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Mechanic AH

What Tamiya kit/car have you regretted purchasing?

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Just a couple of tips on the Blitzer @Mechanic AH, the stock rear tyres don’t last long, Proline and Schumacher Vee’s 2.2’s are popular replacements.

I used Silicone grease in the Diff first but that was useless, the thing would just 360 pirouette at the lightest touch of the brake. So to stiffen the Diff I then cleaned it out and stuffed it full of AW grease which helped things a lot.

Stock pinion is 13 tooth but there are holes in the gearbox casing for a 15 tooth if you wish. (32dp from memory)  My Sport Tuned used to get real hot though Off-road with a bigger pinion.

Hope that’s some help. 

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7 hours ago, mud4fun said:

Out of the 50 or so I've owned I think I only regret buying one, the clodbuster. In stock form it just didn't really do much for me, my home made crawler was superior at crawling and mud bogging, my king Blackfoot was a nicer looking and better driving truck and my monster sand scorcher was more fun. No regrets of purchases other than that. I do regret selling a few though!

I totally agree with the clod, i built one during the lockdown and it was terrible out of the box. Literally sold it 2 days later. 

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Super Astute re-release. Its lovely and all, but lacking something and still fairly fragile.

Lee

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well for me since my first on my 18th the only one i regret is the retched kit is the Rover Mini Cooper Kit M03

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Not regret, exactly, but I never warmed to any of the M-chassis cars after the original M01/M02 (which I loved). The M03/M04 didn't work very well, and the M05/M06 just left me cold. I'm still reserving judgment on the MF01X...

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11 minutes ago, markbt73 said:

Not regret, exactly, but I never warmed to any of the M-chassis cars after the original M01/M02 (which I loved). The M03/M04 didn't work very well, and the M05/M06 just left me cold. I'm still reserving judgment on the MF01X...

Curious to hear. I have an unbuilt M02. Why didn’t the ones after (M03 up) work well for you?

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1 hour ago, Mechanic AH said:

Curious to hear. I have an unbuilt M02. Why didn’t the ones after (M03 up) work well for you?

The M03 was OK, but it felt top-heavy, and it was too light in the tail. Made it unpredictable. And the M04 was just all over the place, it oversteered like crazy. Never could figure out how to make it run right.

I built an M05 and an M06, and... I don't know. I just hated how they felt in my hands. Cheap, and toylike. But I have the same complaint about most inexpensive modern (designed within the last 15-20 years) Tamiya chassis.

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Despite the tone of some of my posts recently, I have very few regrets.

It would be easy to say I regretted buying a Midnight Pumpkin as my second kit in my return to RC 15 years ago, but I'm not actually sure I do regret it.  I think I did at the time - I expected a more realistic driving experience rather than the clattery, bouncy, wheelie and roll-over prone experience that I got.  It felt more like a gimmicky toy than a hobby-grade model.  But, a decade and a half on, I'd say I don't regret it at all.  It taught me a lesson that I needed to learn early on; it taught me at just the right time.  If I'd learned earlier I might never have got into RC, if I'd learned later it could have been more costly.  Or maybe not, who knows?  I didn't have a lot of cash at the time and I burned money on that truck that could have gone elsewhere, but it's a life experience and I'm richer for it.

I flicked through a few other cars back then too, without really knowing much about the scene or what I was doing in it.  But mostly that manifested itself in poor upgrade (or sidegrade) choices and rapid sales that I would later regret.  I probably bought a few too many cars at the wrong time (financially speaking) but didn't really regret the cars themselves.

For a time I didn't like my TXT-1.  In stock trim the truck was way too soft, the sway bars were useless at their job and all it wanted to do was fall over.  I'm not sure that I regretted buying it (the build was great) but for a long time I ran it with Clod axles because it handled better that way.  It's now one of my favourite custom builds and has pride of place on the wall next to my desk, it's all set up for running, goes great around my garden, and when tracks start opening up again next year I'm really excited to give it some proper playtime.

Probably my biggest regret was actually my TA05-IFS.  I wanted to get back to indoor racing, I'd sold my TT01s and Corally RDX some time before, and wanted a club-level race car that would compete with the Shumachers and Hot Bodies that everybody else was racing.  I decided to be maverick and get the TA05.  Well, nobody at the track knew anything about it, nobody could help me set it up, no matter what we did it painfully lacked traction pretty much everywhere.  I converted to conventional suspension, played around with settings until my fingers bled, but never managed to get it to hold a line.  Eventually I sold it to another race (after it got badly broken in a crash).  He bought it for peanuts and said he was going to turn it into a drifter.  Two weeks later I saw a novice driving it at the club, so obviously it got fixed up and sold on.  He had the exact same grip problems I was having.

In a way I regret that I gave up on it when I still knew comparatively little about car setup - maybe now I'd be better equipped to return it to factory settings and start again - maybe there was just one fundamental problem with it.  But more so, I regret not buying the same car everybody else had so I could home in quicker on a working setup and focus more on actual racing.

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@Mad Ax don’t think I can get myself to but a Midnight Pumpkin. Unless I had a lot to spare and just want to experiment with it. Thanks for the input on the TA05!

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15 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

the sway bars were useless at their job

I always wondered if there was a way to fix the torque twist.

(That is a lot of twist)  

 kjtmflZ.jpg

What if the propeller shafts were spinning faster?  Counter gears would be located on the axles themselves.  If you could make the universal spin twice as fast, it could have half as much torque-twist.   

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Slap on portal gears, the propeller shafts can turn 3 times as fast. 

Instead of 12 degree torque twist, TXT-3 could have only 4 degree twist.  It would be a lot more stable.  

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Tamiya already has portal gears.

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Seeing as how TXT-2 didn't change whole lot from TXT-1, I doubt that Tamiya would do anything substantial.  

 

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I owned many Tamiya cars the only one I really hate and regret during my teen years was the Hot Shot it was expensive saved my pocket money to get it.  It was really cool looking and Tamiya’s 1st 4wd buggy. But everything  wear out so fast in short time. It’s very difficult to clean, ( radio box very cramped) the mechanical speed controller arc very fast and will lose power. Dog bone either come apart or wear out in no time. Then a friend got the Boomerang and I can see Tamiya has made tons improvements over the Hotshot. Hotshot ended up in trash can and got myself BigWig and 2nd hand Porsche 956. I’m surprised so many people here love the Hotshot. Oh there is one other Tamiya I regret, my first Tamiya , 2nd hand Tryrrel P34 6 wheeler, got ripped off by a kid at the same middle school I went. Didn’t get to drive at all. It needed extremely flat surface to run and constantly doing donuts due to lack of traction.

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Bought a WT01 on a whim already built. Had plans for it. When it arrived my heart just wasn't in it as I hadn't built it.

The regret is buying it already built. Not the actual truck itself.

 

Biggest regret is buying a used T-Maxx off Facebook. If your gonna buy a 2nd hand nitro truck... get it off someone you trust enough to hand money over to. I think I did a build thread for that on here somewhere.

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8 hours ago, Juggular said:

Seeing as how TXT-2 didn't change whole lot from TXT-1, I doubt that Tamiya would do anything substantial

You've made some good points there. The TXT trucks have pretty massive gear reduction throughout the drivetrain. I'm guessing (which may be the point you're alluding to) all that reduction in the main transmission + the high mounted twin motors (and battery for that matter) coupled with the compliant suspension adds to the torque twist effect, which is somewhat present in the full size versions as well. The TXT-1, with its inboard mounted cantilever pushrods amplified the problem, giving the distance from the outside of the tire edge to the suspension mounting point more leverage. The TXT-2 places its lower suspension mounting points (the shock bottoms in this case, since it lacks the cantilevers) out further toward the wheel edge. It altered things enough that Tamiya must have felt safe eliminating the sway bars in that version. Perhaps sway bars added to the TXT-2 setup would be the best suspension setup to quell torque twist.

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It has taken me a while to post on this thread while I deliberate.

My second CR-01. Why two? I haven't even built the first one yet. Having learned more about crawler / trail rigs, my money would probably have been better spent with another manufacturer.

M04. not the first, not the second, not the NIB Giulia by why oh why did I buy another Giulia runner?

CC01. Not so much a regret in buying it but more the fact that I have never run it. And I now have a SWB trail rig in my GCM Racing Skeleton JK.

TL-01LA. Having sold the shelf queen LA because I would never run it, I bought a junker that..I have yet to run.

ORV 'mongrel' runner. Didn't need it. I already have two ORVs in bits. I've never run it.

Maybe the third WT-01 Dual Hunter. Did I need three? I bought them as a runner for my son and two 'loaners' for his mates to run. I reckon my son will get more fun out of the FTX Outlaw (maybe not on a beach though!). I hope we can get them all up and running and bashing in Spring / Summer 2021.

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So far, only one; the Monster Beetle

Just didn't enjoy the agricultural build, the 'wing and a prayer' gearbox assembly, the lack of choice of wheel options. Most builds I feel a bit sad when they're finished, this thing I had to keep pushing myself to get it done. But in the end I got so fed up with it I haven't even got around to painting Albert to finish it yet :rolleyes:

It's the only one that I think I will probably get rid of. Just a whole load of 'meh'

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A lot not only tamiya,  but the tamiya's that I  hated the most are,

Boomerang rere, the front driveshafts are to long and bind the battery door is to weak and stupid pin to hold it in place, and the chassis had a lot of flex, and some other things on the car that I don"t like, but what I really hated was the stupid sliding steering system, I ran it one time on the beach with a 25 kg servo and the steering bind al the time with sand that stuck in the steering system even with a high power servo saver, so I run it 10 minutes then sold it.

Sand scorcher, bought it because it was cheap for 200 euro, bought a alloy chassis, did a direct steering on it, put coil over shocks on it and some more mods, but even with all the upgrades it still drives like a turd, the only thing it does with a 13 turn brushless 380 motor is spin out all the time, tried a few differant tires but nothing worked, it is the worst driving car I ever run.

Gf-01 heavy dump truck, the only thing that car did was wheelies and constant roll overs and front flips from breaking, getting sick and tired of this, I like my wr-02 car  more.

xv-01,  not because of the driving that is very good, but I hated the  battery door and the tight space for the esc and motor so you have to be picky what to use, then to much tiny spacers in it and some stupid flaws on the car like the weak nn spacers to hold the idle gear in place,leaky diffs because of cheap o rings,  plastic diff gears, spur gear holder that you can not tight the screws without striping the first time, suspension pin block holder and more stuff, so if you buy the car with is not cheap you have to buy a lot of upgrades to make it durable.

I know I had more tamiya cars that I don't like but these are the ones that comes in mind that I do not like the most.

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1 hour ago, dannymulder said:

Sand scorcher, bought it because it was cheap for 200 euro, bought a alloy chassis, did a direct steering on it, put coil over shocks on it and some more mods, but even with all the upgrades it still drives like a turd, the only thing it does with a 13 turn brushless 380 motor is spin out all the time, tried a few differant tires but nothing worked, it is the worst driving car I ever run.
 

The Sand Scorcher is great on the beach. The lack of a diff makes a big difference. Took the SS and a DT-02 Holiday Buggy to the beach and the SS was way more fun. No getting stuck and "diffing out". Aside from the beach, they aren't the greatest.

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2 hours ago, dannymulder said:

Boomerang rere, the front driveshafts are to long and bind the battery door is to weak and stupid pin to hold it in place, and the chassis had a lot of flex, and some other things on the car that I don"t like, but what I really hated was the stupid sliding steering system, I ran it one time on the beach with a 25 kg servo and the steering bind al the time with sand that stuck in the steering system even with a high power servo saver, so I run it 10 minutes then sold it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. I had all of those issues myself when I bought the re-re when it came back. I wanted to love the car because it got such praise from its owners, but no dice. I tore it down and a lot of the parts went into my Super Boomerhotshoterang which is more Hot/Super Shot than anything. My steering got jammed on the first run and I'll never figure out why Tamiya went with the long shafts up front.

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It's quite interesting and fascinating reading everyone's post. I'm not new to RCs but never really got into it until recently. Just have always been around it or people into it since I was a kid so now I like reading up on these things.

Some of the kits people have listed here I've had an instinct of avoiding already and at least now after reading there's a little bit of confirmation. Obviously, I'm taking everything with a pinch of salt and have to assess on my own. But like crawlers, best for me to go with another manufacturer. Or, FF cars (unless it's the vintage off-road Kyosho Maxxum for nostalgia). The Pumpkin like chassis ones, comical, or the Clod B and monster trucks. I did like the Monster Beetle when I was a kid from an imagination perspective but yeah, I probably wouldn't enjoy it. Interestingly, almost got a TT02 series back then but never did and probably will have a hard time deciding on that one since I've been seeing clashing reception about that chassis.

What's more interesting is the perspective of the Hotshot (or even Boomerang) from @JYCM3, @dannymulder, and @Saito2 . Since I've joined this forum, it seems like a lot of people give those cars high praise and it still has some hype. I had a number of opportunities to get one this year but never did and made excuses—because I remember my brother having one back in the day and I saw him where he really didn't have fun with it because of the chassis design--and how it wasn't easily accessible. So every time he worked on it he had to take things apart—and that's how I remember that car, lots of love but always in the shop. He even tried to race it in local events and struggled (against non-Tamiyas). Although I have no plans of racing at all, I'm still hesitant. Another kit that I don't have but didn't get is the re-re Vanquish. He had the original one and tried to race that one too and it wasn't just competitive enough (price-wise as well). And he was a decent driver. And with that one, I'm not a true Tamiya collector so I don't have to have every kit release, I ended saving up and just getting an Egress. 

And then the last one, I still think about it, but I'm unsure—the Super Astute.  

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Last Weekend i regretted a purchase of a used Sand Scorcher :D

 

I`ve fitted a Balldiff and a sports Tuned into my self buided re-re Sand Scorcher, that was an easy Job, but a lot of disasembeling. (the Plastick Motor Cover broke on oll 3 Holes)

 

So i decided to fit a Sporttuned and check the Bearings on my 2nd Sand Scorcher that i got in used Condition. The Owner must be driven that little Thing a lot in very "wet" conditions. There was Rust (and "white Dust"?) everywere. The 2 Gearboxhalfes were "Rustsoildered" togheter and i spent 2 Hours to seperate them with pure Force. then another Hour to get the old Rustsoildered Berings ot of the Gerbox.

I´ve cursed a lot, but in the end i fitted new Bearings and a silver Sport tuned Motor inside that little Thing.

 

 

Are the Sand Scorcher Silvercans are any special? The have white Endbells.

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Non to be honest. I've liked all of them and enjoyed building them... Apart from that **** Merc cabrio bodyshell:angry:

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4 hours ago, Mechanic AH said:

What's more interesting is the perspective of the Hotshot (or even Boomerang) from @JYCM3, @dannymulder, and @Saito2 . Since I've joined this forum, it seems like a lot of people give those cars high praise and it still has some hype. I had a number of opportunities to get one this year but never did and made excuses—because I remember my brother having one back in the day and I saw him where he really didn't have fun with it because of the chassis design--and how it wasn't easily accessible. So every time he worked on it he had to take things apart—and that's how I remember that car, lots of love but always in the shop

I never had an original Hot Shot BITD (way too expensive for me then) but the re-release is a different beast despite being a fairly faithful recreation. The use of an ESC alone means I don't have to get into the boxed chassis to adjust and maintenance a mechanical speed controller. If I did (along with other issues the originals had) I might be wary of the Hot Shot too. I keep a stock re-re around because I enjoy its eccentricities but if I just wanted a competent vintage runner I'd just go for the Super Hot Shot or even Bigwig. If I had the original BITD, I might have appreciated the Boomerang's ease of maintenance all the more so too.

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On 11/28/2020 at 4:25 PM, ralphee said:

Super Astute re-release. Its lovely and all, but lacking something and still fairly fragile.

Lee

I'm finding reading this thread very interesting then I came across your car you regretted and as I was reading I was thinking "my super astute is one rc car I really not so much regret buying but it wouldn't bother me if I didn't have it" but I honestly don't know why I fell like that towards it? It's a great buggy pretty easy to build and looks cool! It just doesn't do anything for me? 

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