I need tough buggies for iRace

[DanB4]

Hi All,

So, long story short - some of you may or may not know that I designed a track in the food court of a shopping centre across here.

A track for electric on road (primarily 10th touring)
An astro track for electric off road (too small for 10th so more like 16th's)
A drift track for maximum 10th scale
A rock crawling arena - this is yet to be built.

I need all your input as the folk running it are very concerned because the cars are breaking ALL the time......they must have gone through 40 cars, no exaggeration.

I recommended they buy a ton of spares, the usual things are always breaking, wishbones, knuckles, hubs. They didn't do it.

Instead, they bought the cheapest crap from China with next to no spares backup. Then they tried Supastox.....too fast.

I'm recommending they get some strong 10th scale off road buggies and run them with brushed mabuchi 540 setups on 4.8 to 6v......it's the general public that are using these rental cars and the only real way i can see to minimise breakages (they accept some will happen) is to limit the top speed of the cars.

Limiting the EPA on the transmitter is no use, the public get wise to that and crank it up.

Are there any 10th electric buggies with 1/8th scale-esque thick wishbones? They need to be tough as nails, forget handling, forget performance, just toughness, spares availability and overall reliability is order of the day here.

All suggestions welcomed!

Cheers,

Dan

The iRace on road circuit (wood now removed):



The back room (I call it the graveyard).....this was 4 weeks ago, there are a lot more wrecked cars now!

[Lee24h]

Ask
Paul upton for his advice he runs a public rc car track at santa pod
Im sure tamiya tt01s are the way foward unless you start a club
And let people with decent tourers and stuff run round
(What is the track made from?)

[kaylon]

Dan you mad man... I thought the Aberdeen track at Union Square was crazy...but offroad in a food hall, bless you!!

I've just recently got one of them iON 1:18th buggys from Maverick and I've driven it hard and it's not broken a thing yet. If you went for the short coarse truck you'd also have the body there to help bounce off damage.

They are 2.4ghz and only £80 rtr. They are Himoto oem of course but are tough. You can get spares quite easy too.

Here is a vid of Jang from URC looking at the Monster truck version... URC iron track

If you wanna go 1:10 then the ECX Boost is almost indestructible. Check out Jang's thoughts here .. URC Boost Vid

I think you can get boosts 2.4ghz now.

Also the FTX (Himoto) Edge. It's also very tough according to most reviews and is also only about £90 rtr, once again here is Jang looking at the Redcat version of the Edge URC Redcat Vid

Hope that helps, I recommend looking at the vids especially the durability tests ...And hope things are good for you over there


Jason.

[racingben]

For off road go Go for losi mini 8's I do a similar thing on a smaller scale and a stock mini 8 is superp. Done 8 events now and not a single breakage!

[racingben]

The maverick cars are week at the front. The front hingepin brace rips out easily and l ones in a £10 spares set so expensive.

I've modified the losi tx's so I can adjust top speed. When people want the cars to go faster I make them do 3 laps without crashing. I brief them before hand and anybody that turns the speed up without permission = end of go.

[Apricot Slice]

Hi Dan,
I know its not exactly 'touring car' but I think the banger racing style Mardaves could be a practical way to keep things going.
I dont think the general public are care whats under the shell and the money for one TC will buy a large pile of spares.
Phil

[Mr Eccleston]

Dan

I would have thought the Supastox would be ideal if you have them already, surely just put a smaller pinion on. The supastox or Mardave are very robust, the shells should be ok as well as long as you have the foam bumpers a tight fit.

Derek

[terry.sc]

For on road it is worth paying the extra for Tamiya TT01s and adding a big foam bumper sticking out right across the front. We run demo cars and the Tamiyas take a hell of a beating, with spares easy to get hold of when they do break and quick and easy to fix. Just make sure you replace the kit pinions with steel ones and the gearboxes last forever. Even more indestructible as we run them on 4 cell nimh packs with cheap 13T EZRun motors. If using the stock 6 cell electrics or lipo then going to cheap 55 turn motors will slow them down again. Both will also give you much greater run times from the battery packs.

For tough buggies, again I would look at Tamiya. The Grasshopper, Hornet and newer Mad Fighter are virtually indestructible with again easy access to spare parts from anywhere in the world. The Sand Viper/Desert Gator/Neo Falcon are more complex and more expensive but they are designed for bashing so pretty tough and again easy to fix and easy to buy spares.

It's more important that you have any easy and quick supply of spares than having something pretty indestructible but can't be quickly repaired when it does break. Not much point in buying a Maverick if you have to buy all the spares from the UK, and good luck finding spares for the Chinese makes anywhere in a year or two.

Supastox will also work great, just swap out the kit motors for Axial or HPI 55 turn motors and change gearing and run them on 4 cell. Make up bigger foam bumpers that stick out the front and cut the body away so the body rests on top and you will hardly ever have to replace shells.

Adjusting speed by using EPA is never going to work, you have to have something physical to prevent it. The ones we use have stick radios with a self tapping screw added just above the stick so the stick hits it and it stops you pushing the throttle forwards. Give the car to someone with some driving experience and you can wind the screw in to give them more speed and the only way a kid can adjust it is if they have a screwdriver on them. Steerwheels are a bit more tricky to modify, and if you put the adjustment stops inside the case then they can't be changed. You can also replace the EPA adjustment potentiometers with smaller PCB versions loose inside the case, so you have to dismantle the case to be able to adjust them.

Members of my club run r/c car tracks at most of the classic car shows in the area, for grass HPI Blitz short course trucks are used, again with slower motors and lower voltage batteries to slow them down (4.8v and 540 motor or 7.2v with 55t motor) and again with big home made foam and plastic bumpers added poking out the front to reduce damage. We have very few breakages. A fun fair that saw the r/c cars thought they would do the same and bought the same trucks. They ran the kit standard cars and soon found they went too fast for the kids, and then didn't know how to fix them when they broke so gave up and we now have them.

I would also suggest looking at the track design. Solid barriers are great for experienced racers but the kids aren't too bothered about the track moving. The photo above shows many spots, such as the ends where there are gaps in the barriers, that are almost designed to take the corners off the cars. Adding full size car tyres at the ends will give a softer barrier so the car won't get damaged on impact. A ring of tyres around the pillars will also stop any damage.

[DanB4]

Thanks for all your input guys I'll keep you informed on what happens.

[tisher]

Originally Posted by Mr Eccleston

Dan

I would have thought the Supastox would be ideal if you have them already, surely just put a smaller pinion on. The supastox or Mardave are very robust, the shells should be ok as well as long as you have the foam bumpers a tight fit.

Derek

I agree with this get mardaves with banger bumpers on them put them on 380 size motors if possible run for ages and tough as boots