....is an R/c drift car built to look like my real one :D:

***I updated the second page with something else I've been working on :D: *** 4-21-2009

Specs on the car-
HPI Sprint2 chassis (AWD), HPI 200mm Rx-8 body (Tamiya yellow lexan paint)
Work licensed HPI wheels I hand painted the centers on, complete with white stickers!
Traxxas brushless motor/esc and venom lipo (I plan on going to a Novak or Mamba setup at some point, the Traxxas was cheap on Ebay so I tried it out to get a feel for brushless motors etc., I'm actually pretty stoked on the setup, plenty of power for "dorifto")
I glued the rear Diff solid, left the front one alone to help with understeer.
I'm using a Spektrum wireless radio/receiver to drive it all.
I have a few decals on my real car, so I put similar looking ones on this one to replicate it. I also found a guy on Ebay who makes scale license plates, so while you can't see it, I have a Texas plate in the back that reads just like my real one. This car can get up to about 45mph with ease, I've clocked an average of 1-2 hours runtime with it as well, with the new battery/electric motor technology it just goes forever, I melted one of the belts (overheated) a while back as the car ran so long it broke before the charge died. (my nitro powered buddies hate me :lol: )

Future plans - head and tail light buckets with leds, maybe some exhaust tips and interior work to make it look more "real" :)

http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/mini-me/1.JPG

http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/mini-me/2.JPG

http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/mini-me/3.JPG

If anyone has questions on how to build one of these feel free to contact me, it's a lot of fun sliding this little guy around and a lot less expensive than a real car :D:

nice match! i got a ta05 but not an rx8 shell and i will get one soon. it is fun sliding it around

nice pics canary. btw are you parked in the yellow section of the building :)

lol thats awesome.

did you guys see that?!??!
see what?
huh?
that twinki?
ooo shit i thot i was just seeing shit
you saw that too
i swear to God i saw a twinki on wheels...!
dam this is some bomb shit.

they will never no the truth.........
nice car=):lol:

That's pretty sweet man. I always had an interest in RC's, maybe I'll try and build one and I'll get ahold of you. It will have to wait til my car is more modded so I can make the RC look like my car like yours does.

sweet!!!! now your real 8 nees some hood pins to match the RCs

I can't even tell you how cool I think the RC replica of your car is! Down to the wheels...... damn.

Truely sick....

sweet car man, nice job

I'm working on something similar.

Very nice dude.

To save yourself money down the road and more of a headache you should replace the driveshafts (dogbones) to lightweight aluminum ones. The stock ones on mine snapped when I went with my bigger motor and drift set up. The new ones are stronger and alot lighter.

Cool, I've been thinking about getting that HPI setup but I know nothing about RC cars. Don't they sell some kind of electronic part for drifting that makes it easier to hold a drift line? I remember seeing a web page about it somewhere.

That's awesome. Any vids of it drifting? Anyone notice how the roof seems to curve like a 350z's roof?

so sick, ive got a zipzap rx8 that i was going to paint my color but it came and it had little rx8 emblems painted on and it was so beautiful i couldnt paint over them.

Nice work. Very cool looking! I like.

so sick, ive got a zipzap rx8 that i was going to paint my color but it came and it had little rx8 emblems painted on and it was so beautiful i couldnt paint over them.

Oh damn! There's a zipzaps RX8 and I missed it? Where'd you get it?

Nice pics. But, the mini-car has the MS rear, and you don't!

How much would you say you spent on the littel monster?

Nice pics. But, the mini-car has the MS rear, and you don't!

Yeah I know, that's the only down side, nobody makes a shell with the MS front and oem rear, :lol: and while I might be able to try and rig it somehow to look stock in the rear or closer to mine, I'm pretty sure it would come out looking like ass (haha get it?) in the end. (haha some more)

All told I probably have about 5-6 hundred dollars total in it, but only because I splurged on the radio and charger, if I'd gone with a slightly lesser powerful motor/batt it would have only run about 2-300 total, but I wanted the latest and greatest so it was a little more pricey. I built it up over time too so the cost wasn't too harsh as opposed to just dropping a ton of money at once etc.
You can pick up used setups off Ebay for next to nothing all day long, I see deals on there constantly, the Sprint2 kit itself as a rolling chassis brand new in box can be had for anywhere from 100-150 bucks, a used one for about half that or less sometimes depending on the condition of it. I'm still on the fence about the chassis personally, but I do like that the body is a direct fit and it was cheap enough to get started and see if it was something I wanted to pursue as a hobby again. (I have a stadium truck I use to bash around, to me the drifting is more fun though, especially if you get a few people together etc. :) )

I'm still way under the monster truck/savage/t-maxx guys pricewise, I've seen some of those dude spend 3-4k on their trucks :Eyecrazy:

Thanks for the props, we do have video of me drifting it, I just need to help the guy who filmed it get it off his camera :lol:

i know we have talked about this in the past, but figured I could add to this thread, I have an HPI, the rims are rashed bc of a recent parking lot race
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc167/chrisjaws/DSC03580.jpg
http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc167/chrisjaws/DSC03581.jpg

that's really cool guys... definitely looks like a hobby I could get into :)

BTW that's an aggressive offset on the fronts haha

man some one needs to tell me how to make one of these and have a front bumper that resembles the Autobahn front.

man some one needs to tell me how to make one of these and have a front bumper that resembles the Autobahn front.

I could go into bidness making replica's of replica kits? :D:

Oh damn! There's a zipzaps RX8 and I missed it? Where'd you get it?

theres 2! One is blue and one is chrome, i got mine for less then 5 dollars on ebay.

canary if you made one that had an autobahn front i may be interested depending on how pricey

LiL C

canary if you made one that had an autobahn front i may be interested depending on how pricey

I have a spare Rx8 body (from my first attempt, window tint paint bled through and ruined it) I bash around with, I'll look into it. Quite honestly, I don't think it would be hard to do, probably just trim the front bumper differently with different stickers to replicate the openings and it'd probably be pretty close :dunno:
I'll look into it for you, bodies run about 20-25 bucks, paint's about 12 bucks for a few cans, if it's nothing to complicated I could help you with the body at least for maybe a hair over the cost of materials, if you want a running one I could help with that too, but mostly I'd just point you on where and what to get for your stuff. :)

edit: going off the look of this pic: http://www.rx8club.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=85473&d=1158629328 I don't think it'd be that hard at all, the MS and the Auto Bahn are pretty similar actually.

Sweet car man. Also like the shoes.. It was weird, I was looking at this thread before I went to the mall earlier and I thought, "nice shoes"... so I make my trip to the mall and see them sitting there at Rack Room Shoes...Gonna pick em up for christmas. Thought it was purty funny... Thanks man

canary if you could get it to look similar to the autobahn i would be extremely interested, im planing on showing my 8 next summer and think something like this would look nice in my trunk just a little show piece. but i do see what you are talking about with the MS and autobahn. i dont know how i would do the wheels, but i could figure that out down the road i guess

shoot man, there's TONS of wheels out there, HPI has several different Work wheels and others, Tamiya has a bunch of different ones, Yokomo has Volk's, Enkei's etc., there's a Japanese company called Speedway Pal that has ridiculous stuff. I'm sure it wouldn't be very hard to find something similar, all I did on mine was buy the HPI ones and hand paint the centers black like my real ones. I also found some tires recently that look like my BFG's, HPI makes little Toyo's and Direzza's, but not G-Force :lol: I was running dorifto tires when these pics were taken, not much good for anything else other than sliding around :D: The pic below gives you an example, it's from Speedway Pal's website, the Japanese don't mess around when it comes to R/C drifting. :)

http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~sw-pal/ALUBUM/Alubum_TOP.html

http://sw-bal.sakura.ne.jp/PAL/ALUBUM/20081109_2008_ALEX_CUP/ALEX-CUP005.jpg

You'll find tons of stuff on Ebay, just type in r/c drift or r/c wheels for your search ;)

I've never owned a "nice" R/C car, only the cheap ones. I'm looking at the Sprint 2 Drift Sport RTR kit, good choice? Also, how do I know what's a good radio to get, not too expensive?

that's sweet where can i get one?????? :)

Thats cool as hell.
Needs tint but other then that it resembles your car exactly!

ill have to check out ebay canary thanks, maybe they will have something similar to the autobahn front...hey one can wish right

I've never owned a "nice" R/C car, only the cheap ones. I'm looking at the Sprint 2 Drift Sport RTR kit, good choice? Also, how do I know what's a good radio to get, not too expensive?

That's exactly what I'm running, with the 200mm HPI Mazda Rx-8 body.(I went with the wider one for wider wheels) I got the rolling chassis off ebay, came with everything except for the motor,battery, and electronics. I found a nib Traxxas Vilineon brushless motor/esc for less than 130 bucks, picked up a venom lipo and lipo charger locally, got my radio/receivers locally too. Radios can range from 80 bucks to over 300, just depends on the technology/features.

As far as getting a kit, there's a ton of intro/beginner level kits out there that are nicer than the "toy" ones and are a good place to start if you want to play around and see if it's a hobby you'd be interested in. Tamiya has the TT-01, HPI has the Sprint2, and Hot Bodies makes an E10 (same thing as HPI). I got most of my stuff used or new off Ebay, I've been into R/C for a long time, but quit messing with it for a while, saw a video of the drift comps and thought it might be fun to try since I used to do that bashing my awd stadium truck in the dirt etc. I actually taped up the street tires on my truck and played around in the driveway for a while, then after I figured out it would be something I was interested in I pieced my car together being frugal online.

The kits really aren't that hard to build, and for those who don't want to build their own, I know there are several rtr packages out there that come with everything, towerhobbies.com has specials all the time where they'll throw in whatever's missing at a discount etc.

There's a couple of drift specific sites out there as well -

http://www.drccentral.com/
http://www.groovydrift.com/
http://www.rccartips.com/RC_Drifting.htm
http://www.driftrczine.com/
http://www.rcdriftnetwork.com/net/

My local buddies - www.atxdrift.com

a few vendors -
www.towerhobbies.com
www.genkidoridori.com/ - love this place!

There's links and info for the beginner to advanced all over those sites, feel free to pm me as well. :)

(p.s. I tried tinting my first attempt and it bled through and ruined my paintjob, this time around I just left the windows alone, I'll probably just use actual automotive tint in small pieces and see how that works, much safer for my paint :D: )

Awesome, thanks for all the info!!

hey all, didn't want to start a new thread, but I've been up to some shenanigans lately. :D:

For Christmas I received an R/C Jada Toys Corvette ZR-1 in 1/10th scale, sure these cars are fun for the average kid, they go about 8-10 mph and are fun to dink around with if you're 10 years old....but if you're in your thirties and have 2 other R/c cars that are capable of real car like speeds, 8-10 mph isn't acceptable, it needs to go closer to 40-50 mph, or at least have the capability to do so. :D:

So I had an extra brushless motor setup (a Mamba sidewinder used in my 1/18th scale HPI micro rs-4), I had a few servos lying around, some other random extra parts not being used, figured out that the motor would fit, managed to find a pinion gear that works that small and the drivetrain was on its way, my next challenge was the steering, the steering that comes on these toys is very primitive and driven by a small dc motor. I tried a few different methods for keeping it intact, including making my own "servo" etc. (yikes!) but in the end I decided to scrap it all and build my own. I found a Traxxas Slash steering assembly on Ebay for about 6 bucks, figured out a way to mount it, figured out a way to connect the wheels using custom fabbed shortened turnbuckles, got it working for the most part but couldn't figure out how to get a servo mounted, I modded the battery tray and attached it there after a few other ideas didn't quite work. Everything works just like a "real" r/c car, it has crazy power/speed, and with the lipo/brushless setup I'll have plenty of time to play with it before it has to charge.
There's a few things I could probably go back and clean up, the front end flexes a bit since I cut out some of the side to clear the steering turnbuckles for example, but since it's all scratchbuilt and it works awesome I'm leaving it alone for now. :)

I took a few pics:

Here's a top few prior to cleaning it up a bit etc.
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2065.JPG

My front steering setup, I put those metal pieces in there to raise it up a bit, and angled the two bottom ones to brace it a bit as well.
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2067.JPG

A quick shot of the steering angle
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2068.JPG

Close-up of the rear and where I mounted the receiver, power switch got mounted right before I put the body back on.
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2069.JPG

The other side houses the battery, I had to smooth it down a bit but it fit perfect afterwards.
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2070.JPG

Another close-up of the top once I got it all sorted out :)
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2071.JPG

This is how the bottom turned out, if I wanted I could notch the cover that went here and put it back as well, but that makes battery charging a nuisance, plus these wires don't hang down etc. anyway.
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2075.JPG

Finished shots of the car all put back together and ready to shock the crap out of unsuspecting r/c racers :D:

http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2077.JPG
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2078.JPG
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2079.JPG
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2081.JPG
http://www.texasrxs.org/junk/sleeper/IMG_2084.JPG

these are soo cool

oh man, thats fcken badddd asssssss

oh man, thats fcken badddd asssssss

thanks man, just to give everyone an idea of what I did, just picture the jada toys rx-8 with about 5 times the power it comes with, about 5 times the top speed, easier steering and better battery life too :D:

So I got drive it around today, I did some donuts with it and got to stretch the legs a bit too, just holding the car up and flooring it I can throw the back tires off the wheels, and I actually got the small tires to smoke a little, not quite sure how, but I definitely saw some tiny white smoke :lol: it's fun as crap to play with too as the gearbox that makes it move consists of 3-4 different gears so when it's driving it's loud just like a real car :lol:

I still have the 8 too, but now it has a faster motor and slightly larger battery, I did a Pagani zonda body for it as well as the Ae86 the kit came with, at some point I'll have to get pics of everything again. :)

To do the 8 I recommend the HPI Sprint2 Drift kit, they have a version that comes with everything you need except a battery, and the HPI Rx-8 body is already setup to fit the chassis perfectly which makes it super simple to do, best thing to do is check Ebay or towerhobbies.com etc. as they have specials on those sometimes. :)

I'm still thinking about getting one of those kits some day. Have you tried that D-box thing yet? The videos make it look like it turns it into a perfect drift car.

Funny that I just found my old RS4 Pro 3, some minor upgrades are needed...

I'm still thinking about getting one of those kits some day. Have you tried that D-box thing yet? The videos make it look like it turns it into a perfect drift car.

I drive without one, it's just more fun to me that way as you really have to learn control and really "drive" the car to get it to drift properly, the d-box is kinda' like cheating, it's basically a gyro-scope that helps keep the car in the drift, it would probably still be fun with one, but me being a car geek and a bit of an r/c nerd as well I prefer the r/c dorifto action without one, it's actually a satisfying feeling watching them slide around knowing I built it up and it's me driving and not the d-box helping me along etc. :)

i got me a hpi sprint 2 back in February and a rx-8 shell...thanks to canaryrx8 for his help with my questions.....i love the little thing, it looks just like my car (i painted it gray)...i already broke a couple of parts with my driving but it was only a $10 fix....i'm ready to buy me a new shell and paint something else..my sprint 2 came with a shell and i painted it but i didn't like the outcome so i decided to soak it in water with paint thinner for a few days..that was not a good idea..oh well lesson learned...i'm hoping soon to go brushless.....i might post some pics up if i can find the ones that i took of it back when it had less damage on it...still cant get the hang of it..but i'm getting better

thats hot!