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

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...

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.

The T4 is a good choice. Nice truck

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

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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQtdCDdfYlc"]YouTube- T4 Park.divx[/ame]

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

Originally Posted by V8Ian

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.

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.

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