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SuperHornet

Buying A New Tamiya Kit

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After doing the Lunchbox I crave more. After my dirt thrasher crapped out on me Ive been craving a good 4wd build for regular bashing, street and of road yard. This is what I'm looking at, if anyone has an opinion or experience with any of the mentioned models I would appreciate it. Ive read some reviews already so im not looking for a complete schooling here, just some experience anyone has had with these.

Fire Dragon

Bauldre

plasma edge

dark impact

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Only 2 I have sorry;

Dark impact - great modern buggy. Quick, responsive, jumps well, typical buggy styling, loads of hop-ups

Boomerang re-re - old school looks, quickish, almost goes where you want it, jumps ok, not many hop-ups!

If I had to choose between the 2 I would choose the Boomerang or Hotshot (very very similar!)

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I have a Dark Impact and a Thunder Shot (same chassis as Fire Dragon). They both have their ups and downs. The Dark Impact is a really nice build with full bearings and a tight layout. It handles well, is consistent ad durable and has plenty of upgrades and support. The Thunder Shot/Fire Dragon is old school. It has huge ground clearance which makes it more fun for jumping and driving over bumpy terrain but it also has a high centre of gravity and a short wheel base which means it tends to snap into over steer easily.

All up I would say that the Thunder Shot/Fire Dragon is more difficult to drive consistently fast and is uglier than the DI but more fun for bashing and more likely to put a smile on your face.

In reference to the other two:

My friend has a gravel hound which is exactly the same as the Plasma Edge and I wouldn't recommend it. People seem to have fun with them but it is certainly not up to the standard of the Dark Impact and not as fun as the Fire Dragon. Has low ground clearance and seems to have a pretty inefficient gearbox. It has the same top speed down the straight as our DI's but it can't get out of a corner as quickly (maybe that has something to do with the diff - I'm not an expert).

Unfortunately I have no experience with the Baldre.

Cheers,

Yuley

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Have also a Dark Impact,

Drives nice, not fast but drives accurate.

Verry strong car with nice technique an a nice list of hop-up options.

The best buggy drive by my experience is a 2WD !

Try a cheap DT-02 with a nice motor and a pair of nice shocks and you will be surprised. :rolleyes:

Greetings

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I bit the bullet yesterday and picked up the Plasma Edge DF-02

So far I'm very happy with the build, and impressed with all the metal gears. cant wait to get it on the road to see how it performs stock.

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df02 is cool, great on road or flat surfaces, bottoms out at the back a lot (go for the highest stiffest rear setup), or maybe some hop up shocks.

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df02 is cool, great on road or flat surfaces, bottoms out at the back a lot (go for the highest stiffest rear setup), or maybe some hop up shocks.

Yeah it came with soft shock fluid, I want to run it full stock to the book first before I make any adjustments, Its always good to expierience a car and get to know its flaws and strenghts first before you begin changing things around.

to stiffen the shocks (keeping them stock) I think I need to switch out the plastic plug with the holes in it to the one with the single hole, and pick up some hard shock fluid right?

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I just bought a DF-02 and can give you some pointers from my experience:

1) Buy the $3 67T spur gear, it makes a big difference in the acceleration.

2) Put some of that LunchBox shock tubing on the shocks. Put enough on so that when you push the car down, it does not touch the ground.

3) Put as many of the shock stiffener clamps on as possible, take some off some other cars. If you plan to offroad bash, those need to be tight!

4) Put the ball connectors on the most inward setting to give you some extra lift.

5) I went out and purchased a couple computer mother board screws and screwed them onto the shock piston rod and then screwed those into the bottom of the shock. This gave me about a couple mm extra lift. Do this on the back only. If you do it on the front, it will lift the buggy too high and interfere with the steering.

6) Be careful about the hop-up shocks you buy. The Tamiya are extremely pricey. I purchased some Yeah Racing shocks for $25 total (with shipping) from RCMart.

7) Don't race the buggy too hard without the lexan spoiler on it. If you race it without the spoiler, if it flips the plastic shock caps (unless you upgrade) will take the brunt of the flip, wearing away the plastic and they will eventually snap on a hard crash.

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Thanks for all the info Glance (I like the pic of your Lunchbox avatar). I managed to get the Plasma Edge up and running all stock with no adjustments. It was a really easy setup. I was really impressed with how tight the car is. When I gave it the first push on the acceloration I did notice a clicking sound for like 2 seconds, then it stopped, guess there was a slightly missaligned gear. After making sure it was good to go I took it outside for a quick run on the street (no off road yet since it was like 10pm and I had no body on it). To say the least I was not impressed with its speed, Infact I think its about as fast maybe just slightly faster than my stock lunchbox. However I was impressed with its supurb handling. I can see now that the weight in the rear needs to be countered by stiffer shocks in the back. I had some question for you glance.

1, what it this for? "Buy the $3 67T spur gear, it makes a big difference in the acceleration".

2, if I put tubing on the shaft of the rear shocks would that make the suspension more likely to crack on me on a jump? ( I wont be doing many jumps, but you never know its pretty flat around here)

and I didnt understand number 5, did you screw it in the shock tower?? not exactly sure.

thanks

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The speed won't be much faster than a Lunchbox because you are using the same motor to power it. Upgrading to a faster motor will get you more speed.

1. Replacing the 70 tooth spur gear with the 67 tooth option part will give you less acceleration, but a higher top speed.

2. Don't put any tubing on the shock shafts, it's supposed to bottom out. If the chassis can't hit the ground after a jump all the impact loads are sent into the shock mount instead of being spread over the bottom of the chassis which will break the shock mount.

3. The shock clamps aren't there to stiffen the springs, they are there to adjust ride height. If the rear suspension is too soft then replace the springs with stiffer ones so you still get full suspension travel. Preloading the kit springs will mean the suspension won't compress, then when it does it won't have much travel.

5. is to extend the length of the shocks, which will affect the driveshaft angle. If anyone needed lots of ride height then buying something more suitable such as a DF03 or DB01 would be a much better idea.

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I bit the bullet yesterday and picked up the Plasma Edge DF-02

So far I'm very happy with the build, and impressed with all the metal gears. cant wait to get it on the road to see how it performs stock.

It has metal gears? Tell me more about that.

I feel a lot more comfrotable with metal gears as opposed to plastic.

I had a bad experience with a DF-03 buggy, and I would be open to a DF-02.

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Metal parts? Only metal gear in mine was the pinion, and it was too good to stay on a stock motor so an alloy AV 19T pinion went back in. Rest of the gears in mine are plastic. I was shocked when I first opened my kit and the outdrive cups were plastic too.

I would buy a DF01 (Blazing Star, Dirt Thrasher, Manta Ray) before I'd ever buy another DF02. I just bought a DF03MS (my 2nd DF03) and it's the best Tamiya buggy I've ever assembled, fit together nicer than the Dark Impact and it's fast, lightning fast with the MambaMax and it handles the power fine without breaking the gearbox in two (Like the DF01 does). What I did like about the DF02 was it's simplicity and the kit was assembled in under 4 hours.

The motherboard mount screwed between the shock shaft and the bottom eye to lengthen the shock is a top idea. They work good under brass balls too, I used them on the shock towers to get the DF03 shocks to fit up to a DF01 FRP chassis set. The Tamiya DF03 shocks are worth that extra money! The 3Racing and Yeah Racing are not a patch on them.

Don't forget the 8 bearings for the wheel knuckles in DF02. These should've been standard and why they left 8 bushes in the kit has me at a loss.

I feel a lot more comfrotable with metal gears as opposed to plastic.

Metal, as in steel is better than plastic yes, but very heavy to have every gear in steel. Alloy will wear much faster than plastic. The alloy idler gears in a DF01 are chewed out in about 4 batteries with a very powerful motor. The TA02 plastic ones will last the life of the spur. Brass pinion/plastic gears is even better than alloy gears. I try to avoid any alloy gearing unless I'm running the kit 540 silvercan and TEU101BK esc.

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