I have to make a confession.....about wheelies

[Saito2 6686]

Ok, I have to make a confession. I'm not really crazy about wheelies. Crazy right? It seems everybody likes wheelies and if they don't, they certainly don't speak out about them. Its not like I hate them. They just have limited appeal for me. Bizarrely, the Lunch Box and original Wild Willy are some of my favorite Tamiyas. From a driving prospective, the Lunch Box is where I draw the line however. A good wheelie on launch is cool (although, admitted I put some weight in the front of even my Lunchie to get some semblance of steering) but the constant front-wheels-high attitude of Tamiya's growing wheelie fleet gets tiresome for me. For some, I know its a fun challenge to try and maneuver or tame these wild little machines, but for me, it gets old quick.

I guess when the Wild Willy and original Pajero were the only two "stunt" vehicles marketed as such in Tamiya's fleet, that was a thing that made them special. The Lunch Box and Midnight Pumpkin weren't hyped as much (I still believe Tamiya didn't set out to really make those two as wheelie machines and that the wheelie bar was added out of necessity rather than planned). The LB/MP were just mini monster trucks that could pull wheelies when provoked. Now, under the CW01 moniker, they seem fully drafted into the Wheelie brigade.

I recently spent some effort quelling the light front end on my Stampede. I wanted more of a racing monster truck vs something always trying to launch skyward? So am I alone? Again, popping a wheelie here and there is cool in my book, but all the time? meh. 

P.S. If you like wheelies and and Willy subculture, that's awesome. I'm glad they exist as an option for people. This is only my personal opinion on what works for me.

[Nikko85 3454]

I am with you.

I like something that wheelie when I want it. So if I gun the throttle it will pull one, but I would much rather something that only pulls it when I would like, not everytime it looks like accelerating.

I've got a QD monster truck with a 12T motor and the wheelie are a little annoying as you can never accelerate and control the car at the same time unless you are very careful.

I find with NiMH and  20T pinion in a torque tuned the GF01 cars are quite well balanced for me. They will wheelie and stoppie, but only when you go for it and otherwise can be driven normally, especially if you do the rear arm mod which legenthens the car and reduces wheelie.

[wolfdogstinkus 1893]

You may laugh,...

I used to regularly dream about pulling wheelies in my 1/1 car ...

It's a gearheads equivalent of taking flight, the freedom of being able to blip the nose to the sky anytime you feel is a gearheads nirvana..

It's perfectly natural but only for gearheads.

[El Gecko 1344]

Totally agree, I'm not a wheelie fan either.

It is fun to be able to do it on command occasionally, but it tends to be frustrating for actual driving, especially spirited, precise driving. I like a more balanced vehicle rather than something so rear-heavy, although I do see the benefits for traction, but it does go too far IMHO with all the vehicles designed specifically to wheelie.

Ever since I was able to get my Frog to do a 3-wheel drift on pavement, that's the type of driving experience I want to try to replicate in some of my other cars too, although it's difficult due to various suspension and weight bias layouts. Plus, you need a decent amount of horsepower for it, and most of my other cars are a bit underpowered.

Something like this:

[Saito2 6686]

7 minutes ago, wolfdogstinkus said:

You may laugh,...

I used to regularly dream about pulling wheelies in my 1/1 car ...

Nah, I wouldn't laugh. A 1:1 car that could "Hang the hoops" was quite cool in my drag racing days. Its more the constantly wheelieing at the merest blip of the throttle that gets annoying for me

[markbt73 5316]

I get you. I like a good wheelie, but I'd rather have to back up and "pop the clutch" to get the front wheels up. With the dedicated wheelie machines, I sort of take it as a challenge to see how fast I can launch without doing a wheelie. But it can get frustrating. Even worse are the "stoppies" with the 4WD wheelie cars, if you hit the brakes too hard. That caught me off-guard, and I'm still trying to figure out how to avoid it.

Donuts in the dirt/sand/snow, however, will never get old.

[Willy iine 18806]

My @nicherotors Willy's Wheeler does not pop wheelies per design..  nor my WR02 City Turbo.  I like wheelies on my M38 and WW2,.. and maybe my 5844 Pajero, but I am with you @Saito2.  If my 420X popped wheelies it would be bizarre.      Although some of my buggies can pop wheelies due to its torque if grip level is right.. It's honestly annoying.  

[Kowalski86 3034]

One of my bigger RC hop-up regrets was setting up the oil filled shocks on my Lunchbox to sit lower up front, stiffer front end, softer back end.

Why? Because it doesn't wheelie on demand as much anymore, if course that could be the cheapo ESC too. But now its a bit tame for my liking, I liked the constant wheelies.

Real monster trucks can pop wheelies on demand, I get the feeling that Tamiya set out to replicate that with the Lunch Pumpkin. Now tractors and dump trucks that pop wheelies? Not so sure about that.

I could do without the rollovers though, that gets old.

 

[GeeWings 2830]

@Saito2 it seems you’ve hit on something of a common bug-bear!

I really like to have a couple of cars l that are good at wheelies but I’ve actually decreased the punch on some as it gets annoying.

[Saito2 6686]

9 hours ago, Willy iine said:

 I like wheelies on my M38 and WW2,.. and maybe my 5844 Pajero,

Strangely, I was/am crazy about the looks of the Wild Willy. I searched high and low for one when I was a kid, but it had been just discontinued. It was such a stand-out from the rest of the Tamiya line-up with its big tires, cartoonish proportions and um, "wild" Willy behind the wheel. The box art was amazing too. It led to a childhood obsession with Willys Jeeps as well as owning a couple Jeeps as an adult. Your collection is pretty incredible @Willy iine.

The irony was, if I had gotten my wish of obtaining one as a kid, I might have been a bit disappointed. I wound up with a Lunch Box instead, which was the right amount of wheelie for me. Even that I managed to quell by slightly lengthening the LB's wheelbase by pulling the axle mounts back one set of holes.

 

[Mad Ax 9325]

On 2/5/2023 at 11:07 AM, Saito2 said:

The irony was, if I had gotten my wish of obtaining one as a kid, I might have been a bit disappointed

I've been planning a reply to this thread for a couple of days, and that is exactly what I was going to say, only about the Lunchbox  

As a kid, I fell in love with the Lunchbox and Midnight Pumpkin looking at pictures in a catalogue.  Then one day another kid brought an LB to an open day at our primary school.  I was blown away - it was huge (compared to my 1:16 Nikko Turbo Panther) and looked like it could demolish everything.  Another kid brought a Midnight Pumpkin to some secondary school event, but I only saw it through a window.  All through my childhood, those were the only times I ever saw them in the real.

As an adult, in the mid-00s, walking past a model shop, I saw the Lunchbox re-re and I went in to ask the owner about it.  I told him how I'd always wanted one.  And I came away with...  A Dark Impact.

Unknown to me at the time, that was probably one of the best decisions I've ever made (or, if you look at how my house, workshop, budget sheet and calendar is completely dominated by RC, the worst?) - because the Dark Impact had none of the flaws of the cheap used Tamiyas I'd had in the 90s, it was a joy to build and great to drive.  I still hankered after a monster truck, though, so I went back to the LHS and bought a Midnight Pumpkin.  And almost immediately, I hated it.  I hated the over-simple construction (after the complexity of the Dark Impact), I hated the rattly noise it made, I hated that it fell over all the time, I hated that it would jump up onto the back wheel at a sniff of throttle, and if I gunned it too hard it would bounce off the wheelie bar and...  fall over again.

For a while, my intention was to relocate the battery pack under the truck bed, bizarrely, to make it easier to wheelie.  My intention was to make it so I could balance a wheelie so it wasn't on the wheelie bar, but perfectly balanced between bar and wheels.  But in the end I got tired of it and sold it.

At the time (around 2006), the consensus on here was that wheelies were king and everybody needed an LB, MP or WW in their collection, and it was kind of strange to be the one who didn't like them.  So it's interesting, now that Tamiya has so many more wheelie vehicles in their line-up, that there are more people who don't enjoy wheelies.

That said, my opinion did change once I started going to Iconic RC events.  Back in those days, before vintage RC was so popular and every event was non-stop race-marshall-race-marshall-trophy, there was time for a lunch break.  And in that lunch break, we'd have a wheelie race.  30 - 40 wheelie vehicles would line up on the start line (or somewhere in the vague vicinity thereof) and we'd race around until there was only one car left running.  To my mind, that's where wheelies really become fun - when there's a whole grid absolutely chock full of them, tearing around a track, falling over, getting tangled, losing wheels and bodies and suspension parts as they go.  My modified Wild Mini (a Willy's Wheeler re-re with WW2 wheels and tyres and a Mini Cooper body) would often lose a step screw from a front upper arm, but the geometry of that chassis means the wheel tends to land in more or less the right position when there's weight on it.  And when there isn't, it flaps around like it's waving at the crowd.  So many times I did more than half the race distance with a wheel flopping around every time the front came up, and on more than one occasion it was the last car running.

So, to summarise, I never really got wheelies at all until I started racing in a comedy 30+ car grid race.  It's a real shame we don't run it any more.

[Kowalski86 3034]

4 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

.So, to summarise, I never really got wheelies at all until I started racing in a comedy 30+ car grid race.  It's a real shame we don't run it any more.

Its a shame thst more race events in general don't have comical classes!

[87lc2 2666]

I spend a lot of time tuning out any semblance of a wheelie in my monster trucks, even with huge brushless power    As far as the Tamiya wheelie rigs, not a fan at all and don't see the appeal.  The comicals are just awful in my opinion, not sure why you'd want one of those.  I do like hanging the tires in my 1:1 GN though.  With a slick or DOT slick it will hang them 8-12" or so nearly to the 60' mark on a strip. 

[Saito2 6686]

3 hours ago, 87lc2 said:

  I do like hanging the tires in my 1:1 GN though.  With a slick or DOT slick it will hang them 8-12" or so nearly to the 60' mark on a strip. 

Awesome .

11 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I've been planning a reply to this thread for a couple of days, and that is exactly what I was going to say, only about the Lunchbox  

I totally get where you are coming from. The Lunch Box was my first Tamiya RC and compared to the Nikkos I came from, this relatively small, hobby-grade truck seemed so big, fast and advanced (lol). I progressed through a range of Tamiyas as a kid, often saving up for a year or more at a time before gathering the funds for the next one. I can only imagine if I had purchased my Vanquish first. The Lunch Box would have seemed so basic and crude in comparison. Its all about perspective.  

[87lc2 2666]

12 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

Awesome .

I totally get where you are coming from. The Lunch Box was my first Tamiya RC and compared to the Nikkos I came from, this relatively small, hobby-grade truck seemed so big, fast and advanced (lol). I progressed through a range of Tamiyas as a kid, often saving up for a year or more at a time before gathering the funds for the next one. I can only imagine if I had purchased my Vanquish first. The Lunch Box would have seemed so basic and crude in comparison. Its all about perspective.  

I remember seeing the Lunchbox/Pumpkin in the ads when I was a kid and thought they were just the coolest (along with the Blackfoot & Clod of course).  Glad I didnt get one though, I surely would have been disappointed even at a young age.  

[Nikko85 3454]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:39 PM, 87lc2 said:

I remember seeing the Lunchbox/Pumpkin in the ads when I was a kid and thought they were just the coolest (along with the Blackfoot & Clod of course).  Glad I didnt get one though, I surely would have been disappointed even at a young age.  

I think it depends on what you are looking for. They are pretty bomb proof, idiot proof and can take a crash. Personally as a youngster I'd rather that than an overly complex car prone to breaking perhaps. Also wheelies are really cool if you are 12 (or 37, to a point...).

I've stuck a 21T motor in by LB interested to see what it is like, although I may have to tone down the motor for grippier surfaces.

My ideally wheelie vehicle is one that pulls one when you gun the throttle fully (I worry about the reverse/forward as that must chew the gears even more) but other than all out it will stay down. The issue with this is that grip and battery level cause these values to fluctuate, so there's no one set up that's perfect.

Perhaps I've have two settings on by Flysky: nice Pumpkin and all out wheelie monster with different EPAs.

 

 

 

 

 

[87lc2 2666]

1 hour ago, Nikko85 said:

I think it depends on what you are looking for. They are pretty bomb proof, idiot proof and can take a crash. Personally as a youngster I'd rather that than an overly complex car prone to breaking perhaps. Also wheelies are really cool if you are 12 (or 37, to a point...).

I've stuck a 21T motor in by LB interested to see what it is like, although I may have to tone down the motor for grippier surfaces.

My ideally wheelie vehicle is one that pulls one when you gun the throttle fully (I worry about the reverse/forward as that must chew the gears even more) but other than all out it will stay down. The issue with this is that grip and battery level cause these values to fluctuate, so there's no one set up that's perfect.

Perhaps I've have two settings on by Flysky: nice Pumpkin and all out wheelie monster with different EPAs.

 

 

 

 

 

Hey everyones different and I get that.  The wheelie stuff is just not for me.  Although they're all just toys, I prefer my RC stuff to have some semblance of realism.  

As far as being simple and bob-proof that's true, I'll definitely give you that.  My first RC was an RC10 CE that I built myself  - dad got it for me so I could race with him.  I think if I would have started with toy-grade truck or Lunchie I would have been over the hobby in about 5 minutes.  I'll never forget building that RC10 and the driving experience.  

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

@Saito2 I am with you on balance. I picked up a Lunchbox not long after getting back into rc. Looked cool as all badword, but was so awful to drive. Kids loved it, and I did to look at, but eventually sold it.

Got a comical Hornet as something silly as an antidote to the serious on road stuff I was into at the time. With a bit of tweaking it was actually quite good to drive, but ultimately the constant wheelies got old. As you say, one trick pony. 

I am glad they exist though. Because as I said, I think they look so cool.