Stabbed in the Back.

**PLEASE READ THIS** for anyone looking at this model displayed in my showroom and wondering if I will sell it? PLEASE DON’T ASK!!! I get numerous requests from TC members wanting to buy cars displayed in my Tamiyaclub showroom, and to be honest I get very annoyed when people ask to buy something that is clearly NOT FOR SALE!! This car is part of MY COLLECTION and as such I want to KEEP IT!! So please don’t Email on the off chance that I might sell it to you, if I want to sell any of my cars I will put them up for sale in my TRADE ROOM, so look there to see what cars I am prepared to sell otherwise don’t bother asking cos the only answer you will get is NO!!! thanks for reading this disclaimer. Regards wldnas.

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Here is one of them there more modern type Tamiya cars that I’ve more recently been interested in acquiring? I will admit that I’ve warmed to the thought of owning a Wild Dagger in the more recent months and I’ve had my Ebay search engine set up to look for them for quite a while now, but I’d set myself a target of getting a Wild Dagger (preferably MIB ) for under £100, little knowing how difficult this task would be?

I had a few Dagger come up a few months ago, but strangely both of them ended early and my bids were cancelled, which did annoy me more than a little, then last week a whole bunch of them appeared on Ebay UK so I had the opportunity to bid on about half a dozen different Daggers in sequence, ideally I wanted one that came complete with Radio, Box and Manual and as it happened most of the trucks I was watching did come with the bits I wanted so I set myself up to buy me a Wild Dagger at long last ;)

This was very hard work, mostly cos of my limited budget you see? I didn’t want to pay more than £100 but that price had to include the shipping and this meant that my Max bid was limited to only about £85 cos the rough sipping cost was round about £15? Anyway one by one the auction came to an end and in turn they went over my maximum bid :( most of the auctions had reserve prices on many of which were more than my Max bid so that scuppered my chances for more than a couple of the trucks :S anyway eventually I was left with just the one auction left, actually it was one that was re-listed due to not meeting it’s reserve price first time round, I’d bid on this item that time as well but forgot about when it ended so had missed out on it the first time, but I got a second chance and made the best price I could by bidding upto meet the quoted shipping price giving me a Max bid of £88?

Anyway as I always try to do these days, I was lurking around at the end of the auction waiting to pounce with a 10-15 sec snipe (as you do) and when It did the price shot up but fortunately it only went upto £83 so I was safe and won the auction, the Truck arrived today and actually its in pretty good nick, its come fitted with an Acoms Radio, it has a Trickle Charger and Battery, Box and Manual and also came with a can of spray paint and half a sheet of sticky back carbon effect plastic sheeting? The box still has some of the card inserts in it and there is a blister box too with a few odds and ends in, the truck itself if pretty tidy, hasn’t seem much use with hardly any running s*****es or scratches, and the body is painted dark blue metallic but the previous owner only applied a few of the decals? The rest were still on the sheet and fortunatly came supplied as well :)

Well what are my first impressions? Well I’m not really a fan of more recent Tamiya products mainly cos they invariably tend to be based on Touring car platform designs, the Dagger is one such truck? Although it’s a 4WD stadium type truck it does owe a lot to the TL-01 generation of cars, however the novel symmetrical chassis and Twin Motor and gearbox design is quite unusual for a truck of this size? And I guess that’s one of the reasons why I decided to go for one of these trucks cos it represents a new plain of thinking from Tamiya and as this chassis is now going to form the basis for all future medium sized Monster trucks from Tamiya (after superseding the venerable Frog chassis R.I.P :( ) then I wanted to have one of the first of this new breed of chassis design.

The wiring is quite messy on my truck? Whether that’s just the way they are or how the previous owner built the thing I’m not quite sure? But I haven’t looked into it too deeply as I will just be running this truck as it is for now, one thing that I don’t like is the suspension set up most notably the Shocks that come supplied with the kit? They are basic black Tamiya friction units but they are very short for such a big truck? The ground clearance is only as good as the depth of the tires and to add insult to injury the suspension travel is next to non-existent thanks to the fitting of some beefy rubber limiter tubes on all the shock shafts? This means that the effective travel of the suspension is only about 5-8mm :S this is unacceptable especially for a truck designed for driving over rough stuff and probably handling jumps?

The gearboxes are the same as the ones fitted to the Wild Willy 2, they are quite bulky and fairly complicated in that they have no less than 3 sets of counter gears which steps down the gear ratio from the motor no less than 4 times? This seems a little excessive when compared to the average buggy gear train of one counter gear a 2 step down ratios? But this again represents that new thinking of Tamiya design principles? The gears used on this truck are the now standard 32dp gears, these gears have finer teeth and smoother running when compared with the earlier 24dp gears, also as there are double the amount of step down ratios (little baby steps) when you look at the zonking great drop downs used on the early type gear trains, this new set up helps to maintain an even level of torque and speed throughout the gearing down process, some thing that become painfully obvious when you try to race a modern cars against a similar machine from 15 years ago?

The Body is quite a stylish and modern looking truck body, and I will admit that’s why I went for a Dagger instead of one of the more recent issues using the same chassis design, there is something about the way this truck looks that I really like but I can’t quite put my finger on it? Anyway this trick came with the body painted but only a select number of decals had been applied, fortunately the reminder of the decals did come along with the kit so it was a simple matter of fitting them onto the body to finish the job :) however I had to move a few of the existing decals as they had not been put in the right place? Then I had to paint the rear bed (which is supposed to be black?) this was easily done by brush painting on some Tamiya gloss acrylic? The result is quite startling and near mirror finish the rest of the decals went on without any major problems aside from some minor wrinkling where the decals lap over the topsides of the bonnet at the front? The finished truck looks very smart if I do say so myself ;)

As this truck came with radio installed, I just have to make it a runner, and as I’d heard a few tales about the performance of these vehicles I was keen to see for myself what they can do? But first I had to secure the steering servo which had worked loose a bit? That done and with a charged battery it was out into the street, first impression are that its not really that quick? I was lead to believe that these things were fast? But on standard 540’s its no quicker than a basic 2WD buggy which given the power and big wheels this thing has is surprising, the handling is quite good, the steering turns real tight and on tarmac its quite sure footed as it weaves about from side to side, there is a lot of stress on the front hubs during high speed turns, the wheels look like they are going to fall over? I heard that the front suspension is quite brittle on these and now I can see why? After running this truck I can see why so many ppl who have these tend to fully ball race them, fit better shocks, beef up the front steering/suspension parts and run hot motors in them, as it’s the only way to really get the best performances from these machines ;)

I decided to try the truck in 2WD mode to ape how a Blackfoot Extreme must run? So I disconnected the front motor and removed the front dog bones, the performance was fairly similar apart from it didn’t take off so quick cos of the reduced power and the steering tended to wander even though I had not moved the adjuster? I guess in 4WD the power going through the front wheels pulls the front track into true? Anyway before I put it away for good I decided to do something about the *****py suspension, I happened to have a number of spare CVA shock units, so I modified a set to suit using the lower cups and holders off the original shocks then I cut the pistons down a tad to lesson the shock length a little then applied then to the outer shock holes on the lower wish bones, the result is treble the ground clearance and suspension travel and a much smoother movement thanks to the Oil dampers, running it with this set up doesn’t make much difference except the truck tends to beg and squat a lot more during hard acceleration and deceleration.

Anyway all in all, This truck is quite special in the sense of all the new design technology used upon it but perhaps many of you can’t see it? And now that the next pair of Dagger chassid trucks are out (Twin Detonator and Black Foot Extreme) most ppl will forget about the Wild Dagger and the way its paved the way for the next generation of new Truck designs to come forth from Tamiya, I’m just glad to have been able to get my hands on one, and it will take its rightful place in my collection :)