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

Most decent radios will have programmability too so you can adjust speed.

(not much point in putting brushless in it then planning to slow it, imo, brushless is for crashing at huge speed. And lipo is going to be better for run time, the madbull has an annoying shaped battery box for traditional nimh sticks but you can fit a good sized lipo in there too, and swap in about 30 seconds)

Haven’t posted here in a while… Still running the RGT though it’s got portals in now and is in bits for some bodywork changes. But I got this majestic old Axial to back it up

View post on imgur.com

It’s the last of the AX10s so has a lot of the same parts as a Wraith, and cost me like 25% as much as a Wraith. I’ve put a load of metal in the axles, steering and wheels and that’s about it, it’s not as fun to drive slow as the RGT but it’s fast enough to bash and slow enough to crawl. So far I’ve broken t basically every time it’s come out in the cause of Upgrading.

My boys and (and to be honest to a greater extent) I are keen for some RC car action the youngest wants the TRAXXAS TRX-4  which at 400 quid isn’t going to happen.

We’ll see what Santa brings but I’m thinking a Rock Crawler of some sort.

Ad we’ll need two, I’m thinking a couple of 1:24 FTX Outback Mini trucks might be a good shout.

Means they can play with them inside making tracks out of lego, cardboard boxes etc.

Thoughts/other recommendations?

I have one of those, it’s a fun wee thing though really pretty limited as standard. It was very unreliable too, had 2 of the combined ESC/radio things fail in short order, though it’s fine now and that was an easy warranty job as it’s such a common failure

The new wave of FTX Outback/RGT Rock Cruiser/Rebrand Whatevers look really superb but the price isn’t settled yet and it’s not going to be under abour £160 so a big ask for a pair.

Been meaning to post this up for a while.  Wife kindly bought me this for my birthday, after talking to my 8 year old about how much i wanted a Tamiya lunchbox back in the day.  A quick google to show him, alerted me to the relaunch of some 80’s classics.

Great birthday present, built up with my 8 year old. We upgraded to ball bearings from the off and fitted front lights.  We have smashed the thing around the local park and its silly fun!  Couple of upgrades on the table now.  A Tamiya sport tuned engines, suspension and 5th shock upgrades are a must!  Looks like i have a bit of a gearbox issue as well, which will likely lead to more upgrades.  Its a compromised design and crap by modern day standards, but its amazing fun!  both building and driving!

My lad is getting a re released Blackfoot for his birthday 😁 I’m glad to hear that they are still AWESOME! 😎😎😎

Just caught up with this…..

Was seriously considering a 1/8th Hobao VSe buggy – tough, unbreakable, fast.

All the RC I’d ever need.

Then I realised that £400 for a single  toy car was probably a bit silly, plus I’d miss out on the fun of building it.

So I’ve decided to buy a Lunchbox instead. 🙂

With a spare Midnight Pumpkin body, oil filled shocks and a couple of other bits it’ll still come in well under £200. Which means I can justify  the M-05 2CV as well. ☺

Any more  pics russy? Broke anything yet? Did you go box art or something a bit different?

Having read the huuuuge Lunchbox/Pumpkin owners thread on MSUK…

https://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/forums/topic/155742-tamiya-lunchboxmidnight-pumpkin-owners-club/?page=1

….I’m going for some posh shocks, a faster motor and the AMpro chassis brace.

Fancy either pink, a nice bright green or a metallic blue for the shell.

Any one else bought or built owt recently?

I’ve not built anything recently because i’ve Been too busy with work. I can however tell you you’ll have great fun with the lunchbox, especially with the mods you have planned. I have a midnight pumpkin myself and it’s awesome!

i’m off To the scale nationals next month, are any of the other crawler owners on here going?

Excellent, just what I wanted to hear. 🙂

The Hobao looks awesome, but I’m not convinced it’d be anymore fun than a silly, plastic, roly-poly van.

@demon- nah, not going to the nationals, looks good though.

Haven’t bought anything new to show off lately, just been adding some reliability to my Axial, and slowly refitting my original ECX and Axial for sale. I don’t think I really need 6 rc cars tbh.

completely novice.  my 3 year old loves monster trucks and I reckon an rc would be great for Christmas fun.

I quite fancy building it too.

what should I look at and what is a sensible budget?

I made up this a while ago with a sport motor & ball bearings , ain’t used it much but have smiled a lot every time I have.

Green??? FFS.

No it’s Pearlescent key lime actually.

completely novice.  my 3 year old loves monster trucks and I reckon an rc would be great for Christmas fun.

Pretty much a novice myself, but Tamiya are great fun to build and not too pricey.

Lots of ‘better’ models out there (faster, tougher, better handling) but many tend to be ready built.

I’ve had lots of great advice from RossMod in Rawtenstall and Modelsport in Otley.

It’s a bit of a minefield tbh, but either of those shops will give honest and helpful advice in my limited experience.

https://www.rossmod.co.uk

https://www.modelsport.co.uk

The MSUK forum has lots of buyers guides and is very friendly.

 https://www.msuk-forum.co.uk/forums/

Tamiya Club is a great site if you decide to go down that route too.https://www.tamiyaclub.com

So much good info on there, I probably spend more time browsing that site than this one. ☺

The advice I’ve received on this thread has  been spot on and has proved invaluable. Thanks everyone. 🙂

As to budget, about £200 including a kit and all the gear is about the minimum.

Batteries come in different capacities, I can get about 45 minutes to an hour out of a 4600 mAh pack. Two of those are usually enough to keep a 5 year old entertained for a while.

@northwind the nationals and G6 event are both worth a look if you ever have the chance to go … there’s even a few mountain bikers that attend if you get talking to people!

thanks rusty, some weekend research!

roughly how long does it take to build one of these?  is it a couple of evenings or several weeks?

need to plan it so it’s ready to play on Xmas day

..

Building a Tamiya is easy and fun.

Its worth researching what model you buy and doing a few Hop Ups in the build (ball bearings/cva shocks/steel pinion/etc)

My son and I built a DT03 in a few hours. The problem is the upgrading. It gets pricey :0)

My Madbull is fairly stock but the DF03 is evolving :0)

GoolRC brushless stuff seems good value and a great performance upgrade for the money.

oh, keep the insteuctions to hand for part identification and replacement. eBay has proved to be very useful in that respect.

I have been eyeing up fairly seriously the Carisma Scale Adventure SCA-1E Coyote and Ford F-150.  Not decided on RTR or kit yet though.

If you get a tamiya kit, buy a ballbearing upgrade straight away- total joke that they supply them with plastic bushings and it saves time to replace with bearings on day 1.

I put a Radiant Reaktor in this which makes it go like a stabbed rat. Much wheelie.

I really want one of these though..90

quite keen on this monster, my son would love it…anyone have one/built one?

https://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-super-clod-buster/rc-car-products/367900

thanks rusty, some weekend research!

roughly how long does it take to build one of these?  is it a couple of evenings or several weeks?

need to plan it so it’s ready to play on Xmas day

It it took me two evenings, as a complete novice to build it.  Painting took longest due to drying times.  Oh and programming the shitty ESC!

Rustyspanner – anything you want pictures of?  It’s a fairly vanilla lunchbox build, albeit it now has the Ampro 5th shock mod, LED lightning and full bearing kit.  Just about to order some 75mm oil filled shocks for it, but undecided what brand to go for.  Oh and a Tamiya sport tuned motor.  In have not really broken anything, scuffed it up a fair bit from jumping it at the local skate park.  The crappy design of the lunch box and comedy undanpened suspension make it a pretty comical experience!  I will make some more upgrades as stuff brakes, you can buy some lovely anodised alloy after market kit for them!

That tamiya landy looks great but it’s still the same old cc01 underneath

IFS under a defender shell? Witchcraft I tell thee!

That tamiya landy looks great but it’s still the same old cc01 underneath

Is that a bad thing? Asking as I genuinely don’t know.

So, my research on the superclod – unless you spend lots of money and time modding its not really that great, and there are much better modern stuff out there.

Thing is, in the forums, none of the modern monster trucks mentioned seem to come as a build kit

And super noob question – what is an ESC?  seems to be mentioned a lot with Tamiya as a necessary upgrade…

It really depends what you plan to do with it, it’s quite a brisk little thing even geared down and if you plan on doing some rock crawling with it you would soon find the limitations of the chassis but if you want to walk round the woods with it then it’s a good reliable starter chassis.

I think there is probably after and better handling monster trucks out there but the super cold is great fun and could be developed over time.

an ESC is an electronic speed control, back in the day most hobby grade RC cars came with a servo actuated speed control instead. The electronic speed controls allow much better control, are more reliable and also provide longer run times.

To be honest I’m under illusion that that lunchbox is anything other than a 35year old designed toy. It’s compromised but bloody good fun.  Bought as I always wanted one desperately as a kid (lad across the road had a Clod buster, lunchbox and grasshopper)

so I don’t really care if it’s not as good as modern trucks, I love it and so does my little boy.  It’s always going to be a bottomless pit of a project to customise and improve, which is what I love about it.  It’s just so much fun for not a load of money

Can’t remember if I’ve posted in this thread or not, and as the site seems to be very painfully slow for some reason I haven’t got the years to trawl through the pages.

R/C models are awesome. I’ve got a Traxxas Revo that I converted to brushless from 3.3 Nitro as it was simply too loud and annoying for the area. It’s a great thing but I’ve only used it twice since I built it and never in anger.

Had much more fun with an Axial Wraith I won in the Modelsport forum competition but like a fool I sold it for peanuts.

Don’t really get the love for Lunchbox’s. They are ok and hilarious, but the hilarity stops when you try and ride over anything but a pebble without crashing hard. We put a big motor and upgraded the suspension in my daughters and it was still rubbish.

Do have an desire to get into scale driving for some reason, just don’t think I’d actually do it once I’d finished building/modding the vehicle.

Bit like building bikes really… doh…

Twonks- building is most of the enjoyment for me, sometimes i’ll go for a wander with one and clear my head but more often than not i’ll Just tinker with them trying to improve something or other. I do enjoy the G6 event and October nationals though … they are both a good social event.

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Is that a bad thing? Asking as I genuinely don’t know.

It’s not terrible but, basically people get them and try to use them as rock crawlers and they look the part but they kinda suck at it. They’re decent at trail running, but no more so than a better crawler. Even a pretty nicely modded one struggles to deal with things that a £160 RGT Bowler can. Basically just the usual Tamiya “this was good in its day”. Except not as comically as say a lunchbox.

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Damn it. This thread has forced me to get mine down from its resting place and put the wheels on.

Might get some new batteries and a few bits to get it going. 🙂

I’m not sure about crawlers. Alot of them are RTR. I really enjoy the building part much like the rest of us on here. I do like that Land Rover though.

I also like this;

https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/products/tamiya-rc-toyota-yaris-wrc-tt-02/

Rustyspanner – anything you want pictures of?  It’s a fairly vanilla lunchbox build, albeit it now has the Ampro 5th shock mod, LED lightning and full bearing kit.  Just about to order some 75mm oil filled shocks for it, but undecided what brand to go for.  Oh and a Tamiya sport tuned motor.

Sorry fella, missed this.

Any picures really, I’ve picked my Lunchbox kit up now but not allowed to build it ’till Christmas so gimping at other people’s will have to do (smiley – where have they gone?).

Spares/essentials/mods picked up so far:

Bearings.

Fastrax 75mm shocks (felt nicer than the Absima ones, built in preload dial, only a couple of quid dearer).

Speed tuned motor.

Full Midnight Pumpkin body set.

Alloy body mounts for both shells.

Ampro Transmission Brace.

Rx/Tx/servo.

I think that’s it for the time being…..

Thinking of TS52 Pearl Green for the Lunchy shell and possibly TS10 French Blue for the Pumpkin?

Any other colour suggestions more than welcome……..

Had a plan, bought a Tactic TTX300 online and a pair of 3000mah nimh’s with a view to getting a single Mad Bull and hop up bearings in the ‘local’ hobby store.
Went to teh shop to buy but it turned out 2 boys couldn’t deal with sharing so ended up making the boys drop teh cash and walking out with the Mad Bull and a $200 ECX Amp in compete but self build kit form.
The Mad bull has broken pretty much every time its been used and I’ve spent a bunch of money improving it (bearings, solid steering linkage, oil shocks)
The ECX has been faultless.

The ‘modern kit’ was still fun to build but as was probably said above, nostalgia does’t win out.

Its all fun though and in hindsight, sharing would never have worked!

Mad Bull kit $150
Tactic TTX300 $80
Bearings $35
Oil Shocks $50
Battery $30
Tamiya Total $345!

ECX Total $200!
Bugger!

https://www.horizonhobby.com/product/horizon-hobby-best-brands/electric-cars-and-trucks/ecx-brand/1-10-amp-mt-2wd-monster-truck-kit-p-ecx03034

Rusty, I’ll take some more for you over the weekend.  I have just ordered the sport tuned motor for mine.  Shocks will be my next upgrade then I will look at some home made carbon bracing.  Like I say it’s a really fun project my son and I love working on it together.  He is really excited by the new motor.  It’s such a shit car by modern standards but such a laugh down the park and ticks a massive nostalgia box for me!

After many years of racing Tamiya 1/10 electric and still having loads of them, I’ve gone and bought 1/5 scale HPI Baja  5b ss! I got it with an FG Baja and HPI Maverick Blackout both of which where brand new, never even having had fuel in them. I sold them on and have run the SS a few times. It’s stupid fast and mega fun but you need a massive area and it attracts everyone for miles around. I will upload pictures when remember how.