# O/T RC questions...



## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

I put this in the RC section, but no responses. Any guys here dabble in RC stuff?
Long time slot car racer of all scales lookin to get into RC.
Been lookin through the RC info here, but with no equipment, I have no idea what all this is about.
I gotta start somewhere so I'll fire off some questions and go from there.
I may have more later. 

Whats the difference between the Tamiya F104 chassis and the F104v2, and is there a significant difference.

How does the 3racing cars compare to the Tamiya cars?

How do you tell between mostly plastic chassis parts and mostly carbon fiber?

How does the Tamiya F103 chassis compare to the modern stuff.

Are there other makes of 1/10 F1 chassis?

How does older 80s 90s F1 cars compare to modern cars? Can you upgrade or mix makes and parts?

I havent even got as far as controllers or servos. Just lookin at cars for now.

Thanks for yalls input!!!


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## twolff (May 11, 2007)

I haven't raced and RC car in 15 years...

Go to the track you plan to race at and see what they are running there. Running the same chassis as the majority of other racers will make it a lot easier to get help, setups, loaned spare parts...etc.

Tamiya makes quality stuff. The cars are very easy to build even using only the pictures in the instruction manual.

I don't know what electronics are current. I would imagine they are running brushless motors and li-poly batteries by now. Everything was brushed motors and Ni-Cad batteries back when I got out of it. Once you get a chassis, electronics, batteries, and charger...stand ready to get nickel-dimed to death with all the small tools and spares you'll need.

Sorry I can't be of more help than that.


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## Hittman101 (Oct 21, 2009)

First off do you plan on racing or bashing? There's a lot out there from AE, Losi, Traxxas, Trinity, Tamiya..Are you to run offroad, road course, Oval, Dirt Oval.. A lot of tracks have rules you have to follow.. Do you want to run Nitro, LiPo.. The list goes on and on.. I have been in and out of the Hobby for 27yrs.. To race I like AE and Losi to bash Traxxas is awesome.. I will be glad to help you any way I can..


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Hittman101 said:


> First off do you plan on racing or bashing?


What I plan on is to dominate and win every race I enter...




... but seriously, maybe hang on to the leader and make a last lap pass for victory...

... or maybe just finish on the lead lap...

... or finish without breaking anything...

I wanna run the F1 cars on carpet, asphalt or concrete.


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## beast1624 (Mar 28, 2009)

Duplicate


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## beast1624 (Mar 28, 2009)

Tex
Get in touch with Bill. He used to race professionally on the R/C circuit and was sponsored by one of the factories. He can probably answer your questions or at least point you in the right direction.


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

well i used to race and was sponsored for a few years as well in the 1990s.

i raced from 1983 till 2001 and went through all the trends in the hobby as i went. even owned a hobby shop for a while.

That means really nothing since the hobby is totally different then i was 10+ years ago.

however lets see if i can get through the questions since i went through F1 for a bit.

Starting somewhere; Well the equipment isn't cheap for new people i recommend some kind of combo deal.
that gets you a basic car, radio, and running gear from which you can see if you enjoy the hobby and you build off your starter equipment and replace it with better items as needed.

you can check with local hobby shops they sometimes offer these combo deals to get you started. Towerhobbies or horizon offer starter combo deals as well.

Now that said, depending on where you live determines what RC is most popular in your area.
West coast USA has been traditional off-road due to outdoor weather.
East coast usa was Touring or Pan cars mostly indoor and 1/12 scale.
center of the country usually a mix with Monster trucks or stadium trucks, crawlers etc.
each area has its share of mixing.

in Europe touring, off-road and F1 are popular.

in the US, F1 never took off. so depends on where you live you may not have anyone to race against.

Q: Whats the difference between the Tamiya F104 chassis and the F104v2, and is there a significant difference.

The f104 is the standard tamiya entry chassis, the V2 is the professional version, basically you get a more hopped up version of the 104 for more money. you can upgrade a standard 104 chassis to a v2 spec and it will cost you about triple the cost of just buying a 104v2 spec chassis. Tamiya is like that you get better deals on a hopped up chassis out of the gate.
Thing is for beginner you won't know what half the hopups due or how to drive with them or how to tune them.
Also many Tamiya sponsored events usually only support the entry level chassis kits in an effort to keep things fair in competition.
usually a heavily hopuped up chassis throws you into expert class which might be beyond your driving skills against other drivers. 

How does the 3racing cars compare to the Tamiya cars?
3 racing is what i call the HPI clone, there stuff is fine. with tamiya the biggest issue will be parts. with F1 you are dealing with a rare chassis with little outside support and tamiya is notorious for discontinuing models at a whim which can leave you high and dry. 3racing has after market support for most chassis types and you have good parts support.

Tamiyas tend to also be made of glass, you have to be a very good driver because when you wreck a tamiya something can break. the 3racing is more of a tank, and i would recommend it more for beginners and casual racers.

Q:How do you tell between mostly plastic chassis parts and mostly carbon fiber?
Well you can see it in photos carbon fiber has a distinct look compared to plastic or Hardened aluminum or alloy anodized parts.
the kits have specs you can read as well, tamiya will show a hopped up chassis as a special model over the usual stuff. TRF tamiya Racing Factory is usually placed on the kit box to show it includes hopups. 

How does the Tamiya F103 chassis compare to the modern stuff.
well the 103 is pretty old now over 5 years and parts support is dried up and most tamiya 103 cars are discontinued except for overstock. With tamiya you have to keep up with the new model if you want to get through a race season.

Are there other makes of 1/10 F1 chassis?
not too many F1 doesn't have much of a fan base. Tamiya makes the more scale realistic versions, 3 racing makes a more racer specific version that is less realistic.
HPI has a F1 called the F10

the problem is if you go with some 3rd party like Tenth technologies made a F1 years ago that you may have zero parts support.


How does older 80s 90s F1 cars compare to modern cars? Can you upgrade or mix makes and parts?
urg the 101 and 102 was a huge piece of crapola, it wasn't any good until tamiya came out with f201 which was a 4wd version of the F1 chassis. but all that stuff is long gone. typically when tamiya comes up a generation of car there is very little if anything that can be interchanged.
The TA-01 and TA-02 could interchange with some difficultly, but there was no parts to interchange with the Ta-03 or 04 or -05 models, they are all specialized. 


I havent even got as far as controllers or servos. Just lookin at cars for now.

If you really want a Tamiya F1, hit ebay get a used car with radios and batteries fix it up cheap and see if you even like it.

you can EASILY spend 1200$ to get started with professional equipment in the RC hobby. better to see if you even like it cheaply then work your way up.

my personal preference was always 4wd Off-road. however i raced 2wd / gas/electric for both 4wd and 2wd, and touring cars through the 1990s.



also forgot to add the tamiya F104V.2 chassis is not going to come with a body or motor or any electronics, and it will not come with tires. it is a professional model so you just get the chassis hopups and you have to fill in everything else. the entry level f104will come with everything to build the car minus the radio and get you running right away.


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Thanks for the wealth of info Dan!! I just didn't wanna take a step in the wrong direction.
I've been scoping out eBay and knew that all the different chassis numbers meant something.

Thanks. :thumbsup:


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## RiderZ (Feb 19, 2007)

Short Course Trucks are all the rage.I just bought a new Traxxas Slash 4x4 LCG Platinum Edition.I used to race back in the day-now just backyard bash.


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

First thing I would do is go down to the local track you plan to race at and see what classes they offer.

Go on a race night and see how the races are run and how things work.


Possibly offer to marshal a race. 

95% of going to track is working on your car in the pits. Races used to be 4 minutes long due to batteries. Later they went to 5,6 minute races in the late 1990s.
Today you have lipo and life batteries with brushless motors. So the races might be 8-10 minutes or longer now. That really changes up races due to fatigue.

But go down and see the race classes they offer if they don't have a f1 class then you get stuck with a chassis you can't race.


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

I went by there a couple of weeks ago. They have a F1 class they run on Thursday nights.
So far, I haven't been able to tear away to go see a race. Hopefully soon.


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

Great. Just a warning it will be boring Hee Hee. Lots of waiting then a quick race they may stagger different categories but you get 3 qualifiers then the race. A main is the top drivers then you trickle down into the B and C etc mains to carry spill over. 

Practice days are just that usually 1 or 2 people are there testing setups.

As a specatator you just stand around for 8 hours. As a racer it goes by so fast you always run out of time for things the car needs.

Cost is going to add up fast in the batteries department, then tires are going to suck the money out of the wallet. Next maintance items and you go from there Hee Hee.


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## partspig (Mar 12, 2003)

Yeah, Ditto that, bring yer wallet, and make sure she's fat, you will need it. I quit when they went to the brushless motors. About 80 bucks for a top of the line motor you cannot rebuild when they grenade, was enough for me to say goodbye. It is definitely NOT a cheap hobby anymore. pig


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## beast1624 (Mar 28, 2009)

Tex
I think the take away from this presentation (reference to Family Guy) is "Don't give in to the Dark side"


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

more like "Give the kids college money to the hobby" and yes its worth it.

BTW a real Car would be much much cheaper for autocross I'm not kidding.

in about 2005 at the height of the collector market. this was before the Tamiya Repop boom, a Tamiya bruiser would cost you over 1000$ then about 1000$ in restoration. so RTR restored trucks were going for 2500$ back then. A blazing blazer at that time was 3000-5000$.
A real 1979 Toyota Hilux was about 200-400$ and to turn that into a bruiser at least in running gear was 1000-1250$ making the real truck cheaper then the model of it.

Now the market is collapsed of course, and an original bruiser has lost all its valve due to the repop. now the original is around 400-600$ in ok shape, the NIB 2012 bruser is now 700-800$ NIB.
I loved watching tamiya shoot themselves in the foot, ruin the collector market and effectively destroying the next Nostalgia cycle. the whole reason tamiya re-released kits was because the market had prices going into the stratosphere.
and the reason the prices was so high was because Tamiya makes kits for 5 minutes, has zero parts support then, rapes you and leaves you in a ditch. so a collectors market blew up around the rare kits and parts which was all tamiya.
tamiya then decided that they could rape your wallet re-releasing kits(parts) and they collapsed the market, great for the people that wanted a rare tamiya kit that is no longer rare. so the collectors jumped ship and the prices collapsed and now tamiya can't get rid of the kits they flooded the market with.
collectors will never trust tamiya again because the market is totally unstable,and shifted to 3rd party manufactures for collections because those companies are either out of business for 20-30 years or will never re-release kits. 
so that means in 20 years the kits will have zero value on the secondary market and there will be no reason for a second re-release cycle. 

really awesome. I watched fellow collectors Dump tamiya parts hoards directly into the garbage as collections went from 250K to less then 5K in less then 6 months in 2006.

it was serious business back then, And i watched Local hobby shops that knew they were sitting on a gold mine liquid the same MRC Tamiya yellow bags right into the trash as well. Still a hot topic locally 7 years later.

The new fans don't care because they loved that the prices totally nuked into the toilet but it was the diehard that caused the re-releases because we were all bitching since 1975 about the way tamiya ran things in the hobby, those guys kept the pilot light lite until the fire finally took off in the 2000s.
then tamiya poured water on them, slapped them in the face with reproduction parts lawsuits, Went insane with copy write lawsuits and burned down the collectors market. all the diehards are gone forever. I liquidated as well and each time tamiya re-releases a kit i watch it dive more and more into the toilet
the latest is the tamiya FOX market. by the end of the year tamiya is re-releasing the Tamiya FOX as the NOVA fox. well the FOX was a special case it was a one off car and the collectors were hording those for value. now everyone is dumping fox projects on ebay to get out now.

whine, moan, if you think your retiring on R/C cars collecting your nuts, but if you had a passion for the hobby in general tamiya murdered it.


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Tell us how you really feel Dan!

Enjoyed reading your observations, notes, and advice. Appreciate you taking the time to "edjoomacate" us.


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

i'm one of the larger collectors of tamiya items so i was a fan.

TamiyaUSA managed to screw me out of a few thousand dollars in the 1990s and piss off a ton of my customers when i ran my store. basically every model they made was a limited edition but they didn't tell anyone. So you had to hoard New tamiya kits, because you needed to bust them open for parts for customers. usually R/C people see my storage shed and their heads explode. 

way back i was a diehard tamiya racer, modified bigwigs against MRP and C834 yokos and AYK sidewinders.
then switched to Yokos, Tomy, Kyosho, for 4wd. 2wd i stuck with associated, hated my losi but i still have everything i raced back then. I'm a member of various tamiya sites and rc10talk, rcmt, and a few other rc sites.
I basically bailed out of the hobby when i saw what was happening to the market and all the hard work people had done evaporated overnight.

you have to think back pre internet what did you do when you needed a rare part for an import when Tamiya/MRC in Edison NJ, basically thumbed their nose at you and told you to stuff it.

my rc garbage always sneaks into my slot car photos.








bruisers and mounties oh my. how about a monogram Mad wolf under the table. which is a American release of the Bandai Mad wolf , NIB .


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

So... 3racing then?


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

No go with what you want and what they race locally,

They race tamiya f1 then you race them


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## tjd241 (Jan 25, 2004)

Not in any way trying to change your mind Rich, but have you looked into F1 larger scale slots? Pretty nice looking stuff, but I don't know if it's as spendy as R/C or less or whatever.


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## slotcardan (Jun 9, 2012)

if you start from scratch in larger scale slot cars its about the same price as getting into the RC hobby with novice equipement

if you are talking about 1/32 analog its like 400$ which is the price of a RTR novice RC kit.
if you going 1//24 the cost is 800$ to get into it. and 1500$ goes in a heartbeat because you need other digitial expansions. I did it over the winter i went to 1/24 scale and i can run 1/43 and 1/32 the cost went right up fast by the time i got everything. i read online about the budget for getting into larger scale and it was right on the mark.

total costs when added up are the same, for digital slots and r/c novice/intermediate equipment.

the average cost of a new car is around 60$ to which is about what you waste on the R/C on race night if you have no problems.

HO is very economical in that respect, 100$ will get you a ton of cars and track pieces in piles


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

tjd241 said:


> Not in any way trying to change your mind Rich, but have you looked into F1 larger scale slots? Pretty nice looking stuff, but I don't know if it's as spendy as R/C or less or whatever.


I have accumulated a bit of Carrera GO stuff, so yeah, I got into 1:43.
Got some stuff cheap off craigslist, garage sales, and flea markets.
I have maybe 8 or 10 F1 cars. New, these are cheaper than HO cars.
Even at the hobby shops they come in for less than one MegaG f1.
Heck, I got a 2 pack of those Euro touring cars for less than a new AW semi.
Those are SCX though, scared me when I first ran them. Noisy.
Sounds like a box of rocks going around the track. All the Carreras are smooth and quite.
On their website, the F1 tune up kits come with a set of tires, and wings!




slotcardan said:


> BTW a real Car would be much much cheaper for autocross I'm not kidding.


I used to autocross in the 90s. 
I bought another 1979 BMW 320i a few years ago to get into it again.
Fun as heck. I've been "on the fence" between RC and autocross in dream land.
The car needs a few things, and I need a new helmet($300).
I guess I need to get that going before I get to old to do it.


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

RC sucks in that you have to steer, and usually steering is done with the hand I use for HO racing... yeah it doesn't work so well. Feels totally alien.

Before I moved south I picked up a friend's RC transmitter and it is customizable where I can put the steering on the other side of the controller, and use my HO trigger finger as my RC trigger finger - great idea . . . Surprised it isn't more common.

I plan to get a Traxxas Slash 1:10 truck down the road here at some point, now I just diddle with some 1:36 Losi Micro-Ts I picked up for me & the TM.


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