[Mad-Wolfie]

I've not been doing 12th for very long (only a few months) but here is my 2p worth

Originally Posted by Timee80

What chassis should i choose that will accept a lipo and be fairly easy to setup? (never going back to nimh cells now)

If you want to use LiPo, go for a link car.. end of discussion.

although if looking for a good starter car, go for an Associated L3 or L4 as these seem to be the benchmark.

You "could" go for the FTX Phantom which is basically a cheap L4 copy for about £100 as a good starter car, but i'd sooner look for a 2nd hand L4 for about the same money.

but why not run cells on 12th? a lot of people still use cells & find they get better performance, Personally speaking the only advantage of a LiPo in a 12th is run times, some people who have tried LiPo tend to go back to cells because they say the car needs a bit of weight to keep it planted & less twitchy.

Originally Posted by Timee80

What range of tyres should i buy?

i've started using Xceed tyres.. there are 3 compounds soft, medium, hard - none of this confusing coloured dot nonsence which confuses a newbie. a Medium/hard compo is roughly identical to a Pink & Grey

Originally Posted by Timee80

I have a 9650 low profile servo that i assume will do the job but only have larger sized esc's. Can i buy a bodyshell to allow for the extra height or do i need to invest more money in a slimmer esc?

yes, look at the older generation protoform shells (probably in the bargain section of the model shops these days) as they are quite tall - if it's for club racing these will be fine.

you could remove the fan/heatsink from your ESC (assuming it has one) or trim the heatsink - as it's running 4-cell/1s it shouldn't pull the same sort of juice (providing the gearing is spot on) so shouldn't get as hot as if running 6 cell/2s.

Some people even go as far as to remove the case from the ESC & shrinkwrap the PCB & stick it to the chassis.

Originally Posted by Timee80

What spares are essential to carry?

t-bars (if you buy a T-bar car), shock springs & wheel studs. Plus body pins as you tend to lose a lot! Plus tyres will be your biggest expence.

Originally Posted by Timee80

Anything else a newbie usually slips up on when starting out?
Any advice appreciated

Always make sure the ride-height is set right - use a £1 coin (or one of those shopping trolley tokens) as a basic gauge, if you can just slide a £1 coin under the car from all angles it should be OK, if not raise the car. Because as the tyres wear the ride height will drop & you may lose a couple of mm of height in a nights racing.. any lower you may find gunge on the bottom of your car which is a sure sign it's bottoming out.

Make sure the transmitter settings & ackermann are set right, it's no point running a 100% dual rate sweep & any high steering end point adjustments because the car will turn very quickly anyway & going to high will just make the car harder to drive.

Hope this helps.