Jim O’Halloran’s Weblog

Published February 19th, 2006 by Jim O'Halloran

RC Electric Touring Cars

A friend recently asked (by email) for advice on Electric Touring cars. I ended up writing a bit of an essay on the subject, so I thoght it might be useful for other people as well.

He’s had Nitro cars before, but is thinking about going elextric and racing at the new Hobby Habit centre on Daws Road. Here’s what I said…

The new Hobby Habit facility on Daws Road is awesome! I’ve raced there twice now, and its just sensational. The new on road track is brilliant, they can change the layout around heaps, and there’s loads of grip (you should hear the tyre howl the modified cars make, unbelievable). The off-road track isn’t finished yet, and may be a bit small for 1/8th scale cars, but overall the facility is top notch.

Normally I’d advise that people get something like a Ho Bao Hyper 10, or a Tamiya TA-04 as their first touring car. Reason being that they’re built a lot tougher than the pure competition cars, so they’ll be cheaper to run while you learn your race craft. Of the two, the Hyper 10 is probably better value for money (better spec, cheaper too!), but I had a Tamiya and loved it. The Tamiya is built like the proverbial brick crap house, and was a good first car. Neither car will be “A grade” competitive, but they’re great “starter” cars.

That said, you’ve had RC cars before so you could probably get away with jumping in head first with one of the more competitive chassis.

Yokomo - I’ve got the old MR4-TC, very old now, but on a good day I might
just squeak into the “A Grade” in stock class. Pretty solid car, but prone to breaking front arms (watch out for the barriers).

Since the MR4-TC, there’s been the SD, the CGM and the BD. The SD and CGM are both shaft driven, and pretty competitive, but from what I gather can be a bit of a handful to drive. I believe the shaft drive gives them a torque steer problem, that makes them want to turn one way more than the other. Probably more of an issue with hotter motors, but I haven’t driven one personally, and can’t say for sure.

The BD is the newest Yokomo, and is belt drive. Its a beautiful looking car with blue anodised metal and carbon fibre throughout, very sexy. This also seems to be the car the fastest guys at Hobby Habit are driving at the moment (probably not a great surprise, Hobby Habit import Yokomo). From what I gather though, the BD is a bit fragile, specially with the solid wooden barriers at Hobby Habits new track. From memory a new BD is around the $600 mark, so its not cheap.

As Hobby Habit import Yokomo, they’ve always got parts.

Associated - Their new car is the TC4 and seems pretty competitive. Beware though, being an American car all the screws are imperial measurements (inches), so if you’ve had Japanese (metric) cars before you could find yourself spending money on new tools, etc as well as the car. I found that out the hard way when I bought an Associated buggy. Also a shaft drive, so it probably suffers from the same torque steer issue at the Yokomos (its a shaft drive characteristic rather than a Yokomo thing). Both Model Flight and Hobby Habit stock Associated stuff.

Losi - Losi have two cars, the XXX-S is the older car, which my mate Bryan runs. Its a slightly unusual car in that its a single belt drive. This makes changing the spur gear a bit of a pain because the belt sort of wraps around it, but it seems to be a nice free running car. Its pretty solid (my mate hasn’t broken anything yet), but spares are pretty cheap when you need them, and Model Flight stocks a decent range of Losi parts. The car is reasonably competitive (it kills my MR4-TC, and Bryan regularly qualifies for the “A’s”). The XXX-S isn’t an expensive car, from memory the fully spec’d version sells for around $400 (maybe less).

The newer Losi id the JR-X which a couple of guys are running. Its another unusual arrangement, in that the battery is mounted centrally in the chassis (screwed in from the bottom). It seems reasonably competitive, and is very well priced. One of the guys I sat next to on Saturday night had a brand new one, he reckoned it was the only all carbon fibre car you’d buy for less than $500. Parts are also cheap (suspension arms are $5), so it sounds like
a good buy all up. Again, Losi are an American brand, so the screws, etc are all imperial sizes.

I don’t know of anyone running an XRay, but from the reviews I’ve read it sounds like a nice car. Problem is that I don’t think anyone here in Adelaide stocks them, so they might be a bit hard to find parts for.

If I was in the market for a new Touring Car tomorrow, I’d probably take a very close look at the Yokomo BD and the two Losi cars. Yokomo because I’ve had their cars before and I might be able to reuse suspension arms, shock components, etc on the new car, and the Losi cars on pure bang for buck performance. The Losi’s are very well priced for what you get. I’d think seriously about the XXX-S because that’s what Bryan runs, and we have more fun racing if we both have the same car (even though its the older Losi). The JR-X is well priced though, and is worth a look on that basis alone.

Other tips, if you’re looking for batteries, I’ve got one word “eBay”. I bought 4 packs from eBay about two years ago now, and they’re still going strong. eBay is 1/2 to 1/3rd the price of local Hobby Shops for battery packs. As much as I like to support the local shops, eBay is just too cheap (and good batteries too expensive) to buy elsewhere.

Hope that helps!

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