Which nitro KIT?

[xflowRich]

Hi folks,

When I was a lad, I had a couple of R/C cars, both built from kits. I enjoyed the building process as much as the driving, and I'm keen to get back into it.

Unfortunately it seems that most cars are now supplied as RTR or almost fully assembled - which loses that large chunk of the fun.

I'm looking for a good nitro 1/10th or 1/8th KIT - either on-road scale model or off-road truck. Has anyone got any suggestions? (and, indeed, thoughts as to why the industry has changed towards RTR?)

I've found the Traxxas 4-TEC 3.3 which comes as a kit (although only in kit form if you buy the "pro" version - which is viciously more expensive) - anyone had any experience of this kit?

Thanks,

Richard

[fergus91]

if you want a kit form off road monster truck the best (well almost only ) option is to go with the hpi savage X ss
it is suplyed with evertthing you need to build it apart from the electrics
so you will need to buy a radio and 2 servos

its a strong truck and you will be able to have lots of fun jumping it 20 ft + in the air and doing endless wheeles

[xflowRich]

Thanks Fergus, much appreciated. I'd managed to miss that on my travels round the 'net.

It looks pretty much spot on, too. One question: there are other trucks (admittedly not quite as off-road biased, eg Traxxas Jato) which are quoting much higher (65mph+) top speeds despite having smaller engines. Is this because of the gear ratios? I notice that HPI sell clutch bells with different numbers of teeth, which I guess allows you to opt for more top speed at the expense of acceleration? Indeed, should I be actually worrying about the lack of top speed at all - is it ample, in practice?

Sorry, so many questions, such a cool looking car...

[fergus91]

the reason the traxas jatio is so fast is that it is 1/10 scale , very light and has an oversized engine lol
its good for beginers as its relitely easy to run but you wont be setting any records for durability

the savage is 1/8 scale so about 4 inches longer than the jatio alot wider and a hell of alot taller

if you want something that combines the best of both worlds then get a truggy, they are 4wd and useualy very strong, but as they are also light then they are fast,
i would recomend the hong nor x1 crt if you go for that class of car

the best thing to do would be to phone up someware like http://www.boltonmodelmart.co.uk/ as they will be able to match the right kit for you way better than i could, they will probbaly also give you a good deal

[CIS121]

fergus91 said:

if you want a kit form off road monster truck the best (well almost only ) option is to go with the hpi savage X ss
it is suplyed with evertthing you need to build it apart from the electrics
so you will need to buy a radio and 2 servos

its a strong truck and you will be able to have lots of fun jumping it 20 ft + in the air and doing endless wheeles

A freiend of mine has one of these and it's pretty impressive. There are some great videos on youtube of these. If teh bank balance is looking good in December, I'll be getting something similar myself.

This may be a naive question, but can you really use anything much quicker than this? I expect I'd end up taking mine to the beach, woods and polaces like quarries. Not sure my brain could work any quicker than these thigns!

[fergus91]

CIS121 said:

fergus91 said:

if you want a kit form off road monster truck the best (well almost only ) option is to go with the hpi savage X ss
it is suplyed with evertthing you need to build it apart from the electrics
so you will need to buy a radio and 2 servos

its a strong truck and you will be able to have lots of fun jumping it 20 ft + in the air and doing endless wheeles

A freiend of mine has one of these and it's pretty impressive. There are some great videos on youtube of these. If teh bank balance is looking good in December, I'll be getting something similar myself.

This may be a naive question, but can you really use anything much quicker than this? I expect I'd end up taking mine to the beach, woods and polaces like quarries. Not sure my brain could work any quicker than these thigns!

there are many quicker cars, speed realy depends on where your planing to run it, if you have a big open space then you mayaswell use it but going slower and doing jumps is more fun, for me anyway
oh and the land speed record for an rc car is 187 mph (no idea how you would control it though lol)

[bramley]

ooh goody, another opportunity to post a video of my Savage!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=44267168...

Can't recommend the savage highly enough, great bits of kit.

[CIS121]

bramley said:

ooh goody, another opportunity to post a video of my Savage!

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=44267168...

Can't recommend the savage highly enough, great bits of kit.

That is pretty impressive jumping. If I'm not mistaken, you come onto the throttle to raise the front of teh car via inertia before you land, hence keeping the thing from spinning in the air. That must take some learning!

I'm currently looking for an Xmas present (for myself :-)) and one of the HPISavage X kits looks very appealing. Do you know if the SS is really worth the extra money for soemone who wont be racing it? Also, are teh running costs with these thigns worth worrying about, e.g. clutches, gears, bits that break regularly etc?

HPI Savage X
http://www.hpieurope.com/kit-info.php?partNo=859&a...

HPI Savage X SS
http://www.hpieurope.com/kit-info.php?partNo=862

Ummm, do I really have to wait until Xmas ;-)

[bramley]

Yeah that's right, you can raise the nose with the throttle or drop it with the brakes. It's amazing how much control you have over it in the air, when I first started jumping it I was gobsmacked. People that have more practice than me can do forward or backward flips in the air.

It does take some getting used to, and a momentary lapse of concentration (as in that vid) can cause damage! Mind you, jumping off steel ramps over tarmac is never gonna give you a soft landing! Huge fun anyway, but you need to be prepared to spend a few quid on maintenance/repairs and upgrades if you're going to treat it like that. But that's why I bought it, I love the fact it can take huge jumps and land quite happily. I also enjoy tinkering with it.

There are some upgrades that are worth having, if you're gonna jump it the 4-bevel diffs are worth having. Silly jumps (and bad landings) can smash fuel tanks, bend shocks, wreck bodyshells and generally give things a hard time, but just about every part is available on ebay for not much dosh. I went through a faze of smashing a fuel tank on a weekly basis (£15 a pop) due to landing it badly on a bmx track. I've since upgraded the chassis plates which adds and inch to the wheelbase which means the rear shock towers now won't puncture the fuel tank if it lands badly.

Clutches seem to last quite a while (but aren't expensive anyway) and the other parts that count as conusmables really aren't that expensive. Search on ebay for HPI Savage and you'll see the prices of spares. Most are under £20.

If I think of any other useful info I'll let you know.

[CIS121]

bramley said:

Yeah that's right, you can raise the nose with the throttle or drop it with the brakes. It's amazing how much control you have over it in the air, when I first started jumping it I was gobsmacked. People that have more practice than me can do forward or backward flips in the air.

It does take some getting used to, and a momentary lapse of concentration (as in that vid) can cause damage! Mind you, jumping off steel ramps over tarmac is never gonna give you a soft landing! Huge fun anyway, but you need to be prepared to spend a few quid on maintenance/repairs and upgrades if you're going to treat it like that. But that's why I bought it, I love the fact it can take huge jumps and land quite happily. I also enjoy tinkering with it.

There are some upgrades that are worth having, if you're gonna jump it the 4-bevel diffs are worth having. Silly jumps (and bad landings) can smash fuel tanks, bend shocks, wreck bodyshells and generally give things a hard time, but just about every part is available on ebay for not much dosh. I went through a faze of smashing a fuel tank on a weekly basis (£15 a pop) due to landing it badly on a bmx track. I've since upgraded the chassis plates which adds and inch to the wheelbase which means the rear shock towers now won't puncture the fuel tank if it lands badly.

Clutches seem to last quite a while (but aren't expensive anyway) and the other parts that count as conusmables really aren't that expensive. Search on ebay for HPI Savage and you'll see the prices of spares. Most are under £20.

If I think of any other useful info I'll let you know.

Hi Bramley, thanks for your reply. Do you know fi tehre is much to merit getting the x SS over teh Savage x?

[bramley]

Just had a look at the specs on the hpi website (I'm a year out of touch as I haven't used mine for a while) and quite honestly the X has everything that I think is really needed. I'm running an STS .28 engine in my savage and they are an absolute bargain, very powerful and easy to tune, and they're £60 brand new on ebay, so if you were to buy a truck without an engine then I'd say definately go for an STS .28 (there is an STS .30 but I have no experience of them).

I'd advise going for an X (although i admit I don't know the price difference between that and the SS) and then if you want to upgrade it in the future you can get a twin drilled disk kit and a 3 speed gearbox. Kinda depends what you want to use it for, I have a mate who's sole intention is to kill his truck everytime he takes it out, and another mate that won't attempt certain jumps (he wouldn't try the ones in my vid at those speeds) whereas I'm somewhere in the middle. The X seems to have the essential stuff like the 4-bevel diffs and cam steering system. The only real commitment you make in your purchase is the engine, as that's the most expensive bit to change. frankly until you put several savages together in one place at the same time, with different engines you wouldn't think they needed more power. My reckless mate bought the old 4.6 model which at the time was more powerful than my old engine, so i had to upgrade mine now there are three of us that have them, all fairly evenly matched.