I used to race 1/10 electric buggies in my youth – recently met up with a mate who has got back into R/C, mostly gliders and ‘copters, but he has also bought up and built a load of NOS Kyosho Optima Mid’s, Schumacher Cougars/ProCats/Cat2000, RC10s etc from Ebay. He also has a pair of LiPo/brushless Associated B4’s (IIRC) which we had a blast with for a happy afternoon. Blew my tiny little mind how fast they are now, but mental fun 🙂

If you fancy wasting a day on mostly 1/10 TC’s or 1/12 electric racing, have a look here…. http://www.rcracing.tv/

EDIT:

Plus, with something that flies you can stick a camera on and get some cool pictures. I think you can even buy a real-time live camera feed thing to fly them remotely now.

Yeah, check out some of the truly mental POV flight footage on Youtube. I can’t find a link, but there is a good one of a bloke chasing a train and flying through an open barn….

Cool thread.

I’ve got one of these that’s been gathering dust for a long time.

If I were to resurrect it, would it be possible to retro-fit modern batteries or are they a totally different form factor? Better off binning and starting again?

cougar – you can still get nicad/nimh packs in stick layout that should fit any old tamiyas except the really old ones that took a hump style pack (my old wild willy had this) – may be worthwhile getting a new fast charger to suit the pack too if you have a trickle charger. also make sure you get a pack with a tamiya plug on it to save fitting a new one on. for info i rebuilt my old nitro thunder tiger 1/8th buggy a few years ago and was pleasantly suprised to see the engine kick into life after 13+ years sat in the shed!

back on the OP i’d suggest visiting your local model shop if theres one near you. they’ll usually have a range of cars to look at and advise what to go for. the main thing above anything is to get something you can get spares for quickly and cheaply, no point having a buggy you cant get bits for! electric is easiest to get into, buggys/trucks are great off road and the bigger the scale the better off road it will be but the more space you’ll need. on road is good too but you’re limited where you can run it to car parks/on road rc tracks. i’ve got a 1/10 associated rc10b4 with brushless and lipos which is scary fast and can get around 20mins out of one pack. just building up a 1/8th rallycross buggy into a lipo powered monster for the bmx track/car park as its much stronger than the b4 and will take some big hits if you do some silly jumps with it…

if you dont have a modelshop nearby good online modelshops include: modelsport, apexmodels, jespares, mkmodels, demon etc

I had one of these with the amazing dust-proof chassis:

The Ackerman angle on the steering was so severe the only way to get it to turn was to effectively handbrake it around.

this would be sweet on a bmx track electric 1/8th buggy 😀

Gaz – is 1/8 electric rallycross going to develop into a new class to go along side 1/8 IC do you think? I think RCRacing or RedRC had video of a demo race at the Neo invitation race, and the electric cars looked rather good…. If time or funds permitted (neither of which is likely at the mo….) I might have a go at this, as my reactions aren’t up to touring cars…..

I always wanted one of these:

Tamiya Avante

even though they were meant to be cak.

My semi-realistic hope was for one of these:

Tamiya Boomerang

A friend had a Kyosho Optima Mid that was pretty quick, with great suspension.

Avante was stupidly expensive and mechanically complicated. A bugger to set-up as well as everything was adjustable. Spares very expensive too. Optima Mid (if you were minted, you got the “Custom Special” version, or just bought the bodyshell!!) or ProCat for the win in those days 😉

oooh, all this talk of RC makes me want to complete resurrection of my traxxas nitro RC. The faff / breakage ratio rivals MTB to be honest but the hardest thing is disguising yourself to look less like a middle-aged gadget fan 😉

Original kyosho optima here – i was much better at rc racing than biking – with regular wins at the local club.
Still got a ministock and mardave meteor somewhere I think..

Avante was stupidly expensive and mechanically complicated.

But it looks bloody brilliant!

But it looks bloody brilliant!

Yeah, fair enough 😉

bristolbiker – not sure, i’d hope so. have raced the 1/8th ic rallycross before electric 1/8th came about, it’s definitely my preferred class as cars are nigh on indestructible, v fast and i prefer the size/style of tracks. if i can get the chance to go to a track with the 1/8th electric i’ll be there with a big grin…

Surely there can be no finer RC model than this baddest of bad boys:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVagmBvFLig[/video]

cougar – you can still get nicad/nimh packs in stick layout that should fit

That’s exactly the thing I need, I think. Anything specific I should b e looking for? I have a ‘high-speed’ charger, though whether it’ll work with newer packs or not I don’t know.

Assuming my existing ones are dead, anyway. Might juice ’em up tonight and see what happens.

love this thread! i had an avante when i was a kid. My dad got it second hand from someone he worked with.It took most of my paper round money to keep it running as I had a habbit of either smashing it into things or destroying tyres / suspension with skids & sweet jumps!

Gingerbloke, that tamiya is proper old school, looks brand new.
I quite fancy a Schumacher Cat or an Associated RC10, as they were the dogs goolies when were a lad.

All I will say is don’t bloody “drive” them on a place for bikes. At Western Park most weekends I used to get there to find a group of sad middle-aged men with their RC cars going all over the jumps and getting in the way. Annoying.

I quite fancy a Schumacher Cat or an Associated RC10, as they were the dogs goolies when were a lad.

Compare the speeds of the CAT in 1987, when Masami won the first worlds http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cJLvSa9CcA ….

With the brushless kit of today (well, 2006) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7ISJYr7F3Q

Or, the speed and skill of the TC’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7IIlDUwhxw

(oh, and the quality of the video 😉

Or, the speed and skill of the TC’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7IIlDUwhxw

Cool vid. Scale speed of 600mph plus!

I managed to find out that Lipo is a type of battery, yay!

I’ve had a rummage on fleabay and there seems to be loads of used stuff on there, but as I’ve got no real idea what I’m looking for I think I’ll take gazc’s advice on board and head for the nearest geek shop and <shudder> ask for help. 😉

Any firm pointers for particular models built up and ready to run for sub 200 quid would be superb.

I also presume I need a “few” batteries on the go at any one time – and a rapid charger. I’ve never used one of those trigger style controllers either – are they easy to get used to/better than the old across ‘n’ up type?

I got myself this for chrimbo a few years back.

Great but noisy fun. I struggle to find places to use it as its fast and very loud and i live in the city. And i feel like a bit of a geek. Never broken anything on it yet!

Or, the speed and skill of the TC’s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7IIlDUwhxw

Just not cool in yout thirties

Well, that’s f’ked it.

Found my car, but not my bag of bits containing the charger, batteries and two controllers.

I aquired a scrap car at one point for spares and have the bits for that – questionable battery and a cheap charger. Might be enough to at least test it. Juicing now.

My buggy was cheapish, an XTSR Pro, but I had to spend far too much sorting all sorts of issues. It killed an ESC in 20 mins, snapped a motor axle, munched three standard plastic spur gears so got a steel one custom made. Half of it is a annoying but half is small scale fettling so quite satisfying. Killed another ESC recently so need to fit my spare. When it works, its a lot of fun. Will post a vid of it if I remember. It flips backwards on full throttle!

Just watched the videos. Christ. Maybe I do just need to start again.

Much as i like buggies you’ve got to check out the rc boats, they are FAST…
140mph rc boat(well briefly anyway!)

if you’re going to go LiPo you’ll need a LiPo-specific balancing charger, they can get a tad expensive if you go for the all-singing all-dancing ones.
You may as well also get a new brushless outrunner motor & speed controller – again not cheap – unless you get one with the model.

3S LiPo batteries were about £25 for 2000mAH the last time I looked, you’ll need 3 or 4 fully charged before you start any session; when battery 1 has been used up, stick it on the fast charger & it should be ready by the time you’ve finished battery 3. You will need to let the motor cool down a bit in between runs, as brushless motors can run a lot faster – and therefore hotter – than the older type of motor.

http://www.sussex-model-centre.co.uk should be a good place to start looking

Jerome – that race is fantastic! I had to watch to the end!

if you want to have a fast car/buggy, with easy maintenance go for an electric powered one, the new lipo batteries and brushless systems are very good, nitro was never of any interest for me, but they are good when they are running ok, and tend to take a bit more stick.

looking at the pictures, they take me back, started with a tamiya hornet, and never looked back, and the avante, was a proper pain in the a**e to setup.

Bristolbiker, did you ever do the BRCA nationals? spent many years doing off road, racing for Tamiya/Schumacher/Associated, before moving over to Touring Cars, with HPI and finally Xray, good times, but not something i miss now, i can throw myself off a bike better than when i was a kid………..

A bit of practise and you could do this with a heli.

If you have a bit of spare cash you could buy this…

I think you can even buy a real-time live camera feed thing to fly them remotely now.

indeed:
http://www.fpvhobby.com/94-8ghz-10mw-camera.html
and
http://www.fpvhobby.com/81-lcd-monitor-58ghz-combo-system.html

I miss my r/c racing days back in my youth!

Got a bit peeved off though. I was the little kid on his BMX with his R/C car in his rucksack, competing with grown ups who would turn up with their campervans and setup mahoosive tents and whatnot.

Never did get my hands on a Losi XX or an Associated RC10. bleh.

Next daft question – for primarily off road use would I want 4wd or 2wd? 2wd was alluded to earlier on as being wikkid fer skidz and presumably power slides?

So why would I want a 4wd for general tooling around?

great thread..watching with interest without alerting Mrs Rock. I had a tamiya optima (I think) and it was great on the table top jump on the local bmx track.
Thinking Rock Jnr’s next birtday pressie might soon be sorted..!

pacemaker – Member
…If you have a bit of spare cash you could buy this…

Can you buy those big planes ready made?

Is the hornet the best for around £100 ish? Quite tempted 🙂

Best thread ever innit?

I used to have a tamiya midnight pumpkin thing, but like other 15mins of run time then dead.

I wonder how cougar is getting on? I would of thought he would of been called in by his mum for dinner by now…

dave

Can you buy those big planes ready made?

Unfortunately not. 😀

The C17 has just sold second hand for £25k,all the big stuff (over 20kg) has to pass CAA airworthy checks and the pilots need to pass LMA proficiency.(which means having years of experience flying smaller stuff)

The guy who is flying the C17 in the photo is the uk top show pilot (who also owns a large hobby shop chain).

Have a look at my website here for more r/c flying photo’s

Can you buy those big planes ready made?

I’m sure if you had enough cash somebody would make one for you.