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lukej

TB Evo5 MS - Because I have no self control

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TW: The following thread contains graphic detail about a man's continued addiction to fast Tamiyas, especially ones with shiny blue parts.

With that out of the way, and with it being obvious that I've bought yet another high-end NIB kit, I'd like to share the timeline of how we got here.

Early December 2022 - I buy an M-05 from the local hobby shop to build quickly, because:

a) I should finish a build for once.
b) I'd like to play with FWD cars for a change.
c) I'd have a car I'm less precious about to send out into the car park at home.

Now I did build the M-05 quickly, and it is mostly complete (I need to order a steering turnbuckle and improve the alignment), but that meant it only got fired around the lounge a few times before my idle mind pushed me to the internet again.

Mid December 2022 - I acquire 2 more NIB cars, an M-08R from Tamico, and an M-07R with a surplus of hop-ups from a nice man named Jamie who, having listed the car for sale on eBay was only too happy to relieve me of some of my money.

With the M-05 yet to see a body shell, which I told Mrs Lukej was due to the lack of time and suitable conditions in which to paint it :lol:, permission for the additional purchases was granted - the M-08 is clearly necessary or how else would I know which M chassis variant is best for the RC club that I don't race at?

Anyway, Jamie will become important come late February 2023, so remember that.

Late December 2022 - On one of my usual internet trawls, I discover a man on eBay/Facebook with a NIP Atsushi Hara Twister 2.2 ESC, and whilst I already have a used one of those for my TRF 415MSXX MRE build, I'm sure we can all agree that such an important car deserves a brand new one can't we? Good.

Early January 2023 - Whilst working on the other side of the world, the seller of the NIP Hara ESC and I agree terms outside of eBay (because they wanted a massive cut & I don't like that), so where he's in Singapore & I'm in New Zealand at this point the time zones align nicely for us to talk things through. In doing so, as is often the way, I also discover a reason to spend more money - there's a NIP Tamiya Volac MS C3 available on eBay and a Transpeed Brushless 5T motor too. Clearly I need to buy these, because knowing me as I do, there's undoubtedly a project in my future that each of these can be fitted to (but not the same one, the ESC is for brushed motors, so they're not compatible).

Mid January - Mid February 2023 - Without the distractions of being at home with both Mrs Lukej and my many many build projects, and having spent most of the NZ trip wondering what car to put my new acquisitions into, I end up spending a significant amount of time online either buying parts for the cars I already have (thank you Dai Sakaguchi) or in some cases buying parts for cars I'd like to have (thank you eBay).

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For scale, here's a picture the OH sent me with my stack of boxes 1/3 of the way through my journey to the other side of the world.

This Week - I think it's fair to say that at this point I've added a few nice items to my collection, but none of them were suitable for that Volac ESC, and that was a solvable problem - enter my new friend Jamie, who just so happened to have a NIB TB Evo5 MS for sale.

The Solution
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To the build then!

The TB Evo5 MS has been described as many things, @wtcc5 called it "the shaft drive legend", @_miga_ "the ultimate weapon for technical courses", RC Scrapyard gave it 4.5 stars, whilst Tamiya themselves went for "the strongest shaft driven 4WD", and Mrs Lukej it's called something else altogether - though this possibly connects to the 2 other cars I bought at the same time, thanks to Jamie and his ability to find bargains on Japanese auction sites. Moving on.

With Royal Mail delivering the kit to me this morning, and already having a clear idea for the build, I can start to organise everything ready for assembly. The plan is to build the car up as it was shown to the public for the first time, and that means:

KDvXRtc.jpg
Pulling the instructions out of the box to get an idea of what parts needed acquiring.

  • Tamiya Volac MS C3 ESC (42123) - On hand
  • Tamiya Super Stock Type BZ Motor (53930) - On hand
  • Tamiya Medium-Narrow Hard Inner Foam 53436 - On hand
  • Tamiya Medium-Narrow Dish Wheel 24mm (53475) - On hand
  • Tamiya Reinforced Tyres Type C (54256) - On hand, thanks @wtcc5
  • Tamiya 3700HV Stick Pack Battery (55094) - Ordered through Mercari, stuck in a warehouse somewhere in Japan
  • Tamiya Honda NSX GT 2005 Lightweight Body Parts Set (47353) - Ordered through Mercari, stuck in a warehouse somewhere in Japan
  • Futaba R603FS FASST Receiver - On hand/To buy - The one I have is NIP but has the incorrect label
  • Futaba servo, possibly an S9550 - To buy

There's a bit of shopping still to do, but it made sense to organise what I had ready to go.

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First, the Volac MS C3 can be added to the box.

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Then the Tamiya 0 offset dish wheels.

The Super Stock Type BZ will arrive later this week, just before I head off to the Arctic Circle for an event, and that means no building for a week or so.

Quick one, but does anyone of you know why Tamiya installed the Type BZ at release instead of the Type RZ or Type TZ? They say the BZ is for off-road cars, so an RZ would make most sense for the on-road use case or even a TZ despite it being an endurance/low speed circuit motor.

Lapland trip stopping play, I guess I'll focus on the shopping list/research and head to Tamiya's online product catalogue for some better photos.

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The receiver is a Futaba R603FS, and whilst I'd like NIP I doubt that'll show up. Unfortunately, the only example I've found is on eBay as part of a Futaba 4PK bundle from reseller, and it's all for the low low price of £841.51! Off to Mercari to see what I can dredge up...

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This stick pack is going to be a bit of a pain to source, I'd actually won one on Mercari last night only for the seller to refuse international shipping. If any of you have the correct one that you wouldn't mind me relieving you of I'd be interested in a discussion.

x3OPV1r.jpg
From this close up I can say that it needs to be the type with GP NIMH cells, the Sanyo NICD type came later.

Our last, and possibly the most challenging search, is to determine what servo was in the car? From the next picture we know it's a Futaba, and I'd take an educated guess that it's an S9550 as this is also what Marc Rheinard was using one year earlier in his TRF 415MSXX at the Reedy Race.

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It's still a guess though, and these are about as rare as hens teeth. I need 3 of these for various builds and have so far found none, anyone able to help?

Additional photos of the car from Tamiya are about the best reference material I'll get.

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Top.

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Underside. Note the blue label on the stick pack.

All that's left is the minor detail of sourcing an NSX body, but that's the one pictured in the late stages of the manual so it's the one I'm going for and obviously it'll be treated to a Satoshi Maezumi style paint job.

So that's kind of it for now team, guess I'm off down the rabbit hole to find these parts, especially as I'm on a buying ban from the OH, no more kits until I finish a build apparently, the cheek of it!

Luke

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On 2/28/2023 at 3:01 PM, lukej said:
  • Tamiya Honda NSX GT 2005 Lightweight Body Parts Set (47353) - Ordered through Mercari

I found one NIP on Mercari via Buyee, let's see how long it takes to ship!

Luke

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Thank you guys for the interactions already. Turns out there’s nothing like a kit buying ban to spur me on!

Luke

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On 2/28/2023 at 3:01 PM, lukej said:

Tamiya Dish Wheel 26mm (53914) - On hand

Going down the rabbit hole just now on parts, particularly tyres and tyre inserts, and I discover the first potential issue - my wheels aren’t correct.

To the naked eye, they’re a white dish wheel as they should be, they’re zero offset just as the pictures show, but they’re 2mm too wide for the inserts. **** it!

xgaZxEu.jpg

From the manual, there can be no doubting that I need the closed foam moulded inserts, and these only exist for the 24mm medium-narrow wheels (53475). Guess I’ll be buying some of those too then…

Anyway, it’s an easily solvable problem, and it comes with answers to the questions I had on inserts and tyres as you’ll see below.

For inserts I have the voice of soft (53435), medium (53582), or firm (53435); and I’ve gone for firm as these would suit carpet should I ever give the car a run. For tyres, with the insert choice above it’s an easy decision and I’ll take 54256 Reinforced Tyres Type C for Carpet.

Time to order those parts before bed then!

Luke

 

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Overnight Progress Report

Purchases

  • Tamiya Medium-Narrow Hard Inner Foam 53436 - On hand
  • Tamiya Medium-Narrow Dish Wheel 24mm (53475) - On hand

Challenges

  • Tamiya Reinforced Tyres Type C (54256) - On hand, thanks @wtcc5

I have found one place that claims to have stock of the tyres, it’s a German company that I’ve heard of (Modellbau-Seidel), but their website looks like it’s from the 1990s and I’m a little uneasy about that. Maybe one of my friends from there can vouch for them, @wtcc5?

Onto the search for other things!

Luke

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@lukej Seidel are excellent, but they haven't shipped outside Germany for years, even before the B word.

Have you contacted Tony's Tamiya Parts? They have ordered stuff for me from Tamiya before on 6-8 weeks if it's in production. Message them on Facebook or insta. 

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Best shop ever. Luckily only for Germans, so it still has a good stock ^_^

I can get you what you want though

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2 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

Best shop ever. Luckily only for Germans, so it still has a good stock ^_^

I can get you what you want though

That would be amazing, can you order 2x Tamiya Reinforced Tyres Type C 54256 for me please?

Thanks!

Luke

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On 2/28/2023 at 8:01 AM, lukej said:

...the M-08 is clearly necessary or how else would I know which M chassis variant is best for the RC club that I don't race at?

LOVE this statement.  Exactly how my mind works like 87% of the time!  :lol:

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21 minutes ago, bRIBEGuy said:

LOVE this statement.  Exactly how my mind works like 87% of the time!  :lol:

Glad I have agreement from someone!

Luke

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On further inspection, this is the receiver that matches the one shown at the car's launch.

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Et voila!

Futaba released three variants of the R603FS FASST, and typically this one is the rare one. It's only a sticker different from the other two, but making an accurate model is a binary concept for me. The hunt continues.

Luke

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Seems almost ANY FASST Rx is getting rare these days!  I'm still actively running those with my 4PK, but pretty much any surface Rx using the FASST protocol is almost impossible to find/buy at a reasonable price now.  I just used my last R603FF in my TC-01 that I'm building.  Nice score on the FS!

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7 minutes ago, bRIBEGuy said:

Seems almost ANY FASST Rx is getting rare these days!  I'm still actively running those with my 4PK, but pretty much any surface Rx using the FASST protocol is almost impossible to find/buy at a reasonable price now.  I just used my last R603FF in my TC-01 that I'm building.  Nice score on the FS!

I didn't get it, this one sold last week when I wasn't looking for one...

One idea that has crossed my mind if I can get the parts, is to build up a new shell with sticker and antenna, but put the innards of something like an R304SB inside so that I can run it from my 3PV should I want to.

Luke

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A brief evening Google and I've found the correct-ish receiver in Italy on eBay.

I say correct-ish because it's the right receiver but the wrong sticker, perhaps I can create a replacement sticker with Adobe Illustrator or even buy a replacement with the right print?

Luke

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Excellent build choice sir 👍🏻

If I'm right in thinking it was on eBay a wee while back? Very tempted but I've stopped building 🙄 the TB Evo 4 ms was one of my favourites.

As far as I know the 3700 tamiya battery was only in NiMH never NiCd, but happy to proven wrong.

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25 minutes ago, svenb said:

Excellent build choice sir 👍🏻

If I'm right in thinking it was on eBay a wee while back? Very tempted but I've stopped building 🙄 the TB Evo 4 ms was one of my favourites.

As far as I know the 3700 tamiya battery was only in NiMH never NiCd, but happy to proven wrong.

Thanks! Yes this one was on eBay for a while, I just had the opportunity to make it mine.

Not sure if Tamiya offered the GP 3700 in NiCd, but they did offer a rebranded Sanyo NiCd “Racing Pack” later on and I didn’t want to be inaccurate with the build.

I’m sure you’ll be building soon, it’s a bug!

Luke

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fYk8UBp.jpg
A nice new Super Stock BZ motor arrived today, with some parts for another project hidden in this ESC box...

Luke

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Some of the parts building up in the box!

Luke

550A0F94-D5DB-471E-8173-CE7F14C27FAB.jpeg

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It's been a couple of weeks since I had the chance to sit and properly update this, mostly on account of having a job that pays for my Tamiya habit. Anyway, here's where I've gotten to.

p6hruYg.jpg
I found and ordered a R603FS receiver from Italy, knowing that it had the wrong sticker.

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I also ordered another incorrect sticker for an R604FS from Japan because it was the correct shape and had the logos/colours on it that I'll need to match for my build.

Vfe3FCo.png
And promptly set about recreating the sticker I need in Adobe Illustrator.

This is an ongoing process, and will likely take a few iterations before I'm happy, but the output colour of Adobe will be set to CMYK and I'll Pantone match the colour of the orange to make sure that we get it right. The bigger annoyance will be getting the FASST logo drawn correctly as the sticker is actually low res but I want to start from a place of higher quality and let it print as it needs to.

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One perk of returning home today was to be met with a package from @wtcc5 who very kindly ordered my tyres from Modellbau Seidel for me, thanks again Kevin!

And in the interim a new project arrived...

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As you can see I have a TL-01 build planned, and I needed a new chassis...

Anyway, that's it for me for now, and I think with the exception of the sticker for the receiver and the servo which I've no luck finding, I'm about ready to start building.

Luke

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