Tamiya Mad Bull suggestions and advice needed

[mikobg]

Hello everyone!

 

My first post here so I hope you forgive my newbie questions.. 😄 I am aware there are topics on various subjects and I read through, but I want to make sure i go for the correct things.

 

So, long story short I have a 1/10 Tamiya Mad Bull, which is completely stock and genuine with the exception of the ugly paint job i gave it a few years back in hopes of covering the scratches and whatnot on the body.

 

Lately, I felt the car very slow and sluggish and thought the motor/ESC or something is on its way out. While trying to figure out what's wrong with it, I noticed the rear wheels (active ones) are spinning separately from the tyres.. I read a bit and this seemed common and people are gluing their tyres to their wheels - so I did that and was  pleasantly surprised to see the Tamiya nimble again! However, I still feel it can do with an upgrade here and there. For one thing the front suspension goes really low especially when reversing and then it doesn't properly go back up again and the whole car becomes very wobbly. I suspect the springs are old enough and unable to bring the front back up. So i ordered a set of oil shocks to upgrade both the front and rear in hopes this becomes much better in handling.

 

Additionally, I have been reading up on brushless motors and LiPo batteries, both of which sound like a good upgrade to me. I am aware a brushless motor will also need the ESC and servo upgraded, which I don't mind doing, but I am completely lost on what to order and what would actually make sense for this RC. Is it even worth going for LiPo or can I stick to NiMh batteries with a brushless motor? I prefer avoiding the whole fiasco with charging/discharging LiPo batteries if possible.

 

Any advice and suggestions are very welcome! Here's a photo of the 2 models I have (1 is pretty basic Chinese thing, but still fun to use!)

 

[Nitroholic]

Oil shocks will make a big difference over tired Tamiya friction damped ones.

 

Running brushless on NiMh isn;t really worth doing. You won't see the benefit really. Running your brushed motor on LiPo, though, would mean you get a lot less voltage dropoff. Might wear your motor out faster though.....

 

If you go brushless, so for a fairly mild setup. The MadBull driveline isn;t really intended to take a lot of power, and you will run into gearing issues.

[mikobg]

5 hours ago, Nitroholic said:

Oil shocks will make a big difference over tired Tamiya friction damped ones.

 

Running brushless on NiMh isn;t really worth doing. You won't see the benefit really. Running your brushed motor on LiPo, though, would mean you get a lot less voltage dropoff. Might wear your motor out faster though.....

 

If you go brushless, so for a fairly mild setup. The MadBull driveline isn;t really intended to take a lot of power, and you will run into gearing issues.

Thanks for the reply!

I can't wait to see the difference with the oil shocks really. 🙂

I was also afraid the driveline won't hold up if I go too crazy with a brushless/LiPo setup. Good to know NiMh/brushless is not worth it so I might give a LiPo/brushed (current one) a go until it goes and then go for a brushless upgrade altogether! Not too fussed to keep the original motor running anyways.

 

I will probably be on the lookout for a 13T or so brushless or would that be too much for the Mad Bull still? I'm not sure what number to look for if I want to actually feel the difference with a brushless motor.

[Nitroholic]

Something like a Quicrun 60A should be OK ...couple ot with a 4-pole 3300Kv 3660 motor, and it should be fun enough on 2S LiPo.

I think the Mad Bull is an opld school 540 motor.

 

The only thing to avoid with the motors is the ones with deep finned cooling grooves on the case. They are not true 540 motors, but actually smaller rotors in a can made to look larger than it ought. The big wheels on your MadBull need torque, and thopse motors won;t have any.

[mikobg]

1 hour ago, Nitroholic said:

Something like a Quicrun 60A should be OK ...couple ot with a 4-pole 3300Kv 3660 motor, and it should be fun enough on 2S LiPo.

I think the Mad Bull is an opld school 540 motor.

 

The only thing to avoid with the motors is the ones with deep finned cooling grooves on the case. They are not true 540 motors, but actually smaller rotors in a can made to look larger than it ought. The big wheels on your MadBull need torque, and thopse motors won;t have any.

It is  the 540 old school motor indeed!

Thank you for the numbers and the finned grooves tip - very helpful. I will note these down and source some parts soon enough. 🙂

Still a bit afraid of the LiPos (in terms of storage/charging/using), but will probably go for it anyway.

Edited April 18, 2022 by mikobg

[BaldyMan]

On 18/04/2022 at 22:02, mikobg said:

It is  the 540 old school motor indeed!

Thank you for the numbers and the finned grooves tip - very helpful. I will note these down and source some parts soon enough. 🙂

Still a bit afraid of the LiPos (in terms of storage/charging/using), but will probably go for it anyway.

Absolutely nothing to be afraid of LiPo batteries for. You've got one inside your mobile phone. Just don't smash it up or leave it in the hot sun where it may overheat. When you charge them and store them just keep them in a LiPo sack, or better still a metal ammo box. It just adds a layer of protection between the battery and yourself in the event of a fire. Bare in mind that the chances of a fire are slim to none, you'd need a seriously defective battery or to have seriously abused it for one to catch fire.

 

With regards to Tamiya shocks you should check out https://www.jk-rc.co.uk/ they do budget and premium grade oil shocks for all manner of Tamiya and other popular RC cars. As well as spares and upgrades. I wish I'd found the site before I ordered a set of shocks from China that ended up being a full 10mm too short on the fronts and rear meaning I can't use them and I've wasted £25

[BaldyMan]

On 18/04/2022 at 20:59, Nitroholic said:

Something like a Quicrun 60A should be OK ...couple ot with a 4-pole 3300Kv 3660 motor, and it should be fun enough on 2S LiPo.

I think the Mad Bull is an opld school 540 motor.

 

The only thing to avoid with the motors is the ones with deep finned cooling grooves on the case. They are not true 540 motors, but actually smaller rotors in a can made to look larger than it ought. The big wheels on your MadBull need torque, and thopse motors won;t have any.

Are these Tamiya buggies really worth upgrading to brushless? I'm sure something like a Carson "sports tuned" equivalent or the HPI Firebolt would liven the car up no end. Really I'd be looking at a DT-03 or TT-02B model if I wanted to do a brushless Tamiya. Personal opinion obviously.

[Nitroholic]

My only reason for preferring brushless is that when I have gone LiPo on a brushed motor...it's died very fast. Admittedly, these were not high end motors....but even so. They got very hot, and very dead.

Brushless gave longer run times, and a longer life.

 

But...a 15T would be a step up in performance on NiMh, just not quite as much. A MadBull on brushless ought to be a lot of fun though.

[mikobg]

 

On 21/04/2022 at 18:42, BaldyMan said:

Absolutely nothing to be afraid of LiPo batteries for. You've got one inside your mobile phone. Just don't smash it up or leave it in the hot sun where it may overheat. When you charge them and store them just keep them in a LiPo sack, or better still a metal ammo box. It just adds a layer of protection between the battery and yourself in the event of a fire. Bare in mind that the chances of a fire are slim to none, you'd need a seriously defective battery or to have seriously abused it for one to catch fire.

 

With regards to Tamiya shocks you should check out https://www.jk-rc.co.uk/ they do budget and premium grade oil shocks for all manner of Tamiya and other popular RC cars. As well as spares and upgrades. I wish I'd found the site before I ordered a set of shocks from China that ended up being a full 10mm too short on the fronts and rear meaning I can't use them and I've wasted £25

Good to know! I am aware LiPoss are around us (lol) already, but i read way too much about the RC LiPos catching fire... good to know they are fine under normal usage 🙂. Also thanks for the link there! I indeed ordered from China as one would expect, will see what turns up hopefully soon!

 

 

 

On 21/04/2022 at 21:16, Nitroholic said:

My only reason for preferring brushless is that when I have gone LiPo on a brushed motor...it's died very fast. Admittedly, these were not high end motors....but even so. They got very hot, and very dead.

Brushless gave longer run times, and a longer life.

 

But...a 15T would be a step up in performance on NiMh, just not quite as much. A MadBull on brushless ought to be a lot of fun though.

 

From what I've seen so far, the Mad Bull is completely crazy on a brushless LiPo setup to the point where it is also completely unusable! 😄 But I'd certainly give it a go soon! Might make a post here with the upgrades 🙂

On a separate topic, I also went ahead and ordered my first ever crawler - Axion SCX24! Will see how we get on with that too. 🙂

[mikobg]

So the new oil shocks are installed and definitely improved the stance quite a bit. @BaldyMan was indeed right and the front ones are quite bigger than expected, but they still fit even though they are bending the front end a bit inwards.. which might not be that bad. Overall with the new shocks handling feels improved and the whole car has more ground clearance!

The new servo has arrived too! Unfortunately, I just tested it out and although it works fine, it is very very slow to react. Increasing turning angle takes ages, changing directions even more! It's a 35T servo, is the T the cause or is it just a cheap servo hence the slowness?

[Kpowell911]

what servo is it?

[mikobg]

31 minutes ago, Kpowell911 said:

what servo is it?

It is a no-brand Chinese one. It does say TiankongRC on it, but i take that as a no-brand :D.

[mikobg]

So to revive an oldish topic, i finally upgraded the Tamiya with new ESC and a Brushless motor.... which unsurprisingly killed the gears in about 5 minutes of "soft" run time.

 

The question now is, is there any place where I can find ready metal replacements, since I can only find original plastic ones, which would be killed quickly again?

 

The tires do rotate when in the air, but don't when on the ground, so i assume (will disassemble tonight to check) that the gear teeth have worn out due to the high friction of the new motor power.. 😄

 

P.S. It was an extremely fun 5 minute run!

[stubby205]

I've just had a good read through this thread and looked through the jk-rc website, I have an old mad bull from about 25years ago that is in need of some upgrades, the jk-rc site will help with some bits so thanks for that. How's yours running now? Did you find any metal gears to replace original as I fear I'll need some soon also 😄