Grogg

Had my very first shot at thrashing around a petrol RC, and put the damn thing in the local river no less, and lost it. Thankfully it wasn't my RC, so I didn't lose a lot of money as the bloody thing sank.

It is, the only thing that would make it cooler is if there was two fuel tanks, one each side, and perhaps hidden a bit more, a black plastic cover or something over them.

That's a very tidy workshop, you should see the state of the worktop of the guitar technician I currently use, or better still the way the guitar technician that used to work for me when I was trying to make it in music kept his workshop, not just a single workbench, but his entire workshop - to be fair to him though he was responsible for maintaining all my work guitars and that involved the use of lots of glues especially hide glue, and a lot of other either very very nasty chemicals or messy to work with chemicals like gun oil, mineral oils, linseed oils both raw and boiled.

I'm hoping to attend R.O.S.S.A. next year with a TT-02 that is capable of breaking the 100mph mark. Though due to the logistics and costs involved, it'd be extremely stupid and a waste of money for me to attend an event that will at a minimum will cost me close to a grand to attend never mind speed run a RC while I'm there, attending with just the one RC is a waste of time and money, so I've been considering getting either an Arma Limitless, Hobao Extreme VTE2 1/7 On Road Electric Roller, HoBao Hyper GTB On Road 1/8 Electric Roller Long Chassis, and try for over 150mph at the same time as I try to get my soon to be started TT-02 to break 100mph. Edit to add: If this was around the £150 mark instead of £300, I'd be struggling to stop myself from buying one - either the grey one, the orange standard one, or even the fancy white one, and trying for a 1/14 scale that will hit or break the 100mph mark. In truth it's the model that got me thinking if it was possible to get a 1/14 scale to break 100mph or if anybody had already done it. Though having a proper look at them, their wheelbase is very close to if not piratically identical to the standard 1/10 scale RC, so I don't know if I would really call them 1/14 scale of if they can or should be.

The girlfriend and I where in America around this time last year for me to sell a bunch of my guitars. Anyway one of the guys who bought a bunch of guitars off of me took the girlfriend and me to see real truck racing, as in full sized truck cabs being thrashed around race tracks and drag racing, I had no idea such an animal or beast existed yet alone was quite popular - the guy who bought the guitars off of me is involved in it professionally, I have no idea what type, yet alone make of trucks where being raced, I just couldn't believe, and still find it hard to believe that people and major companies spend an absolute fortune racing trucks of all things, what's next cranes, diggers, pogo sticks, Space Hoppers? Apparently it costs well north of USD$1 million, just to enter your truck into a single race, and that's assuming that your truck meets all regulations, safety requirements and needs no work done to it, and it easily costs double that getting a truck that has just been raced ready for the next weekends race, these are obviously not your off the shelf stock trucks, and have been very heavily suped up and modified.

I've been having a look at cheaper, which generally means smaller scale RCs recently, and I've come across a number that come stock designed to use and indeed equipped with 1/10 scale electronics, ESCs, motors, steering servos, and full size 3s LIPO, granted these are not the sub £100 1/14 scale ones - actually they're around £200 - £300. This has had me wondering, if you look up 100mph TT-02s, and what is involved in getting a TT-02 to go over 100mph - Stew_Mac on YouTube and the Tamiya Club forum is a great place to start but it's surprisingly simple and can be done with 2s or 3sbatteries, if it's possible to, or if anybody has managed to get one of these rather expensive 1/14 scale RCs to go close to if not over 100 mph? If I didn't already have so many things on the go at the moment, I'd be seriously interested in seeing just how fast you can get one of these 1/14 scale RCs that use full size 1/10 RC electrics and batteries to go.

It's a lot safer than when we used to do it with the old fashioned filament light bulbs and a small blow torch - like a chefs blow torch. Apple switched to using USB C instead of their stupid lightning cable close to 5 years ago now, though they have still handicapped their products to work with 3rd parties, fort example my iPad mini is USB C it takes about 20 minutes to charge it from 1% to 100%, now that same charger and cable on my Samsung S20+ 5G Ultra, which is also USB C, the Apple charger and USB C cable takes close to 3 hours to get the phone to 100%, where as the Samsung charger and cable will do it in 20 minutes or less with both my Samsung phone or iPad Mini.

I can't remember who made it, but somebody made a mod that was in the shape of a pistol grip - basically the grip of a Glock G18, that required six 18650 batteries, the thing weighed a tonne, but in no way did it feel like it was put together well or solid, it actually felt rather cheap in the hand, like it would splinter into a million pieces at the slightest knock, and the colours it was available in where shocking. This was just a standard mod, not a sqonk box or anything fancy.

That Geekvape mod is simply brilliant if you don't mind the size and weight of the thing - it's one of the ones I have in my collection along with version 1 which required 2 18650 batteries to power it and the batteries could not be charged in the mod you need a separate charger for it, it's more than heavy and solid enough to brain a whale with the thing.

Out of curiosity, what % of your Banzai is still the original FTX parts, or official upgrades, and what % is either custom parts, or parts intended and designed for different RC cars and even class of RC cars made by either other manufacturers, like Yeh Racing, Scorched Parts, Perfect Pass and so forth, or 3d printed by either yourself or by someone on your behalf?

None of the Losi bikes are in stock anywhere, the one that retails for around £550-600, and the one that retails for £600 to £650. I honestly expected these to retail for around the £250 to £350 mark when I first heard about them. I honestly don't see anything new on them that hasn't not only been done before, but done better, perhaps not all on the same bike RC, or on a ready to run out the box one.

Even at £600 I still think it's extremely over priced. Have a look at the Kyosho Moto Hanging On Racer Honda, it's less than a third of the price, but watch a few of the YouTube reviews on it, even Kevin Talbot has done a review on it. However the stabilizers on it are in reality training wheels, as in once you get the hang of controlling it, you can and are supposed to remove them - again watch any of the YouTube reviews and opinions on it. So yes the Losi is more ''complex'' and ''realistic behaving'' - like the riders head bobbing, the reality is most of their so called new redefining RC motor bike RC technology and design, is more of a gimmick than anything else, and not worth the cost. There's hundreds of videos on YouTube of people using and even racing the Kyosho Moto Hanging On Racer Honda with the stabilisers removed - KT and his mates even did it on his review of it once he'd gotten the hang of it which didn't take long. The promotional video from Losi doesn't even show it being used without stabilisers, and it's over triple the price of the Kyosho Moto Hanging On Racer Honda. For that much coin, I expect a lot more, just compare what you can get for £600, or even £450 - leaving you enough change to buy a Kyosho Moto Hanging On Racer Honda as well, in a traditional RC car something like a Traxxas, Coralley, HoBao, HPI. Armma........

At the £300 sort of mark I can easily see a lot of RC fans take a punt on it out of curiosity and interest/curiosity, myself included. However at over £700, the only people I can see buying one are the die hard RC motorbike fans, all 3 of them.

A A6 size cutting mat, but not just any old A6 sized cutting mat, or self healing A6 cutting mat, but I kid you not a A6 self healing cutting mat that cost £1.89 delivered, which includes a booklet of instructions in several European languages. I'm still trying top decide what's worse, that there are people in this world that need a manual in order to work out how to use a cutting mat, or that I read the English section of the instruction manual, and all 4 pages of it too.

Same, I still haven't even opened the HPI Savage XL I bought myself over a month ago, nor the second HoBao Hyper Cage Truggy I bought for myself at around the same time. The research and learning is what I really enjoy, so much so I'm actually on the look out for possibly a second and third RC car/chassis to turn into speed runners for R.O.S.S.A. in 2024 - I'm leaning towards either 1/8 or 1/7 scale and either Arma or Hobao if not both and possibly a second 1/10 scale but not another TT-02. I'm not joking, my dream RC purchase is a rolling road/dyno for both 1/10 and 1/8 and maybe even 1/7 scale RC cars, I know Tamiya make one that does everything that I want and more, and it's also quite cheap less than £100, but it's sized only for their AA powered 1/32 scale cars.