Tenth Technology questions?

[wldnas]

I went to the Eastnor castle RC event today to have a look around the RC market there, it was pretty empty and no much of interest to me except for one car that caught my eye...

It's a stadium racer similar in looks to the Tamiya Chevy S10 and Ford F-150 stadium racers but it is made by the English Competition RC company Tenth Technology and it's called the STREETWISE!

now I've know about T.Tech cars before most notable the PREDATOR buggy which had some success on the RC racing circuit in the late 90's but the Streetwise is road going version of the "Pred" chassis with largish wheels and a Pick-Up body, the chassis design is geared up for On-Road use most notably Touring cars but yet has this semi-offroad look which is quite unusual, the kit was old stock being sold off by one of the traders and the original retail price was £169.99 but I got it for £95 which is quite a bargain.

the thing is I don't have anything to do with On-Road or touring cars at all, I'm a devout Off-Road colletor so buying this truck is kinda outa sorts for me, but It looks kinda interesting and is a modifed version of the Predator chassis, so I thought I'd give it a go (there wasn't anything else worth getting at the event for me anyway)

But what I would like to do with this truck is try to convert it to a Predator, but I apart from getting and fitting the longer shocks, drive shfats and suspension arms, what else would need to be done in order to carry out this conversion and where would I get the parts, or for that matter has anyone ever atempoted to do it before?

I would appreciate it if anyone can give my anymore information about Tenth Technology cars... (and YES I do know about the design fault on the front suspension cantalever pivots which have a habbit of snapping off)

[terry.sc]

You could start at the manufacturers website at http://www.ttechracing.com but I don't think it will be much help unless you want to contact them. The best supplier of spares used to be Apex Modelshttp://www.apexmodels.com

The car you have was based on the Predator DTM touring car, not the buggy, and the wheelbase is shorter than the buggy. The Streetwise range was originally a relatively cheap touring car, with rally car and off road pickup versions. To fully convert it to a buggy you would really also need to replace the chassis and driveshaft as well as the suspension. It would probably be easier to try and get hold of a second hand Predator buggy, there must be a lot of them about as it is no longer 'fashionable' to run one (racers these days always have to run the latest car)

[wldnas]

Thanks for the Info terry []

after looking more closely at some pictures of a Predator chassis I have, it's easy to see where the differences are, you are correct in say that the Streetwise is a smaller more compact version of the pred chassis design for use as a road going tourer or rally car.

this car also seems to be made of some slightly cheaper materials to the original pred, but still it seems that all Tenth Tech cars have the same common designs on the suspension layout.

I will still keep my eye out for a Predator (I do know of a man who claims to have one, it just getting him to part with it thats the trick but I think I could still make use of the Streetwise eventhough I detest On-Road (touring/rally) cars as I'm a devout Off Roader. but none of my vintage buggies can compete at competition level as theri designs and gearing are too dated and outmoded to cut it on todays tracks, but the Streetwise is a bit more uptodate, and could be easily modifed to go excedingly fast.

so perhaps buying it wasnt such a waste afterall

[Rossco(2)]

moving slightly off topic, but still interesting. the origonal predator buggy had a very pretty carbon fibre tub chassis. this was later changed to the now common plastic composite stuff. i'd imagine these early cars are probably very rare now as the quality of the suspension components was terrible!!!

[terry.sc]

There were two advantages of abandoning the carbon fibre tub with separate gearboxes and replacing it with the one piece moulded chassis.

1. It kept the gearboxes aligned properly.

2. It stopped the car making such a loud whining noise as it went down the track[]