Newbie.

[Limecat]

Hello everyone.

I have just registered as I am contemplating starting racing my old R/C cars again and am wondering how competitive it could be as everything seems to have gone LiPo/brushless?.

I will get some pictures up later but my main 2, which are both immaculate as I only ever used them indoors on carpet, are my Yokomo YR-F2 special and a very heavily upgraded Kyosho LazerZX-R Mk2 (plus a shed load of brand new still bagged spares). I haven't raced either for probably about 16/17 years?

I have no doubt that the chassis would still be competitive at local level it's just the electronics side of things that I am unsure on?

I understand if going brushless that my old ESC would be neither use nor ornament? I take it my PC-5 (IIRC) charger isn't suited to these LiPo batteries?

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated, as would ideas on venues in the Stockport area (I have already noticed the sub forum).
Appologies if it is in the wrong section, I felt it was the most applicable section.


As I say, I will get some pictures up this evening.

Kind regards,
Wayne.

[SiTrace]

Lipos and brushless motors can't comparable to the batteries used in the 90's. It so much easier now. You car might be competitive if your a very good driver, but your electrics won't and a 16 YO transmission wasn't designed for today's power. Most in vintage run Lipos and brushless, as it makes life easy. Sorry this problem isn't what you want to hear, but as someone who also raced that long ago I can tell you first hand, it's night and day!

[daz75]

I tried my brushed stuff and the batteries lasted 2 laps I think some would have been better than that but couldn't be bothered

Swapped to a lipo and burnt my brushed motor out

[SiTrace]

It's just not worth trying to mix old gear with new, ESC, chargers and old motors won't work with Lipos.

[Limecat]

Thanks for your responses.

Greatly appreciated. Is there any order that one can 'wing it on' so as to avoid a large outlay at one time?

I'm half tempted to see how I get on with what I have to see if I wish to stick with it?

I hate the thought of buying new gear then not sticking with it, so if there is a recognised staged route to upgrading it would limit my risk to exposure. Yes, they put flat edges on 20 pence pieces so they can be extracted from my hands with a spanner/I turn the gas off whilst I'm turning the bacon etc!

Hopefully these will work?

[Limecat]

The Lazer has a Fibre Lyte tub chassis which was modified to take stick packs, hence the mild 'cut out' on the far side of the picture. I used to run saddle packs until I put a set in my pocket when bringing my stuff out from my Dads and they shorted, the link wire naturally glowed and I ended up in the car park behind his flat with my pants around my ankles trying to put the flames out with my hands!

I'm going to order the steering link and motor stabilising plate to finish it off. Got the roll bars, rear UJ's, different rollers, quick change Spurs with a slipper, 2mm wider rear arms, carbon wing, alloy motor mount, kevlar belts, titanium bits, alloy blocks etc. Was a lot of newspapers that was!

I'd still love some more aftermarket bits if anyone has any going. I carried the modification thing over in to real care once I could drive too!

[daz75]

Go to hobbyking and buy a cheap speed battery and motor probably cost about £100

Or do what I've done and buy stuff second hand out of the for sale forum or pit a wanted add up

Personally I think I would have done ok with my old batteries but I set one alight and I couldn't be arsed seeing if the others lasted 5 minutes

One lipo will last all day for my lads using 17.5 motors

[Stu Dixon]

Originally Posted by Limecat

Hello everyone.

I have just registered as I am contemplating starting racing my old R/C cars again and am wondering how competitive it could be as everything seems to have gone LiPo/brushless?.

I will get some pictures up later but my main 2, which are both immaculate as I only ever used them indoors on carpet, are my Yokomo YR-F2 special and a very heavily upgraded Kyosho LazerZX-R Mk2 (plus a shed load of brand new still bagged spares). I haven't raced either for probably about 16/17 years?

I have no doubt that the chassis would still be competitive at local level it's just the electronics side of things that I am unsure on?

I understand if going brushless that my old ESC would be neither use nor ornament? I take it my PC-5 (IIRC) charger isn't suited to these LiPo batteries?

Any advice or pointers would be greatly appreciated, as would ideas on venues in the Stockport area (I have already noticed the sub forum).
Appologies if it is in the wrong section, I felt it was the most applicable section.


As I say, I will get some pictures up this evening.

Kind regards,
Wayne.

Hi Wayne,
Bury metro is fairly close to you for outdoor off road racing, very good track too, having said that racing is in Oldham at the moment for the winter months at Counthill sports centre. Rob still runs a Lazer zxr indoors (pimped up) and he's still quick with it

Have a look at the Bury sub forum.

Cheers
Stu.

[Limecat]

Originally Posted by daz75

Go to hobbyking and buy a cheap speed battery and motor probably cost about £100

Or do what I've done and buy stuff second hand out of the for sale forum or pit a wanted add up

Personally I think I would have done ok with my old batteries but I set one alight and I couldn't be arsed seeing if the others lasted 5 minutes

One lipo will last all day for my lads using 17.5 motors

17.5?

I was running a Reedy (?) 14 quad IIRC with my YR-F2 if I remember correctly? I was looking through your collection earlier and noticed you have some nice anodised alloy parts on your YR-F2, where did you get them from?

In a year or 2 of racing my YR-F2 I never broke anything so have no spares and my googling hasn't thrown much up. Love a nice upgrade and bit of bling!

[iank55]

One of the members at Bury - Rob Mills - runs a Lazer indoors at Bury and does relatively well with it. I think he runs an 8.5 brushless.

That being the case you could probably get away with just buying new speedo, motor, a couple of lipos and a charger which should cost less than £150 if you shop around.

[Limecat]

Originally Posted by Stu Dixon

Hi Wayne,
Bury metro is fairly close to you for outdoor off road racing, very good track too, having said that racing is in Oldham at the moment for the winter months at Counthill sports centre. Rob still runs a Lazer zxr indoors (pimped up) and he's still quick with it

Have a look at the Bury sub forum.

Cheers
Stu.

Many thanks Stu.

I love the idea of outdoors, could cobble together a ZXR from my 2+ cars of spares but I couldn't bring myself to scratch my baby. :eh? Bury isn't too far, do you race indoors at Oldham in winter? (I'm an Oldham Athletic fan!).

I'll check your sub-forum out.

Many thanks!

[dodgydiy]

a lot of vintage people seem to be using 10.5 turn motors, plenty of go for most older cars, welshy40 will tell you exactly the strong and weak points of the lazer. if you want to start cheap, either buy a secondhand speedo and motor, or go on hobbyking and buy a turnighy motor and xcar 120A speedo and the usb programmer for it so you can put hobbywing firmware on it. also either secondhand 2 cell lipo's or something like turnigy or core packs. i know your car can take saddle or stick, but a lot of more modern cars use 2 cell shorty lipo's so would make sense to get them in case you do enjoy it again. you dont need to buy lots of batteries either, just two or three packs and keep topping them up. so much easier

[daz75]

17.5 is the equivalent to turns in the old brushed days the higher the number the slower it is they are learning so I put slow motor's in for em
Still beat a few people with miles quicker cars

Don't know where the bling came from on my yrf2 as it was my dad's and he's no longer with us

[Welshy40]

Originally Posted by Limecat

The Lazer has a Fibre Lyte tub chassis which was modified to take stick packs, hence the mild 'cut out' on the far side of the picture. I used to run saddle packs until I put a set in my pocket when bringing my stuff out from my Dads and they shorted, the link wire naturally glowed and I ended up in the car park behind his flat with my pants around my ankles trying to put the flames out with my hands!

I'm going to order the steering link and motor stabilising plate to finish it off. Got the roll bars, rear UJ's, different rollers, quick change Spurs with a slipper, 2mm wider rear arms, carbon wing, alloy motor mount, kevlar belts, titanium bits, alloy blocks etc. Was a lot of newspapers that was!

I'd still love some more aftermarket bits if anyone has any going. I carried the modification thing over in to real care once I could drive too!

Apologies for not designing that into my tub, I never thought anyone would use sticks DOH!!!

[Limecat]

Originally Posted by daz75

17.5 is the equivalent to turns in the old brushed days the higher the number the slower it is they are learning so I put slow motor's in for em
Still beat a few people with miles quicker cars

Don't know where the bling came from on my yrf2 as it was my dad's and he's no longer with us

I just did a search, merely coincidental to what you said as I hadn't seen it at the time you had posted.

I put 'Yapp' in to the search engine as I remembered your Dad.

Really sorry to hear about your old man, he was a really nice guy. I remember him from Poynton meets. TBH, I remember how good you were, you generally pounded everyone in group 1 but you weren't very approachable!

I was really shocked when I read that, having already seen your 'collection' as I always thought that you both knew EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING in the R/C car world. I wouldn't have thought Darren Yapp would have needed to know spec of a car, I thought you both eat, slept and poo'd that stuff.

Kind regards,
Wayne.

[Peakey]

Welcome to the nut house

Love the YRF2 I keep missing them they both look good. Welshy is the laser man here and he's the guy that designed the tub you've got there. As for brushless systems you can get good quality ones really cheap off eBay, I've only heard good things about the Trackstar stuff. The thing is there all made in the same place just stickered up differently.

[Welshy40]

Ok, well if for fun then a 10 turn should be ok but would say yes a cheapo would be fine but will it fit under the top deck with a fan on, but if you can get a small second hand tekin RS pro esc rather than fork out a big stash on an LRP Flow and for the servo you do need to spend but use a servo saver like a kimbrough. Also just in case you didnt know RW racing still sell replacement spurs for that wasp version on your car. So much to mention but pm me with anything thats on your mind and will do my best to help.

[Limecat]

Originally Posted by Welshy40

Apologies for not designing that into my tub, I never thought anyone would use sticks DOH!!!

I'm not claiming it was a design fault, merely that after being 20 years ahead of 'Anna Windass' (Corrie) on the burnt leg things I wanted stick packs again! :LOL:

I assume from your reply that you're Fibre Lyte? If so, could you drop me a PM? I have a strong interest in your products. It's not in its normal use. You can get me on wayne451@hotmail.co.uk

[Peakey]

Originally Posted by Limecat

I assume from your reply that you're Fibre Lyte? If so, could you drop me a PM? I have a strong interest in your products. It's not in its normal use. You can get me on wayne451@hotmail.co.uk

Ha ha he wishes and almost could have shares in the place I bet from what he's spent with them They will pretty much make and cut anything for you out of carbon you want to talk to Stephen there best to do it by phone he's really helpful and will help anyway he can I know that from the many dealings I've had with him

[Welshy40]

Unfortunately I would live to own Fibrelyte as its a designers wet dream but Ive known them before they opened for trade and drive for them and advertise them as much as possible as they sell incredible products just like Kamtec as per link below who sell the Parma Tomcat shell that is a perfect fit on your Lazer but looks much better than the zxr shell. The shell in the picture on their site is the first they made and still looks that good on my car almost six years on.