Cuiken

Not that I'm obsessive or anything but...... maybe a TA02 build on the side might be fun too? I have a hankering to build something to use with a Datsun 240Z shell. Anyone got any thoughts on a stock TA02 vs a stock-ish TT02? I'd only be running a silver can or sport tuned so it wouldn't be getting too badly abused. I guess the TT02 probably makes more sense (more modern, better parts support) but the TA02 was around when I was a kid and I thought it looked magic. With the TA02 Calibra kit still available I guess there's a window to own one.

Spot on IMHO. I love my crawler and my 6S Arrma MoKrazy (Kraton with Mojave amrs and a typhon body) but there's something a bit magic about running a 1/10th rally car on the right surface. That TT02 looks great. How'd you bodge the rear bumper onto it? I fitted a rear bumper to my PTG-2 and it's really protected the car when it cartwheels. Wheels/tyres look awesome too. Ground clearance looks just a hair low for my taste. Did you have to do any trimming to get that or is there still scope to raise it a bit? On a another note, all this researching of rally chassis has left me slightly obsessed with the TA03 chassis. Maybe a plan for next spring 🙂

TBH, I was hoping to find somethingt other than an XV01. They are very good though and, within budget, probably the best Rally car you can get (dive in if you tyhink this is controversial). I suspect it will be particularly good when limited to a silver can motor. Just about the right power (almost as is Tamiya know what they are doing). Another will come up soon enough I reckon. Looking mine over, it's really pretty good aside from the shocks. They are way stiffer than I want. Tried the spare springs left over from my PTG2 build but their diameter is too large. I need to sell the radio and then figure out my next move.

So, I have bitten on an XV01 chassis! Arrived this morning. Quite 'high miles' but comes with a load of useful hop ups, HW1060, silver can motror, a decent servo and good wheels/tyres. Also comes with a radio gear that I'll sell on. If I get a decent price for the radio then I'll have ~£40 left in my budget. I reckon I should be able to build up a set of mini CVA shocks to replace the short ones that are on it. No budget left for the long damper shock towers or sway bars though so still considering whether this is actually a good plan. I'm a bit dissapointed in some ways (it's the obvious answer and not very exotic) but it will be a great car and, I think, I'll be able to come in under budget (just) with something quite drivable. Body shell is a bland version of a bland car so I may de-decal and add some external paint (from the parts bin) just to give it some personality. Looking forward to getting to work on it.

Okay, I may have a chassis. Comes with silver can and HW1060 ESC, TX/RX and a slightly tatty body. Has a few nice hop ups and a box of parts too. I'm not prepared to reveal yet 🙂 It's right on the budget limit though. So, making the rules up as I go along, I'm going to sell the TX/RX (and salvage an RX from another car) and recoup the sale price from the budget. This should give me breathing space for a couple of replacement parts if needed. It's also a high miler so will require a full rebuild (that's what winter evenings are for right?). Biggest problem on the car is the shocks they are definietly suited to TC stuff rather than Rally. I gather there are a few parts in the spares bin that comes with the car but I suspect it's going to get a bit bodgy if I'm to stay in budget 🙂

I'd not thought of the banzai, it's dimensions are spot on. Not having seen one I don't know how easy it would be to raise the ride height (which it looks like it might need for rallying) but, assuming that is doable, longer shocks and you're there! Strada Rally looks like a nice car but the width is a bit outside of spec (250mm rather than ~200mm). I don't mean to be heavy handed but I might need to exclude it as an option. I'm sorry, I don't make the rules. Oh wait, I did 🙂 HPI body shells or killerbody clear shells do fit into the scale category and are a bit cheaper at least. I have a real hankeing to do a Tamiya porsche shell but I doubt it'll be possible in budget.

I'm loving the level of thought you've given this. Just what I was hoping would happen 🙂 Clarification on rules: I wasn't planning to include TX or batteries in the total budget. Somewhat arbrtraily I was planning to include th RX in my own budget since I don't seem to have a spare on in my parts bin. Body and paint definitely included in the budget. Clearly the concept favours anyone with a fully stocked parts bin. What can I say, it's much like formula one, the established teams have an advantage 🙂 . That said, if you have a whole chassis in the parts bin I think it's only fair to attach a value to it and subtract from your budget. I'm planning to lean really heavily on the second hand market for anything I can find. Only really fixed point is the scale (must be Tamiya 1/10th sort of size) and the motor (silver can or equivalent). I need to take a look at those FTX options. I'm also really drawn to trying to do something with an old Tamiya TA03 or even TL01. Cheers.

Good tips, thanks. If only my budget would stretch to a TB05!

Me and a mate have decided on a winter project to pull together a budget (or relatively budget) rally build-off. Few rules: 1. As far below £200 total build as possible. 2. Has to run a silver can brushed motor (as Tamiya intended). ~5000kv brushless are great fun an all but this is an attempt to keep things a bit more scale. Also, racing is more fun when the cars aren't close to hitting the 'scale speed of sound barrier'. Best racing I ever had was when me an a bunch of colleagues raced those old Nikko 1/14th scale rally cars int he work car park after hours. You actually have to be able to drive. 3. No Gyro. 4. Proper 1/10th scale so Tamiya sort of size (not Traxxas Rally). 5. Brand new build or second hand bargain, whatever works. 6. Probably a bit unfair but you can raid your own parts bin. That's certianly where I'm planning to find my motor and ESC. Feel free to join in with this or throw in your thoughts. My initial thinking is: 1. Second hand XV01 if I can find one. Not particularly original but it's such a great chassis. Might be tricky to come in on budget is all. 2. One of the higher spec TT02 chassis (Type S or even Type SR). Looking at the SR, it's so hopped up it's half way to being an XV02. Just needs a ferw mods for ride height. 3. I'd love a PTG-2 but I don't reckon any will turn up in budget. 4. Which touring chassis could be most succesfully rallied? TA02 (or any other TA for that matter)? 5. Do any buggies fit under a 1/10th rally shell? 6. HPI RS4 creator edition? These will be raced and crashed so something for which parts are still available is pretty key. Keen to hear thoughts.

Possibly indicative that I have too many RC cars but it has taken me 8 months to get this one out for a proper trail run. Partly I think I've just been a bit precious about taking it out in the wet so I obviously waited for till the end of the dryest summer on record to be absolutely safe 🙂 Anyway, you know how some RC cars are just plain fun? This thing is an absolute hoot. Took it round a wooded trail near where we live that has a range of different surfaces including tarmac, fine gravel paths and dirt paths. Normally a spot I use for crawlers but there are plenty of chicken run options when 2WD won't quite cut it. The handling is just sublime. It moves like a real truck leaning just enough into corners but generally staying on all four wheels. I think this is because the truck is so light and the battery sits centrally and low. Suspension soaks up al the bumps and it power slides on gravel like something out of the dukes of hazard. Sure, on grass or tarmac, it will tumble if you corner too hard but that's not really what it is for. The much maligned tyres worked really well for me once they had been roughed up a bit. I'd say they've been quite carefully chosen to have just enough grip/slip to help keep the truck from tumbling while still being good enough on dirt to keep you moving. A gyro is probably mandatory. I'd concede, even with a mild brushed setup, it was a handful with gyro disabled. TBF though, much the same as my 2WD buggy. Trick is to dial in just enough gyro to help you get away in a straight line when you nail it but not to interfere when you're trying to slide it around. Not sure if they are currently in stock anywhere but for a 'something different' trail truck experience I can't recomend it enough. Definitely going to be my go to RC for light duty trails from now on.

Update on this truck: Took it on holiday last week to a place on the coast with a lot of nice rock crawling spots (and lots of salt water peril). It crawls prety well. Got the ESC set up nicely now and it had all the control I wanted. The slightlly longer wheelbase (compared ot the basic enduro without trailong arm) makes a larger difference to its agility than I would have expected. it did tend to get hung up more easily than my Sendero and tight turns on the rocks were definitely harder. On the other hand, really stable at speed on bumpy trails. It's really not that tippy! Possibly just the slightly wider stance on the deep dish wheels but it was no less stable than the sendero. Maybe even better TBH. The trailing arm is really nice when ripping along paths and the sway bar really reduces torque twist. It's well tuned though as it still has loads of articulation when you need it. My modified tyres (stock Sendero tyres with every second sipe snipped off) are still not awesome. The rubber is just too stiff. Possibly okay on some types of dirt but not nerly enopugh traction of conformance for rock crawling (even with really really soft foams). It looks really good out on the rocks. All in, it's another great Element RC crawler with enough of a personality difference over the Sendero to make it fun having both. Naturally I manage to put a crack in the new body but that's the nature of RC right 🙂

Managed to find time to install the electrics and gave it a test run last night (Castle MambaX, 2850kV 1406 Castle motor, DS3218 servo, Team Associated XP130 TX/RX taken from a previous RTR). Third channel on the XP130 works nicely with the control channel on the Castle ESC. I set this up to select between rock crawler and rock racer modes. 1. With the 18T pinion and 2850kv motor it's a little slower than I expected /wanted. Not way out though so I think a 22T pinion should sort it out. 2. I've not used a castle combo in a crawler before, it's quite nice but seems to take a bit more setup than the AXE combos I've used previously. On the other hand, being able to select (via channel 3) 'rock racer' mode with zero drag brake is pretty cool. 3. Handling is fairly decent for a solid axle truck. The rear sway bar does a great job of limiting torque twist without making the whole thing too stiff to crawl over larger rocks. The slightly widened stance helps with 'tippyness' and the extra weight of the cage/shell combined with the heavy wheels and trailing arm suspension gives it nice planted feel at speed on bumpy terrain. 4. It looks fantastic slewing around in the back garden. You've got to love a fast crawler for back yard bashing. I really must not crash this one into the river 🙂

You should definitely buy a rally car 🙂 Joking aside, they are just terrific fun in the sort of spots that we have more of in the UK (smaller, poorly paved car parks etc). Being 1/10th they feel really fast at 30mph so you don't need huge spaces for them. Basically, I'm a fan.

Okay, masked and painted yesterday. I'm pleased to say the colours worked well. You always get a bit excited about a new car but I do think this is the best looking one I've done to date: Still to install the electronics and actually run it but hopefully I'll find time this week.

Comparison to the XV-01 is difficult. They are really different is the thing. The XV-01 is a great car, it has that magical turn in behaviour and is remarkably composed give its relatively low ride height. The belt drive makes it dead quiet too. I use a Castle Mamba X in mine so it is extremely smooth. The PTG2 is a far wilder car. Its chassis is clearly developed from a buggy and that shows. That's no bad thing but you get different handling. Having driven them side by side for an hour or so I'd say the PTG2 has more understeer (lessened now by the addition of weight up front) but more predictable oversteer. You can really drift it out of the corners. Some of this must be down to the MAX10 setup I'm using as this will not be as smooth as the Castle Combo but I think the majority of the difference is in the chassis. Could you tune the understeer out? maybe but I think the XV-01 just has an innate advantage there due to the motor location. The PTG2 rides a little higher too and this helps when off road stuff. It's definitely more composed when terrain is bumpier. If you can only have one I'd say it's down to this: 1. XV-01. Subtler car. Magical turn in. Quite scale/realistic handling. 2. PTG2. Close relative to a buggy with mid/rear mounted motor. So, you get wilder handling (oversteer, drifting) but it copes better off road. Depends what you are after. I guess for a true scale rally experience, maybe the XV-01 wins but the PTG2 is a more capable car and puts a massive smile on your face. As to the XV-02. Chassis wise, it's closer to the PTG2 than it is the XV-01 (mid/front mounted motor, shaft drive) and I think that plays out in the handling. The kit currently being sold also comes with long dampers so it has a little more suspension travel than the PTG2 and this meant a bit more lean into the corners and it worked even better off road. Cornering wise I felt (based on a. quick blast) that it has gained a little more understeer compared to the XV-01 but is, overall, a little more stable. Could you dial the handling of the PTG2 to match that of the XV-02? I'd probably say yes but you might need to find slightly longer shocks. Hope that's of some use. All three of these cars are superb BTW, it's probably down to personal choice as much as anything.

Did you get this painted and running? Keen to see how it looks under the alfa bodyshell. Took mine out for a proper run a couple of nights ago. Just laps of a gravelly old car park but it was still fantastic. I experimented with a lower level of punch than the stock setting on the MAX10 along with 8% drag brake. I think the lower punch helped keep it from getting too wild on the way out of corners and the drag brake helped generate oversteer on the way in. 8% may be too much though as it really hammered the battery life. Ohh, and I experimented with adding a little weight up front (to mimic the forward mounted motor in the XV01). Two strips of roofing lead cut to fit on top of the front bumper. I think it reduced understeer a bit. I actually had a chance to run it side by side with my mate's XV-02. They were quite similar really though the XV02 sits a little higher and so runs a little better off road and has a bit more body roll (which looks cool). The PTG-2 may be a bit better on-road for the same reasons. Curiously the XV02 and PTG2 were definitely more alike to eachother than either were to the XV01s that we also ran.

Thanks. Painted the inner panels (the side panels for the cage) now and learned a couple of things. 1. You need to go really easy on the iridescent blue or it sort of runs. 2. I’m glad I did the least visible panels first 😁 Getting ready to mask up the body shell itself now. If I’m totally honest, I’m having doubts about the colour scheme but I’ve already sprayed the inner panels and bought all the paint so I think I’m just going to go for it. Pics to follow…..

Late night with a scalpel and dremmel has yielded this. Not quite the same as the one in the Hemistorm video. In the end I decided to leave a partial tailgate on the back rather than going for the full 'crop'. Sure it's going to get hung up on stuff but I think it looks really good and compensates (visually) for the overhang at the front. I also left the B-pillars in the windows and removed a little less around the front mudguards. I'm really chuffed with how it is turning out now. Just need to decide on the colours/design for painting.

Long time no update. Nothing terribly exciting to report on the body shell but I did at least finish putting the chassis together at last: There are a ton of build threads out there for this truck so I didn't capture any pics of the build. Only observations: 1. Goes together really easily. 2. The kit does include a few nice to have upgrades (nicer shocks, metal pivot balls, hard plastics). 3. The instructions are a little out of date. It looks as though some of the hardware may have been updated (screw lengths changed here and there) and this wasn't shown in the instructions. Hardly a major puzzle but would have been nice. 4. I am chuffed with the painted fuel cell. Used Tamiya TS paint. As others have noticed, the yellow is a nightmare to use. It goes on really thin and runs to become transparent. You're looking at 12 (yes 12) coats here! In the end had to use a heavy coat and then fast dry with heat gun. 5. The offset of the deep dish wheels works a treat. It's not a wide truck by any means but it loses that tall/narrow stance that the RTR appears to have. I also wrapped some lengths of roofing lead around the inside of the front rims so it has a bit more weight low down up front. 6. I've popped a stupidly over-specced castle MambaX 1405 2800kV combo in there. Yet to wire it all up. 7. Need to figure out a way to mount the battery. The stock tray only takes shorty packs which is too much of a hassle. There's a load of upgrade parts out there to sort this but I'm hoping to sort something out on the cheap. So, getting there. On to the body work at last. As an aside. Still loving the element RC platform. I took my original Sendero out for a run a couple of weeks back and accidentally tumbled it into a river. By the time I got to it the truck was fully submerged with it's wee headlights staring up at me from the bottom of the river. Had to wade in up to my waste to get it. Pulled it out of the river and the thing still ran. Popped it in the airing cupboard for a few nights and it seems to be as good as new. Awesome truck.

Been an age since I wrote this. Thought I'd update. 1. I bought a Wendigo 2. I fitted and hated an AXE3300KV system (it didn't coast properly whatever their lit says) 3. Fitted a Castle Mamba X combo. Delighted with it 4. Took off the stock tyres and fitted a set of mini monster truck type tyres: 5. Lowered the truck by messing with the shock towers to lower the actual body and fitting front shocks on the rear (the stock rear ones are longer than the front and make it really tippy). 6. Changed shock oil to 25wt (IIRC). The upshot was a really nice truck. Basically a mini monster truck in terms of its handling except possibly a bit smoother as it sort of glides over the terrain in a way that the stock setup did not (really bouncy). It is really quite fast on 3S. Certainly far faster than a ladder chassis truck can corner 🙂 But, like I say, something about the setup means it glides along over lumpy terrain pretty well provided you're careful with the steering input. Took me a while to dial in the ESC setting (It's a bit unhinged with full punch and brake force enabled) but it's now just the right side of crazy. Drivable, but you need to pay attention. Why am I writing all this over a year after the event? I just happened to take it out for a 20 minute blast when I had a rare spare moment on Saturday and remembered what a great fun truck it is. Quite unlike any other truck I've driven including my Axial Wraith which, on paper, you might expect to be quite similar. Should you find one somehow for sale, I'd recommend it as a small space mini monster truck.

I'm actually South Edinburgh so I use a few spots in Midlothian. Mainly woodland spots and park areas (when out with the family). Nothing stellar unfortunately. I think the best spots are on the west side of Edinburgh on the old bings but I'm yet to get out there. What I'd really love to find is a decent rock crawling spot rather than just woodland trails. Loads of places on the coast out in East Lothian but it's a bit of a trek and the salt water is a 'mare for the trucks. How about yourself?

I run J Concepts G-Locs on my Senton and they are fantastic. Perfect size too.

Okay, all nailed back together now: Dead chuffed with the wheels. Shame they are not 'copper' but I actually think the tyre size is more like the real car. They are basically 13mm smaller diameter and maybe 5mm narrower than the stock ones. Perhaps it's not totally clear from the photo but they seem to fit quite well. More scale perhaps. The 12mm to 17mm hex converters were the generic ones from Amazon. They seem to give a stance/width fairly similar to the stock ones. I'm guessing that means that there are no additional stresses on the suspension etc as a result. The expensive HR converters resulted in a slightly narrower stance and, I don't think, looked as good. So, I am using one HR converter on the back to hold the spare wheel. So, that's a fairly expensive mistake 🙂 In the end, I bought a 'used-ish' JX servo from @.AJ. and fitted that. My word, what an improvement. I also reckon the bumper looks pretty good and will hopefully add a wee bit of additional protection. Speaking of which, RPM skids on the bottom: So far, no oil has leaked out of the centre diff too so hopefully I've managed to fix that. All that is left is to actually drive it now. Unfortunately the weather looks ****e for the weekend. You can't get too precious with these but it'd be nice not to get it totally manky on the first outing. Last idea is maybe to buy the pro-line baja beetle shell and fit that over the cage. I've seen a few examples and I reckon it looks superb......

Managed to resolve the front axle binding issue by grinding about 1mm from the back of the hexes (bench grinder). The issue is, as I previously attempted to describe, that the pin holes in the Tekno axled are just a fraction too close to the collar that sits against the inner bearing of the hub. By grinding back the hex, you ensure that the hex presses against the pin rather than pushing against the outer hub bearing when the wheel is tightened down. I have a mate using the tekno shafts and he noted that the front outer hub bearings had collapsed on his. So, may be a general issue. Either way, another step closer to actually being able to run my theoretically RTR car 🙂

Thanks, that's helpful. I'll try to focus on my Lasernut project instead 🙂