Hotshot 2007 (Metallic Special) Build - #84265

[wood5tock 864]

Perfect thanks for that, found them. Another sweet addition to the tool kit me thinks

[OldSchoolRunner 116]

Great build thread! Love the detail!

OSR

[Quandry 378]

Thanks for the compliments guys, here's some updates:

I wanted to find out what was involved with these three different drivers so I popped the roll cage out of the tree to take a look first hand. They're quite a complicated molding actually!

Sitting one side on to the car gave me an idea of what roof height we are dealing with

The character with the shortest arms fits although he is sitting very far forward. It would be like old Miss Daisy behind the wheel!!

The other longer armed character would not fit as the base was fouling on the roll cage, so with that the decision was taken to go with the recommended head on the inbuilt flat body.

Having got to that point it was then too irresistible not to try out the roof and body panels for a preview of the finished effect. The gold effect is different to the wheels which are a yellow gold. The plated body is more of a Rose gold and looks wwwwaaaayyyy to nice to run. Good thing I have a polycarb on the way!!

[Quandry 378]

Next step was to organise the radio box a little bit

I screwed it all in to place and had it nice and neat, unfortunately though the switch cable got pinched which then involved me having to resolder the cable..

With that resolved I got it all back together and ready to connect up some power

And then connected up the steering arms

[Quandry 378]

Next is to install the bumper support and the bumper itself

Then I fitted the battery door and tried a hard case pack for fitment

[kontemax 1725]

I would like to suggest what I did with the driver.

I don't like the Hot Shot series driver because is neckless.

So I cut a portion (neck and shoulders) of the white driver you used in this picture and added to the original HS one.

so now my Hot Shot has a driver with the neck, the helmet perfect fits under the roff and you can see better the face of Crash Cramer.

Here my showroom:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=113966&id=24

Here the pictire of the drivers:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/pictureframe.asp?t=n&id=img24_15042012223127_4.jpg

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/pictureframe.asp?t=n&id=img24_30122011031014_6.jpg

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/pictureframe.asp?t=n&id=img24_30122011031014_7.jpg

Max

[wood5tock 864]

That's coming on a treat! Don't you just hate it when you get all you electrics in neat and tidy only to have to pull it all out again. I have to do that with my Super Hornet resto... DOH!

[Quandry 378]

Looks fantastic Max, i don't know how you do it every time!

I have already done some work on my guy today though so I will hold with that for now. I might use your method the next time though!

[Quandry 378]

So this is what I've been working on today...

Following the Tamiya club 'Paint a Wild Willy tutorial' (loosely), I started off with painting the helmet all white, and then put some flesh pink colour over the face.

The manual states that the Helmet should be white, although I thought that sounded a little boring, and also I only had flat white to hand which would never do for a helmet! so I went with one of my favourite colours - silver.

I also masked off the cast in body and went to work with the flat white and some silver for the harness buckles

[Quandry 378]

Back to the head/helmet and I mixed up some brown/white/flesh pink to tone the face some more

Put highlights on his nose and cheeks and then I added a matt black band to the bottom of the helmet

and around his face and dotted in some eyes with a toothpic

[Quandry 378]

I reflected on the work and was reasonably happy, although there was something missing.... a bit of pizzaz was required. Afterall this is the Metallic Special kit! so I figured I would do some customisation on the helmet and add a touch of gold to tie in the wheels and body.

Then a coat of clear on the helmet to try and keep that wet look.

[Quandry 378]

The finished guy doesn't look too bad. Note that I have not painted a driver for over 20 years and even then I think he had a full face helmet!

Still it is all down to practice I believe so there's nothing else for it I better buy some more kits!!

I found the engine wiring to be a little annoying so tackled the job with some cable duct

And this is how 'Crash Cramer' now sits, patiently waiting for his rollcage tomorrow!

btw, I also took the Hotshot out the front for a 'maiden bash' and had a bit of a blast out and around the garden. Despite having the characteristic ReRe wobbly back wheels It drove just fine so was quite good craic. We had the first little flurry of snow today so hopefully there is a deluge on the way because my son and I can't wait to get these buggies out in the snow!!

[Grastens 2795]

The cable duct actually looks so cool on this buggy - like a big intake/exhaust pipe just sitting outside the bodywork!

[SteveU30 1011]

Looking great Quandry, can I ask what make those detailing brushes are, they look great!

[GregM 1109]

Nice build so far!

One thing to remember with Hitec-Servos is that Tamiya doesn't offer compatible horns with their kits.

Spline counts:

Acoms / Sanwa / JR / Graupner / KO = 23

Futaba / Tamiya = 25

Hitec = 24

General information about servo brands, horns, sizes, spline counts:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13441675&postcount=2

Detailed information about mixing servo spline counts:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8523025&postcount=9

[TongueTied 56]

How about putting some gold leaf bands on the helmet rather than gold paint. It would really stand out nicely.

[Quandry 378]

Looking great Quandry, can I ask what make those detailing brushes are, they look great!

Thanks! The brushes are Revell 'Painta Luxus'. I was always terrible at art but these brushes help me a lot as they have a nice shape for your hand and also the size and shape of the hairs is very handy for this work.

For Crash's eyes I chickened out and used tootpicks which did not work out great. I must get some spare plastic and practice painting eye designes, it makes quite a difference to the models.

[Quandry 378]

Nice build so far!

One thing to remember with Hitec-Servos is that Tamiya doesn't offer compatible horns with their kits.

Spline counts:

Acoms / Sanwa / JR / Graupner / KO = 23

Futaba / Tamiya = 25

Hitec = 24

General information about servo brands, horns, sizes, spline counts:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13441675&postcount=2

Detailed information about mixing servo spline counts:

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=8523025&postcount=9

Maybe my air range Hitec servo has 25 splines or something because it fits and is working fine. I will check those out though.

Edit: apparently on Hitec's newer servos they have gone or are going 25teeth. I have another HS-5485HB at home so I will count the splines later and report back for interest.

[Quandry 378]

I may be reversing my original position on this... I did some reading up on the Hotshot gearing, and from what I can see probably the 13tooth pinion is the best option for the type of ground we have here in Ireland. Soft ground, lush grass, often wet.... perfect for dairy cows but not so great for low slung buggies. On the flip side, I have been bitten by the taste of speed bug so I know that I will never be happy with a 13T tin can setup. I could run it on 3S lipo, however pushing 12 volts through a 7volt motor does not really appeal to me.

So in summary what I think I need to do is run the 13tooth pinion but use a motor that has a much wider RPM range.

Below are the specs on the Mabuchi 540 SH, my key takeaways are:

* rpm = 23,400

* watts = 90

Then I hunted around for a suitable brushless configuration, in this case I am looking at the Carson 12T Dragster Prime combo which I found for a reasonable price on Tamico's shop.

* rpm = 23,210 (2s) or 34,965 (3s)

* watts = 266 (2s) or 400 (3s)

My thinking on it is that a higher output (watts) is always going to be better in high friction environments (wet grass). Also the rpm listed above is for no load nominal, the loaded Mabuchi only does 19k RPM and because the Carson has over double the output, it should still be quicker even on the same 2s pack. Another consideration is that the motor and esc is water resistant which will come in very handy if driving in the snow or again wet grass. So at the attractive price of €119 I ordered myself the bundle and will be looking forward to doing an upgrade write up and comparison report

In the meantime my Hotshot build continues and I will post up more photos and observations tomorrow....

Just quoting myself here as I've had a bit of a change of mind on the power train. My Carson brushless 12T arrived today, and I am back to the plan of installing it in my Avante Black Special that I will be building after Christmas. The BS comes with a 25T GT motor (chip type) that I will likely install in to the Hotshot. Overall I think the Avante can handle the higher power output a little easier and my Hotshot will probably be only run on special occasions. With the extra poke of the Avante Black special motor it would likely get along quite well anyway. Another option I guess would be to sell the Avante Black Special motor and install a regular Tamiya 25T GT motor. If anyone is interested in an Avante BS motor still in bubble then PM me.

[GregM 1109]

This is what Hitec says about their own servos:

Q. My servo does not center properly.

Wrong servo horn

Hitec servo output shafts are unique and unlike any other brand of servos. Do not use any horn not specifically designed for the Hitec spline or it may "skip" on the splines and cause a catastrophic failure.

Source: http://hitecrcd.com/faqs/servos/troubleshooting-your-servo-problems

I have no idea why Hitec is going their own route for output shafts. Maybe they want to avoid any patents on Futaba- or JR-style servo shafts and horns?

[Quandry 378]

Maybe my air range Hitec servo has 25 splines or something because it fits and is working fine. I will check those out though.

Edit: apparently on Hitec's newer servos they have gone or are going 25teeth. I have another HS-5485HB at home so I will count the splines later and report back for interest.

Thanks Greg, I think it's an interesting point and would be happy to contribute on research and learning although lets start a new thread for discussion so we don't side track the Hotshot build as the topic is not strictly about Hotshots:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=71870

[Quandry 378]

Christmas Day intermission..... Time for the family to get together, chat about old times, eat, drink, and be merry!!

[Quandry 378]

The next job on the build process is to fit the roll cage. Trust me, Crash Cramer will really need this with me at the sticks!!

As I mentioned before, this is quite a tricky casting with many bends, turns and attachment points. Very impressive engineering!




The Hotshot has a nice touch with roll cage netting, in the kit Tamiya give this to us as just a square sheet that needs to be trimmed


The manual has a handy template built right in though


Trimmed and ready to fit. Probably others could have done a neater job but....


The netting is then held in place with supplied kit cable ties

[Quandry 378]

The same treatment for both sides



Also just to note with the sway bar held in place via the rollcage (see pic) the whole system works much better. My previous fears are allayed and I guess I should always trust Tamiya!

Trial fitting the roof. I always really liked the aluminum look of it. I think that was a key point of difference for the Hotshot all those years ago to my younge eyes...


Crash is looking much safer now


And now it's time for those famous and characteristic heat sinks, well the fake RERE copies anyway!!

[Quandry 378]

Each heatsink has a slight lip which is used to secure it. Not sure if that's the same as how the original one worked?



Simple but adequate mounting system





Just one screw each and they are in place


In the manual Tamiya suggest to wrap the battery leads in aluminium tape. I'm not 100% sure what this is going to do but I went along with it anyway.