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Someone might be able to shed some light. But my son has a Hornet standard build, standard everything out of the box. I have the Sand Viper same, stock as it stands (not for long though).

My line of thinking is that new technology meant faster car.... WRONG !!! the Hornet is so much more faster than my Viper. Is it to do with the gears in it as they are a different kind i.e. configuration?

My car drives better on dirt and grass despite sitting lower the hornet powers away on the road and straight line speed, its engine sounds more powerful also?

Any thoughts.

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Pretty straight forward really, he's probably a bit lighter than you maybe 50grams or more perhaps. Then he has one of the most efficient gearboxes ever due to the rigid axle, no need for outdrives dogbones etc which add to the friction not to mention the suspension movement creating a little extra load, watch how his car might last a bit longer too. If you haven't already you should upgrade from the 17 to the 19 tooth pinion. Your son probably has an 18 if my memory serves me correct so he'd be 1 up on you already. Straight out of the box in a straight line the Hornet is probably capable of beating even modern racers with same battery and motor combo's. Take your cars out to the track and you will find what he takes in the straights you'll take back in the handling and corners not to mention also he has far better odds of spending more time on his roof than you. Maybe you need a Sports tuned to make sure that at home at least you're still top dog!

James

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You think he's faster now? Get him a set of ball bearings and some less spiky rear tires for the Hornet and he'll REALLY blow your doors off. :rolleyes: Hornets have always been the kings of a drag race, owing to the light weight and efficient gearbox. But as BeetleLover said, once you try to change direction it's a whole different story...

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I'm a bit of newbie too and I had the same thoughts when I assembled my df03 keen hawk. Was all ready for some dirt spitting 4wd action and the thing went like a dead rat. Dropped a 5.5t brushless in it now and it's more like an electrified rat now =)

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hahahaha, yeah thanks guys, it makes sense... at first it was rather frustrating due to my newer model, but your right he has the 18T and I have the 17T, its amazing how (and i know this is not only it) an extra tooth can contribute, I'm not going to wait long.. I'm going tp upgrade to brushless etc. Then I'll give him a run for his money.

Trouble is i also advised him that i would do the same to him so i guess it will come down to driving ability.. little bu.gger is getting better though so the sweat will return. Seen some you tube vids of brushless hornet and it is one deadly machine. oh how times have changed or is it that it has always been the same but now my pockets are a little deeper? Hahaha.

Has anyone heard of metal gearing in the Hornet to improve the strength of the Diff when going to brushless?

I;ve been trying to locate some metal parts for it to... front oil dampers that bolt straight to the strut, metal side bars and chrome wheels for it also, thinking if getting hex adaptor to broaden my horizon.

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If you went brushless with the original nylon bushes you would pretty much melt them and the gears would most certainly mesh funny and move about causing certain death to the gearbox. Be prepared to have a bunch of spare parts and a spare chassis handy when you change over to brushless cause almost certainly he'll discover an immovable object at perhaps twice the original speed it was capable of!

James

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The DT-02 will benefit from a faster motor like a sport or dirt tuned, but you are limited by the lack of pinion choices. Put too low a turn motor in there and it will overheat both the motor and the ESC because it's geared wrong. I would say maybe a 23t max for the motor choices, but even then it will be pushing it for heat.

There are some Hornet hop-ups out there, but not many and they are getting rarer by the minute. Bearings are the best upgrade. I just roar when I see Hornets with a brushless system. IMO they are more like point and squirt missiles than R/C vehicles at some point. They just fly in a straight line but the odds of remaining rubber side down drop dramatically with that kind of power, and that's assuming you weren't actually trying to TURN the vehicle. :rolleyes:

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Also not all silver cans are the same. Plus I notice running NiMH batteries, ones straight off the charger are noticeably more powerful then one charged the previous day.

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Also not all silver cans are the same. Plus I notice running NiMH batteries, ones straight off the charger are noticeably more powerful then one charged the previous day.

Going on what some experts on the silvercan are saying on another thread the newer mabuchi 540s are very much like peas in a pod. All pretty slow but very long lasting. The old Johnson 540 were a lot more hit and miss with about 5% being either dogs or thoroughbreds. So I doubt its the motor.

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I've been running brushless 4600Kv in my Grasshopper (basically the same as a Hornet) since it was given to me 2 years ago. I've had one rollover with it, and that was because of the terrain (run up the edge of the track) and not caused from the brushless. It's only as powerful as you program the controller to be. Just the same as you need to tame a decent system in a 2WD DT02, you also need to for a Hornet as well (either tame the system or tame your trigger finger). Would you jump in a high powered 1:1 car and hold the throttle on the floor expecting that you will be able to handle the wheelspin and sliding? The same when you fit hot motors. You no longer need to slam it to full throttle from nothing to get the excitement factor like you need to with a kit 540 silvercan.

As the Hornet has no gearing options at all, use the Lunchbox motor adapter plate and a Lunchbox 10 tooth brass pinion to get the gearing right for use with brushless. Systems around 4500Kv work great in a Hornet when using the Lunchbox parts and the runtimes are huge (I get over 2 hours from a 4000mAh Li-Po).

Using metal bearings is a must in any chassis that has brushless fitted. The plastic bushings will melt very quickly from the increased rpm.

Hornet, 10 tooth pinion, 4600Kv MambaMax will do 45km/h. DT02, 17 tooth pinion, 4600Kv MambaMax will do 65km/h. Both will wheelstand if you thump the throttle hard and the tyres can get traction (on carpet or tarmac).

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Would you jump in a high powered 1:1 car and hold the throttle on the floor expecting that you will be able to handle the wheelspin and sliding?

Yep, bouncing off the rev-limiter with active diffs off. Need to leave the anti-lag on so car doesn't stall hard when hitting the deck. Have pulled tyres off rims doing that...

Only way to drive an Evo in a forest... ;)

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you don't need metal gears, the hornet's gearbox is one of the strongest ever made. they will hold up to brushless no problem, as long as you have bearings that it.

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Hmm,

my Desert Gator weighs 1230gr with a std servo and a 23T BZ motor, but without reciever and ESC. I don't see how I can get it to tip the scale at 1042gr - do you know how is that specified?

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Someone might be able to shed some light. But my son has a Hornet standard build, standard everything out of the box. I have the Sand Viper same, stock as it stands (not for long though).

My line of thinking is that new technology meant faster car.... WRONG !!! the Hornet is so much more faster than my Viper. Is it to do with the gears in it as they are a different kind i.e. configuration?

My car drives better on dirt and grass despite sitting lower the hornet powers away on the road and straight line speed, its engine sounds more powerful also?

Any thoughts.

Switch cars. ;)

skip

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you need to remember the hornet design is over 25 years old, and the original gears were deigned for a 320 style motor.

the bigger the motor you install the faster the overall gear box will degrade. While you can install a drag motor in the hornet gearbox and get it up to 45mphs on road, off road its not going to last very long before something breaks. the hornet gear box is very beefy and can take some abuse, but i would be careful installing a very high powered Brushless motor. the rule of thumb is a BL motor is putting out double the torque of a Brushed so with all that extra power your more likely to bust something.

Odd that you say that. I've had a 4600Kv MambaMax in my Grasshopper (upgraded to Hornet spec rolling rear suspension) and a 5700Kv MambaMax in my Lunchbox (same gearbox as a Hornet) for a little over 2 years now. Neither gearbox shows any sign of wear in the gears themselves or any fatigue in the gear casing. Driving onroad is the rarity, these vehicles spend most of their life running around my backyard track (offroad, rough dirt). And they do get driven a lot, somtimes 3 packs each day (a pack in the Grasshopper can last 2 hours). Easily my 2 most driven models. I found the Hornet/Lunchbox gearboxes to be one of the strongest Tamiya gearboxes I've encountered, unlike some that are dead in 10 packs.

The Lunchbox gearbox is completely standard besides bearings, and the Grasshopper gearbox is using the LB's 10T brass pinion and motor mount to get the gearing right, otherwise standard besides bearings.

I have to ask, what are you doing to your poor Hornet to break the gearbox? Northwest nutter style insane jumps?

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I might do a late night black op sabotage on his car, and line his chassis with lead... :D

Cool Story - Aaaah see he may have the power and speed on me but his lack of experience prevailed yesterday. WE found this road/dirt combination area yesterday which made for an awesome track of over 50 metres around so where we were going head to head. My son kicked off proceedings and he got the jump on me and he had about a 2 metre head start on me until the first corner where the dirt turns to roaad where his car stopped dead and then kangaroo jumped.... He didn't charge his battery did he??? ;) So the old bull won by default and spent the next 20 minutes (Yeah still running crappy 1600Mah NiMh battery until Lipo upgrade arrives) doing doughnuts around his stranded car.

He spent over half an hour cleaning his car with the red dirt sprayed on it by me (didn't have salt to rub in his wounds so red dirt had to do)

Here's a question for you guys that i've got no idea about.... When we finish with our NiMh batteries we drain the battery out by keeping the radio control unti on and pushing the set button all the way up so it runs automatically... trouble here is it chews the batteries in the radio control unti (8 x AA) and this is annoying... how does everyone else drain there battery without using the radio control unit?

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Here's a question for you guys that i've got no idea about.... When we finish with our NiMh batteries we drain the battery out by keeping the radio control unti on and pushing the set button all the way up so it runs automatically... trouble here is it chews the batteries in the radio control unti (8 x AA) and this is annoying... how does everyone else drain there battery without using the radio control unit?

Do you have rechargable "AA" Ni-MH cells in the transmitter? Using alkaline cells gets expensive after a while. I grab my "AA" Energizer Ni-MH rechargables from Big-W at a reasonable price (They also sell sets with an AA/AAA charger). After 5 orso charges they have paid for themselves over Duracell Alkalines.

Good chargers (like the one for the Li-Po) will both charge and discharge the packs. They wll also do nearly every type of rechargable battery from 1 cell to many, Ni-Cd, Ni-MH, Li-Po, Lion, Pb (lead acid).

Once the car stops when using the Ni-MH pack and the kit supplied TEU101-BK ESC it should be considered discharged. The TEU101-BK will cut power to the motor at around 5.4v (0.9v per cell in a 6 cell pck) so that there is power enough left in the pack to maintain steering and radio signal. This safety feature of the TEU101-BK to prevent a run away model is not the right voltage to use as a cut-off for Li-Po packs. You need an external Li-Po cut-off to use Li-Po packs with the TEU101-BK ESC. The brushless ESC has a Li-Po cut-off built in. 6.0v by default, but programmable in 0.1v increments.

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I might do a late night black op sabotage on his car, and line his chassis with lead... :D

Cool Story - Aaaah see he may have the power and speed on me but his lack of experience prevailed yesterday. WE found this road/dirt combination area yesterday which made for an awesome track of over 50 metres around so where we were going head to head. My son kicked off proceedings and he got the jump on me and he had about a 2 metre head start on me until the first corner where the dirt turns to roaad where his car stopped dead and then kangaroo jumped.... He didn't charge his battery did he??? ;) So the old bull won by default and spent the next 20 minutes (Yeah still running crappy 1600Mah NiMh battery until Lipo upgrade arrives) doing doughnuts around his stranded car.

He spent over half an hour cleaning his car with the red dirt sprayed on it by me (didn't have salt to rub in his wounds so red dirt had to do)

Love it, How old is your Son? Did he get the "Fill In" you gave him? Reminds me of my Trail Bike riding days, anytime anyone crashed, the rest of us would come and "Fill Them In" while on the ground, awesome fun and memories.

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If I want to run my Nicad/Nimh batteries out I just disconnect the motor wires and they should slide in and make contact with the battery terminals in the tamiya connector. I'll just turn my car over and close the door to the room and check on it every 5 mins or so...

James

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Love it, How old is your Son? Did he get the "Fill In" you gave him? Reminds me of my Trail Bike riding days, anytime anyone crashed, the rest of us would come and "Fill Them In" while on the ground, awesome fun and memories.

He's 10 and sometimes more mature than me, but thats the fun of this hobby? Yeah he wasn't impressed, esepcially when he found out that he still had to clean it despite not being able to drive it.

thanks for the help guys, I will take it all on board, and defeinitely get the re-charge AA's

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Here's a question for you guys that i've got no idea about.... When we finish with our NiMh batteries we drain the battery out by keeping the radio control unti on and pushing the set button all the way up so it runs automatically... trouble here is it chews the batteries in the radio control unti (8 x AA) and this is annoying... how does everyone else drain there battery without using the radio control unit?

If you haven't run the batteries right down but want to you could try a method I've used many times (and used to use between races). I used a (real) car auxillary fog light with a Tamiya connector acttached to it. Never had any problems with that. I now use one of the many dischargers which are available, which are more controlled. They can take a while to discharge a half-used battery though, so sometimes I use the fog light 'till it dims then the discharger..

Hope that helps

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I made my own discharge device out of a Tamiya lead & two 12 volt car bulbs linked together. Works treat & only cost £1.99 for the bulbs.

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