danny boy

April 29

Finished second in the oOple Off Road Open Series in the vintage class! This was my first ever race buggy way back when I started driving. The car to have at the time was the Associated B4, but I couldn't afford one of those so I ended up with the older B3 instead. Decided last year to dig it out and give it a rebuild so I could drive it again. It's the first time I've raced the car in about 13 years. I never had a single good result with this car, I don't think it ever even won a race, so I really wanted to change that so it can enjoy it's retirement with a good story to tell!

I couldn't quite get the setup I needed unfortunately, the car would either bounce around wildly or grip roll aggressively depending on the changes I made. I decided to go with the grip roll as this was more predictable. The rain helped a lot on Saturday as the grip roll wasn't an issue in the damp. But the finals on Sunday were dry, which was a shame.

Here the B3 stands with the backup chassis, just in case it was required (luckily it wasn't).

And here I am with the P2 "trophy" (actually an oOple branded bottle opener 🤣). The pink and yellow Losi won overall, a really fast car in the dry that I simply couldn't catch, but I was beating it on Saturday in the rain, clearly two different setup directions! Also Modelsports own Simon in P3, finished just one point behind. I'm not sure whether he's a member on here, but thank you for the excellent racing if you are! Fantastic racing and an excellent weekend.

January 25

As suggested, it's a good idea to go and have a chat with some of the local racers to see what they run. You'll probably find the two most common brands are Schumacher and Associated. Schumacher recently released the LD3, whish is proving itself to be a very competitive vehicle, but has been prone to breakages. Associated has also just announced the release of their new car, the Associated B7. Because of this, there are some bargain used Associated B6's floating around, most prefer the B6.3 version. I race one of these, and at them moment see no need to upgrade to the B7. They are super strong cars, which is important when new to racing, but also highly competitive.

You'll need to talk to the club organisers to figure out what memberships you'll need. Presumably you'll need a club membership and a BRCA licence, however most clubs will let new drivers race without these for a meeting or two.

Hope this helps

Many thanks

Dan

December 19, 2022

Wired up the Losi Micro-B ready for some indoor racing. I love micros, and I love neat wiring, but the two are not mutually exclusive, and I often find it impossible to tidily wire up such a small car. I really wanted this to be a close replica of my 1/10 car, so had to get a little creative.

The first thing I did was create a false floor for the ESC and receiver to sit on. This let me run the wires underneath where they cannot be seen. This was made with a piece of 1.5mm fibreglass sheet cut to shape and painted black. You can see it here underneath the ESC and receiver here. I drilled holes for each wire on the ESC to thread them through. I needed to re-solder all the wires to make this possible but it was worth it. The ESC is a Hobbywing XR10 stock spec, it looks exactly like the full size ESC, but it's much smaller, perfect for a micro car. The motor is a Carisma sensored unit, I went for this motor because it's the only sensored motor I can find on this scale, and as my 1/10 car uses sensored motors, this had to as well. I also had to relocate the servo further forward. This was an easy job that just need two holes drilled in the chassis.

Next up was the battery. My 1/10 car uses shorty packs with built in connectors. But unfortunately you cannot get these in 1/16 scale, so I had to make my own. Here is a comparison with one of my 1/10 battery packs. I bought a small 2-cell lipo and reconfigured it to fit in the new casing. The casing is just made from styrene plastic I cut to shape and glued together. I 3D printed a mount for the bullet connectors and glued it inside the casing. After that I just drilled two holes, pushed the connectors through, and soldered them up. The balance leads are hidden underneath.

And there she is. Probably the best wiring job I've done on a car of this scale. It's not perfect, but it sure is better than it was.

December 3, 2022

It's hard to believe I started this thread over 5 years ago. So I thought I'd give a quick update on what the rally car is up to these days.

The car was my regular rally basher for about 3 years, which it took surprisingly well. But In recent times, the local track has introduced a rally cross class. The series runs on the same off-road track as the 1/10 buggies, so it needs to be tough. It's safe to say the car has been seen some major abuse out on track, it's not easy to run a touring car around an off road course.

The rules dictate that you can only run brushed Tamiya motors. So out went the brushless setup and in came the Torque tuned motor. Still surprisingly fast even with this setup. The rally cars can pretty much match pace with the unlimited 2wd buggies.

The car needed to go on a bit of a diet. Everything not structural was stripped off. And everything that could be lightened was (note the fibreglass parts)

A major weight saving was made by removing the gear cover, replaced by this lightweight part that I 3D printed. (Note that some weight has gone back in behind the battery, this is to help offset the weight of the motor on the other side).

Another issue was the sloppiness of the parts. All Tamiya's have plenty of slop in them, but the three years of bashing meant this on was particularly bad. I addressed this by adding a second camber link at the front. This triangulated the suspension and majorly reduced the floppiness.

As you can see, the car does take some big hits out there on track. Most of the rear of the shell has been removed to stop it tucking in over the wheels. It's bruised and beaten but still going.

So there we are. The car is still going strong, and sees weekly use. The local track is slippery, and really favours the front motor cars (the XV-01 goes particularly well there) but this is still competitive. On good nights it can still fight at the top, I even managed to win an A-Final with it!

October 13, 2022

Selling my 1/18 Otto Models 1/18 Lancia Delta S4 Gr.B. A truly stunning model car, even has a spare wheel tucked away under the bonnet. I have one that is open (pictured), and one that is still brand new in box and never been opened. Buyers choice which one they want. Limited production run of 2000 pieces.

I'm asking £120 posted. PayPal accepted

Many thanks

Dan

August 29, 2022

A little bit of battery reclamation. Disposable vape pens actually contain good quality fully rechargeable lithium batteries. But because of the vapes disposable nature they get used once then get chucked in the bin. I do not vape, but I see these things littered everywhere when walking the dogs. I’ve started picking them up and getting the batteries out. They’re good for small LED’s and other low power accessories, so I use them for headlights on my touring cars

August 6, 2022

If you end up breaking for whatever reason. May I please call dibs on the CVA's.

June 11, 2022

Pulled the whole thing apart cleaned, greased and lubricated the gears, fitted a brand new set of sealed bearing, put some carbon fibre on it, replaced the standard dog bones with a set of CVA's, and fitted a full set of hex head screws to replace the standard crosshead ones. Busy day, but the car looks so much better for and will drive like a proper race buggy now. Just need to get a nice set of shocks and it's ready for the local clubs vintage class.

I bought this off eBay not long ago. I believe I bought it from @Fly In My Soup, but not 100% sure?

June 10, 2022

This (although it actually arrived 2 days ago).

It's a bit scruffy, but will be perfect for my needs. I've already started stripping it down and cleaning. It will be rebuilt with a lot of RC10B3 parts and upgrades. I'm planning on running this in the vintage category at the local buggy club so will have to be put to a fairly old school standard. The fantastic thing about the Thunder tiger Phoenix was that it's an exact re-release of the original RC10B3, but the mouldings were re-tooled with metric hardware instead of the original imperial. In every other way it is the same car and will use the same parts.

June 9, 2022

Hello,

I'm after a an associated B4 or B44 rear CVA axle, part number 9755 as found here. Only one required but will happily buy both if you have two of them. Alternatively the full set of CVA's (bone and axle) will also be fine.

Thanks

Dan

May 13, 2022

1 hour ago, Seanster43 said:

Hi you needing a full runner? think the eBay one was in bits, these seem quite rare now.

Sean

Hi Sean,

Sorry I should have stated, it doesn't have to be a complete car as I still have a lot of spares. Just needs to have a fair amount of it's parts, and no electronics required. Of course if somebody does have a complete car that was ready to go, I would be willing pay much more!

May 12, 2022

Looking for a Thunder Tiger phoenix buggy if anyone has one lying about? It was my first race buggy but got lost somewhere down the line. Not sure what they're worth, a pair of them in a job lot recently went on ebay for £85. So maybe somewhere round the £50 mark for a single one, but open to negotiation.

May 10, 2022

A box to transport my car. It turns out I may have grossly miscalculated my size requirements

October 24, 2021

Built myself a new light panel for photography purposes. My old panel contained 15 LED's, this one contains 253, so quite the upgrade!

Test shots went very well. I used some high CRI strips so colour reproduction should be close to actual daylight

May 16, 2021

Today has been a case of print, tweak, re-print, repeat until happy. Took a few attempts but finally got there. Ready for paint now when it arrives, may be a few days yet though 😞

May 15, 2021

More of a what did I do for my model today. I turned a broken computer monitor in a light panel for photographing my models. Tore the screen apart and installed some super bright pure white LEDs to give a very nice soft daylight like glow.

So now even in a pitch black room I can still have pure "daylight" for my images.

May 13, 2021

Technically still a model, just not RC 😛 But set about altering this minichamps 1/18 Ford Escort model to closer match something else.

May 3, 2021

Wired up the B6.2. A bit of an experiment as well. I'm hoping the MT60 connectors are beefy enough to support the motor. I kind of doubt it, but if they do, it will make hotswapping motors between buggies a lot easier.

March 14, 2021

Today I have completed the 3D modelling work for the RS2000 seats that are going in the Tamiya Escort shell. Going to print them off next week see how they look.

February 27, 2021

The Mk2 escort shells arrived. Gotta say I'm really impressed with the quality. They look really good.

February 17, 2021

A SEQURE SQ-ES126 Mini Electric Screwdriver. I got a really good deal on this. And I can whole heartedly say DO NOT BUY ONE. This screw driver costs over £70 in the UK. A silly price for a screwdriver, and I at least expected it to come with everything included in the box. But guess what, they don't even include a charger for that price, you have to supply your own. I have just had to order one separately because nothing I had already will fit. Until it arrives it is a paperweight.

Sequre are however kind enough to offer a small selection of bits for the screw driver. It's just a shame they don't fit and will fall straight out. Why even put these in the box?

The words cash grab comes to mind with this product. Shiny packaging and good marketing. But poor quality and supplied with parts that don't even fit.

February 16, 2021

Always liked the micro Carisma rally cars. Not sure what to make of the shell though.

February 5, 2021

Sorry I got carried away. I think the wheels are some variation of Mamba alloys. Usually a style you'd find on classic minis. Never seen a set on a Ford though. So I could be completely wrong 😆

February 5, 2021

5 minutes ago, Nick said:

That's spot on but wrong wheels, I think I've been lucky finding a model with the same ones, as I doubt they'll be easily transferable between models.

Have you got any close ups of the wheels? I can't seem to figure out what they are. They look like they have four sets of two spokes? Kind of like RS wheels but a bit wider.

February 5, 2021

Without a doubt Cibie brackets wrapped in foam or something. Absolute shin killers if you walked into one without it on.

In case you did want something bigger. Triple 9 also do a 1/18 scale model that is cheaper than the Minichamps one. It's a good model but does not have opening doors or bonnet. But it does have the big wings you are after.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORD-ESCORT-RS2000-RED-MK1-2-DOOR-CLASSIC-1-18-SCALE-MODEL-SUPERB-DISPLAY-PIECE/363281362069?hash=item549541ac95:g:BiIAAOSw~CVc97T6

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