Fyrstormer's RC Blog

back to Fyrstormer's Garage Oh look, I built another Nitro RS4. This isn't the new car, though. ;) This is my Nitro RS4 2, which I built a year ago. It is , however, to blame for me building the new car. To build my Nitro RS4 2, I ended up spending a small fortune on 5 different rollers on eBay, completely disassembling them, washing every single filthy part with dish soap and a toothbrush, inspecting every single part for damage, throwing away half the parts I got because of stripped screw-holes, and finally building a functioning car. After that ordeal, I swore off buying any more vintage HPI stuff. Those filthy old Nitro RS4 2's came with an assortment of engines in an assortment of conditions, but the engines most easily salvaged were all HPI 15FE's. That engine is a repurposed Toki airplane engine, and its power output was pretty bad, because it was designed to run at full-throttle constantly and didn't need to produce low-RPM torque. (it didn...

back to Fyrstormer's Garage I finished another build today. I can hear you now: "Wait a minute, fyrstormer. Why did you build a second T-Maxx? You already have one! See? It's right here." "I don't understand, fyrstormer. I've read and memorized every word of every build thread you've ever written, and it isn't like you to build a second vehicle just to have one in a different color! After all this time, I thought I knew you so well, but now I don't know what to believe anymore! Are you feeling okay? Do you need help? I can call someone for you, just don't do anything foolis--" "...wait a second. What's that thing where the exhaust outlet is supposed to be?" "Oh hell, you've gone and done something weird again, haven't you? Well that's typical. And here I got all worked up for nothing. I hate when you do this to me, fyrstormer. I just can't handle your drama anymore. I'm lea...

back to Fyrstormer's Garage So continues my long line of Tamiya electric touring cars. I'm not entirely sure why, to be honest; I think it's just that Tamiya likes to experiment with off-the-wall ideas, and that, combined with their highly-interchangeable parts, appeals to my inner Lego maniac. (I don't actually play with Legos anymore, they're not mechanically capable enough for me, but I still enjoy "Lego-ing" parts to see what I can build.) So anyway, here's my latest car, a Tamiya FF-03R in short-wheelbase configuration. My first touring car was FWD, a FF-04 in fact. I didn't like it, and I ended up cannibalizing it to upgrade a XV-01 I bought later on. But the FF-03, despite being older, has some features I like better: The motor is mounted lower and further forward for lower center-of-gravity and more traction on the front tires when accelerating, the battery is center-mounted instead of side-mounted so the chassis doesn't ...

back to Fyrstormer's Garage Finally I found a RC that's as dark as my soul. goth buggy is so dark Okay, not really, I just couldn't resist the urge to make fun of the "Dark Impact" branding on this kit. So anyway, this is my new track buggy, for driving at the local indoor track when the weather is icky or I just don't want to risk being bothered by neighborhood kids. I can hear you thinking: "Why on earth did you buy that thing to drive on a track? It's so fragile! What a waste of money." Well, I had two reasons for choosing a DF-03 instead of a different kit: 1) I have two other DF-03-based vehicles, so I have a large stash of spare parts for this platform and the only additional parts I need to keep on-hand for this buggy are the A-arms and the CVDs, and 2) I felt like it. ;) Of course, I am aware that the DF-03 is fragile as track vehicles go, which is why most of the work I spent on this build was to figure out how to make it...