Tyco Red Turbo Hopper

[redhopperguy]

I just had what you can call a barn find recently! While my dad was searching through some old fling cabinets that had not been opened since the late 80's guess what we stumble upon, a series 1 (1986) Tyco Red Turbo Hopper. One heck of a awesome find if you ask me. We wnet to our local hobby shop to have the godfather of central florida r/c (in my opinion) "doc" at colonial photo and hobby in central florida take a look at it, and he said it would be bad to get it running again.

The gears and tires could possibly dissenergrate he said, but I have seen videos of people dropping in new 1/16 and 1/18 sized motors, and lipos to get em really going again. Any advice?

[Champ85]

Well, it depends on what your goal is for this car.

Do you want to take it apart, modify it, add new motor and ESC and then run it and possibly break it, or do you want to preserve it and make it as original as possible, keeping it intact and possibly display as a "shelfer"? (Or even sell it to someone else if it's in decent condition?)

If you don't care about it and just want to have a blast (for as long as it might last), then by all means modify it, add a new motor, maybe a new ESC, use LIPOs and have fun!

But if the thought of shredded tires, broken suspension arms, stripped gears, etc. isn't what you want, I'd strip it down, clean it, rebuild it, and lightly drive it and display on the shelf. Call it a "light runner" rather than a pure shelfer.

I know practically nothing about the Turbo Hopper, but a quick search on Google doesn't seem to indicate it's a full hobby grade car that is built from a kit, is it?

Of course that didn't stop TA Mark from modifying his: http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=49391

So how did it go, Mark? You never updated your thread with the result!

[TA-Mark]

It works great mate! I never updated the showroom entry either.

Keeping tyres up to it is another story however. With no diff they tend to chew up pretty quickly.

I fully ball raced it, added a MambaMicro Pro 4200Kv brushless system, Futaba digital micro servo and 2.4ghz radio, RC18T turnbuckle tie-rod links, modified GPM RC18T dampers, and use 8x 2500mAh AA cells (9.6v). It still needs to be painted yellow, and needs a new set of rear tyres.

They're just a toy grade pre-assembled RC Champ85.

[Sayer]

They're just a toy grade pre-assembled RC Champ85.

Or a toy grade 1/14 scale Hornet if you like.

[TA-Mark]

Or a toy grade 1/14 scale Hornet if you like.

I would have called it 1:16 scale myself. It's the same dimensions as the Nikko buggys I have which are 1:16.

[Retrorobot]

Hey my Steering not working n my turbo hopper does anybody know what the reason could be or fixes? how can i tell if my servo is broken or if it just a loose wire?

[Jeffescortlxturbo]

...he said it would be bad to get it running again. The gears and tires could possibly dissenergrate he said...

Thats not entirely true. I think what he ment to say was "I will charge you more then it's worth to do this"

The tyco gears were a little brittle, even when new. But it can still be ran, just cant do any thing stupid.

I did a Hobby convertion to a Nikko buggy of the same year. Running a Traxxas 380 18 turn motor.

1000% more power then stock. gears are still holding up. The front tires are original, rears had to be replaced, only becsause the original owner set somthing heavy on it and made flat spots.