The rat has to be the newbie car of choice.
 

I started racing this year as a friend of mine had got another rat and needed the money back for it, so I took it off him to relive my childhood or something. It was the RTR brushless set and cost me 80 pounds so off to torch rc and my I was rubbish but the car seemed ok. Anyway 4 month I had the car turning in a fast nine laps and in the last summer all dayer I qualified 14 out of about 28 drivers so middle of the pack. I have changed the motor and the esc and moved to stick but let's be honest I beat cars worth 4 to 5 times as much and they all change the internals. I don't care what anyone says if you want to learn and see if your interested in the sport you can't go wrong yes you can spend all you want on the motor servo etc but these can go on the next car as you out grow it. Love the rat and going to miss the little underdog as I'm moving to the cougar next week.

The 50 pound mad rat can be competative at any club

as with any "racing" sport, the car itself can only do so much; the driver is what makes the difference; not saying that rubbish car driven by the best driver will rank 1st, but does mean that any decent car with a top notch driver will be able to run respectable laps around any circuit, be it RC or real :)

i love my little rat, i've learn't so much already and still love it when i can't get the set up right :blush:

Get an x2c, mid motor madrat and they're cheaper than a cougar...;)

i know there is still a lot of brand snobbery when the Ansmann name is mentioned some of the people who favour the Schumacher's & Losi's etc tend to snigger or say they are only good enough for bashing & not proper race cars etc but i do believe the current line up of Ansmann cars are good enough to compete at the top level & the best is, i'm actually paying less for my 10th off-road cars these days than i was paying back in the latter half of the 80's when i was running Grasshoppers & Hornets which at the time were the budget 2WD car to own.

Of course, the other bonus is it's cheaper these days to buy & race/run a mad-rat than it is to use a Mardave which for donkeys years has been the class you can race for pennies rather than £'s & you have the advantage of taking it anywhere. RC for me has always been seen as one of these hobbies the more you put in, the more you get out of it, but some of the prices are just stupid & make RC expensive so only the top racers can get anywhere - even at a club level, thankfully Ansmann have come along & are bucking the trend to make it affordable for everyone & so for around £200 you buy the car & a few basic hop-ups & can grid up at a national or regional & be just as competitive as anyone with a car 10x the price.

Really I agree with that the madrat if you spend 200 on it, it will be better the the 200 ppounds you spend on say a B4 as you will be abe to get more bang for the bucks yes my rat is carrying and extra 200 grams to make it stable but it is out doing cars that cost a lot more. I'm moving to the cougar as I got a good deabut who's to say in a month I won't be back as it might not fit my driving style.

Love the rat and will keep her racing in the long term.

i started racing a xpro (madrat upgraded) just to get back into rc cheap for something to do and after a few hop ups (that arent really needed as i broke bits) it seriously flies and now in 1st position in F2 league at my local club. ive spent about 350 in total with all spares, car, brushless setup, alloy + carbon bits,servo, battery's and charger.

and i aint got complete rubbish it really flies and plenty quick enough for me

gotta love your rat :wub

Had an x-pro, kids got Mad Monkeys, and to be honest, I wouldn't have one myself, they just aren't as well engineered as a Losi/AE/Tamiya etc. This isn't brand snobbery for me, just basic principles of racing. I need a car to be reliable and strong, which those two things the Ansmann are not.

It is a good base car, but they would make a killing if they made things like stiffer wishbones, and still the gearbox is it's Achilles heal!

yeah the geearbox is the achillies heal but with a bit of tuning on the slipper its great i love my mad rat and for all the hate i built up for it whilst i chewed through 2 idler gears (im running a 6.5t Brushless Fusion Exceed system) as soon as it was running properly you couldnt help but fall in love with it again it truly gets under your skin.

The only problem with mine now is that the Diff has a rounded diff screw and cant get it out (any ideas would help) but saying that i love my mad rat and at the moment i wouldnt swap it for anything at the moment

Broke my first wishbone last week, was completley my fault... Im suprised your disappointed by the quality/strength... The gearbox is a weakspot but only if its not looked after, new gears are on the way if not already available so that should resolve any of the issues :)

not sure you can say the gearbox is it's weak point.. i find it depends on the way you set the slipper which it seems is dictated by how tight/loose you set the diff as to how much you need to rely on the slipper i.e. the tighter the diff & even with the slipper fully wound out the car will just wheelie when you hit the power with a hot motor fitted. TBH i find i'm making more adjustments to the diff tightness than i am to the slipper & the old hold the back wheels & nail the throttle trick seems to be enough to set the slipper properly once you have played with diff. The only problem i had with the gearbox was the motor plate which stripped a thread when i 1st built the car & i had to buy a replacement plate & the plastic mounts for the motor guard on the t-plate can go egg shaped so the rear wishbones get play in them.

If you ask me the biggest problems with the rat are the kit shocks are awful (but easily rectified with some tweaks or a hop-up), the screws are pretty weak so can round off or bend (probably used to keep costs down as the screws on my ARE-1 & Master Smacker are a lot better) & the front hubs can develop a fair bit of slop after a bit of use so it's tricky to set the camber. the only other downside is the fact the kit comes with brass bushes instead of bearings, but then if you buy any "cheap" Tamiya kit, they come with plastic bushes & the kits cost a lot more money.

Sorry, with regards to the gearbox i meant on the X2C... :blush:

Ps.. wrong account sorry!

Right, to be critical....

The diff spring is to soft, so that means it compresses to easily, which means finding the right setting is more fiddly than it needs.
Slipper spring is to hard, so makes finite adjustments difficult.
If either slip, they overheat to quickly.
Slop in the gearbox which causes the idlers to go.

Thats just the gearbox.

It is a cheap car, BUT, by the time you 'buy' all the parts to rectify all the above issue's, your cheap car is no longer cheap.

On my X2C ive only stripped two gears, both my own fault... Im using a losi slipper spring but other than that its standard... ceramic balls and sanded plates yes, but id put them in any car...

Im favouring my X2C over my 22, CR2, XXX-CR and B4 at the moment... :wub

you could say that about any RC car, be it a kit that cost £50 or £500

No, not really, a B4.1 out of the box works, I can't think of one 'race spec' car that needs stuff to make it 'reliable' just tuning, there is a difference.

You get a lot of car for the money, but don't be fooled into thinking it is a 'race spec' kit.

a pro version mad-rat out of the box also works, the difference is the Mad rat is a car you can tune in your own time. the B4 i'm not disputing is a very good car, however even the best AE kits you can end up spending extra dosh on factory team parts & the like to tune them or upgrade them to the spec you want & the costs of doing this could be as expensive as hopping up a rat.

Think of it this way, Tamiya have for years been making a tidy sum from their entry level cars & many of the RCers from my generation started on Tamiya's to learn the craft & part of the craft is learning what performance or strength changes the hop-ups can make, so you gain skills. Ansmann are doing much the same with the rat.. the difference is an experienced RCer can pick a rat off the shelf & grid up with it, for a fraction of the cost

Your missing my point, a B4 will work, mechanically, out of the box, from the get go, a madrat/mad monkey/x2c/x-pro won't, I have own all of them, I even did a build review on here when the X-Pro came out.

Anyhows, the Ansmann are ok, if you got someone experienced to help you overcome stuff that is not mentioned in the manual and get you going.

Not really owned the Xpro/X2 but id have to say the X2C can compete out of the box...

I raced at the north west regional with mine a couple of weeks ago and qualified 13th... the past couple of years ive struggled to even make the top 20 with any of my other cars...

Okay so my cars got a few extra bits on it, ally rear hubs, big bore shocks but im 99% sure id of got the same result with a bog standard X2C as those 2 items are just personal choice...

i raced the xpro 'out of the box' and always in b final. never broke anything apart from a shock tower on a mad monkey but nothing at all on the xpro. the plastic is slightly different on the xpro though. i am more than happy with the xpro......so much that i ditched the mad monkey and went back to it. perfect car to get into racing in my opinion :woot:

oh and dearest hop up so far for me is £15 being the alloy rear mount with the brass weight so hop ups are dirt cheap

is the aluminium front arm mount with the weight worth it

I think some people are missing the point, the mad rat is a great starting point and you can learn and grow with the car until you are at a standard and you are sure you want to take it up as a full time hobby then spend the money on a better car, you can by the kit 50 spend another 30-40 on all the correct hop ups and bang a nice little race car. On weight I use and 74g under the servo and 120 under the lipo all you need. Love it I am driving my new cougar this weekend and I do wonder if I will fall for it like I did the underdog rat and its personality.

:thumbsup: i think that sums it up perfectly

Just wanted to let people know the cougar was sold yesterday and will stick with the rat. Got into the top ten as the summer shoot out at shrccc with the rat and just posted my fasted lap at torch. The gearbox and diff on the cougar are worse then the rat and all the parts are stupid expensive. Thinking about the monkey now as a mid motor?

+1

The rat and monkey are fantastic value for money and are very competitive against the more expensive kits out there. They are very well built, materials are of good quality I have only a rear shock tower crack from a high impact collision. Parts are very cheap and easy to get.

There are a few upgrades you need firstly replacing the kit diff and idler gears. I have the kevlar diff and ali idlers gears. You also need a set of roller bearings and some alloy shocks and thats it.

So kit £62
bearings £8
Alloy shocks £25
Kevlar diff and Idler gears £15

I would go for the monkey as it is mid motor and is quicker than the rat around high grip astro. Also is very planted and level over jumps and through the air.

Go for the Monkey, been racing one all season at WCRCCC and got it pretty much dialled in now and only broke one thing all season which was my own fault and only £5.99 to fix!

Been racing for 20 + years and had many cars, from Schu, Assoc Kyosho and they all have had money spent on them. Yeh they need bearings some better shocks and a couple of nylon gears, running a 7.5 brushess in mine and it's quick and reliable.

The Ansmann stuff is OK with a little set up as with every car. Going to buy a touring car for indoors now to see how more expensive cars I can get ahead of.

Love the challenge.

StevieG, hitting a concrete wall would break any car! Plus, with a little glue, it still got through the A final!! Shame you've got it dialled 2 weeks before we move indoors!

Racing outdoors till Chrimbo!

So looking forward to next spring, got a few more improvements to make over winter, may even splash out on a new shell!:p

sow its a good club buggy
if you have not so mutch money in your pokked :woot:

Yep, I am the only one racing an Ansmann Mad Monkey at WCRCCC (West Cornwall), racing with Losi 22's. X6's B4 and the odd cougar, always been around mid field and to be honest if I had a 22 or X6 I reckon I may only be a couple places in front due to my ability.

For £65 its a bargin, plenty of spares around and hop ups if you wish, the only two definite changes would be acetal idler gear (x2), a set of better shocks I am using a set of Kyosho and a set of bearings, that's all the extras that I am running apart from some lead to weigh the front end down.

I am running a 7.5 Losi Brushless with Lipo's and it pretty quick. Check out WCRCCC.co.uk to see our grass track. 12 - 13 laps in 5 minutes.:thumbsup:

So I've just picked up a madrat of my own, fitted with ballraces throughout and looking to race at tichfield............

Its got the kit shocks on it, which look ok, ie they arent leaking, but if I like my first outing off-road whats the best bet for cheap aftermarkets shocks, pref with adusting collars not clip on spacers. :)

The 3 racing zx-5 shocks re good valus if you can get hold of them. Just fit the internals from your original shocks to keep the legnths the same.

http://www.oople.com/forums/showpost...0&postcount=14

Or you can buy just the alloy bodies and shock tops from ansmann to replace the plastic ones. Think that works out to be about £35.00 in total. Then you just take the internals from your plastic ones and fit them.

madrat cheap / b4.1 not
 

if you're a mad rat rid of a club with all brand drivers.
is not laughing with you
and if i have money for a b4.1 rtr or a mad rat, what to do

Ive got a mad monkey, up until recently I've been racing with all top line kit and have done for the last 20 years. Due to serious financial problems recently everything had to go, which is where the monkey came in. I thought to myself it's not going to be a great car but it's cheap and will keep me racing. But I was wrong, with the addition of a set of shocks and ball races, which takes the total cost of the car to around £100, the car will stay with the best of them. The last few years I've been running an X6 squared and the Ansmann certainly handles no worse that that atall and the x6 is an awesome car! As for idler gear issues, alarge part of that is down to people not setting slipper clutches up properly. Anyone that says this isn't a proper race buggy is just an RC snob!! If the car had an Associated badge instead of Ansmann, people would not be saying it's not a proper race buggy.

Just been for a looksee at WCRCCC,your name and "Rat" feature a hell of a lot.
Stands out a mile from "Losi" and "Associated".

Tamiya made the same point when i started buying kits.. you buy the car & hop it up & grow the car with your skills & experience & use it as a learning exercise. Ansmann are doing the exact same thing.

The difference is though, if for example you buy a Tamiya TT-01 & spend £300+ on hop-ups you would only have a TT-01 with a load of hop-ups added to it that is going to be no good for racing, so it makes more sense to buy a TRF & spend the money on that (or even save money) f you are going to spend a fortune, however with the Ansmann cars, you can spend £300 on hop-ups & have a car that is as good as the best 2WD racing buggies that the pro's use.. even with a £50 car as standard you can be competitive & nothing pleases me more than seeing a mad-rat taking on & beating cars that are more than double the cost.

I know there are some who say the Ansmann's are a bad car (i hear it often - usually from people who never owned an Ansmann or if they did it was on older car such as the Smacker or the Terrier with brushed Clash motors fitted), a lot of this comes down to brand snobbery as there who see a couple of zero's extra on the price ticket or the decimal point being moved a place to the right being the indication of a good car. also there are some critics who say to make the ansmann competition worthy you have to throw your credit card at it, but at the end of the day, what car don't you have to do that if you want to do well in competition?