Resurrecting old (early 90s) RC cars

Lipo’s worth 0.5-1 second on my track, bit more top end over nimh, you will need a new charger about £25 off ebay for a 12v balance one and a £5 lipo bag. They are lighter which helps a bit…

People that run the track I go to also run this online shop, think my 4000mah Lipo was about £22 http://www.pit-bitz.com/%5B/url%5D

My “Mini”

Any grease or oil maybe used to replace the kit supplied grease. Substances having a consistency similar
Blu?Tack and/or not being sold as diff grease or oil may not be used.

people trying to fit solid rear axles? 😀 I guess they’re understeery by nature?

FWD 😉 Tonbridge place allows different er diff’s/gearboxes as does outdoors one if you run a differnt motor, its all very complicated….!

Tighter diffs help traction out of the corners being fwd

Theres a lack of outdoor places round here, would love to try buggy racing ie with a car similar to the OP’s post but current gen so no issues of parts availability when I total it lol

Ah, FWD RC car! that’s a new one on me…

I did wonder if I’d be better off selling the old ones and just buying new cars – they seem cheaper now.

1/8 electric – didn’t know that existed!

clubber – yeah, it was an offshoot of 1/8th nitro Rallycross which really boomed during this past 10 years or so. With Lipo cells being so good they started doing Rallycross electric conversions and now it’s become a class all it’s own (they originally mixed them with the nitro buggies but the electric buggies just ate them alive!).

Drescher basically just followed the trends and was successful in all of them from 10th scale buggies to touring cars to 12th scale then to Rallycross. Think he works in R&D for Team Associated. Amazing to think you could turn toy car racing into a career.

Semi Off Topic: Recently got back into RC and now race “Mini’s” which are the Tamiya M03/M05 chassis at a local outdoor circuit. Weekend before last I did my first indoor carpet event, less run off, ended badly with broken front suspension and a missing driveshaft lol

Sounds interesting. I’m tempted to get back into some class of RC but no way do I have the sort of cash floating around to jump into an expensive class again. How does it fair up cost wise? Expensive class?

This is brilliant. I never realised so many people were into RC. I too still have all of my kit back at my partents house which I keep meaning to sort out.

I think I was racing a few years after most people here. I used to drive a Schumacher Cat 3000 and the Fireblade in 2WD. I used to race in the NE at the time when Neil Cragg was winning everyting.

Buying new is expensive, the M05 Pro kit like I have is about £130 (actually thats the normal one, my Pro one has some “hop ups” then radio gear I don’t know, £70 odd, batteries etc….

I got mine off ebay, £100 for the car, full radio gear, 4 nimh’s, 12v charger, uprated motor and some spares so pretty good I thought, probably worth more split!

£5 a night for racing outdoors, £7 at the indoor place.

Done about 12 meetings now and in that time spent £20 on new set of tyres, £22 ish on a lipo, £25 on a charger and a few pounds on things like body pins and new front hub after recent smash… There is enough time between heats to get by with one lipo topping it up although if I want to do a longer practise session at the start I use a nimh or two

The only problem with these types of cars if you need perfectly smooth places to run them as I only have a 5mm ground clearance so they are quite narrow use ie not much point unless you specifically want to race which I did. Both the local venues I have mentioned have loan standard ones for £0 or £5 a night rental so we did that first

If just wanting to mess around I would definately go the buggy route as you can use them in far more places plus if you want to race there are off road venues.

That’s not a mini body on yours though, is it, dlr?

Buying new is expensive, the M05 Pro kit like I have is about £130 (actually thats the normal one, my Pro one has some “hop ups” then radio gear I don’t know, £70 odd, batteries etc….

I got mine off ebay, £100 for the car, full radio gear, 4 nimh’s, 12v charger, uprated motor and some spares so pretty good I thought, probably worth more split!

£5 a night for racing outdoors, £7 at the indoor place.

Done about 12 meetings now and in that time spent £20 on new set of tyres, £22 ish on a lipo, £25 on a charger and a few pounds on things like body pins and new front hub after recent smash… There is enough time between heats to get by with one lipo topping it up although if I want to do a longer practise session at the start I use a nimh or two

The only problem with these types of cars if you need perfectly smooth places to run them as I only have a 5mm ground clearance so they are quite narrow use ie not much point unless you specifically want to race which I did. Both the local venues I have mentioned have loan standard ones for £0 or £5 a night rental so we did that first

If just wanting to mess around I would definately go the buggy route as you can use them in far more places plus if you want to race there are off road venues.

Relatively inexpensive then really. If I wanted to get back into 10th scale buggies now I’d be looking at the best part of a grand to get up and running with a 2WD (all new kit). Won’t be doing that and going budget route isn’t really an option I would enjoy all that much since I was racing Internationals up until 2001 so finding a competitive class that isn’t all about money money money is what I’m looking for.

Clubber: No, supposed to be a Volvo C30 or something I think, came with it, quite a few different bodies, when I stop crashing I will do up a Civic EK9 one

Fevouredimage: You would probably want a bit more speed than the Mini class but you can pickup second hand Touring cars for £200 or less without radio gear. Ones at Eastbourne have a control tyre so less expense there etc. Most of the Mini runners have all sorts of different compounds/sizes, I just make do with one set of softs

At the indoor Tonbridge venue its the 1/12th scale Pan Cars that are mad, rwd only, heres a video I took weekend before last of the start. Was my first time racing indoor in carpet in my class, quite fun although lack of run off means have to be precise, no banging over curbs, you stop dead! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i4y6r8LSYQ

At the indoor Tonbridge venue its the 1/12th scale Pan Cars that are mad, rwd only, heres a video I took weekend before last of the start. Was my first time racing indoor in carpet in my class, quite fun although lack of run off means have to be precise, no banging over curbs, you stop dead! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i4y6r8LSYQ

That’s what I used to race – you ought to see the pace at national / world standard, its mind bending.

Benman, when you next see Jamie Booth, tell him Stylish says hello! he will know who it is,we raced together on the Tamiya uk team in 92/93, along with Steve Haynes, known the old bugger for years!

Clubber youre right about r/c racers turning to mtb, the best mates I have all came form cars, and slowly everyone caught the cycling bug, I was the last in 08.
Quite a few of the old racers still work in the industry and all ride,mostly around the midlands.

Back to the cars, you can now buy replica cars from the 80s, quite fancy an RC10, but I don’t think the wife would be too keen!

The best thing about Tamiya Tamtechs were that the batteries were called Tampacks *titter*.

God this thread brings back memories. I so wanted a Super Dog Fighter when I was younger – always thought it was the superior car to the Cat…

Craig was the youg star in the UK when I started racing. Remember Jamie Booth and a few of the others.

I also remember when Neil Cragg started racing at our NW regionals. First time I saw him was at Ellesmere Port and we all knew he was going to be good. Used to race with (behind) him a lot as he would dominate the NW series.

My best success was 17th in the 4wd nationals (20 something at the end of the year) and winning the Southport summer series with my Losi XX-CR. I started out 4wd and always preferred it but 2wd had it’s merits.

I can still remember my BRCA number.

the Euros at Southport were amazing experiences. I remember when the Americans came over one year (Brian et al). They were like superstars.

1079 was my BRCA number! Wasn’t there a Reedy race at Southport too, can remember doing something there bigger than a national, The Worlds warm up at Basildon was a real laugh, the track was the location for the park and ride for the Olympic mtb race last year, I can recall spending a day shovelling hardcore down as the track surface was so wet, and nobody wanted to race! Then the sun came out, the lot dried like concrete and was so fast we had a real blue groove track for once!

great times, and laughs, mostly involving beer, ladies and fathers who were let of the leash for a few days!

I also remember seeing Masami Hirosaka driving his buggy with his feet, almost as quick as he did with hands at the worlds at Basildon.

Speaking of which-

That video is epic! Although I’m enjoying the tarmac/carpet stuff, I definitely want to try offroad

It certainly defines that era. But I’d also recommend watching a race from this years worlds just to see how things have moved on in the off road world –

There’s been a few threads on this previously. Eg,

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/tamiya

… worth reading. I resurrected my old Tamiya Madcap on the back of discussions here, had ten minutes of fun till I ran out of electrons.

Every time I think “I’d love to modernise it” though, by the time I’ve priced up a new Everything and remembered how awfully it handled in the first pace I’ve usually worked out that it’s a false economy and what I really need to do is fix it with a new one. Which I’d do if I ever thought I’d do anything with it but the reality is that I had more fun building it than I ever did driving it.

Luckily there are no offroad tracks near me else bank account would be in trouble now 😀