Fast RC cars

[Problemchild]

ok - so been slowly spending cash on the TT02b to make it faster (brushless, uprated diffs, ESC, LiPo etc so along with the radio gear the car is probably setting me back about £300 and its only doing about 30mph

so looking around at fast RC cars the HPI E-Firestorm FLUX RTR comes is at £240 with radio gear, ESC, Brushless etc and only needs battery and it will do up to 77mph!

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/hpi-e-firestorm-flux-rtr-2.4ghz/rc-car-products/387643

am i missing something?? why is it so expensive to get Tamiya cars going FAST??

i have been looking at getting a stadium truck and put a brushless in it so should i just buy an HPI??

it sucks that I wouldn't be able to build and paint though

JJ

[wolfdogstinkus]

Are you running 2s lipo or 3s?. 3s is pretty crazy but lots of fun.

[Terz1]

I have to say that hpi has some speed, 77mph out of the box! Wow. If you want to run crazy speeds I'd just get the hpi, rtr and fully waterproofed. It's actually got me tempted. I know building a kit is a lot of the fun but as you've found you've spent more on the tamiya and it doesn't do half the speed. I'm sure you'll get lots more tamiya in the future and enjoy the building and modification you do but that hpi will satisfy your speed craving at a much reduced costs by the looks of it.

[Problemchild]

i'll be running 2s (3s ESCs are v expensive)

i was gonna buy an aqroshot BUT that £100 with basic ESC and torque tuned 540 but no radio gear.

so would need to add another £70 to get it running brushed

then i like a radio system per car to keep it all simple - another £50 easy

 

JJ

[ChrisRx718]

HPI stuff is great out of the box. Tamiya rely on having the nostalgia and some of the clearest and easiest to follow build manuals, together with excellent parts availability. Are they the best? Absolutely not! But are they worse than HPI? No, it's more complicated than that!

My buddy has a HPI mini recon and it's a blast. Like for like you could compare it with the short lived Tamtech Wild Boar - but the HPI trumps it everywhere, performance, cost, etc. We do spend a lot of time repairing his little HPI truck, but it's the price you pay for such ballistic stock performance. Try it, you might like it. I've always wanted a Traxxas for the same reason! 

[Problemchild]

tempted - may change my list for santa

 

JJ

[Terz1]

2 hours ago, Problemchild said:

i'll be running 2s (3s ESCs are v expensive)

i was gonna buy an aqroshot BUT that £100 with basic ESC and torque tuned 540 but no radio gear.

so would need to add another £70 to get it running brushed

then i like a radio system per car to keep it all simple - another £50 easy

 

JJ

Also I recommended the acroshot tyres to someone wanting to do speed runs on his biltzer beetle as he wanted some road tyres and I noticed the rims where the same on both kits. Anyway another member mentioned that the grip of the tyres isn't the best so you may have to factor in tyres too, oh and is the acroshot fully ballraced? If not you'll probably want those too. Already it's costing the same or possibly more and would it be able to complete with the hpi?

I think chris is right when he says tamiya do rely on nostalgia to a large degree. Are tamiya my go to brand when I want a new buggy, monster truck etc. Definitely. I think that there are quite a few areas they fall short though. For example they don't do a short course truck. You'd think they'd see the success of these and put out there own version but no. 

I've got a list of tamiya I want but some may be replaced by other brands. The ones which don't have much sentimental value and would be just used for bashing about. The one I thought of replacing was the stadium blitzer and I was thinking of a traxxas rustler instead. The one I saw cost £324 (not much more than you spent on your tt02b) but you got the charger and battery too and it's capable of 70+ mph. That hpi seems faster and even better value though. 

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/traxxas-rustler-vxl-tsm-rtr-black-/rc-car-products/394766

[MadInventor]

On ‎19‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 9:49 PM, Problemchild said:

ok - so been slowly spending cash on the TT02b to make it faster (brushless, uprated diffs, ESC, LiPo etc so along with the radio gear the car is probably setting me back about £300 and its only doing about 30mph

so looking around at fast RC cars the HPI E-Firestorm FLUX RTR comes is at £240 with radio gear, ESC, Brushless etc and only needs battery and it will do up to 77mph!

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/hpi-e-firestorm-flux-rtr-2.4ghz/rc-car-products/387643

am i missing something?? why is it so expensive to get Tamiya cars going FAST??

i have been looking at getting a stadium truck and put a brushless in it so should i just buy an HPI??

it sucks that I wouldn't be able to build and paint though

JJ

Doesn't need to be expensive to go fast. I bought a second hand Tamiya DF-02 off ebay for around £40, dropped in roller bearings, a £60 ezrun 4000KV combo from china through ebay, a Zippy 3 cell hardcase LiPo for ~£25 from hobbyking, a cheap 3 racing spur gear kit, and that car  I estimated from a bit of distance measuring and timing was doing over 50mph, not bad for a £130 car. I was careful when I bought the motor and speedo to ensure that it was 3 cell LiPo capable, this makes an enormous difference to the top end speed.

The fun in having a fast Tamiya is in making much faster than expected. I didn't bother changing the diffs in the DF-02, just jammed the front one to make a spool, which helps with fast take offs when drag racing and helps to keep the car going in a straight line.

[Terz1]

 

Check out this hpi firestorm flux. 130mph!  Whoaaaaaa.....

[Backlash]

8 hours ago, Problemchild said:

so looking around at fast RC cars the HPI E-Firestorm FLUX RTR comes is at £240 with radio gear, ESC, Brushless etc and only needs battery and it will do up to 77mph!

You may want to read the fine print...

I think that you will find that you will only get 77Mph after fitting the speed kit (different gears) and if your using a 3S LiPo battery.. Then the question is, will the car be good for anything but doing speed runs??

Traxxas makes similar speed claims, but again you need to fit bigger pinion gears and batteries to get that advertised speed..

 

[Nitomor]

Jeez Terz that's some car control. How can he even see it!

[Butler]

What esc, motor and gearing is your TT02b? I am sure it should be faster than that.

[Jason1145]

Butler that's a great Avatar!

Tamiya's aren't built for speed so they can't be compared to these other cars ;p

[Mad Ax]

5 hours ago, Backlash said:

Traxxas makes similar speed claims, but again you need to fit bigger pinion gears and batteries to get that advertised speed..
 

This is a valid point - I bought a 1:16 E-Revo based on claims of 14.4v power and silly top speeds, however on unboxing and reading the instructions there are warning everywhere that you must run the speed gears and the car must only be used in short bursts for straight-line speed runs, as the motor / speedo / drivetrain can't handle the power for racing or bashing.

Not that I regretted my purchase at all, the little E-Revo is an absolute riot on 2S LiPo, wheelies off the throttle, excellent jumps and real good fun to bash.  Plus I've had some serious crashes and have never done any damage to it at all.

I'll echo what's been said above - Tamiya's market is mainly selling nostalgia, the likes of Traxxas and HPI have moved the speed game into a different league and there's nothing with a Tamiya badge on it that can really compete.  But I have no HPI cars, one Traxxas, and about 50 Tamiyas, so they must be doing something right

[Terz1]

6 hours ago, Nitomor said:

Jeez Terz that's some car control. How can he even see it!

I was thinking that too. I literally can't see where its coming from and where it's going. I wonder if there's some kind of stability control? Some of my rc's don't stay so straight and true while driving at 1/6 the speed of this. I wonder if he's got binoculars strapped to his head . 

I think this is a really extreme example of what a modern rc can do. I think the standard hpi e flux has the speed gearing in the box so get a 3s battery and that would be good for 77mph which I still think is crazy. What I do like though is that it must be a quality piece of kit so when you'd be running 2s it would be well within its capabilities and tolerances of the drive train and other parts. Bargain at £245 too. In another thread a member spent over £300 getting his tt02b to 30mph. So it is a lot more speed for a lot less money.

I think I'm happier running my tamiya at 20mph in the back garden and on fields though.

[TwistedxSlayer]

Having owned Traxxas and Losi and Ofna/Hobao. These were faster than any Tamiya ive owned or built out of the box. Tamiya arent built or designed for speed IMO.

 

I read this a while ago.

 

"Tamiya don't make radio control cars. Tamiya make radio control models"

 

That may be wrong so please dont take it as gosble thats what it actually said.

 

Traxxas and HPI go fast.

Axial goes anywhere.

Tamiya dont go anywhere fast but look **** good whilst doing it.

[Nitomor]

True, there must be some intrinsic satisfaction in polishing a turd lol which drives us Tamiyaphiles  !

I like our modest fun little Tamiyas and improving them, it's more about the constant tinkering and building that is a big part of the experience, so I'll spend hundreds trying to get mine to get near to something that can be bought built, and straight out of the box be a better performer for less money! 

Maybe it's the thrill of the chase, it's satisfying seeing the mods make a difference and satisfies the frustrated mini engineer in me, getting it to keep up or perform at levels similar to other brands is part of the challenge and experience. If they were amazing straight out of the box, once the novelty wore off where would the magic and the fun be?!

 

 

[Terz1]

Yes its all about the tinkering. 

[GregM]

17 hours ago, Problemchild said:

so looking around at fast RC cars the HPI E-Firestorm FLUX RTR comes is at £240 with radio gear, ESC, Brushless etc and only needs battery and it will do up to 77mph!

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/hpi-e-firestorm-flux-rtr-2.4ghz/rc-car-products/387643

am i missing something??

Some years ago, I saw two guys running their two HPI E-Firestorm Flux at roughly 100 km/h speed, on the runway at Tempelhofer Feld (former airport).

Keep in mind they had to use 3s LiPo batteries, ran bigger tires, large pinions and had bolted metal skidplates under the rear end. The brushless motors went hot very quick, so the fun lasted only a few minutes. Then they had to take a break and replaced the 3s LiPo with a regular 2s. The bodyshells looked rather thrashed.

So what they were doing to achieve the advertised speeds was to heavily abuse the cars.

 

 

If you want to let your Tamiya's go that fast, that's no big deal as long as you are aware that there are limitations in physics that affect all manufacturers of R/C cars. It's not like Traxxas, HPI and others have a patent signed for high speed R/C, have they?

[Prescient]

Tamiya is all about the charm and the scale modelling. 

You can make them fast but not in the same way as the Traxxas and HPI are.

70mph this way, 70mph that way is great fun.

10mph in a Clod looks epic though.

[TurnipJF]

Also, fast in a straight line and fast around a track are very different things. I'm guessing that a car built for speed runs wouldn't lap as fast as a slower car designed to handle. And as I am finding with my F103, pulling off a good lap is mighty satisfying, even if you don't get above 20mph anywhere on the track.

[Jason1145]

2 hours ago, Nitomor said:

True, there must be some intrinsic satisfaction in polishing a turd lol

 

 

You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.

[Problemchild]

11 hours ago, Butler said:

What esc, motor and gearing is your TT02b? I am sure it should be faster than that.

tamiya ESC at moment and Speed Passion V3.0 Competition BL 8.5T

i don't have LiPo fitted yet though

I fitted the bigger spur gear but it was slower off the line (obviously) and not as fun

plus its not as stable as the HPI looks and i broke a FRP mount going over a small hole

the hpi looks fast out of the box (the e FLUX has the speed upgrades and motor, just needs a 3s LiPo for 77mph)

don't get me wrong, i'm loving the tamiyas and would always buy them BUT if it was the choice of an aqroshot or HPI theres a tough decision to be made....

 

JJ

[GregM]

The Aqroshot doesn't really have the gearing options to go nuts with a very high RPM motor and 3s LiPo. I'd guess the Firestorm is more suited to that gearing wise.

Otherwise, even a 2s LiPo helps a lot in getting slightly higher and most importantly consistent top speed over the whole runtime out or pretty much every R/C car, from my own experiences when comparing driving with NiMHs and LiPos.

[Matt888]

I've got a RB E ONE R 1.8th scale buggy if you can find one they come in kit form, I'm running it with a Hobbywing ezrun 150a esc and a Tenshock 6 pole motor.

On 4s it's pretty nuts but on 6s it's barbaric.