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Kowalski86

Your Unpopular RC opinions

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On 3/30/2023 at 3:56 PM, Kowalski86 said:

Tamiya TT-01E: 10 Screws to remove the upper brace, four to remove the cover iirc, two for the motor. Had to do this repeatedly due to various challenges meshing the pinion in its confined area.

Tamiya TT-02: Four for the cover, two for the motor mount, and two for the motor.

Keep in mind that I don't use an electric screwdriver on my RCs, all by hand.

Might just be an On-Road thing?

My hardest, is my Dark Impact, I remove the rear wheel, pop the shock off at the bottom (might not be needed, just find, it makes life easier), 2 screws for the spur cover, and 2 screws for the motor (which I've swapped to hex head )...

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2 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Might just be an On-Road thing?

My hardest, is my Dark Impact, I remove the rear wheel, pop the shock off at the bottom (might not be needed, just find, it makes life easier), 2 screws for the spur cover, and 2 screws for the motor (which I've swapped to hex head )...

I don't think it's an on road thing, all of my M-chassis only need two screws with the M05s needing 4 due to the battery bracket bring in the way.

But it's less the screw count thats my concern, more so stripping the threads in time.

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On 3/31/2023 at 3:44 PM, Golden said:

I’m not sure if this is a truly safe space or not….

but….

I HATE The Falcon. I seriously don’t get it. It is FUGLY!

There. I’ve finally said it. 

OMG I feel so much better now. 

I hate it too. It's ugly and super fragile. I am 100% convinced the only people who like it are ones who had it as a kid who forgot how much of a POS it was.  It would sell very poorly if it was rere'd. 

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5 hours ago, A-Baum said:

I hate it too. It's ugly and super fragile. I am 100% convinced the only people who like it are ones who had it as a kid who forgot how much of a POS it was.  It would sell very poorly if it was rere'd. 

Coming from a Grasshopper, the one thing that I liked about the Falcon was the battery layout, then I learned that the Falcon/Blitzer chassis is more or less a simplified ABS RC10.

It is a mess visually, almost looks like a Nikko/RadioShack buggy. But a number of the later Tamiya buggys look a bit like Nikkos to me.

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On 3/31/2023 at 5:11 PM, Kowalski86 said:

a few shortcuts knowing that they're going to get beaten up

I know what you mean. Those videos of cars jumping through the air always look amazing but when they land and go rolling I always wince. I guess every car needs 2 bodies, the runner and the shelf body?

I've seen lots of people on youtube talking about weathering techniques on static military vehicles like adding chips and scratches and paint that looks like rust on a WWII tank. I suppose you could do something similar on some cars like a body that was some 60s hot rod maybe? Then any dings or scrapes gained during running would blend in with the paint job?

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14 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

plastic body will just grind down to the base plastic

Oh :(

Ooh what about putting the car inside a large hamster ball?

small-hamster-ball.jpg

Crikey the things you find in the corners of the internet.....

Hamster-Car-Set.jpg

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3 hours ago, Gebbly said:

I know what you mean. Those videos of cars jumping through the air always look amazing but when they land and go rolling I always wince. I guess every car needs 2 bodies, the runner and the shelf body?

For me all of mine are runners, I just accept that if I drive poorly it'll show on my bodies. Drive good and they'll stay looking nice!

 

2 hours ago, Gebbly said:

Oh :(

Ooh what about putting the car inside a large hamster ball?

small-hamster-ball.jpg

Somebody tried that on Robot Wars with a Blackfoot:

https://robotwars.fandom.com/wiki/Psychosprout

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On 4/5/2023 at 5:04 PM, Gebbly said:

Oh :(

 

Hamster-Car-Set.jpg

 

Lewis Hampster or Rodent Grojean  ?

 

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unpopular opinion forthcoming:

The TD2 and TD4 chassis...what is the point of them.  They look odd with only the front shocks hidden in laydown configuration, if your going to do that do it proper like tenth tech did, and they managed it without convulted battery access issues.  They still are not a proper or semi proper race chassis, rear ends seem somewhat fragile?  Are they any better performance wise than the top force/top force evo? or super astute, zahhak?  And the current bodies look foul.  If your going to make something that looks fast and racy than you should better make sure it is fast and racy.

And the box description on most/all of their kits "high performance off road racer"  compared to what?  Note the term racer...high performance compared to schumacher, losi etc?

 

(runs for cover to my man size Lipo safe sleeping bag awaiting the barrage of flaming Lipo's)

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... The Striker is s*x on wheels.

The Sonic Fighter was/is ahead of its time.

The original Lancia Rally with the huge wheels was better than the subsequent touring car re-releases (I mean, 2WD and genuine off-roading!).

Brushless motors are the fuel injection of the RC world: more efficient, but not nearly as charismatic as what came before (carburetors, or checking brushes and truing comms).

On that topic: truing comms is FUN!

Nobody NEEDS Li-Po batteries in this part of the hobby.

... I feel liberated - and that a ban is justified :P

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20 minutes ago, hamtaro said:

And the box description on most/all of their kits "high performance off road racer"  compared to what?  Note the term racer...high performance compared to schumacher, losi etc?

Its a long standing tradition, my re-re Tamiya Brat manual even had a bit about it  "designed to take me to the winners circle" or something. Maybe in 1983 that was the case?

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13 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

Its a long standing tradition, my re-re Tamiya Brat manual even had a bit about it  "designed to take me to the winners circle" or something. Maybe in 1983 that was the case?

My original release wild one was the same...I did race it and it certainly wasn't a high performance racer, quick enough on the straights, hopeless when it came to corners/tight corners.  The rough the track the better it was actually

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19 minutes ago, Grastens said:

... The Striker is s*x on wheels.

The Sonic Fighter was/is ahead of its time.

 

 

... I feel liberated - and that a ban is justified :P

Tamiya need to develop a PROPER competitive chassis and use either of those bodies, time to get away from all those generic same looking cab forward generic shells

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Dunno if its unpopular or not, but to me "good" designs don't need a bucket of spacers to work. I've been seriously considering an XV-01 as I like the setup, but the complexity and handful of spacers will make any re-builds bothersome.

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52 minutes ago, hamtaro said:

My original release wild one was the same...I did race it and it certainly wasn't a high performance racer, quick enough on the straights, hopeless when it came to corners/tight corners.  The rough the track the better it was actually

One probelem of the WO is the front, it's too light. The CG is biased at the mid-rear section of the chassis and the front wheels looses traction especially on corners. A solution to that is to add weights. I have done this to mine by adding 40g in total and steering traction is really improved by let's say, 50%.

I remember back in the 80s when I was racing my Frog against WO, RC10 and Ultima buggies. I would always come in last because the Frog just couldn't keep up. The WO driver/owners did the weight method back then which reminded me to do when I finally got mine, I did the same and really noticed the improvement.

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- Traxxas brought too many yucky methheads and unsavory customers into the Hobby Shop who couldn't even begin to learn how to fix their cars. This trend morphed into Crawlers and other RTR's.

- Local hobby shops are typically terrible and severely lack customer service (I avoid the two of them in town like the plague)

- Soccer and Travel Ball parents destroy any chances of running your RC in a park or field. They're like locusts and consume any park and recreational area.

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47 minutes ago, NWarty said:

- Traxxas brought too many yucky methheads and unsavory customers into the Hobby Shop who couldn't even begin to learn how to fix their cars. This trend morphed into Crawlers and other RTR's.

- Local hobby shops are typically terrible and severely lack customer service (I avoid the two of them in town like the plague)

I think Axial did more to bring crawling to the mainstream, but even before then, people were making crawlers from various Clodbuster kits. It was just more niche.

That being said, I'm not a fan of LHS's when 90% of their inventory for ground RCs, is one brand.

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25 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Battery access don't seem to be Tamiya strong point. There are quite a few are PITA design for it, makes me think that removing the battery is an afterthought to the designers.

I noticed that too, "high performance" compared to toy grade I suppose.

Some designs you have to remove underneath with a screw, just like a toy. Then you have designs (TT-02, DT-02) that have decent battery access, but that's in part because of how conventional the designs are.

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After some recent experience driving a "proper", touring based rally car. I have a better appreciation for buggies, SCTs, what I consider "proper" off-roaders.

Rally cars are fun to watch and great for pictures, youtube slow-mos, but they're very limited terrain-wise. And while I was foolish and didn't use a chassis cover, I'm not looking forward to possibly re-building my entire TT-02 because of one rally run.

I feel like my Frog, my "not super scale buggy based rally car", would have performed much better with less wear and tear, and gotten stuck less.

I can see why rally cars are a bit niche compared to more purpose built off-roaders.

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17 minutes ago, Kowalski86 said:

I feel like my Frog, my "not super scale buggy based rally car", would have performed much better with less wear and tear, and gotten stuck less.

I can see why rally cars are a bit niche compared to more purpose built off-roaders.

And that's why my favourite rally cars by Tamiya include:

model_58040_01.jpg

And (speaking of unpopular opinions!):

0000327_tamiya-49352-110-rc-impreza-wrc-

The Lancia Rally on the ORV chassis has its followers. The TL-01RA-based Subaru? Well, we don't hear about them often, do we?

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1 hour ago, Grastens said:

And that's why my favourite rally cars by Tamiya include:

model_58040_01.jpg

And (speaking of unpopular opinions!):

0000327_tamiya-49352-110-rc-impreza-wrc-

The Lancia Rally on the ORV chassis has its followers. The TL-01RA-based Subaru? Well, we don't hear about them often, do we?

Love the lancia.  It looks downright mean and ready for business

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3 hours ago, Kowalski86 said:

I have a better appreciation for buggies

One of the considerations when I recently built my first car (GF-01) was thinking about where and when I would get a chance to run it. Since most of my chances to play would just be in the garden or the local playing field the really sleek and sexy on-road or rally cars just didnt feel like they would do too well. I put wider arms on my GF-01 for even less chance of rolling and waterproof electrics. Now I am happy that going forwards whatever else I build my little GF-01 can be run pretty much anywhere :)

3 hours ago, Grastens said:

And that's why my favourite rally cars by Tamiya include

That looks like a cool compromise between rally and heavy off-road capability. What is it?

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