Mark_C

Thanks for all the replies. I'll check out surpass.

Has anyone used these ? Modelsport sell them so assume they can't be complete junk but can't find much about them. Obviously chinese, but what isn't these days https://smddirect.co.uk/collections/smd-brushless-combos/products/jbr365039c-v2-brushless-combo-3900kv-60amp-esc Any other suggestions for an inexpensive 3S combo ? Was thinking about Gool but seems the ESCs commonly have stuttering issues and saw a picture of one the other day that decided to set fire to itself, so not keen... Going in an on-road car. Thanks!

It seems de-solv-it graffiti remover is no longer available. The bottles I can't find anywhere and everywhere online is out of stock of the spray can. B&Q have it on their website, it says no home delivery and "our stores do not stock this product" but it does let you click and collect, however if you order it they cancel the order and refund you. Strangely my local store does have a space & ticket on the shelf for it, but no stock. Any other ideas? I have some Revell Paint Remover that smells a lot like acetone, but I've seen in modelling forums people seemingly using it on plastic with no issue.. Does anyone know if its ok on ABS bodies ? I'd rather not melt the thing!

@RCbutcher If you haven't purchased a wheel yet I am told that Argos are running a deal until July on the G29, if you buy the shifter as well the price drops to £200 total. The problem with Argos is finding the damm thing in stock, but its worth a look.

This may well be worth a look if you're in to the GT3/GTE type racing: https://505games.com/assetto-corsa-competizione-racing-to-playstation-4-and-xbox-one/ The first game played well if I recall. I do like GT Sport but think the vision cars and some of the group X stuff is gimmicky.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2317376 If you look a few pages back, I had the above printed by 3dhubs.com Since then they've changed their business model and now stick a big (like £60+) surcharge on small orders. I am currently having some stuff printed by www.thirty6.co.uk who are not as cheap as 3dhubs were and have a £20 minimum order. One of those parts is only going to cost a few quid. Do you know anyone with a 3d printer ? maybe you can find a cheap 3d print service ? or worst case get some other stuff printed to make the order up to £20..

Just a note on a couple of the above posts - G27 wont work on a PS4 without a drivehub (or similar), likewise the G920 is the xbox version of the G29 and also won't work on a PS4 without a converter. So if you find a cheap one, you'll just have to fator in the extra cost. Would be worth reading up as well, just to make sure it'll all work.

Using a wheel is better than a controller because its much more progressive, on a controller the throttle trigger moves say 10-15mm, the pedal moves maybe 3" ? that means if you want to apply part throttle or hold a bit through a corner you can - much more difficult to do on a controller. Likewise the with steering you can apply just a little lock if you need it and can apply lock smoothly as fast or slow as you need - again diffciult on a controller, you usually have to steer, release the button/stick and then re-apply. The bad side of a wheel is when you first start using one its easy to do what most people first do on a track in a real car - lots of big movements, slam on throttle / brakes, get to a corner, throw on loads of lock, elbows are up as you battle with it - you might feel like a racing driver but its much slower. Gentle, smooth movement and especially with steering the least amount that you need to, this stops big weight transfers and thus makes it easier to go fast. Watch some videos about driving real cars, the same principles apply to sim racing. Forgot to say, in the G29 I swapped the clutch & brake pedal springs because I found the brake too soft. You can get aftermarket springs to change the feel but I found the clutch one was much stiffer, so just swapped them.

The problem with the G29 is that someone (logitech?) are price gouging at the moment. As I write this the G29 is £296 on amazon. Here's the camelcamelcamel tracking page, https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/product/B00YUOVBZK which shows its usual price is about £175 but has been as low as £125. I got mine for about £160-170 a while back. If its not price gouging there must be a huge demand.. If you want to go belt driven I think the cheapest one is still the Thrustmaster 300, wihch has always been around £300, its still around that now. From my research a while ago the T300 is regarded as a good wheel but some were unhappy with reliability, given that it was almost twice the price of the logitech at the time, I opted for the logitech. There is the Thrustmaster T150 which is gear driven, this is usually £150ish but has also seen a price increase. If you do go for the T150 pay the extra to upgrade the pedals, apparently the 2 pedal ones aren't that good, but the upgraded ones (T3PA) are really good so its worth paying the extra to get these with the T150. Another mae got a T150 direct from thrustmaster for £140 a couple of weeks ago with the better pedals, so worth keeping a look out. I have a playseat challenge, no qualms over build quality, I find it quite comfortable to sit in. I think I paid £150ish ? again a few years ago. I did try a wheelstand pro and just sitting on the sofa and its a horrible solution, the centre post gets in the way and on my sofa at least I had to sit on the edge because I couldn't get the stand close enough to reach everything if I was sat back, was awkward to use. It might be better using a chair from a dining table, but its more hassle and its not much cheaper than a playseat. Finally, if you happen to come across a cheap wheel for xbox etc it won't work on a playstation and likewise PS wheel on xbox won't work.. there is a solution, look for a device called "drivehub". This sits between the wheel and the console and ensures compatibility. There is a DIY solution using a raspberrypi (I forget the name at the moment), what I'm thinking is if you saw a secondhand wheel that was cheap you could get it working - worth doing a bit of research on the device.

Just been looking for the club that used to run at the track, long gone of course - the URL was www.srcmcc.co.uk, the wayback machine has a few captures and I found this picture of the track in its heyday, this is taken from the far side of the track to my pictures, you can make out the scaffolding for the viewing platform on the right: There are result pages in the wayback archive, wonder where all those people are now. From what I can see the website wasn't updated all that often - a capture in early 2003 advertises the next summer race as being 2nd May that year, the same page exists in a capture for December 2003 and in fact a capture from March 2004 shows the same page. A June 2004 update notes that they cannot run a night race due to a complaint from a local. There is also a link to http://www.slccup.co.uk in 2004 which was the Southern League Challenge Cup according to the archive, they ran the following schedule in 2005. Round 1 Aldershot April 10th Round 2 Southampton May 22nd Round 3 Tolworth June 19th Round 4 Barham July 10th Round 5 Bashley August 21st Round 6 Bisley September 18th That site is now dead too, I wonder if any of the other tracks are still there ? The wayback machine has several captures between 2005 and 2008, but none are viewable for some reason. The earliest capture in 2009 has a note on it that the track was closed due to falling numbers and rising rent, one or two more captures in 2009 (with no changes), then the next capture is 2012 which is just a domain holding page. So somewhere between 2005 and 2008 it all fell apart it would seem. By 2008 the league cup where going to Eastbourne, Yateley, Yeovil, Kemble, Bashley and Hillingdon (West London). This is the last year there are any captures for that site too. The Bashley track is still active - see http://www.wannarace.co.uk/

No idea at all why it failed, there was a track a few miles away on the shore, as mentioned by the article - that says they got chucked out because of noise complaints but as far as I remember they got chucked out because it was all built on, maybe a bit of both. The old track had been there for as long as I can remember, so there was enough support, the article says they had 58 members which is a fair number. I wonder if anyone here remembers either this or the old track ?

Happened to be passing today, so stopped and grabbed a few pictures. I'd guess its been out of use for 10 years, maybe more ? Local news story when it opened http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/5629545.Model_car_club_back_on_tracks/ Strange they were able to raise such a large amount of money but the track fell out of use so quickly. I can remember there being a viewing platform to the left and a 20ft container (which presumably held the equipment) on the far side. Last year this piece of land and the surrounding fields were subject to a planning permission application to build 48 houses. The application was withdrawn, probably because they are going to amend it to work around issues/objections.

Seems people use any excuse to try and kick Tamiya. They are and always have been a gateway to the hobby grade stuff. Sure. you can buy more technically advanced products, but they also cost a lot more.

strip it with de-solv-it and start again ?

I have started painting the Subaru NBR shell. need to get better at cutting out wheel wells for the next body if there is one. Soldered a switch back on to the TL-01 ESC. The WR-01 Double Blaze turned up, stripped and cleaned, currently still in bits as I'm going to order bearings for it (24 of them!). Also need a esc with twin output, so probably will get a Hobbywing 860. The battery (3300mah nimh) that came with WR-01 was completely dead, put it on the charger and it was at 4.4 volts ! Stuck 5 amps through it and it only charged to about 110mah, set it on a discharge and then charged again and it took 3800mah - how long it lasts in a car is another story of course. Fleet is now up to: CW-01 Lunchbox, CW-01 Midnight Pumpkin, Monster Beetle, Blitzer Beetle, WR-01 Double Blaze, DF-01 Manta Ray (FRP chassis etc), DF-02 Plasma Edge, TT-01E Nissan GTR + Subaru NBR shell, TL-01 ITC Alfa Romeo With the exception of the Manta Ray all bought on ebay, cleaned up, fixed and made to run again. I think thats more than enough and should probably sell some on, but its fun to get them going again.. am running out off storage space though!