Tamiya and other R/C vehicles (not just for Christmas)

Or maybe not, worked on the PC, not showing on my tablet.

barney
Subscriber
Stumpy01 – The Boomerang and the Avante were totally different.

Yeah, sorry. I know that the Avante and Boomerang were nothing alike.
My comment about them being the same car was relating to the first sentence of my post regarding the Hotshot.
I was saying that I thought the Hotshot and Boomerang were the same car…. although subsequent peering at images made it obvious that the Hotshot had a weird rear suspension set-up I’d forgotten about.

I did some more digging and realised it was the Super Sabre I was thinking of (rather than the Hotshot). The Super Sabre was the same car as the Boomerang but with a futuristic wedge shaped body.

I had the Tamiya catalogue that had all of these in. I use to pore over every detail, but never got one as a kid. I should never have chucked that catalogue out!!
It had all the build tips and hints on driving the cars like how to corner etc.

The Big Wig look fantastic, but how does the airbox on the top survive it’s first roll over?

some awesome looking cars on this thread!
my son and i started lockdown with 2 ripmax cars husky and dingo, wonder boy has been really enjoying ripping around with them however we are down to one car now as i have to keep robbing parts off one to repair the other, he’s got his 9th birthday next week so looking to upgrade.
not much stock anywhere but modelsport and rcgeeks have the ftx buggsta in stock and has the kind of looks he would go for, anygood or is there something better/more robust for similar money, about £125
tanks

Eddie – got an FTX Outlaw for me and my boy at about that price point and its been really good so far, bashing around the woods and a bit of basic crawling. Would assume they share similar platform with the buggsta? Id budget for a larger capacity battery and fast charger though, extra 40 ish quid.

Cheers dude, had a look on YouTube and gets ok reviews iam going to get it ordered

HTS, it’s ABS plastic, it used to have stickers on a long time ago, it’s surprisingly robust, the car has been upside down a lot. The steering is a bit loose though, it’s much better on the lads Neo scorcher.

The kids have built the mad bull. It’s interesting to say the least.

Needs quite a bit of upgrades to be useful but it’s got potential for alot of fun.

Lord knows why they ship it with such soft springs. They are fairly pointless. I’m gonna try and put zip ties under the top of the springs to try and get them stiffer.

The transmission also bottoms out on the chassis too as the shock stroke is too long… I’ve made some bottom out bumpers from rolled up and super glued inner tube ! Crude but effective!

I need to work out how to stop the shocks rattling on the shock mounts too. (More inner tube cutting maybe)

Lots of fun to razz about though. Definitely more fun than the old buggy.

That’s a problem on the Bigwig as well, spends a lot of its time sliding along on its chassis as the suspension is so soft.

Got my Holiday Buggy built up. Not the fastest thing on its 380 motor but plenty of fun in the garden!

Just finished building a Holiday Buggy too. Very happy with it though have already managed to scuff the stickers by driving into a kerb. Have now ordered a spare body And will keep the other for best. Have made a roof out of some spare aluminium and will design my own stickers some how. I made a right mess of painting the driver. Tamiya paint is so thin and when you paint over it, it washes away what went before.

I know that people say the 380 motor isn’t fast but I’ll keep that until I have better skills and stop crashing into things.

From my experiences I would recommend Helicopter Tape on any extremities that could contact the ground. The Grasshopper is looking battered whilst the Mad Bull, with the tape, is remaining relatively unscathed.

Harry. It now has helicopter tape on the front. I was in too much of a hurry to try it out. Quite fancy doing another body anyway. The first one copied the box art more or less. I want to try something different. Have to make my own roof as that costs loads extra and fancied using aluminium as it would be a good place to mount a GoPro.

Dusty!

Quite impressed with my just 7 yr olds driving skills!

Looks spot on 🙂

Been using my car with my son (and usually my daughter) nearly everyday since getting it. Have been to a few different places now, but my local park c. 5 min walk or 2 min ride is perfect. Just got back and we did a little figure 8 loop in the wooded section that’s lovely for some 4 wheel drifting.

Very good fun, went through three batteries!

Last parts arrived today. I’ll leave this here…

^ Nice.

The Mini Guns have arrived for the Mad Bull Rogue Trooper body shell build. Will get the shell when I’ve worked out how to attach them.

Going to have to wait for the charity shops to reopen to get the figure. I assume that I’ll be able to pick up an 8″ WWF type thing for 50p that i’ll butcher into to shape.

Some cracking driving going on guys! Some of the kids putting mine to shame. Rear wing looking very battered now.
Had a brief 15 minutes at the bmx track today, before the boss in the trailer (all 14 months of him) started complaining. Getting the hang of landing jumps on the wheels but so easy to go squint and barrel roll.

Been messing with rear suspension again. Stiffer springs and oil had helped reduced bottoming but rear traction in the loose wasn’t as good. Swapped to the softest spring in the DF03 kit which is still firmer than standard and went back to the softer kit oil. Added a thick preload collar as well.

Wife been harassing me about what I want for my birthday. Got a nice wee basket compiled on Modelsport with a brushless motor, uprated ecu and some wheels and tyres tyres. Still a bit reluctant as the basket is more than the original kit cost!

My Mad Bull suffered a total loss of drive this evening. After a complete transmission strip it turned out to be a loose wheel nut that meant that the drive shaft was spinning freely in the hub with the dif’ transmitting all power to the duff wheel. Meh. Anyway, no harm done. I’ve also had to superglue the tyres on as thrashing on grippy tarmac in this heat had them rolling off the rim.

Me and my lad are competent enough now to try the 540 motor back in the Grasshopper without it disappearing in a shower of shattered plastic, but to be sure I’ve Heli-Taped the roof and rear spoiler after first supergluing up all of the cracks and sanding off the jagged edges.

A month in and these things are getting “razzed” everyday to some degree or other. It may have cost the best part of £400 but I think it has been worth it.

No urge to buy another though* as it would have to be significantly different to the too that I have.

*Yet.

Bought an Unimog after reading this thread. The last time I had a Tamiya R/C model was back in the 90s so a bit rusty with the painting skills. Fitted a bearing kit and a slower motor out of the box. Thoroughly enjoyed the build though:

It is surprisingly good but the steering was awful. Also ordered some different rating spring to play around with the shocks. Finally turned up to and have them fitted:

Seriously cannot think of anything else that needs doing to it as it is robust enough out of the box.

Unlike my Mini 8ight-t which needed so much doing to it before it was right and something will still break every couple of runs.

I think a skid plate is good for a cc-01 as the rear suspension gets caught going over anything at all

The cc-01 steering isn’t great. My issue with it is the large turning circle rather than the sloppiness of it and I don’t think buying anything will fix that.

The kids and I have a grasshopper and a nitro buggy that we have been enjoying over lockdown.

We have recently been talking about flying. Not sure if that should be a helicopter, plane or drone. Any feedback on an entry level but not rubbish plane/drone?

I have visions of it ending up in a tree miles from the park or landing hard and smashing into a million pieces, hence not wanting to spend a fortune on the first one.

I am only running on trails so the rear suspension hasn’t got stuck yet. I don’t think it is meant to be crawling but it is great for trail running. I might have a go though and see how often it gets stuck which will be a laugh.

The turning circle did annoy me which is why I bought the CV-joints. That allow me to chop the nibs off the front hub carriers to make use of the whole range which I heard it struggles to do without the CV-joints.

Also, the steering upgrade that I bought isn’t very well designed. The bearings don’t work proper if you tighten the bolts properly as it put a thrust load on the bearings and they became stiff. I had to have the bolts slightly too loose and hope the loctite will stop them from getting undone. Time will tell.

Our Mad Bull is up on bricks (virtually) at the moment, as 25-year-old plastic (the servo saver) didn’t survive a clip against a 150-year-old tree – just a glancing hit on one wheel, but broke the link to the steering. I think we’re probably going to have a few more incidents like that so I’ve bought an aluminium bolt-on one, as well as some plastic spares – is it wise to use the alu one, or just get through some more bits of plastic?

Also, the shocks are utter pants. I took them apart and the oil inside was like grease, it was so thick, which explains why they were so stiff and unresponsive. Cleaning them out with WD40 has made them smooth, but totally un-damped. They’re plastic and don’t look very well-sealed so I think it’s probably time for some replacements. AFAIK they’re 75mm front, 95mm rear and the Absima shocks seem to be the popular recommendations but does anyone have any recommendations for alternatives? (Absima seem unavailable in the UK at the mo)

The new 5000mAh battery made a huge difference to the car’s runtime! The old batteries lasted about 10 minutes at best before the car slumped to a crawl; the new one lasted about half an hour at least… until it hit the tree. :/

Edit: good shout on the heli tape – I’m going to use some on the underside of the front bumper and chassis while I’m mucking about with shocks and settings!

@Pierre teh shock on the mad bull are friction dampers (assumign they are red) so they will only have grease in. they are totally un-damped.

I’m also looking for 75mm shocks but i think they are still on a boat from china! you can get 95’s for teh back but half a job seems a bit pointless!

I`ve wrapped a thick zip tie around the top of the shock under teh spring to compress the spring a bit and make them stiffer – which makes it much nicer to drive and less worrying to jump/drive down stairs etc etc. its ghetto but works until i can buy an adjustable shock. I also put a bit of innertube on teh shock shaft to act as a bottom out bumper to prevent the loud plastic clunk on landings!

We have recently been talking about flying. Not sure if that should be a helicopter, plane or drone. Any feedback on an entry level but not rubbish plane/drone?

I’d get a drone, it’ll be a lot easier to fly than either of the other two. Or get two cheaper ones, then you can race them.

@Van Halen, yeah, the Mad Bull I bought had been “upgraded”, so it’s got different wheels, a brushless-compatible ESC and some plasticky oil shocks which had _really_ strong springs on (so it was virtually rigid!), but I’ve also discovered it’s still on bushings and the gearbox sounds pretty awful, so I’m going to be doing some dismantling and rebuilding over the next couple of evenings…!

The cc-01 steering isn’t great. My issue with it is the large turning circle rather than the sloppiness of it and I don’t think buying anything will fix that.

Longer servo arm?

Going to try the cable tie thing on my Mad Bull front shocks.

Nicholas. Is that the Tamiya drive shaft upgrade kit (54608) to upgrade the steering joints before trimming the plastic?

Fudd. It’s not that. It’s the steering components themselves. They limit the movement.

I realised my steering wasn’t brilliantly set up, tighter turning circle going left than right and when watching videos of 1/10th buggies being raced on youtube at my local club, there’s no way I’d make some of those turns. Re-did the end point adjustment with the transmitter and now MUCH better, pleased with that

When I see some of the hop-up parts, part of me wonders if you’re replacing a sacrificial, cheaper part with something more robust that will in turn lead to something less sacrificial and more expensive taking a hit. I’m sure if you upgrade everything it’s OK but is there a right way and a wrong way to do it?

still waiting for FTX part..I’ve only used the thing for about 3 minutes of it’s 2 months.

Oooh, that Unimog looks amazing.

I think it was a bloke on here who said when he, and his family saw a Unimog they ritually shouted UNIMOG!

It’s an affectation I’ve taken on. 🙂

A month in and these things are getting “razzed” everyday to some degree or other. It may have cost the best part of £400 but I think it has been worth it.

No urge to buy another though* as it would have to be significantly different to the too that I have.

*Yet.

🙂 This makes me very happy.

I’ll just leave this here….

£150, comes with everything including batteries.

Stupid value, very different and great fun.

Have a little circuit built up in the garden, sleeping mats used as temporary bridges, nice bits of old millstone etc.

Great fun and it’s never giong to get properly broken because it’s so slow.

I’ve said this before. You are a bad man.

TBH, the model maker in me isn’t a fan of the more outlandish vehicles, but I did find myself looking at a Holiday Buggy earlier. Hmmm.

Also, I’ve done the cable tie ghetto pre-load on both the Grasshopper and the Mad Bull, and both handle better as a result. Especially the Grasshopper.

Anyone got a photo of this preload cable tie thing to share?

Give me a few minutes…