Just built a Schumacher..........

[Saito2 6686]

Its just been my personal experience that my vintage Tamiya's (and others) have personality even when optimized for my backyard "track". My Hot Shot understeers more than my Bigwig or Thundershot. My Fox will never edge out my old 6 gear RC10 goldpan. On the flip side, the my, now gone, TRF201 did not drive significantly different than the RC10B4 I had visiting. I think you can make an advanced buggy handle "poorly" but eventually hit a wall with how good you can make a vintage buggy. Just my opinion.

[mud4fun 1696]

@Saito2 yes, also I guess it depends on what Tamiya vintage cars you own or have driven as to how different they would be to a modern buggy.

Maybe I'm very lucky but other than my Sand Scorcher and Blackfoots, over the last 30 years most of my Tamiya cars have been Thundershots, Terra Scorchers, Manta Rays, Top Force, Dyna Storm, Vanquish, Avante2001 and Egress. Arguably at the upper end of the handling and performance bracket from Tamiya? (Of their mass produced stuff)

Even my kids new Xmas presents are DT02 and DT03 buggies which despite them being relatively inexpensive are actually good handling and surprisingly quick buggies over a variety of terrain. 

Certainly my initial experience is that in my mediocre hands the Cougar is not significantly different to drive than my other Tamiya buggies (other than the obvious difference between 2WD and 4WD). I certainly can't see enough of a difference to say the Cougar is boring compared to say the Egress other than in looks, the Tamiya buggies win hands down for looks!  

For me the differences are really in quality of parts and design, ruggedness of design, tunability and availability/price of parts. The Cougar beats every single one of my Tamiyas for those aspects, hence the reason I bought it.  I can however appreciate that we'll all have different thresholds and priorities for these things as our tastes and experiences differ. 

 

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

I suspect its because of where you're running. On a small backyard track speed is limited and none are near their limits. That is also the most fun you'll have with an rc car

If you went to a modern track then you'd need to work on setup and the Schumacher would run rings around the Tamiya's once setup was right. Especially a high grip track where the rear motor buggies would struggle to turn. I race on low grip dirt and haven't seen a rear motor buggy for a while. And the big jumps would put the Tamiya's out of action pretty quickly. The Schumacher could also run a low turn brushless motor without issue, making the gap even bigger.

I agree that a race kit makes a great basher, the only downside is the purchase price compared to an entry level Tamiya 

[Raman36 1656]

@Finnsllc I don't think there is anything wrong with the question you raise in this thread.  I share your feeling, in particular towards Tamiya buggies. I have owned Tamiya's and Kyosho's now for better part of 40 years and are still my go to brands.  I do not however blindly buy every kit they release, simply because they do not appeal to me.  

Since we are talking about buggies, my personal collection of Tamiya buggies ends when scale realism blended into fantasy / comic looking buggies.  Another words, after the SRB, Grasshopper / Hornet and FAV / WildOne. Notice I didn't include the ORV.. They must have been dropping acid when they designed it, in particular the front suspension lol.  

Anyhow, in October by son turned 7 and wanted a buggy.  I was initially temped by Grasshopper / Hornet, but then decided to put my personal likes aside.  So I looked into the Neo Fighter.. which I would end up spending an additional $50 for bearings, and other odds and ends to make it reliable.  Again I decided to put my personal behaviour aside and look into other options.  So I looked at entry level AE, Losi, Arma, Traxxas, Kyosho etc. I saw that Kyosho RB7 is $219!  So for a little more, I can give him a professional grade modern kit that is far more durable than Tamiya's offering.. so that is the route I took.  So in the end, I did go back to one of my favourite brands but I managed to buy him a modern quality kit, which he really enjoys driving.  

The build of the Kyosho kit is similar to Schumacher, you have individual packs that are labelled.  Most manufacturers have moved this direction, save our beloved Tamiya.

As for Schumacher, Ive never owned one, but I know they are top notch.  In fact they, along with Awesomatix and Serpent are the ones that are leading the way in RC innovation.  

[mud4fun 1696]

On 1/3/2021 at 1:47 AM, Jonathon Gillham said:

I suspect its because of where you're running. On a small backyard track speed is limited and none are near their limits. That is also the most fun you'll have with an rc car

Thanks Jonathon and agreed although I would say our backyard track is probably bigger than many backyard tracks in the UK.....  

This is the current design but in summer 2021 I intend to relocate parts of the veg garden and shrub borders to allow me to extend this to a 14m main straight instead of 10m.

The current design is about a 8 to 10 second lap time depending on the buggy/motor combo. (It used to be longer, with a 15 second lap time, before I built my workshop and lost part of the rear garden)

It has 'jumps' (4-6" high) between levels where grass goes to gravel path or raised flower beds etc. The mix of surfaces makes for very tricky driving regardless of tyre choice. In the summer the concrete section gets very dusty and you spin out easily, in winter the grass gets muddy and boggy and saps batteries. The gravel sections are 20mm gravel so they can and do cause traction problems and even damage. Currently many sections of the track are edged with railway sleepers so damage is frequent. When I redesign it later this year I want to 'soften' the edges by using round pipe and at the same time I may look at putting astro turf or old carpet down on some sections. Ideally I want it as long as possible to allow for a faster main straight and to add an extra turn into the grassy midfield section.

 

The Thundershots and Cougar handle this track fine and can do hundreds of laps with no damage but the Avante/Egress/Vanquish will invariably last no more than 20 laps before their front or rear hubs sheer off the shoulder screws due to the harsh landings onto rutted hardcore or clipping hardwood railway sleeper edges. Since fitting the Yeah Racing alloy hubs they are much better but this track suits old skool buggies with soft springing and long suspension travel (I regard the Cougar as old skool in that respect as it is easily tuned for this). 

[mud4fun 1696]

This is the sort of thing I hope to have by this summer, a longer track with maybe 10-12 second lap time? Should be a good track to compare the various buggies I have in terms of performance?

 

 

[Nicadraus 6198]

I completely understand @Finnsllc. I've had many other Tamiya kits too but to improve most of them, needs a lot of parts to be replaced/upgraded and money of course. In 2005, I had an HPI Pro4. The car is fantastic. It was the kit to beat for on-road touring at that time. The Tamiya to compete with it was the TB-03. The TB-03 needed a lot of work and upgrades to keep up with the stock/out-of-the-box Pro4 which was already upgraded with full carbon fiber parts, aluminum suspension mounts, aluminium turnbuckles, aluminium motor mounts, CVD, bearings, aluminium center shaft, etc. Instructions and bag parts were also as clear and easy to understand. HPI was very professional and competitive when they introduced the RS4. Sadly, they are struggling now since they went the bashing route, splitting with the HB/Hot Bodies brand.

Most recently, I built another non-Tamiya kit which is the MST CFX. This one is definitely a better kit too out-of-the-box than a CC-02. No unnecessary parts installed and very well made, designed closely to professional crawlers. 

I still love Tamiya though. Their attention still gets me every time they come out with new kits. But the new comers such as Xpress, MST, Infinity, Team Magic, and many others just gives us a lot of options now and some are even better.

The TC-01 for example, is quite a fail to me. I actually considered getting one but since I'm not an impulsive buyer, I waited for reviews and build comments from first buyers. True enough, this kit is very limited and can't even keep up or come at par with standard touring car kits. It's plain and simple that this was made for a one-class race. The price for an almost all plastic is also ridiculous for a limited kit. 

TRF kits are surely the top of the line, but their crazy prices are just something many people are staying away from and leaning towards other brands such as X-Ray, Yoke, AMX, HB, AE, and some other cheaper brands with premium parts included as standard. Tamiya will suck your wallet out by not including many important parts while other brands include them as standard and still charge reasonably.

 

[Raman36 1656]

I find MST kits to be great value, nice build and very good quality. I purchased CMX so that the Brat body could be on a proper 4X4 only to be impressed by the brand. They also buy bodies from Tamiya and sell them with their kits.. eg CMX Land Cruiser 40, Bronco, XXX Rallye Lancia, Subaru and Lancer all are Tamiya bodies. 

They also came up with ingenious 26 mm wheels. You pop the centre out and turn it to change offset from 0, to +3, +6 etc. 

TRF kits while expensive do come with all the hop ups you need. For instance TRF kits started to include double cardan joint axles in front back in 2014, where you had to buy the separate for other brands. You really don’t need to buy additional parts for TRF kits. Also if you want to be bleed dry, buy an Xray, replacement parts are extremely expensive. I briefly had an X-ray F1, I broke a front carbon arm, cost me $25. I sold it and bought a Roche.. first time I broke a similar part was 3 years later and it cost me $6!