Does anyone mini z?

[Eric Hahl]

I do a bit of RC car and truck playing. Recently got into these little guys. What a blast. Anyone else here? Kinda like slot cars without the slots.

[berettafan]

that looks sharp!

[wdfifteen]

I have one around here. They were kinda fun when the grandkids were younger. But at 14 and 15 they are more interested in social media than - anything. Sad.

[ckissick]

I did a long time ago. Like 1980 +/-. Besides airplanes, I had a dune buggy and my friend had a 911. This was before electric motors, of course, and they were very loud and smelly. The 911 was about 15 inches long and could do 60 mph. My friend also had a very fast speed boat, about a foot long. He once broadsided a dingy at the local yacht club and sank it - the dingy, that is. Good times.

[Tim Hancock]

I have a couple I bought years ago in an RC package deal. Have not messed with them much. I do on occasion run a Traxxas Slash 4x4 and a 1/5 scale gas short course truck with some local guys at a private track. Also into 1/10 scale crawlers and various RC aircraft.

[Eric Hahl]

Nice collection! I’m currently working on the hard body Range Rover on TRX4 chassis’s and the RC4WD Landcruiser. Bronco has some great articulation.
I have a Slash 4x4 as well with a 3 cell battery and Active vehicle stabilty, it's a blast.

[Jeff Higgins]

My younger son and I raced R/C cars when he was about 10-14 years old. We raced 1/12th scale stock motor four cell pan cars and 1/10th scale four wheel drive Touring Car, also stock motor but with six cells, in the winter on an indoor carpet track. A local hobby shop then set up a smaller carpet track for the then new Mini Z's, so we raced that as well. We ran the F1 cars, mine being Montoya's Williams and his was Coultard's McLaren.

As Team Principle and our one and only sponsor, I really liked the Mini Z's. They were far more durable than the 1/12th and 1/10th cars, plus batteries were far cheaper. The biggest difference was tire cost - they just never wore on the Mini Z's. The 1/12th scale ran on foamies, so I had to have a tire lathe. The 1/10th touring ran on hand-out rubber, but we would each use up at least one set per evening of racing. At about $30 for a set of four, that got to be some rather expensive toy car racing.

Then we discovered outdoor gas 1/10th Touring Car. Same spec tires as the indoor electric, but running on asphalt with gas really chewed them up. He ran the spec .12 ci three port motor, but I ran something really weird - an OS .26 ci four cycle that I bumped to a .30 with a new piston and sleeve.





We loved the outdoor gas, but boy did it get expensive. We finally decided to look into go-karts, because, believe it or not, the cost was not all that much more. And we could sit in them...

But then, alas, at the ripe old age of 14 he bought a '68 912 with a holed piston (for the princely sum of $2,000 - boy, those were the days...), and that was the end of our R/C car racing.



We wound up restoring it and converting to a 911 as his high school senior year project, but that's another story...

[Eric Hahl]

That's a beauty Jeff!

[pwd72s]

Love those widened steelies..

[Jeff Higgins]

Our R/C car hobby laid a wonderful, firm foundation for his interest in "real" cars. He learned to work on cars, he learned how different suspension settings affected handling, and all of that. Any of you with kids or grand kids of the right age should give it a shot. It's a great way to spend time with them while actually teaching them something of value.

There is a big, big difference between racing in an organized series and simple back yard or neighborhood street bashing. The commitment to a series teaches them valuable lessons. The need to prep the car, or sometimes even fix the car to make the next heat teaches them valuable lessons. And the competitiveness, as long as it is kept in perspective, inspires them to try harder, or keep trying when they are down, and all of that. I just cannot say enough about R/C racing as a father/son or father/daughter activity.

Pretty much everything he learned in the R/C racing world helped in some way to get through his 912 project. Like any such project, it certainly had its ups and downs. The fact that he had seen much of it in 1/10th scale helped more than I can express. Probably the attitude he developed by dealing with the many frustrations of our toy car racing was the biggest asset I noticed that helped him stick with the "real" car.

[Tim Hancock]

Originally Posted by Eric Hahl

Nice collection! I’m currently working on the hard body Range Rover on TRX4 chassis’s and the RC4WD Landcruiser. Bronco has some great articulation.
I have a Slash 4x4 as well with a 3 cell battery and Active vehicle stabilty, it's a blast.

I have been making and selling steel bumpers and rock sliders for TRX4 sports.

[Eric Hahl]

Great looking parts!

[Eric Hahl]

Added this to the collection to be more Pelican appropriate.

[flipper35]

Several of dad's friends and us kids got into racing R/C back in the late 80s and early 90s. We had a local track that started out dirt and then we ran indoors in the winter. Everyone tired of running two types of cars so we put concrete in the dirt track. Dad ended up with a Custom Works Intimidator with the pressurized shocks for road course work. Even though it was really a dirt oval car it worked well in the class he had it in and would almost run with the lightweight pan cars. Lots of the guys were local race drivers. We spent a fortune in tires and rims since the tires would roll off the rims if they weren't glued on. We went to some regional races, but I was asked to drive another guys car there so I never had to do any prep or pay for anything other than food. His buggy was odd since it had a front monoshock. Good times. One guy had over $5k invested in one car to run in stock class.