new (old) RC 10L race car

[sammyg2]

Anyone out there into RC road race cars?

A month ago my 8 year old son got a corvette RC car as a present. It's OK, but its a toy. Top speed of maybe 12 mph, range of less than 100 feet.
He got bored with it quickly.
I started telling him the story about how I used to race an RC12 with a 962 body on an indoor carpet (felt) track. His eyes lit up. I told him of the X motor, the cheater 8 battery pack I made for top speed runs, the 10 different custom gearing sets I had, the dozens of different tires, the traction compound i made (before you could buy it) and top speed of close to 60 mph. He got all excited.
Well, yesterday this showed up, purchased on e-bay:



It's an RC10L, wide track, old but in great shape. Has a trinity super stock motor, full bearings, nice speed controller, etc.
The new radio, batteries, and charge should be here in the next few days, he's (we are) gonna love it.

[toddu]

I've actually got an RC10 (off-road "buggy") sitting in my closet for about 20 years now. I can't believe it's been that long!!!! I'll have to see if it still works.

Todd

[Pete000]

Those old school RC cars are beginning to become collectors items. Some of the vintage Tamiya stuff is big bucks now. Those first gen RC 10 Buggies with the gold chassis are going up in value too...

[sammyg2]

LOL, 20 years. that's about when I gave up racing these things. I had a fortune tied up into it. A small roll away full of all kinds of parts and tools, enough to build at least two more cars, too many motors, it was nuts. I was spending at least $100 a month just in parts.
I had special battery packs, a cooler to try and get more charge into the batteries, a special alignment jig, it really was an obsession. All for a small $5 trophy every Saturday.

[mb911]

I use to have the aluminum /gold chassis rc 10 my dad still has his TQ-10 (fiberglass chassis)sitting in the box cool stuff

[toddu]

Originally posted by Pete000
Those old school RC cars are beginning to become collectors items. Some of the vintage Tamiya stuff is big bucks now. Those first gen RC 10 Buggies with the gold chassis are going up in value too...

That's what I've got, the gold aluminum "tub". Along with that, I used to have, but think I got rid of, a Tamiya "Grasshopper". Much less technical than the RC10. Oh, just remembered, I do have a Tamiya electric road car. I forget the specifics. I'll have to see what this stuff is worth!!

Todd

[sammyg2]

IIRC The grasshopper was my first RC car.
then I bought one of those 4 wheel drive cars, the one with the long belt. Can't remember the name but it think it started with an O.

Then I found the indoor road-racing track with the carpet, no more off road for me. I bought a used RC12 and the rest is history.
Too bad that track is long gone.

[}{arlequin]

hey, don't mean to jack the thread but i saw some cool rc stuff in a display window and this seems like a good opportunity to share it.

sorry for the crappy quality, pics were taken through a display window

i've heard of these things but never seen one up close until now. the other gas powered cars are 'regular' scale, these monsters were at least 3 feet in length :shocked:

interesting things to note was the different chassis layouts between them. shock/spring locations on front and rear suspensions, drive train from what i gather was belt-driven vs. direct through sprockets and of course, the brakes crossdrilled vs. solid as well as what appears to be hydraulic vs. cable activated. these things were monstrous

sorry for the volume of pics, but i really was trying to cover all the interesting aspects. figured car guys wouldn't mind.... unless you're on dial up

[}{arlequin]

[kycarguy 935]

I use to race these things in the 80's too...Tamiya Sand Scorcher and Rough Riders and was even lucky enough to attend the World Championships in England in 1987. I have a small storage building full of this stuff new and have been watching Ebay and noticed the crazy prices on this RC stuff too.

I need some parts for my P-cars so I guess I better dig it out. I found a new Cox Scorpion yesterday. This model was the first RC car that could beat the modified Tamiya cars.

What fun we had back then. I was heavily involved in the offroad RC car industry since the beginning and will try to post some pictures of the vintage stuff as I dig it out of storage if anyone is interested.

[sammyg2]

must ... not .... look... must resist...

Wow, that's some hi tech stuff. Bet it cost a fortune. Looks like 1/8 scale to me.
Some of those small gas/nitro motors develop 2 or 3 hp. Prolly very fast. I always wanted to get into the gas powered RC cars but the initial cost to get a nice one is way up there.

[sammyg2]

Just remembered.
When I was about 12 I had a cox dragster.
It was designed to run on a fishing line from one point to another,
we just hammered a nail into the asphalt and tied about 50 feet of fishing line ot it. One person got the car running while the other held the fishing line tight. As soon as the car got running he let go. The darned thing went a long way.
One day it hit a parked car and got the rear wheel wedged under the car tire. Melted the drive gears, that was it. Game over.

[Dutchie]

Dave that,s a F1 model from FG sport http://www.fg-modellsport-gmbh.de/hauptseiten-bereiche/hauptseiten-layout/base03-formel1.html

Very nice cars but not as fast as the top electro or nitro fuel cars, i have a 911 GT3 Evolution in 1/5 from FG great fun and looks and drives like the real thing

[sammyg2]

Wow. Just wow.

That's so cool even if it is a bit over the top. I didn't even know that stuff existed in 1:5 scale or with that detail.

so ..... how much? Gotta be big $$$.

[Dutchie]

they are a bit expensive yes. You know how it goes you start of with one of the eco models and end with an Evo version i,m afraid mine cost more than 3000 euros ...

[Dutchie]

found a video of some 1/5 scale cars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxKKQgI57oI&mode=related&search=

the nice thing is they run on twotact fuel (1/50) so you can use them all day for a few euro,s. I also have some 1/8 scale cars wich run on Nitro/Methanol wich costs 10x as much to run.

[Aerkuld]

Funny I was thinking about this reading the BMX thread. While you guys were spending your money on BMX bikes all mine was going on off-road RC racing. I had one (still have actually) of the first Schumacher C.A.T's (Competition All Terrain) as the Schumacher company used to be down the road from where I lived. That was a good 160 to 200 pounds sterling back then, or 3 or 4 hundred dollars before you put any radio in it, which was quite a lot of money for me as a kid still in high school. I was also racing 1/12 indoor Schumacher C-cars which were like the RC12 but better (a little bit of international rivalry). I can almost still smell the Trac-Tite!
A few years ago I bought a a couple of the updated C.A.T's and a couple of the 1/10 on road cars for me and my eldest son to play with. I was suprised how much the battery technology had moved on with cell capacity at almost triple where it was back when. All the electronics seem to have shrunk to.
These are amazing little machines and a lot of the stuff I learned back racing them actually carries over to more sophisticated machinery, albeit on a larger scale.

[ronin]

used to race Tamiya F1 cars in the 90s. still have a carbon fiber chassis with all the bells and whistles, and a Ferrari F1 body waiting to be built for display. but now I play with these things

[David McLaughlin]

Originally posted by sammyg2
Anyone out there into RC road race cars?

My older son just found my associated 10L last weekend. He' really want to see what it'll do. I had a good time with it when the tracks were still open. I was always afraid of cracking the carbon fiber chassis as the car got older. Unfortunetly, the tracks around here closed and parts for pan cars dried up. Full suspension cars are the way to go now, but those pans were the balls in their day.

Here's a stock Tamiya M04L that I built...

[David McLaughlin]

Oh, forgot to add a pic of my old 10L