Which cheap Tamiya?

I’d like to get a cheapish Tamiya R/C car to build with my 5 year old boy as a garage project and **** about with it afterwards. OK, the real reason is I always wanted a Hornet as a kid and never got one….

Are the newer models significantly better than the re-releases like the Frog, Hornet, Grasshopper etc? It will get hammered no doubt, especially with a 5 y/o having a go, I know they break and need repairing but something reasonably durable would be good.

I read the bearing upgrade is a good idea. Trigger or pistol grip controller better?

£200 max for the complete kit, closer to £150 better. Go!

Does it have to be Tamiya? the RC world has moved on a bit. But if so, Midnight pumkin looks nice, or lunchbox. if it has to be a buggy, I built a Dark Impact a couple of years ago, and its holding up well.

beyond Tamiya, Traxxas have a good reputation for robustness that I can vouch for.

Not at all, will check Traxxas out, ta.

As above, the RC world has long since evolved since Tamiya ruled the roost.

Earlier this year I opted for a Maisto Extreme rock crawler for my 4.5yr old. More easily controllable due to low speed, but tonnes of fun as it crawls over pebbles, rocks, logs, tree stumps, etc. Turning arc isn’t so good though, thus making tight manoeuvres somewhat awkward.

Deciding it was time for project of my own – but still something I could share with the monkey – I bought a second hand modified Traxxas Summit 1/16th VXL. Awesome bit of kit:

– 40mph when running paired batteries in parallel
– 25mph running above in series, but with twice the run time
– 15mph in training mode
– robust
– almost all parts are replaceable (and in most cases upgradeable)
– waterproof
– capable of going over properly rough terrain and getting some good air

Manuf video here.

6-9 months in and both cars get a workout every couple of weeks or so from monkey. The latter is a great project though as I’m keen to upgrade the motor, swap the ESC and change the gearing to make the acceleration super smooth, ie more controllable for better crawling, yet retain some good top end.

Lots of other cars out there too. Really depends what you and your son are looking for.

MS UK have a great forum[/url] – worth checking out.

I got a ECX circuit with 3 batteries for around 150 from PBM racing you’ll be wanting a couple of hi cap batteries as the one it comes with is pants. With the three 3400 batteries I’ve got I get around 30 runtime from each. I also bought a motor with fewer turns, easy to swap out, which made it a bit quicker. It’s very sturdy no breakages but I’ve been getting through wheel bearings so I bought a few spares for a couple of quid. Also 2wd seems like it has less to go wrong.
It seems that most serious RC people go for lipo batteries and brushless motors for more speed but that’s typically north of 200 quid. The fastest RTR one in your price range is prolly the Helion Criterion but do but budget for a few spare batteries.

Good info, ta. The main thing is it needs to be a decent build project, this bit is at least as important as the driving part.

Ah then ignore me as they are both ready to go.

Midnight Pumpkin truck[/url]
Buggy[/url]
Couple of options, both kits and look like fun projects for Dad and kid alike. Tamiya is probably your best bet actually for a kit, most other brands come prebuilt, although you end up having to dismantle them to fix them at some point…

Do the truck style (Lunchbox/Midnight Pumpkin) drive differently to the buggies? I always thought they’d be more likely to roll and the buggies would be better for doing sweet jumps using milk crates and planks and stuff?

Trucks are more unstable, but more fun for it; you have to slow down a bit to turn, they’ll wheely if you boot them etc. Great fun getting onto two wheels and spectacularly (not) saving it. IMHO, obviously. I find buggys to be a bit too stable, and therefor less entertaining.

I’m trying to resist the temptation to get a re-release Egress!

Get a retro one as it’ll be more fun for you and your lad won’t be bothered. Once you’ve got the full lot you can just swap it in to new buggies.

2WD or 4WD?

I revived my Midnight Pumpkin this year. It’s 25 years old. New battery and radio gear and we were off.

My daughter wanted to reprint the shell – wasn’t having that, so bought a replacement polycarbonate job and she chose the colours. Well, colour. Fluorescent pink in fact.

Which is great as it disappears into the distance on Ainsdale beach….

My son uses my old (1993 or so) RC race car – I’d put a standard 540 motor in and geared it as low as it’ll go which along with current batteries means you get about 20 mins run time which is plenty for his attention span.

I really shouldn’t have opened this thread 🙂

Oh yes, you should 😉

Dam you all.

Just bought one for my lad for his 6th birthday.

And a Super Hotshot (to rekindle history) as Santa said I could have an early present.

This is a Tamiya and it’s been on my Xmas list for a few years. Hasn’t materialised yet though. I need a new family.

They have released the Frog?!?! Best news I have heard all day…

I keep suggesting to my wife that we should get one for our twin (6 yr old) girls but I am yet to have it passed…

Hmmm… Thinking about a Grasshopper bundle again. hmmm…

I’d suggest going down the rock crawler route unless you’ve got lots of space nearby to rag a buggy around. I built up this last Xmas / New Year (http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-rock-socker-truck-cr-01/rc-car-products/385123) and whilst I appreciate that’s out of your price range for all kit I’d suspect there’s alternatives (brands or models) that would work.

The rock crawling route is such good fun as you lob some logs / paving slabs / rocks / gravel courses to run in the garden. Plus as the speeds are lower you actually get a really good run time out of a single battery, easily 20 minutes in my case. Either way enjoy, I loved doing the build on mine last year, 4 or 5 late afternoon starts to evening finishes accompanied by a few glasses of wine! 🙂

That Shark… is lovely…..

This thread is taking me back to the heady days of my youth when I had a weekend job in the model department of Beatties toyshop.
Had a few different Tamiya kits built up in store for “demonstration” purposes. Used to race them round the aisles of the shop from the mezzanine when the store was closed.

Also used to make the odd £20 building the kits for parents who wanted to buy the cars for their kids who were too young to do the build. Built loads of Midnight Pumpkins and Lunch Boxes. Also built the Delta Integrale above. My favourite was this though….

Most popular kit at the time was this. Built about ten of these.

Ahhh Beatties. Used to be one in Harrogate and I loved going in just to look at the RC Cars and the train sets.

Ahhh Beatties. Used to be one in Harrogate and I loved going in just to look at the RC Cars and the train sets.

Our store had a model train layout about 20 feet square with 5 or 6 tracks. We used to spend quiet sunday mornings concocting the most elaborate train crashes imaginable using whatever we had to hand.
The carnage of the “Starship Enterprise incident” was particularly memorable. I doubt Postman Pat has ever recovered.

Just do it. I didn’t get into rc cars till mid thirties
I only have 5 now . Traxxas slash is a very tough car with spares readily available. Also waterproof. Personally I like crawlers because me and a few mates like to play in the mud !

Loving the Toyota and Escort, my cousin had the toyota celica before that (the boxy one) with full ball races and a technigold motor that he’d upgraded himself. Good lord it was quick.

I had the Pilot Escort, we used to race them on road outside, I ran mine in rwd just so I could keep close to him, I rolled it and ripped off a wing mirror before I’d even got around to applying the decals. We used to run the heaviest oil we could get our hands on in the dampers to improve the cornering, which made bumping up kerbs interesting to say the least… Happy days!

I was sitting in the van at the beach (generous description) the other day when two old blokes (proper old) parked the car and opened the boot. I was expecting some dogs to jump out as that’s the only reason people go there.

Instead they dropped two RC monster trucks on the floor and started blazing it up in the dust with big cheesey grins on their faces. Then…out came the big guns. A giant nitro powered buggy that was massive and very, very rapid.

When I left I could see they had a boot full of tools and spares

At least I know when I’m old and broken from riding bikes I can still have some fun on a budget.

When I was a kid that Michelin Cosworth was the one to have but I never got it. Might do something about it now.

Harry, I had a Grasshopper II ‘Super G’ when I was a kid, great to learn with but not the most reliable after a while. Front suspension mounts were weak which required frequent replacement tubs, plus the uprated motor striped gears eventually and the wheels gave way around the spokes. Having said that the huge front bumper was very good at absorbing high speed smashes, my later cars were nowhere near as tolerant in that regard. Sadly I’ve only got the shell left:

However, I have got this to get up and running again if I ever get the time…

Well I’m thinking it’ll be a more modern Tamiya, the nostalgia isn’t that important to me as I never had one, new ones look to be supplied with metal bearings and have obviously benefitted from another 30 years of development

So, 4WD

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-dark-impact-df-03/rc-car-products/24730

Or 2WD

http://www.modelsport.co.uk/tamiya-sand-viper-dt-02-/rc-car-products/25688

And are stick or pistol grip controllers better?

I used to use sticks, but I’ve switched to pistol as I fly planes, helis and multis now. Best not to confuse the old muscle memory. If flying is not of future interest, either are as good as each other, but pistol is much more available and popular these days.

davosaurusrex – Member

Well I’m thinking it’ll be a more modern Tamiya, the nostalgia isn’t that important to me as I never had one, new ones look to be supplied with metal bearings and have obviously benefitted from another 30 years of development

I got a £100 voucher for a model website as a prize for a work related pedometer challenge (to get us all exercising in our lunch hours).

I’ve been looking at the various Tamiya models available. They don’t all come with bearings; in fact most seem to come with bushes of some description, but ball bearing kits are only about a tenner, so probably worth buying at the time of purchase.

That 2WD buggy you have linked to (Sand Viper), is based on Tamiya’s previous generation buggy chassis, I think.

I’ve got my eye on this one, which is one of their latest buggy chassis:

http://www.fusionhobbies.com/product/58587-tamiya-neo-fighter-buggy-dt03

which comes with an ESC that I think can be upgraded to brushless motor/battery, the ‘torque tuned’ Tamiya 540 motor & oil shocks rather than friction dampers. In certain markets, they are sold in a cheaper version with friction dampers & the more basic motor. Look on eBay, there’s a German site doing the ‘good’ version for under £60 delivered.

They also do a 4WD buggy, that seems to be based on a car chassis (the TT02 chassis), just with longer suspension arms & associated parts(TT02B for buggy). Seems like a bit of a half-way house, so I’ll probably steer clear of that one:

http://www.fusionhobbies.com/product/58568-tamiya-neo-scorcher-tt02b

I bought a lunchbox a while back to get my kids into it. I built that and it was fun but not too difficult. I had more fun restoring my 80s vintage HotShot (with the aftermarket supershot conversion) in the process adding all the bling I could never afford when I was a kid. That thing was a rocketship when I was done with it. Kids not bothered by the cars really, even after we got a grasshopper to avoid fights and have fun driving together.

The LB is fun to drive, better than the grasshopper which is hard to drive with a hot motor in it. I recently bought an RC10 worlds which was a really engaging build and really flies. The new ESCs aren’t as much fun as the old mechanical jobs though.

spacemonkey – Member

Earlier this year I opted for a Maisto Extreme rock crawler for my 4.5yr old. More easily controllable due to low speed, but tonnes of fun as it crawls over pebbles, rocks, logs, tree stumps, etc. Turning arc isn’t so good though, thus making tight manoeuvres somewhat awkward.

That looks great fun!

The new ESCs aren’t as much fun as the old mechanical jobs though.

How so?

To answer the OP’s actual question – Buy a Lunch Box / Midnight pumpkin – same platform with a different body.

Your son is only 5 and will struggle to hold an extended interest in a complex build.
The parts are relatively chunky so easier for a child to help assemble. The big body is easy to paint and add decals too – not too fiddly.

I wouldn’t bother with any upgraded parts either.
It’ll be plenty quick enough for a five year old to drive. The faster it goes – the more damage you’ll have to fix when your kid crashes it into a tree / wall
Even though it’s a decades old design it’ll still leave any Argos / Toys R us type car standing in a cloud of dust.

Get a pistol grip controller – kids understand them easier than sticks.

Spend any money left out of your budget on spare batteries. When it chucks it after 20 minutes your child will be devastated… until you produce another battery.

Plus – it’s a classic.

it IS for your kid, right?

I did this last year for my lad
Bought a 4×4 dual hunter for him and a Madbull for me.
They’re ace and easy to fix
Spare batteries are a must. ESC rock for simplicity.
We only hoon and bash but they are an addictive giggle
Tim

The new ESCs aren’t as much fun as the old mechanical jobs though.

with the old mechanical ones you could go from full throttle to full reverse instantly. it made (my hotshot at least) corner way better because it would flick the back end out. Then back to full gas forward again. the escs I have now have a bit of a delay built into the reverse however I set it up. I read somewhere it is to stop you shredding the gearbox. Maybe I need a better (more expensive!) one.