A few of the Tamiya kits want a 2.5mm and/or 3mm hole drilled. I have had bad luck using regular drills for this here in the US. A Dremel works ok, but it's not metric. A hand drill might work as well, but hey Tamiya sells a craft drill (item 74041)... And you have to build it yourself :-)
I hopped it up even... Replaced the plastic bearing B-)
I just finished a new body shell (Tamiya item #51471) that I am going to put on my TT-01D. I used (in the order I painted):
#86005 PS-5 Black (Intakes, Exhaust, Front lip)
#86409 PS-49 Sky Blue Anodized Alum (Main body)
#86041 PS-41 Bright Silver (Side Blades and backing)
#86301 PS-31 Smoke (Windows)
I used 3M blue masking tape on the side pods and it bled through in areas. I am going to invest in some higher quality masking tape the next time I paint. The masking tape that comes with for the window is amazing compared to the cheap blue stuff.
The 49400 is handling just fine, but I felt it lacked a little bit in the power department. Not a lot, but a little.
So when I found a Tekin RS Redline 13.5 in a drawer in my garage I decided to swap out the powertrain. Let’s see if this is too much power for me… I’ve made that mistake before!
After a bit of soldering and almost screwing up the order of the A,B,C wires I took it up and down the street and it is really fast now. The throttle response is what I’m most interested in and not so much top end speed. I’ll try to take another video next time for comparison :)
I also found the hotwire PC interface in the drawer. It worked just fine on my Windows 7 laptop. I didn’t use the CD that came with it, instead I got it from the Tekin website and that triggered an ESC flash right away. That took about a minute and all I had to do was recalibrate the ESC to my transmitter again. It’s a very easy setup ESC. I’ll have to bring my laptop the next time I’m at the track so I can play with the settings. One comment about the Hotwire is that they are trying to be cool in their GUI which makes it a worse program. Just look at that red and black mess below. Just because you can make a transparent window doesn’t mean you should!
This kit was bought a long time ago at Ultimate Hobbies, apparently the less pictures are on the box the more special it is.. or at least so I’m told. So when I saw it on the shelf I wanted one.
For this car I did the lexan body paint and stickering first. And I was rusty, tired or just stupid as I made my first cut.. If you notice the side skirt along the door I managed to cut the left side shorter than the right (FAIL!). For the paint I decided to stick with the original scheme and the stickering took a very long time. Message to Tamiya, please make more pre-cut sticker sheets!
The build itself was very straight forward and I already have a DF-03 MS so I was pretty familiar with it. I decided to try out a Futaba S3050 servo for some higher torque and a Spektrum SR300. The ESC and motor is stock. I think I have learned my lesson about not adding too much power too early. Learn to drive it well as stock first! (I’m still a novice driver).
A very nice feature of this kit are the painted drivers that you can put inside. It makes it look really cool, I don’t know how well it will last when driving. It’s just Velcro tape holding it on there.
And finally some comparison shots between the Ra and MS.
Tower Hobbies had them in stock AND a $60 off coupon for members AND free shipping… how could I say no? ;) I better finish up my rally car before I can start on this one…
Took a picture off all the Tamiya boxes I have (so far)…
I passed the “it’s taller than me” mark :)
My F104 rubber tires finally showed up from Hong Kong, here’s some updated shots of the different tires for the F104. Please note that I haven’t glued any of my rubber tires to the wheels yet.
F201 Type-A on the left, F104 in the middle, Foams (type A I think) on the right. The top row are fronts, bottom row is rears.
I’m hoping to get my F104 back in working order (after my Formula Tuned motor broke) in time for this weekend or the next so I can try the different tires out on the track…
