New D4 owner in SW England

[tarcus]

Wotcher all, I've just bought a D4 and will be building it over the coming weeks, I bought the original as it's been discounted by £100 bringing it into my immediate price range.

Given that the last time I raced an RC car was when the Tamiya Hotshot was first released (I'm in my mid thirties), I suspect it'll be quite a while before I really catch up with the car. I reckon I'll get a new bumper for the D4 though to protect those front hinge mounts. Any good places to just get a replacement bumper rather than a whole front-end pack?

I'll be trawling the forums for hints and tips, including a mid-range electronics setup, no point me going to a high end lipo/brushless kit yet as it'll only make me crash faster!

If anyone's got a shopping list of bits for a beginner to slap onto this car I'd be interested, I don't want to blow too much cash, I'm aiming at about £200 or so for my first setup (motor, cells, speed controller, servo, receiver, transmitter) but haven't yet priced things up to see if that's realistic.

Also if anyone knows of a good venue in the Bristol/Salisbury/Bournemouth triangle, and some good model shops, I'm all ears.

I've also bought a cheap HB Cyclone S RTR for tarmac kicks and will be attending the Frome model club most likely.

Bye for now!

[Adam Skelding]

Welcome to the wonderful world of D4 ownership.

I'll try and answer your questions in order:

1. Replacement front bumpers are not available seperately. You do have to buy the front end pack.

2. IMHO opinion, you'd be best to hang on for a brushless set-up if you can wait long enough. It would be better than buying a brushed set-up and then have to fork out for the brushless kit at a later date.

Nosram do some very good mid spec brushless stuff like the 'Evil' it will run upto an 8.5T brushless motor, but nothing lower. It really depends on how fast you are wanting to go.
http://www.mirageracing.com/piw.php?partNo=NR90400

Cells: 3300mAh or above will be plenty for the spec of racing your looking at. Brushless motors are so much more effiecient than their brushed counterparts so expect to be able to last with ease.

Radio:
There are some good cheap starter sets out their. Try and aim for a servo with over 6kg of Torque if your budget will handle it. Speed: 0.17secs (0-60) is plenty.

I think £200 maybe a little on the low side unless you are going ebay / club night shopping.

[tarcus]

Thanks for the reply Adam, last night I did some poking around on websites pricing up just the transmitters, and the decent ones are much more expensive than I thought so I'd already bid farewell to my £200 budget ideas.. I'll just have to take longer to get the car on the road than I'd originally planned, or just blow money faster than I'd intended. I have a range of real cars that I play with, model cars were supposed to be a cheap sideline hobby! Mind you still far cheaper than most spares for my real cars.

I've dug up the setup sheets from the HB website and was thinking of copying one of the installations listed there (watching out for old setups and now outdated gear), and just easing off the throttle until I get the hang of the steering, this would blow my budget for sure but is there any advantage in starting off with a slower, cheaper setup or will just less throttle do the job? Perhaps tweaking the speed controller to give me an easy ride at first?

Thanks all.

Ian

[JCJC]

We used a Sanwa Gemini for a while, 40FM, good stuff. Kopite has one in the for sale section: http://www.oople.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12859 would be a good buy. Lots moving to Spektrum so good secondhand trannies are on the market. Brushed motors in the same boat, and I expect if lipo is accepted for 2009 Nationaly the market will be full of secondhand chargers - if you are buying a charger make sure it will do lipo's.

[tarcus]

Cheers, I think I'll probably skip brushed given that brushless isn't too pricey, I reckon I might go for a cheap-ish kit, £100 for motor and controller combo, use it in the D4 for a while, then I can put it into the other car I bought (Cyclone S RTR) if things start to take off.

As for transmitters, I'm hoping to go into a model shop and fondle a few, when it comes to something you're actually going to hold, hands-on touchy-feely stuff is a good idea. I'll keep an eye out for the Sanwa gemini, I'd like the 2.4Ghz stuff but a tad expensive at the moment, especially considering how cheap 2.4GHz radio electronics are, e.g. baby monitors, weather stations, doorbells etc.

I'd hope that lipo cells are accepted for national events, however I'm not likely to be entering any national events given that I do enough travelling as it is with work and my real car events, I could do without travelling for the model cars as well! I'll check with local club rules before I get to the stage of choosing the electrics.

[jim76]

i purchased the original D4 like you. The only upgrade i would recommend for it if you plan to race it is the worlds slipper clutch, as this is a huge improvement on the standard item and makes the car far more predictable on power.

for the electrics, keep an eye on the for sale section here. decent transmitters and servos etc come up often. I got a pair of £90 KO 2123 for £30 each on ebay also.
should be able to pick up the older KO esprit vantage radio for small money now and it is still plenty good enough.
Brushless systems also come up a fair bit, unless you want brand new.