Manta Ray Refurb

[ap6318]

Your pictures appear to be missing the upper battery cover, Part 4 from the E sheet. It also doubles as a chassis brace for the plastic tub.

Not any more! I left it off to see how much flex was in the chassis but now have it back on as it was a bit floppy. Here are the photos with the ride height fixed, suspension the right way round and electrics fitted

I've chosen a 9t Hobbywing combo for price, performance and proven reliability. Changed the Tamiya plug to a deans style plug.

Unsure with the gearing yet so starting with the 16t pinion to not work the new motor too hard and work my way up if the top speed is lacking.

Radio gear is 2.4ghz Eurgle - This has been my radio of choice for nearly a year and very happy with it - especially when extra receivers are under $10

Additional costs:

Hobbywing 9t Brushless Combo - $95.00

Eurgle 2.4ghz radio gear - $70.00

Robinson Racing 16t pinion - RRP1116 - $10.00

Deans style T plug $1.00 (well they are $10.00 for a pack of 10)

Aloe vera cream to sooth the solder burn on my finger $6.00

Off to try and make the body one piece again

[TA-Mark]

Lookin' good mate.

I would recommend a 18T/19T pinion with the 74T spur running the 9turn EZ-Run. That is if you fit the 2.16" star dish wheels and super gripper square/spire spike tyres, or the DF03 2.2" sized wheels with buggy 2.2" tyres. Both tyre types are readily available. I found the square spikes hooked up very well on the surface at Boondall. While I was there I tried 3 different tyre types, spire spikes, square spikes and DF03 TopCad premounts (smaller nub style spikes similar to the DF03 kit tyre, just softer). I'd expect to get 3-4 meets out of a set of square spikes before they started to loose grip, providing you keep them off the tarmac. CC-01/Blazing Star tyres wear great for onroad running (I keep a set of these in my spares box just incase).

With the 16T pinion in there you could fit huge wheels like that on a Blitzer Beetle (I use a 17T pinion with Blitzer sized wheels on this chassis.)

[mr. Rallying]

Aloe vera cream to sooth the solder burn on my finger $6.00

Sorry to laugh at your pain.., but you made a good point there. Prehaps you would consider one of these instead of running off to buy no-pain-cream everytime..:

[kaiser]

this chassis is fast with a 9t ezrun.

i run the 20 tooth pinion, which is over geared, but the temps are ok and the car likes it.

mine will out run my neighbors vxl traxxas cars all day. they hate me for it. lol

op, if you need a body you can find the blazing star body set on ebay still. (it's a good looking body set)

[ap6318]

Yeah, looks like i bought the wrong pinion. That's ok I have a few 19 and 20s laying around so I wil experiment. Wheel size is going to be the original 2.0" Speed Discs with standard wide studs to start with and see whre we end up.

Body is now back in one piece thanks to some sheet ally and "Shoe Goo" - best lexan repair product ever

its not the prettiest shell but at the speeds I'm trying to achieve I have a feeling there are going to be some battle scars

Additional Costs:

Shoe Goo - Sports Store - $10

[ap6318]

Just about finished and noticed I don't have a rear body mount or battery stop. Luckily my local hobby shop has some tamiya spares so I picked up an E parts tree.

Mounted a new set of wide studs to the original speed discs. Not sure how these will go but really wanted to start wit an as close to stock car then make one change at a time to see what is absolutely critical for good performance.

Gearing will be the first thing, wheels and tyres will be next.

Here are a couple of pics of the finished product

Now I just have to wait for the track to dry out to have a test run.

Additional costs:

E Parts - LHS - $18.00

Wide stud tyres - LHS $30.00

4 pack of Jack Daniels & Cola for a job well done - $19.00 - Man our alcohol tax here in Oz is nasty!

[mr. Rallying]

You're going to have FUN!

[ap6318]

Last of all is the battery - Probably as critical as the ESC/motor choice.

After researching a number of batteries - there are only so many lipos that fit in a Manta chassis hole - The best value for money I found was the Eurgle 4400mah 25c 2 cell lipo. These are a "wrapped" soft pack. Similar to the Venom packs but with and extra 10% capacity and cheaper too. They are a perfect fit into the oval hole with no modification required.

Off with the Tamiya style plug an on with the deans style plug.

All I have to do is proram the ESC. I have started with the factory settings to see how they go.

Aditionl costs:

Eurgle 4400 25c 7.4v lipo - $60

Deans style plug $0 - used the other half of the pair from the ESC

[ap6318]

THE REASULTS

Absolutely fantastic!!!! This car was awsome around the track both in handling and speed. I was turning faster laps than a fully hopped up Top Force Spec Terra Conquorrer running a 5.5t Brushless (same batteries). He was faster on the straights but could not take the corners as well.

Track was slightly muddy to dry - low grip

Motor only just cracked 50 degrees C which means I could go up a tooth ot two on the pinion for more top speed but for now I couldn't be happier with the reasult.

Factory ESC settings were spot on - again with the motor running just warm I could have advanced the timing for some more speed.

Got 3 flat out runs of 5-10 mins each with the battery before I realised the factory ESC settings don't have lipo cut set - oops . Dropped one of the cells to 2.95V but straight on the charger and it is fine - you can drop a cell to 2.85 before any permanent damage happens.

Other casualties were:

- lost front wheel - I used the original wheel nuts which obviously weren't up to the task

- 2 empty shocks - I re-used all shock seals so will go through and rebuild with new before the next run.

Anyone that wants a fast 4wd vintage racer, the old Ray is a definate low cost alternative.

I will do the math and list all the parts and costs to build a budget vintage brushless weapon

Total cost of this build was $536.98 - BUT if you take out all the extras including car repairs and self medication it boils down to this:

Bearings - $20.00

Plastic gear set - $15.00

Yeah alloy prop shaft - $20.00

Yeah alloy motor mount - $20.00

Hobbywing 9t Brushless Combo - $95.00

Eurgle 2.4ghz radio gear - $70.00

Robinson Racing 16t pinion - RRP1116 - $10.00

Deans style T plug $1.00

Real total: $251 - Seriously, 2 years ago you couldn't buy a brushless combo for much less! Again, this is AU$ so you northern hemisphere people will do it for alot less than that.

Happy bashing!!!!

[madmatt13]

Nice action pics

Hope to see this live in some days...

Its bad that rc is in australia that expensive!!!

Looking for a nice Egress or Avante, but I would be happy with a Top Force or Dyna Storm too.

We´ll see whats going on there down under

Great rebuilt job!

[SHY69]

I'll havta get down to Boondall again with the MM5700Kv Blazing Star.

Few parts are must haves to run brushless:

*Steel pinion

*Alloy motor mount

*Solid main propshaft (avoid the dogbone type ones, they break easy)

*All plastic TA02 gears in the rear gearbox.

*DF03 dogbones (or 70mm universals if you can get them cheap)

*Full set of bearings

A few recommendations to make things stronger:

*Angled rear gearcover brace (you will need to make this part from an angled section of aluminium)

*Machine screw right through the rear damper tower mount with a nut on the end to help hold down the rear gearcover. (I'm sure I showed you this mod last time I was at Boondall)

*Bevel Gear diffs packed with anit-wear grease are stronger than ball diffs in this chassis.

You can see the alloy brace and screw/nut through the damper tower fitted to this TA02.

I have a re-re Hotshot I would like to upgrade further with brushless etc.

Could you guys be so kind as to give med the exact parts numbers for those parts, both Tamiya and 3rd party?

The re-re Hotshot has all plastic gears right? (so I don't need to do anything except change to steel pinion)

Does anyone make alu wishbones for the Hotshot?

Sorry to hijack the tread a bit!

[TA-Mark]

I have a re-re Hotshot I would like to upgrade further with brushless etc.

Could you guys be so kind as to give med the exact parts numbers for those parts, both Tamiya and 3rd party?

The re-re Hotshot has all plastic gears right? (so I don't need to do anything except change to steel pinion)

Does anyone make alu wishbones for the Hotshot?

Sorry to hijack the tread a bit!

A Hotshot is quite different to a DF01. I put Hotshot into the vintage class of 4WD buggys (The re-re is almost the same buggy as the original). DF01 (MantaRay) is the first of Tamiya's modern 4WD buggys.

The pinions are 0.8m instead of 0.6m (32dp steel is a suitable replacement for 0.8m). I've found the Traxxas E-Maxx steel pinions to be very good.

The range of usable motors is different too. I wouldn't fit more than a 4600Kv motor to a Hotshot, even then I would drive it gently. Increase in power adds load which wears things quicker and the increase in speed means things break easier when you do hit something.

I avoid alloy arms on buggys I run. A plastic arm has a bit of give and will bounce back to shape after an impact. An alloy arm will shift all the impact to the arm mounts which are part of the gearboxes/diffs and will tear the mounts off. If you do want to go a bit crazy with the Hotshot, take a look at this.

[SHY69]

So do you think it could handle a 8,5 turn brushless (and gentle driving)?

It would need that speed in order to clear modern tracks jumps...

What's the "platform name" for Hotshot/Supershot?

[kaiser]

what kind of track are you running on? a manta ray can clear some pretty big stuff with much less power. the problem is that the big jumps beat up that chassis pretty well.

with a trinity c027 stock class brushed motor i was able to clear some big doubles, with a 9t ezrun i was able to send it into orbit. lol

[SHY69]

This is the track:

www.ymr.no/wod.htm

www.ymr.no/utvidelse.htm

[kaiser]

cool track but i see no reason that a 17.5, let alone a 8.5, couldn't handle anything on that track.

alot of work went into that track, i like it alot.

[SHY69]

cool track but i see no reason that a 17.5, let alone a 8.5, couldn't handle anything on that track.

alot of work went into that track, i like it alot.

Thx! I put A LOT of work into it!!!

We're going to totally renew it now and put astro all over Which will make it more or less maintenance free!

I'd still like to have the Hotshot chassis "platform", anyone?

[TA-Mark]

I'd still like to have the Hotshot chassis "platform", anyone?

It's Hotshot. They never gave them a 'code' back then. Check here for chassis types.