RC Off Road Cars - Gas or Elec ?????

[Debacle]

Looking at buying my son an off road RC car for xmas and just wondering the pros and cons of gas vs electric.

Main drawback that I can see from the gas is the noise, but at least you dont have to worry about battery life.

The extra maintenance required for a gas car might be a good way to introduce him into how engines work maybe.

Interested to hear the opinions of those in the know about these machines.

[Lucus]

I'd steer clear of a as car as a first RC car for a kid. Get him a good electric buggy or truck. You can't go wrong with Tamiya,Traxxas or Kyosho.

Gas cars are great ( i own four of the money swilling buggers!:p) But they can be a bit much for a beginer. The can be tempremental as hell and this could put your boy off. There also a fine line between running great and melting the motor and if he's like any other kid i know speed=good. So the likelyhood of a leaned out cooked motor is higher:D

A traxxas Slash would be an ideal beginners thrash around toy. A Tamiya dark Impact is a top little 4wd that would also be good if he has any plays to go racing and is avaliable in a kit. Kit cars are becoming rarer and rarer but Ready to Runs RTR's (such as the slash) have come forward in leaps and bound and are now fantastic setups!

good luck in the hunt!

Luke

[whitakerb]

I have to aggree with lucus. I have had both, my gas car was an el cheepo chinese truck, was as tempermental as hell but when it ran, it ran great. If your kid will be using it, or even you for that matter, make sure there is a fail safe attached to the receiver, or when the radio runs out of range, the car will keep going untill it finds an immovable object ( learned the hard way)

The Traxxas Slash (c'mon Traxxas, wheres the spotters fee?) would be the electric truck I would go for as it is fully waterproof and if you look on you tube, you will see people running them across the bottom of their pool. They are also incredibly tough, and if you ever want to go faster, a brush less motor and lipo battery will make it competitive against the P-Plater in the V8 Dunnydore down the street.

Personally, i think they are more cost effective ways to learn about engines as the nitro motor is a bastardized cross over between a 2 stroke engine and a diesel. And parts are expensive!!

My 2 cents

Ben

[isuzutoo-eh]

As Luke and Ben said, go electric.
Every petrol car sold where I work (dedicated hobby shop) comes back a day or week later to be adjusted or fixed. They are cantankerous buggers. The electrics on the other hand, only come back after high speed meets with gutters or trees, or when upgrading.
I'd like to recommend a kit, as your son will learn how to fix it whilst building it, but they are rare and often more expensive than the RTR version of the same vehicle.
Whatever you do, get a car from a shop not ebay, unless absolutely babied, you will need spare parts sometime and guess which seller doesn't sell spares/support their product?
-Mark

[Phoenix]

This is my kind of therad.

I'm onto about my 6th rc car (Proper ones, not dik smith specials).

First one was a nitro 4wd stadium truck (HPI MT2). great vehicle, but adjusting teh engine etc and finding somewhere to run was a pain. from then on i've been all electrics.

E-savage, E-firestorm, sprint 2, and a D8 roller to convert to electric (Probably end up buying a vorza to run and use the D8 for parts). For those that know model cars, yes, I like the kits made by HPI ;)

For a beginner, something like the e-firestorm would be perfect. They are relatively cheap, very strong, and easy to drive. and later, easy to upgrade.

Modern batteries actually get quite long runbtimes. I have a 5700 kv brushless mamba max motor in my firestorm and with good quality nimh batteries of a 4200 and 4600 mah rating I get 20 mins plus from a battery.

Then there are lipo batteries which will alst even longer, but can have a few dangers associated with them.

A stadium truck or short course truck would be the way to go. The slash is a nice truck for beginners, especially wit theh training mode on the ESC. their stadium truck, the rustler is nice as well. Parts are probably easier to get than the HPI truck, but I think the HPI is a better vehicle.

If you need a source of parts, or more info I can help with that.

www.ausrc.com (http://www.ausrc.com) is also a handy place ;)

[Phoenix]

I thought I would add some pics ;)

my e-savage. twin battery, twin motor. an old kit now (sold it to a bloke at work). Big for an electric at the time, and bloody strong! I messed up one jum and it landed from about 7 ft in the air, and only broke the on / off switch.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/843.jpg

my e-firestorm. My favorite. I've wanted a stadium truck since I was a kit, and this was the one I picked. it's had a thradsing and some head on crashes, and nothing broken. This is a PR photo, I have some bumpers on mine.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/844.jpg

My D8 which will be converted to a big electric system
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/845.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/846.jpg

my first proper rc car, the MT2. Awesome, if only it was electric!
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/847.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/848.jpg

and what I will be getting next, a HPI Blitz (Basically a e-firestorm in drag)
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2009/11/849.jpg

[Debacle]

Thanks for your input everyone. Decided to go with a Team Associated RC10 T4 Factory Team Truck Kit. Will have a Hobbywing 13T brushless and 35A ESC, Futaba 2.4Ghz radio gear with Intellect IP5000 40C Lipo battery and Venom Pro charger.
It has gone massively over budget from when I had the original plan to get him into RC but once I started I couldnt see the sense in getting something basic and then keep upgrading, it should be more economical in the long run to get this set up and use the programming of the ESC and Radio gear to start him off slow until he can handle things at full speed.

When he is ready to compete, this rig should make him competitive at club level although a motor/esc upgrade might help eventually.


20980

[LandyAndy]

You wont regret buying that one.
We got Lindsay one 4 years ago.Its a bit of a basket case now,but he got a great run out of it.Parts are now easy to get once again,there was an issue for a while whilst the company changed ownership.
It outlasted all his mates gear by many years and blew them all into the weeds even before he started buying more powerfull motors.His was quicker than a nitro 4x4 buggy much to the disgust of its owner.He won a RC speed challenge with the local cops,he got 74kph,closest rival was 55ks.He cheated,brushless hi-power motor and huge rear tyres:cool::cool::cool:,wasnt overquick off the mark but flew top end.
Make sure you buy the second even 3rd battery,they last HEAPS longer if left to cool out properly between charges.
ENJOY
Andrew

[Fusion]

My personal pref is to go electric . Less tuning , don't have to worry about starters and fuel . But on the other hand the gas cars are wicked fun .

[Lucus]

Cant got wrong with the Team. I bought my first RC10 back in 1993 and have and RC10GT that is now 10 years old and is still as solid as the day it was built.

RWD trucks are not the easiest combo for a beginer to drive but its a solid truck and will be a rocket with the motor/esc/batt combo you have picked.

Do a fleabay search for the TA setup cd's This will give you some great pointers on setting up the truck

Luke:)

[hiline]

reading this thread i want one now :D

i'm sure your young bloke is going to love it ............

[td express]

love this thread,

My first truck was a nitro one, but that was only 4 years ago, so I was old enough to understand how things worked and BASIC tuning and stuff like that.
If buying for a young bloke, I would tend to agree with the electric as the best way to go. He can pull it apart easy, learn about electrics which I knew nothing about and dosnt have to worry about tuning, fuel mix, hydro locking, etc.

I have a Savage 21, that I have beefed up with bigger eng, suspension, diff mods, race mods, etc etc etc etc......and this truck is awsome. Even from new as a stocky it was fantastic and tuff.
There is one thing I would never buy and this is just presonal choice and that is a nitro truck/buggy/truggy with a battery powerd starter. Give me a pull start any day. People dont understand or are not shown how to use the battery starters properly and just crank them until it floods and hydro locks or destroys the one way bearing.
Either way you have made a good choice and the fun he will have with it will be worth it Im sure...

[big guy]

Electric is definately way to go these days.

With brushless power and lipo, the old smoky loud nitro powered cars are a thing of the past.
The instant power of electric is alsobrilliant but needs a different driving style.

good choice for your son and I am sure he will and even you will have a good time.

With lipos u have to be careful not too overcharge and not to charge with too much current and never let the voltage of the lipo drop below the recommended level or they will die.
If they bloat they are gone and do not try to fix them, they will explode.
they are very dangerous, its also recommended to charge in the open.

Now enjoy the and you may end up buying another so you two can go racing.

[Phoenix]

The T4 is a good choice. Nice truck :thumbsup:

[Debacle]

That was a fun experience. When they say it's a kit, they aren't kidding. We had to make our own shockies, diff etc out of hundreds of microscopic parts, took us a couple of days but the boy is absolutely wrapped with the results. Just had some minor problems with getting the diff tight enough and the slipper clutch adjusted.

As soon as we got it running right it just blew the tyres off the rims so a bit of super glue was required

He has already broken a couple of front A-Arms so we have replaced them with alloy hop-ups and we have some bumpers from t-bone racing on the way. Showed him the list of alloy hop-ups available and his eyes were as wide as dinner plates as he started planning how to spend his pocket money for the next couple of years.

Brisbane Dirt Racing at Arana Hills are having a night race meeting in a couple of weeks so will take him along to check out some serious racing.

heres some photos and a vid

21576

21577

21578



YouTube- T4 Park.divx

[V8Ian]

There used to be a track at Brendale, not sure that it's still there.

[Debacle]

There used to be a track at Brendale, not sure that it's still there.

Thats an on road bitumen track and a pretty good one but they don't have jumps or dirt. Brisbane Dirt Racing has a good track at Arana Hills but they mainly cater for gas powered, There is a club out Redbank way that I may look into as He lives in Toowoomba with his mother these days and we do the swap over thing at Redbank on Sundays.

[Blknight.aus]

initially if hes having problems keeping it under control you can get a kit from altronics that will "shape" the start up power going to the motor from the battery and can also be used to limit the max power/speed.

[kenleyfred]

The track in Brendale is not far from home, often go there with the kids to watch the racing. It used to be open but since they hosted the world championships a few years ago it is now fenced off. The gates look locked as well.
Few weeks ago they had RC drag racing champs at the local sport grounds across the netball grounds. That was interesting to watch, super quick. But some people take their hobbies very seriously.


Kenley

[kenleyfred]

Thats an on road bitumen track and a pretty good one but they don't have jumps or dirt.


The Brendale RC track is right next to the BMX track. I have never seen any off road cars buzzing around that though. Probably not allowed to anyway.
Kenley

[big guy]

Looks good mate.

Yes some do take their hobby too seriously.
Some do life in general.

Have a blast.

[Debacle]

initially if hes having problems keeping it under control you can get a kit from altronics that will "shape" the start up power going to the motor from the battery and can also be used to limit the max power/speed.

I can apparently program the ESC to do that but haven't worked out how to do it yet, It's probably not necessary as he's taken to it like a duck to water.

It's me that needs it probably. I'm struggling with the reaction times when it's going at full noise, especially when it's heading towards you and you need to steer it in the opposite direction. That could have something to do with my tiny brain.

[isuzutoo-eh]

the 'soft start' feature that Dave is talking about is only for the throttle usually, so when you go full throttle from standing it builds up speed over a few seconds instead of instantly. Does nothing to help you avoid trees and ankles.
My brushless half8 needed it or else it'd sit there rotating on the spot :p

EDIT: re-read yours and Dave's posts, max speed limiting may help...