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monchan

Want to go off road, but where to start.....

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Just want some input and people experiences with various off road cars.

I love my tt-02 type-s at the track, but where I live we have a fair bit of rain,

and I`m not far from the largest sand dune in Japan. Tottori sand dune.

i`m minutes away, and at the end near me there is a large flat sandy area with a few small hills here and there.

And this part is mostly hard surfaced, with sandy patches.

There are also, some nice walking trails. hard, dirt gravel etc. I want to get out more with a car

and have some good old fun.

There are too many choices..........

tt-02t

tt-02b (ms)

DT-02 03

db-01 etc etc...........

My needs

1) 4WD reasons, not sure. but my thinking is better control and speed. but am open to 2WD if it has benefits.

2) Be a tank, I read somewhere that racing orientated buggies tend to be more fragile? is this true.

3) Japanese brand, Tamiya, kyosho, yokomo. As I live in japan, price and availability of parts. I`m more partial

to Tamiya, Never had anything else, and dont know much else about the other brands. BUt I do like the look of

some kyosho cars.

4) waterproof (wetweather proof) it wont be swimming.

5) Maybe comes with good parts. I got the tt-02 ts and have already spent a s#$t load on extras should have just got

a TB-04.

6) be able to handle a fast brushless system. eventually I want it scream across the terain.

I like the look of some of the traxxas truggies and prefer the look of the truck type bodies more than the buggies.

But the outright fun of it will outweigh any body considerations so buggies are still in.

I want to put a fast brushless system in but dont know which models are suited, dont want to strip the diffs too often.

All the different off road chassis (tamiya) I`m not entirely sure where they sit in the hierarchy of things. if someone could take the time

and explain a few of them that would be great.

In a nut shell, I`m not asking for a best off-road car to suit me, but rather your opinions, experiences, which have

good reputations/ bad reps. Cars prone to break or break down as opposed to never breakdown.

Price is fairly open, once I get the ok from my other half she is never gonna know how much goes into.

I`ll use your info like a guide to my purchase.

cheers.

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<<< I'd look at the WT01 chassis which is upgradeable to 4wd if necessary. This is my main basher, lots of bodies will fit on it it's very robust and lots of tuning potential.

Here's a thread I posted on this in another forum;

http://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/topic/160586-tamiya-wt01-wr01-monster-truck-build/

If you do a search on WT01 (2wd) or WR01 (4wd variant) you should get plenty of info. Handles brushless no problem. I run a brushless WT01 and I've never got stuck with it, my kids and wife run the 4wd version but the brushless has so much torque and its such a light kit that no issues on virtually any terrain.

WT01 chassis include;

Blackfoot III

Mud Blaster II

Bush Devil II

Going back to your brief, ground clearance is your biggest issue so you want something with decent wheel size, GF01, WR02, Clodbuster are other chassis I would consider, maybe one of the crawler type chassis, CR01 I think, I've no experience with these though.

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DB01 time and again comes up the best value club level racer. Probably the off-road equivalent in terms of spec level to a TB04

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+1 on the WT01 or WR01 series. They will handle pretty much anything off road and I've found them to be very good in sand. If you go for the 2WD versions initially, you can easily convert them to 4WD later by buying another gearbox and driveshafts. Blackfoot3 / Extreme gives you the hard body looks or you have the lexan body Mudblaster2 / Bushdevil2. The spiked tyres are actually pretty good for off road running as standard.

Ive also found you can run the DT02/03 chassis with larger rear tyres for better off road clearance and grip. I have 96mm tyres on my DT02 based Rough Rider and not had any overheating issues with the standard Tamiya silver can.

5F824AA1-E747-4F0B-817D-01FD956A39B2_zps

Both these options will handle brushless power.

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Tamiya Aqroshot. It'll do the job until you're ready to move up to a Kyosho Scorpion B-XXL VE... :)

Dorvack.

DT-03 (02at a push) or WT-01 for me as well.

10.5t brushless and 2s in my WT is ace and 3S on silvercans in my WR-01 is quite fast.

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If you like the traxxas stuff,save yourself time and energy get a 4wd vxl slash rtr, you can tweek the speed up or down and they take alot of abuse. I have a 4wd an 2 x 2wd s. Just my humble opinion. I have a few buggies that are cool Tamiya units. Df03 dark impact, tl01 b . My mad bull is fun and fast, its cool to have choices, just pick experiment and figure out what you like.

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I am a huge DB01 fan and cant recommend one enough. 4wd, tough as heck, can handle any kind of power you could want and the hop ups available is insane.

I have raced mines for a wee while now and its such an easy buggy to live with on the track or even when I take it to the local open park for test runs. Nothing seems to break on I and with the twin belt sealed drivetrain its pretty bomb proof tbh. You can even get 2 geared diffs (some aw grease on them) instead of the ball diffs and it genuinly becomes almost bulletproof as an offroad runner.

James

:)

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I would suggest a WT-01/WR-01 truck. Thanks to its large monster truck wheels, it won't get stuck in soft sand, where the smaller buggy wheels will struggle.

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How about linking to a couple of YouTube videos showing the sort of running and the sort of terrain that you have in mind? Not all dunes and trails are created equal, and we may be able to make better recommendations with a firmer idea of how the car will be used.

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Thanks for all the imput. lots of cars to check out.

I was already looking at the DB-01

Dorvack wish you hadn`t mentioned that scorpion. My eyes are bigger than my

wallet. Just been checking out the youtube vids. of it..Wont be able to hide that on the top shelf.

Dojo Dave, the slash is nice and I`m sure it would be perfect. finding it in stock seems to be difficult atm.

and amazon JP has it for $1,000. third party seller..

Jim hit a good point. DB-01 has a large amount of hop-ups parts seem to be easy to get, and I was kinda looking at that already..

XV Pilot, I dont know why, I cant link to sites I can`t use the quote button and I cant even copy and paste from tamiya club.

Think I pass on the WT-01 WR-01`s not really into those. And the sand at the dune is not that soft.

Where I want to run it. is a huge flatish area of hard crusty sand. it has a crust of around 15mm. The dune has soft areas but wont really go there.

Kyosho`s got some nice looking cars though..........

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If you had a look on the Kyosho Sandmaster, please keep in mind this buggy does not live up to its name. I have one by myself, and it is the least offroad capable buggy I own amongst others.

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Does this look like the sort of thing you'd be interested in?

https://youtu.be/oEGgbwZz630

The video shows the DT-03T, which is 2WD obviously, but a similar construct could be achieved by fitting a TT-02T with TT-02B suspension arms. I did a similar mod to its predecessor the TL-01 Stadium Raider, adding TL-01B suspension arms, and it worked really well.

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Thanks for all the imput. lots of cars to check out.

I was already looking at the DB-01

Dorvack wish you hadn`t mentioned that scorpion. My eyes are bigger than my

wallet. Just been checking out the youtube vids. of it..Wont be able to hide that on the top shelf.

Dojo Dave, the slash is nice and I`m sure it would be perfect. finding it in stock seems to be difficult atm.

and amazon JP has it for $1,000. third party seller..

Jim hit a good point. DB-01 has a large amount of hop-ups parts seem to be easy to get, and I was kinda looking at that already..

XV Pilot, I dont know why, I cant link to sites I can`t use the quote button and I cant even copy and paste from tamiya club.

Think I pass on the WT-01 WR-01`s not really into those. And the sand at the dune is not that soft.

Where I want to run it. is a huge flatish area of hard crusty sand. it has a crust of around 15mm. The dune has soft areas but wont really go there.

Kyosho`s got some nice looking cars though..........

Ok so I have this 4wd slash which I converted with LCG kit and traxxas rally parts into the street machine it is today. I would be happy to sell it with all the short course truck parts its brushless and just needs tx/ Rx and a battery. If you are interested pm me, trust me if you want a slash 4wd it will work used just as well if not better than new. I don't have time to run all I have, so it could use a new home.

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For a 2wd Tamiya option, the Blitzer Beetle/Stadium Blitzer is worth a look. Tough, capable chassis, very strong gearbox, CVA shocks and decent ground clearance. The Beetle has a hard body, the Stadium Blitzer is lexan. They seem a little under-rated but they're great fun.

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XV pitot.
"The video shows the DT-03T, which is 2WD obviously, but a similar construct could be achieved by fitting a TT-02T with TT-02B suspension arms. I did a similar mod to its predecessor the TL-01 Stadium Raider, adding TL-01B suspension arms, and it worked really well. "

This is another things I was wondering about. I have a TT-02 type s. and there are a lot of unused parts.

Dont know if any of them could be used if I got a tt-02 b/t? But I guess If I got another TT-02 kit I`ll just get more unused parts.

What does every one do with them? keep them? use them?

Thanks for that link. DT-03t looks cool.

The DB-01 are the electronics weatherproof?

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https://youtu.be/Aw6rtBeLFcQ

Not sure what your HPI availability is like in Japan, but if youre considering larger buggies like the Kyosho, the Vorza is pretty much the perfect bashing buggy; steel gears, waterproof, 6s ready and made of indestructable-ium.

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This is another things I was wondering about. I have a TT-02 type s. and there are a lot of unused parts.

Dont know if any of them could be used if I got a tt-02 b/t? But I guess If I got another TT-02 kit I`ll just get more unused parts.

What does every one do with them? keep them? use them?

Thanks for that link. DT-03t looks cool.

The DB-01 are the electronics weatherproof?

The TT-02 type S uses different arms, uprights etc. to a standard TT-02, so if you got a model based on a standard TT-02, such as a TT-02T, the leftover parts could be used as spares for it.

The DB-01 doesn't have a weatherproof electronics box but the shell is a reasonably close fit to the chassis, and if you require further weatherproofing, there are waterproof servos, ESCs and receivers that you could fit. That is the approach I take with my scalers - the chassis aren't weatherproof, but it doesn't matter because all the electronics are.

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Yeah, I found that today on the same site.

Think I prefer the madbug though,

comes with waterproof brushless and ESC.

And it looks cool. might not have to get a monster beatle

when/ if it comes out.

http://www.rakuseimodel.co.jp/onlineshop/product_info.php?jisya=186144&bid=10&seriesId=1810

The other model I`m now considering

is this the Tamiya land cruiser pickup GF01

They have big tyre racing at my track, and it will be another class I can race in.

And it will be be for my boy. He`s the one who got me back in RC and I havn`t got him

anything yet.

Cheers for everyones replies. It`s helped a lot. I`ve got a fair idea of what I want,

very useful thread for me thanks a lot.

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