Selling some models - Alejo's Project Thread

[OoALEJOoO]

Driver:

Back then when this model was built, I was unaware that Tamiya offered spare buggy drivers. Few things add personality to a car like having someone inside its cockpit.

To make the driver comfy, the receiver was moved to the front, right behind the servo, and the ESC pushed all the way back. Detailing was done with Vallejo acrylics in camouflage theme to match the cheetah stickers.

The above shots were taken right when the car was converted to basketball court hotlapping. It still has the V-tread tires used for sand though, but you can see that the turnbuckles and stabilizers were added. Now that I look at the pictures, 53301 Stainless Steel Suspension Shafts are also there. Dual Blocks were fitted later onto the rear for hotlapping.

[OoALEJOoO]

M-08 RCMart Mazda MX-5

Next up on builds done a few years ago is a M-08 Mazda MX-5 wearing a RCMart livery.

After racing & tweaking an M-06 chassis for a few years, the conclusion reached was that it is very difficult to tame on high grip surfaces. Ultimately, the M-06 was converted to a wide-spec chasis (info here). After this, it was the perfect chance to build a M-08 and see how its new design improved upon the ageing M-06.

RCMart and Hobbywing normally include stickers with their orders & products. Smart move, they get free publicity

Parts Used:

• 58669 M-08 Chassis Kit
• Body from 58624 M-05 Mazda MX5 Kit
• 54157 Touring Car Right-Hand Cockpit Set
• 49470 Fluorescent Orange 11-Spoke M-Chassis Wheels
• 54760 Rear Suspension Mount
• 54757 M07/08 Stabilizer Set
• 54908 Carbon Body Mount Base
• 53155 Low Friction Damper Set (2) x2
• 54247 3x18 Aluminum Turnbuckles (2) x2
• 54249 3x32 Aluminum Turnbuckles (2)
• 54770 22T Hard Coated Pinion
• 54358 Torque Tuned Motor
• Finned motor heatsink
• TBLE-02S ESC
• JX 4409MG Servo
• Futaba R2006GS Receiver + Futaba 3PV Transmitter

[Andreas W]

Thanks for a thoroughly writeup. This is gonna be my bedtime lecture today 

[Too much time / money]

On 4/22/2023 at 5:30 PM, Kpowell911 said:

Out of curiosity why do people add the bodyshut lines? Do you not think it takes away the scale and makes it look cartoonish?\

Regardless that’s absolutely stunning!!

Sorry to go back a couple of years but I have a question which I've not seen the answer to.

Not sure whether I like the body shut lines or not but feel I need to try them.

Are you putting the lines inside before paint or on the outside when it's all done?

Loving the builds though, with or without lines. Awesome work! 👍👏

[OoALEJOoO]

@Too much time / money Nice avatar name! I wish I also had too much time & money

Panel lines on my body shells are done with a fine sharpie black marker on the outside of the shell after stickers are placed. Well defined grooves makes them very easy to follow free hand. For straight lines, I normally shoulder against a ruler (a straight strip of lexan works great). For curves that don't have a deep enough groove, I normally either free hand a few times until I get it right, or if it's very tricky cut a lexan template from scrap pieces to lean against. Try to draw the line to right before it touches a sticker, if it touches the ink will seep & dissolve over time with the sticker glue and create a small stain below the sticker.

You can practice by drawing the lines on top of the protective film, either before or after painting, to see if you like the result.

[Too much time / money]

Thanks for the tips. Think I need to have a go at this.

Almost risk free since it's on the outside too 👍 

Avatar name is more a reflection of why I don't get to have as much time / money as I wish I had for rc car stuff rather than reality 🤪

[OoALEJOoO]

Finally got a chance to continue with the M-08 update  

Chassis:

What a great build this was. It really feels like a step way above the M-06. Plastics are great and even the M-08 kit non-R comes quite well equipped out of-the-box. There are many parts & features that are standard in the M-08 kit and would be needed as a hop-up for the M-06.

• Steel suspension shafts
• Metal motor plate
• Bearings
• Wide FDR range from 6.8 to 4.81. M-06 had only 3 pinion choices with 7.25, 6.44 and 5.8 FDR, which felt too short.
• Oil-filled diff
• CVD 90deg driveshafts
• High-torque servo saver
• CVA shocks

M-08 setup options:

• Adjustable droop screws (M-06 unavailable)
• Adjustable suspension upper arms with turnbuckles (M-06 uses threaded rods but not turnbuckles, can be hopped-up)
• Adjustable front toe via turnbuckles (M-06 via shimmed rods)
• Adjustable rear toe via shims (M-06 requires hop-up rear upright)
• Diff stiffness via oil (M-06 hop-up, and even then, it's quite inaccesible once built)

The M-08 kit can be built without any additional hop-ups and end up very capable. I decided to add a few hop-ups aiming for the following improvements mainly because I was able to buy them at very low cost:

• 54757 M07/08 Stabilizer Set. Add more tuning options.
• 54908 Carbon Body Mount Base. The plastic stock part K11 is a bit flexible, causing a little bit of body wobble because its right side is mounted on cantilever. The extra weight the cockpit adds to the chassis is probably the cause of the minor wobble. The hop-up is a carbon part that is really stiff.
• 54760 Rear Suspension Mount: Less wear than the stock plastic mounts. This was really nit-picking as it would take a long time to wear the plastic parts.
• 53155 Low Friction Damper Set. I had earlier used the plastic CVA shocks for another build, which meant the M-08 got an upgrade to this aluminum damper set. They are a bit better than stock CVA, having proper rod guides and aluminum cylinders, but still have the same basic plastic pistons.
• 54247 and 54249 turnbuckles. I like these because they are easier to wrench, plus lighter than the stock steel.
• Fans & motor heatsink for hot weather hop-lapping without any overheating.
• Gyro. The M-06 really benefited from a gyro on low or mid grip surfaces and was not sure if the M-08 would need one. It turns out it drives much better than the M-06, and therefore it can do without one. I'll cover more on this when I write about its handling.

The wiring looks a bit cramped but that's mostly caused by the need to have all wires flattened down to allow having the cockpit fit on top. The two fans and gyro added more wires into the mix.

[Re-Bugged]

Nice 👍🏻 

I’m also a big fan of the M08. It’s been very durable, still runs as smooth as the day I built it and it has a fair few laps of RbP under its belt. 

[OoALEJOoO]

@Re-Bugged So far it looks like my M-08 is also keeping itself quite smooth. I say "itself" because it really needs very little maintenance.

Is 8 more than 6?

My expectations when building this chassis was for it to be substantially better than the M-06, but boy I wasn't ready for so much goodness . I'll break down my thoughts in how the M-08 compares against the M-06.

Positives:

The M-06 has been out for a long time and is still much loved. I find it to be like that stubborn girlfriend everyone probably had at one point -a lot of drama in a love-hate relationship. It has a lot of charm but at the same its temperament is difficult to handle. Kits come with a lovely body, but on the inside sometimes makes you wish you opted something different . Driving the M-06 on low or mid grip surfaces is usually drama-free as the lack of grip makes the front wheels glide in controllable understeer. You can flick the throttle as needed to make the tail swing a bit to get the front pointed where it needs to. Move to a high-grip surfaces and it is all sweat and tears though. I've found the car very difficult to setup properly with its tendency to oversteer mid-corner and on corner exit. Off-throttle this is even more pronounced -you have to give it a little bit of throttle to squat the rear to get a good turn. The car is fast though, it can lap just as good as a FWD M-05, but the issue is consistency. One lap you can run like a god of RC, the next one it's more like driving drunk. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that there is too much weight on the rear. Once the rear builds turning momentum there is no stopping it, causing a mighty tail flick.

Enter the M-08 with its total redesign of the RWD formula. The weight is no longer so much further back. In fact, it is mostly in the middle with a slight offset to the rear. This exact reason is why I think the RWD-converted TT cars are so good -they have a very similar weight balance. Anyway, I'm getting distracted. Back to the M-08, driving it through the turns still can have a tendency to mid-corner and corner exit oversteer. However, and that's a BIG plus, once you feel the oversteer, it's possible to consistently counter it and still get a decent turn. If you get it right from the get-go, perfect turns are a lot more frequent than on the M-06. On the M-06, once you get that oversteer, you are looking at a complete disaster, with no way to correct it or get it back to form. I ran the M-08 with the same tires as the M-06: 50683 hard fronts and 50684 medium rears. I find softs too wiggly sideways, incrementing a tendency to be unpredictable on fast turns and using CA glue their walls is too much hassle. Same tires but with miles better consistency. Something that also contributes to its handling is how the lower deck is designed: it is rigid where it needs to and flexible near the rear. This likely gives the rear area a bit of flex, improving rear grip. The rest of the tub is a lot stiffer, complete with honey-comb patterns to give stiffness with little weight.

On the M-06, I had a to use a gyro to help me try to look like a great driver . On the M-08, the installed gyro was not needed at all. No need for a gyro to achieve some level of driving greatness, although the car still rewards you for concentration and patience to get the most of it. Long story short, even a fully tunable M-06 is no match for the M-08. Nicer drive, more consistent, more tunable, more durable -a better model overall.

Fitting a brushless motor is a lot easier given the FDR can go all the way to 4.81 on the M-08 and tap into all that brushless torque.

It's great that the M-08 has a much beefier front bumper than the tiny one in the M-06. You will crash less, but it's still reassuring to know that when you crash, your bumper has your back.

Negatives:

There have to be some negatives, right? I don't think the perfect RC design has been invented yet, if it can even be invented, but the negatives are so few and negligible that the M-08 is pretty close. The kit does not come with a motor, tires or body. That's not a big issue since it is aimed at the more experienced in the hobby spectrum but perhaps it could mean a negative to some folks. Tamiya does sell a good variety of M chassis body sets, and there are plenty of choices on tires and motors.

Perhaps the M-08 needing a low-profile servo might be seen as a slight negative as it could diminish opportunity to re-use standard servos you might have on your spares box. Having said that, it might be possible to fit a regular servo by cutting the front side of its mount, as it would interfere with steering parts, and just mounted with the rear screws. It wouldn't be ideal though.

An aspect the M-06 might be better is on opportunities for modding. The M-06 can be easily built into a rally car by using M-05Ra or MF-01X uprights to give it extra ground clearance. I guess something similar could be achieved on the M-08 but might require more thought and tweaking. On the same note, the M-06 can be widened with TL-01 suspension arms. Not sure if this is possible on the M-08 (if somebody knows how, will be happy to hear ).

Neutral:

Scratching the underside of the car can make it look a bit ugly, but the truth is I've never worn-down the belly of the chassis to the point of breakage or retirement. Both the M-06 and M-08 had some scratches after some runs.

As far as cooling performance, both models have their motors pretty enclosed, prohibiting the use of a big fat heatsink directly on top of the motor. On the M-08 I was able to fit a slim finned heatsink with a fan on top. On the M-06 a similar thing can be accomplished by using Yeah-Racing's plate & cooler + DF-03 heatsink bars:

Both chassis can be built with 239, 225 and 215 so nothing to worry there.

Wrapping up, Tamiya created something special with the M-08. Drives great, fun build and so far it has proven to be very durable! The M-08, along with a road-tuned MF-01X, are my favorite M-chassis runners.

[OoALEJOoO]

Body:

This time the body was scavenged from a M-05 Mazda MX-5 kit, which fits better given the real car is also RWD.

The body game me the impression that it is a bit too tall. Nothing was measured, it was just an impression. To make it look a bit flatter, a pattern with horizontal lines was chosen, with a lower black section to further accentuate the flattening effect. The car looks flat & proportioned at racing distance .

Spray paints used:

• PS62 Pure Orange - only had enough for 2 coats)
• PS07 Orange - to complete the final 3rd coat)
• PS01 White - backing for orange
• PS12 Silver - small stripe between the orange & black
• PS05 Black - black sections and backing for everything else

Masking was done in a single go. Windows & lights were masked first, then the black area and finally the silver stripe. Orange was painted first, silver masking removed and sprayed, black masking removed & sprayed.

Stickers were a combination of leftovers from other builds, plus the RCMart & Hobbywing sponsors. The RCMart stickers were a bit translucent and looked somewhat dull on the black areas. To counter this two stickers were placed, one on top of the other, eliminating the issue. All those orders from RCMart over the years has left me with a stack of their stickers .

There are no light buckets on this body .

Cockpit:

Tamiya's 54157 Touring Car Right-Hand Cockpit set was used. A large portion of the tray's rear had to be cut to accommodate the M-08 rear body posts.

To add a bit more Japanese flavor, the driver's helmet was painted with a rising sun motiff.

Driver was painted with Vallejo acrylics and the main tray with some generic black spray. Once everything was painted, all was coated with Tamiya TS-80 Flat Clear.

[OoALEJOoO]

Playing with Tamiya's lesser-known tire offerings

Tamiya has a wide array of tire choices, some more known and used than others. Some we see them all the time in the forum, others just once in a while. A few I've never seen mentioned at all.

A few months ago, I acquired some of the less-loved Tamiya tire sets and did some experimentation. I'll start off with one example that has been posted before, and also used with great effect by @Nikko85 on some of his awesome builds.

Padlatrak tires + M wheels

These tires are shipped with Grasshopper and Sand Scorcher kits and can be a bit costly to find as spares. They offer immense traction on sand and pretty much on any surface with their sticky rubber and the scrubber action their thread pattern offers.

To fit them, you will need to fit the tire beads into the inner groove of any M sized wheel. That's right, not the regular outer grooves, but the one in the middle. Some M wheels have transversal fins on this groove that might need some filing. Their fit is quite tight, which is great as it doesn't need gluing.

On the shot below, the Padlatrak tire is fitted on a Sand Scorcher rim on the left, and on a M wheel on the right. Note the M wheel is thinner, and it will cause the tire to squeeze narrower and a bit taller.

Fitted on my "shorty" MF-01X Nissan Pickup.

Mounted tire dimensions are: 82mm OD, 37mm width.

[OoALEJOoO]

T3-01 Wide Semi-Slick tires + Semi Truck Wheels

This combo is something I recently discovered. Tamiya offers two sets of cool-looking rear tires for the T3-01 trike. The first set is the 30mm Wide Semi-Slicks 54830 that are meant to be fitted specifically with T3-01 wheels 54831. Tires come with foams included.

Unfortunately, the issue is that those T3-01 wheels don't have a 12mm hex. The solution was to dig a bit deeper into Tamiya's wheel catalogue. It turns out the semi-truck wheels are also 30mm wide, but a little bit larger diameter than a M-sized wheel. That's perfect as it would mean the tire will be stretched a little, ensuring glue-free tightness. After browsing for a while, it appears Tamiya offers 12mm hex semi-truck wheels in two colors: Matte Chrome (56519) and White (56543).

 

These were fitted into my MF-01X Hornet Beetle using chrome wheels. Not only do they look great, but they also offer tremendous offroad performance, an absolute blast for rallying around!

Mounted tire dimensions are: 67mm OD, 33mm width.

[OoALEJOoO]

T3-01 Wide Pin-Spike tires + Semi Truck Wheels

The second set of tires available for the T3-01 trike are the 34mm Wide Pin-Spikes 54832 that are meant to be fitted specifically with T3-01 wheels 54833. Tires come with foams included. As before, the issue is that those T3-01 wheels don't have a 12mm hex. Semi-truck tires can be used here too, but since the tires are now 34mm wide and the wheels just 30mm, the tires will balloon a little. Thankfully, that's not a problem as the extra-bit of diameter stretch ensures the tires remain tight even without glue.

Those spikes are ideal on the tractive axle of an offroad car. I fitted these Pin-Spikes to my RWD TT-02 Datsun 240Z rally conversion on the rear, and the T3-01 semi-slicks on the front. The car has so much traction, that I fear if it were to be coupled with a Conrad motor, it would reach the 1.21 Gigawatts of power needed to go back to the future . The RWD rally car never felt so great. This might become my go-to tire/wheel combo for rally cars.

Mounted tire dimensions are: 68mm OD, 37mm width.

More to come!

[Nikko85]

Paddle tires work amazingly.

 

 

[OoALEJOoO]

2 hours ago, Nikko85 said:

Paddle tires work amazingly.

They are indeed fantastic. The fact that they excel at throwing dirt behind them as you squeeze the throttle adds to the fun!

[njmlondon]

What an amazing experiment! I always seem to want different wheel and tire options to stock.

Your work with the Paddlestraks has given me an idea for a project that has been annoying me for a long time. The car is perfect, the wheels and tires less so and the Paddles, which I did consider, were too small. Could you do a quick measure.. what is your new outer diameter? 

[OoALEJOoO]

15 hours ago, njmlondon said:

Could you do a quick measure.. what is your new outer diameter? 

The info is on the post . Padlatrak tires mounted on M wheels dimensions are: 82mm OD, 37mm width. I'm curious about your project, would love to see some pics .

[njmlondon]

2 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

The info is on the post . Padlatrak tires mounted on M wheels dimensions are: 82mm OD, 37mm width. I'm curious about your project, would love to see some pics .

I'm a moron. 82mm is a nice size.

There are some fantastic threads at the moment about the BBX but I have always had a slight issue with the wheels and tires. I do not like the wheels, but they are hex 1.9's so easy to change. The tires are unique to the BBX and I believe are about 95mm front and rear. To my eye, the fronts need to be smaller than the rears and ideally the rears need to have smaller wheels than the front. Gut feel is 1.5's with Paddletracks at 82mm may be too small but it is worth looking into. I could then possibly match them with the Frog / Scorcher smoothies on slightly narrowed M wheels, or even try narrowing paddletracks. The BBX may just be too big for them but I love paddles so why not have a look at them.

As an aside, the Kyosho Scorpion and Javelin wheels are all 1.5's so should easily fit on M's and the Team Associated RC10 Classic is also a nice tire at 1.5, designed for 3-piece wheels so has a similar profile to the paddles.

Now, for your next challenge! We all need hex wheels that take the Rough Rider / FAV Sand Blasters!!! They are 1.7 I believe so going to be a nightmare to get on 1.9's but interested to see if you have looked at them.

by the way, that Datsun looks fantastic on those tires!

One tire I keep meaning to try out is the Cheetah tire, truly unique but I think it is a standard 1.9 so not necessarily in your experimental short-list.

[JimBear]

I missed out on the stuff in this post, @OoALEJOoO and posted in the other T3-01 tyre thread ... good information! 😊

For the sake of bungling everything into a right mess ...  here is the video on narrowing the (rally) rims (six minutes into the video): 

 

[OoALEJOoO]

On 6/4/2025 at 8:16 PM, njmlondon said:

Now, for your next challenge! We all need hex wheels that take the Rough Rider / FAV Sand Blasters!!! They are 1.7 I believe so going to be a nightmare to get on 1.9's but interested to see if you have looked at them.

Those buggies look great but I don't own them so I've got zero experience there . The Rough Rider being SRB chassis, I always assumed its tires were interchangeable with the Sand Scorcher but now looking closer they indeed seem to need a larger wheel. At 1.7" they might be a good fit for the semi-truck wheels I used with the T3-01 tires (Matte Chrome 56519, or White 56543). I just measured these wheels: they are 1.84" OD right to their edge and about 1.72" to where the bead lands. Width is 30mm.

[JimBear]

On 6/4/2025 at 8:16 PM, njmlondon said:

Cheetah tire, truly unique but I think it is a standard 1.9

Was there even a standard back then? Tamiyabase mentions the Cheetah tires/rims as unique for that model (but has the same 77/29 mm dimensions as the XR311 as far as I can see). 

[OoALEJOoO]

TamTech Rear Pin Tires + M-size Wheels

Next up is using Tamiya's TamTech smaller scale buggy tires with a regular M-size wheel. The ones used are TamTech's rear tires (22019) which have 28mm wide beads. TamTech's front wheels have beads just 22mm wide, which would require shaving the inner groove off a M wheel to fit. Tires come with foams included.

 

Fitted to a M-wheel and compared to a 60D Rally Block:

• 60D Rally Block 51427: 58mm OD, 27mm width (pictured on the left)
• TamTech Rear 22019: 63mm OD, 30mm width (pictured on the right)

One downside is that the TamTech's fit slightly loose on the wheels. It's not bad, but definitely would need glue to stay in place during runs. I haven't run them yet but seem quite grippy and must say look great when fitted on my Renault Alpine.

[JimBear]

Digging this up again ... the T3-01 rims don't have a 12 mm hex, but a 10 mm one, okay? Does it make sense to try out the 53342 and drill out the a hexes to fit (expensive, possibly a better option somewhere) the T3-01 rims onto a "standard" axle? I have no idea if the original hole on the hex itself is bigger/smaller. Just a random thought.

[OoALEJOoO]

Both T3-01 wide wheels have the 10mm hex and also a smaller hole. Drilling a bigger hole would be easy enough, and even if the new hole isn't well centered it wouldn't be a problem because the wheel mates the axle via the hex. And here is where the difficulty would be. Cutting the 10mm hex into a 12mm hex would involve ensuring the new hex is concentric with the wheel, otherwise there will be significant wobble & vibration. I think it would be very tricky unfortunately . It would be great if it somehow could be done.

[OoALEJOoO]

TamTech Rear Spike Tires & Front Grooved Tires+ M-size Wheels

Let's now take a look at adding a full suite of TamTech buggy tires to a M-chassis using M-wheels. Tamiya's M-06 design is very close to a little 2WD buggy that has been recalibrated for street use and adding offroad buggy tires seems fitting.

For the rear, TamTech's Rear Spike Tires 51684 fit nicely into a regular M-wheel, just a tad loose. I used a rubber band below the bead to add some friction and hopefully eliminate the need of glue. It all worked to some extent, with only once the tire popping out after some rough running on gravel. Gluing is probably best.

On the front, TamTech's Front Grooved Tires 51683 also fit into a M-size wheel, but since they are thinner, the tire inner bead goes inside the wheel's middle groove. Some wheels have transversal fins on their middle groove, which should be best to shave off for the tire's bead to fully sink (I didn't shave them). Gluing is probably best as they did pop out a few times during my gravel run done using rubber bands below the beads instead of glue.

 

 

As soon as the site's pic upload error is sorted out, I'll post some shots