all your hop ups and bling advice 👊👊

My fellow vintage Grasshopper aficionados, I may be getting down into the weeds with the details of this, but I have an old Grasshopper that I am restoring and it has a fuse attached to the speed controller. I can't seem to find any photo evidence of what the fuse looked like on the first Grasshoppers, so I'm not sure that what I have is original or not. There have been modifications made to the wiring on this speedo, so it's hard to tell what's original and what isn't. The blue insulator is covering a crimped connector that spliced in a Tamiya bullet connector. Questions: 1) Is this speed control and fuse original? Is the plastic covering original? I think the SC at least is original because it does not have a BEC plug to power the receiver and the car was set up to use a receiver battery pack, just like it does in the manual I have. 2) Does anyone recommend restoring this? It is cracked around the negative battery wire and one of the contacts. I have an original Hornet MSC I could swap in. 3) The manual I have makes no mention of a fuse. Is there an earlier manual that does? Thanks!

Inspired by @HondaHan's recent post here, I am looking at ways to lower my Comical Grasshopper. I'm after some advice about how to do this best. I won't be widening teh stance, as I have that covered with me wheels. I just need to go low. Pics show my current setup, which is base don the Yeah Racing WR02 hop-up arms and Shock Gear dampers (55mm version). The need to be lower comes partly from the huge silly tyres I'm using :-) Big wheels, slammed low is what I'm after! I figure If I drive on tarmac and with stiff shocks this should be OK. On the front, I think I have the optimum choice of holes to lower the ride height, but correct me if I'm wrong. On the rear, I have an issue. If I use what I think are the optimum holes (inner most at top, outermost at bottom) the shocks rub against the suspension mount at the top. This seems to be due to the fact that the yeah racing rear shock mount is about 5mm thick, and thus changes the angle of the real shock so that that slope backwards by about 5 degrees, instead of being pretty much vertical (when viewed from the side). As a result, the top of the shock is just too close to the shock tower when using teh inner most hole. This feels like a design flaw, unless I'm missing something? Is it possible to get a longer screw-in ball joint at the BOTTOM of the shock to move the back end 5mm further back to match? What other options are there? Second issue relates to the length of shock. I got the 55 mm version as they pretty much match the stock shocks, but I'm thinking perhaps the 55mm 'touring car' versions would be better? It is good practivce to lower a car by limiting the length of the shock? That feel like a hack to me, but perhaps it's normal? Could I go even shorter that 50mm shocks? Thirdly is just 'what am I missing? If people want a super low stance, what are the other options, and what other considerations showed I be thinking of? Thanks as ever. I'm always so impressed by the generosity of this community.

The retro Comical Buggy series by Tamiya has been pretty divisive in the community with some people loving them or some people absolutely disgusted. After owning my Comical Hornet, I can say I fall into the camp of being a fan of the Comical Hornet and its sister cars. Just like the original Hornet was a great first RC kit for kids of the 80's and 90's, I think the Comical Hornet makes a great first car for a lot of kids (and kids at heart) of the late 90's and modern times! I love the original Hornet and this Comical version looks great (especially for a fan of 1/1 compact cars and RC cars like the Lunch Box) and the WR-02CB chassis really improves the suspension geometry over the original "hopper" chassis. Speaking of the WR-02CB, being what I call the "Tamiya corporate chassis", sharing parts with many modern Tamiya cars such as WT-01, GF-01, G6-01, MF01X, some M chassis cars, etc, parts are so easy to find and it's almost like playing with LEGOs. I had some parts laying around and I wanted make my Comical buggy look more like a.. well... buggy! It is still a work in progress but I think the most important part is done! Wider and lower, it handles so much better and I think it should have come like this out of the box! Below is a video from my YouTube channel detailing this initial step! I hope you enjoy and share your thoughts about this project and the Comical buggy series in general! [media]

So, I made my introductions in the General section so won't go into that. I got my 'Hopper a couple weeks back now. Spent a couple of evenings getting it up and running. This is from the other day. Couldn't resist a spin round the garden. In fact, I've done quite a lot of that The kids (5 & 2) are fascinated by it which is cool. Hopefully they'll get to learn how to drive and enjoy. Next jobs:- Paint the body. I'm in 2 minds as I got Kawasaki green then realised there's an actual factory candy green edition Fit the driver figure & light pods. Need to do some final detailing. Eventually I'll fit the Torque Tuned motor just for fun. Already tidied up the wiring...it's a little bit thrown together in the image Any tips on securing the battery door? Not lost it yet but I assume this may be an issue in the future I really love the look of some of the T4 Works cars. Would love to pick up some of those parts but the costs with shipping are difficult to justify! By the way, any recommendations on photo hosting?

The question is: what models share the same chassis at the Lunchbox and Midnight Pumpkin? I think the Montero(?) does, but is there anything else? Also the chrome Midnight Pumpkin, what's the best way to protect the finish? Has anyone ever spray lacquered it? The reason I ask, I am slowly pulling out my rc stuff that I have collected over the last 10 years or so and trying to organise it. Today's job was to sort my Lunchbox and Hornet parts, which I'd kinda lumped together as they share some of the same parts. So this is what I have: There is one complete Grasshopper A damage Grasshopper body which I will attempt to repair, and plus I have the parts for a rolling chassis. There are 2 complete Hornets (1 original and one Re Re) and enough parts to make 1 more complete car and 1 to just make a complete chassis which I might revert one back to a Sand Scorcher body onto the hornet chassis. The chassis has been modified anyway. 2 complete lunchbox chassis, one will be for a chrome Midnight Pumpkin body I got for Christmas, I think around 2012. And over the years I collected bits and pieces to make a chassis to go with it, and pretty much ended with this 1 lunchbox chassis which I think I can make from the leftover hornet parts. So that means I have two lunchbox rolling chassis that will need bodies for. I'm hoping for something different, so send me you suggestions! Now for the pics, these are all the parts I got together. Midnight Pumpkin body, I want to build and drive but I don't want to scratch it Any suggestion on maybe protecting it with a spray lacquer or other ideas? And since I'll have plenty of time, I might as well have a go at fixing this. Once I weld what is there back together, its only one rear corner that is missing.

Hi, Thought i start this Hobby again with my first RC The Grasshopper, only this time 20 years after i do it myself i try to do it exaclty as i wanted it to be. I bought som "mods" but at the end i fell most of them where a bit waste of money. Its not many oil dampers that fit and the one i found are quite ****ty and do not hold the oil, so its really just a better looking "feather" spring damper. Colours - pearl white - Pearl Clear - Gold Metallic - Black & Gun Metall Been out for many spins already, and i think i even like it better now than i did as a kid, hope you like it to:

I am planning a new look for my comical Grasshopper and aiming for something like this amazing beast from Blockhead Motors. I’m mainly into this kind of wheel and tire combo. Totally unsure what I should be searching for to find things like this. Stadium truck wheels? Short course? Or is it not that complicated? In short, i’d Like large iadmatre wide wheels with matching slicks. Wondering if anyone could recommend options and advise if I need to worry about offset of anything like that? cheers!

Though this maybe of interest to some. Especially if you r looking for a Super Sabre at sensible money. https://www.gumtree.com/p/hobbies-collectibles/tamiya-supersabre-r-c-car-1-10-scale/1328755100 look at his other items. I just bought his LunchBox. I dont personally know him but spent a decent time on phone with him. He posts Parcel Force 24Hr and is happy with goods and services. He also sent me a few pics of his whole collection.

Well I think I can call the Jager Bomb done. Grasshopper number 5 started off with a little idea in the back of my head and after a suggestion from a nephew it got brought into reality. Built mechanically box stock save for the addition of Hornet rear shocks and some more bling from T4works. The body was painted in Tamiya Pure Orange TS-98, which came out a little brighter than expected or planned, and then given two light cotes of Tamiya Pearl clear. This gives a nice sparkle to it although it can't be seen in the photos and is not easily seen in person. The alternate colour Hopper stripes & Jagermeister sticker sets came from MCI Racing once again and I took a punt on going for a slightly darker green which I think works ok. I also scaled back the Jager ones from 1:10th to 1:12th scale to ensure a good fit. The alloy wheel caps were found on ebay and cap the whole look off just nicely.

Finally got around to finishing this one off. You could call it a Grasshornet or Hornethopper if you like, basiclly it's a Hopper with the rear shocks and RS540 motor from a Hornet fitted. The paint is a one off custom job, I laid down a coat of Tamiya pink primer followed up with two good coats of Tamiya pure metallic red then topped off with two coats of Tamiya clear red. The resulting look is somewhere between a candy apple red and an anodised aluminium which in normal light looks a bit ho-hum but when in direct sun light it really pops big time. The roof is done in Tamiya pearl white. It's a pity the photos don't really do it justice. The decals are all from MCI Racing and the Budweiser ones were actually for a Earnhardt Jnr 1:10th NASCAR which I had scaled down to 1:12th scale to ensure they fitted properly and I ticked the box for the mirror finish gold option. The one piece alloy wheels were found on eBay and there are more bright shiny bits from T4works planned to be added in the near future. The inspiration for this project came from the IMSA Budweiser Chevy Monza as i liked the pure simplicity of the livery, however I did want to add a touch of white like the latter Bud liveries. Even though it is fully functional and goes quite well, because of the paint job and the inability to do any touch-ups, this one will spend most of it's time on the shelf with only occasional use. Overall I'm very happy with the way this one has turned out.

The latest Grasshopper to roll off the production line late Thursday night and made it's racing debut last night. Sadly after only about 20 seconds into it's first warm-up run it got cleaned out by a big ole stadium truck and sustained some major damage. So now it's back on the bench for some repairs. The left side spotlight and pedestal mount was broken off flush with the body and the roll cage bar directly behind it is sheared right through and a few large scuff marks on the blue paint to touch up. I have glued everything up but it remains to be seen if it stays together or not as this is very similar damage to my original one and the spotlight just kept falling off every time I used it so I just left it off. Very frustrating when a lot of time, money, effort, heart & soul goes into building it, I guess sometimes stuff just happens but it's making me think really hard about taking the next one along because if that one gets damaged then I'm really going to be *******ed off as there will be no repairs to paint damage on that one! To build this one was not part of my original plan but just sort of happened after cruising through the www.mciracing.ca web site and seeing a few things I liked, and an evil plan was hatched. An alternate colour Grasshopper sticker set was ordered along with the Valvoline & Pepsi sets which were both scaled down from 1:10th to 1:18th to ensure they would fit. The body was painted Tamiya gloss White (TS26) and the roll cage bars are painted in Humbrol Baltic Metallic Blue. A set of ball bearings was added along with the very nice polished 1pc alloy wheels and another set of Ansmann Racing oil shocks. Some parts were borrowed from the previous Hopper build as more cool shiny T4works parts are still on their way from rcMart.com. It should look even better once they are fitted.