New to the game MO5

[BigEh]

Hey! I’m pretty new to the RC hobby and recently acquired a pretty cool M05 chassis. I’m looking for some recommendations on an esc, motor upgrade and a servo? and weather or not there are better upgrades worth doing. Everything I’ve ever owned was RTR and have not had to figure this stuff out. From what I can gather, it’s a good little chassis. I just don’t know what I can do with it. Looking forward to getting this rig set up. Thanks! I

[alvinlwh]

Depending on where you are, it should come with an ESC, a 105 IIRC. It should be OK unless you run servo of more than say 4 - 6kg. Motor, generally stick with the silver can or max go to Torque Tuned. Any more and you will be destroying the tyres fast. Get steel pinion gear, maybe 20T to tame the hash acceleration. Oil shocks to take care of the bounce and universals to stop dogbones from falling out. Bearings all round. You may want to upgrade the steering as it is a weak point of the chassis. Consider some kind of heat sink solution as the motor is buried deep in the chassis with little cooling. 

[BigEh]

8 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Depending on where you are, it should come with an ESC, a 105 IIRC. It should be OK unless you run servo of more than say 4 - 6kg. Motor, generally stick with the silver can or max go to Torque Tuned. Any more and you will be destroying the tyres fast. Get steel pinion gear, maybe 20T to tame the hash acceleration. Oil shocks to take care of the bounce and universals to stop dogbones from falling out. Bearings all round. You may want to upgrade the steering as it is a weak point of the chassis. Consider some kind of heat sink solution as the motor is buried deep in the chassis with little cooling. 

Terrific. Great tips. Thank you.  

[Big Jon]

2 hours ago, BigEh said:

Hey! I’m pretty new to the RC hobby and recently acquired a pretty cool M05 chassis. I’m looking for some recommendations on an esc, motor upgrade and a servo? and weather or not there are better upgrades worth doing. Everything I’ve ever owned was RTR and have not had to figure this stuff out. From what I can gather, it’s a good little chassis. I just don’t know what I can do with it. Looking forward to getting this rig set up. Thanks! I

What are your performance expectations?

If you want a very attractive running scale model, build and detail it box stock, with inexpensive radio gear and kit ESC and motor, and you’ll be well pleased.

Or, you could copy the M05-R, use a good 17.5 and ESC, speedy servo, and so on. 
 

M-chassis really are a lot of fun, fast, slow, or on the shelf. You can build them so many ways, they’re always fun to drive, and the bodies have such nice proportions. Looking forward to seeing yours!

[Tamiyastef]

I would run it stock (with ball bearings obviously) and then see if there's something that frustrates/bothers you. For example sloppy steering (change to alloy), slow response (change ESC settings or ESC itself), too jumpy (oil shocks), too much acceleration (high speed gear set + bigger pinion), body roll (stabilizers) etc, etc...  

[Busdriver]

Great little chassis. I’ve come to the conclusion with M chassis’s that the old saying less is more is about right. Bearings, oil dampers ( even £12 JK ones are better than pogos) and max torque tuned motor is about all they need. This is for a street basher. Obviously if you are racing you may need to look at other things. The above is the spec for my M05 Mini Clubman and it’s a hoot to drive. I don’t even use lipos. I have just finished a M07 concept which has all of the above but with a sport tuned and 2 s lipo. It’s almost undrivable . Needs different gearing I think to tame the wheel spin along with some S grip tyres on the rear. 

[sosidge]

M-chassis are best suited to brushed motors. The standard silver can motor is fine - much more power and you just wheelspin it away. And if you don't have an ESC, the Hobbywing 1060 is perfect. Because the cars are so light a standard servo is plenty, you don't need high torque or high speed.

The only essential upgrade for street running would be bearings (essential on all Tamiyas, perhaps one day they might actually bother to include them!), because the plastic bushings wear the whole car out very quickly.

Beyond that, oil dampers are good because they work a lot better than the standard pogo sticks, a steering upgrade helps because the M-05 has too much free play and doesn't return to centre properly, and a tighter front diff makes the car more driveable (pack with heavy grease, or get the Tamiya TA03 ball diff).

[BigEh]

Wow, thanks for all the tips and advice. Here is the rig I got. I’d like a tight whippy car that can handle, yet wear out some tires on the driveway. I’d LOVE to build out a cool little Honda Civic.  lol that CRX IS TITS  

 

I’m in Canada, where are the best places on line to find parts for these? Amazon is crap shoot. Wheels, tires, steering upgrades? They appear to be difficult to find on line. Sold out, not available etc… where can I go?

[Willy iine]

I am in the USA, but probably facing the same problem of locally available parts.

I usually shop on eBay stores, also amain (USA), rcMart (HK) for misc parts.  

For servos and typical RC electronics, Amazon is not a bad place to shop.   

GL and that yellow body looks like fun!

[Pylon80]

1 hour ago, BigEh said:

They appear to be difficult to find on line. Sold out, not available etc… where can I go?

Don't worry too much about the wording used by retailers, such as "sold out", "unavailable", "discontinued" (my favorite 🤣) or "out of stock". Tamiya parts always seem to come back in stock at some point, especially for an M-05 that is still sold with car kits today (M-07 being only available as a chassis kit). The key word is patience. Setting up alerts on eBay helps too! Not so much to buy from eBay but rather to get the tip off that availability for a given part has cycled back.

The difficult thing is really to not succumb to the temptation of hoarding and panic buying for fear that it is about to become unavailable etc.

I otherwise use the same sources that were mentioned by @Willy iine

And I agree that you won't need very much more than bearings and a hard coated pinion until you've run it enough to see what else bothers you.

This guide is probably the best source of information out there but it's more relevant if your are racing:

https://www.thercracer.com/2017/07/tamiya-m05-v2-guide-mods-tuning-and.html?m=0

Good luck and keep us posted!

[Andreas W]

In addition to the mentioned guide I also read this guide from Martin Sørlie throughly (starting years ago, since I bought the kit back in 2013).

http://martinsorlie.blogspot.com/2016/11/building-great-tamiya-m-05.html?m=1

 

Based on my limited experience with this chassis I would not even bothered building it without includes bearings, dampers and a steel pinion. If you are driving on tarmac 20t is the only pinion size you need. Even with good throttle management and plenty of AW grease in the diff the balance between good accelleration and wheelspin is fine. Then you will have a nimble,well driving onroad car for grownups ... Before you find out that you want an alu steering and you need to think about how to get rid of the heat. 

 

There is plenty of possibilities to burn off some serious amount of cash on this chassis. After a while there is time to take a good cup of tea and think about moving on to a M-07, but that is for later.

 

[catman79]

hobbywing 1060, and a torque or sport tuned motor, anything more than that and handling capabilities of the chassis will be compromised!

[alvinlwh]

If you end up liking the FWD setup, consider getting a 3R MG Evo, it is cheaper than a M-05, comes with oil shocks and bearings and is far more advanced with endless adjustment and setups. Only thing is it (usually) does not come with a body shell.