Overdose
Member
I recenlty aquired a desert buggy XL in trade on craigslist. I got into RC's when I was a kid- Remember the days of the Tamiya Frog, Grasshopper, Falcon etc.. i am showing my age now.. I got out of the hobby and took interests in other things. I got married and had kids. My son has discovered RC cars so we got a couple of Traxxas Slashs and have been having a riot with them. I was on the hunt for a monster truck. An e-maxx or e-revo. I found this desert buggy and managed to trade for it. ( I don't have the cash to drop a grand on a toy right now)
Mind you I have never had a 1/5 scale before. I am mechanically inclined but not a gear head. I can take things apart and put them back together but I am not a guy who can replace a head on an engine. I have just enough knowledge and experience to be dangerous. I get this desert buggy home. I fire it up. It runs like crap.. it won't get out of it's own way. Once I feather the throttle a little and get the RPS up, it starts to move and rip. I start looking for the manual online and figure out the carb adjustments but it doesn't help at all. I give up and take it to my local hobby shop. The car came with a big bore kit which wasnt installed so I asked the guy to tune it. He calls me and says he cant get it tuned either and wants to know if I want to throw a new carb on it. I give him the ok. The call come in again an hour later and he says the carb didnt do the trick. he's going to have to pull the motor and look at it. I had a big bore kit that came with the car so I tell him, if you are going to pull the motor, please put the kit on. so far, I am dissappointed but ok because I am only going to be into this thing for 100-150 bucks. I get another call and he tells me the big bore kit is shot- it has damage from dirt/sand in it. I ask him how much to throw an new motor in it. 220 bucks. I sigh and say ok. I also asked him to throw in a 8000 RPM clutch spring. To shorten the story a little- I get the car back finally after a week _(guy went on vacation). the thing rips. I am so excited. I fire it up and go tearing across my 2 acre property with it. It has a pipe so it is screaming.. My son is running for cover my wife thinks I am nuts. After a couple small jumps.. the thing loses it front wheel drive.. I am pissed.. WTF.. I am now into this car for trade plus 450 dollars and I got to play with it for 5 minutes. I find these forums and discover the drive shaft pin issue- I get a new drive shaft and throw it in the car. I am back... ripping around the yard again at obnoxious speeds and great fun. oh, no. the car stops.. out of gas.. phew.. I go to start it and the pull starter breaks WTF. I pull the top off and start looking at things. I take the back end off and fix the pull starter. I am back.
I fire up the buggy and back to tearing up the yard. suddenly another stopage.
I come to the conclusion that its the battery pack that is dead. I throw my secondary pack in it and zoom I am off again-
all of a sudden the thing takes off out of control. I have no control of it. It rips down the front yard doing cartwheels- thank God it flips upside down and shuts off. Apparently, I didnt clip the battery pack in securely and the connection was loose causing erratic control or lack of. I examine the car some more and discover I sheered a bolt off that holds my pipe on. Now I have a bolt stuck in my engine housing and no pipe. I say screw it and run it without the pipe to make sure everything else is ok. you can imagine how loud this was.. anyways.. the rest of the car was fine so I park it. Which leads me to today. I have to go get and extractor and try to remove the bolt.
in conclusion. - sorry this got so long but I felt like i had to tell this story and experience.
My wife thinks I am nuts. I love this thing even though it's been a pain in the butt. it looks awesome, sounds awesome and so fun to drive. I am not going to drive competitively but as a fun project, I think I found something that I will enjoy. Even though I have a 28 cc motor, and higher rps clutch spring the car doesn't get out of the hole great but it's a fairly stable platform. I am not sure about the durability of the car because I don't think I had enough drive time with it. I like tinkering with it so I don't mind taking it apart a little here and there. On a scale of satisfaction with the buggy 10 being the top- i'd give it like a 7 simply because of the issues above. If I didn't have the driveshaft issue, i'd rate it a little higher. The complaints about the shocks and the front end diving and digging in are legit too. Since I haven't driven the 5t and some of the other 1/5 scale cars, I don't have the experience to compare but from a new guy getting into large scale cars, its been an experience. I wouldn't reccommend this sport to anyone that doesn't like tinkering with their car. You also have to be mechanically inclined or the thing will probably be in the shop more than on your lawn. It's also not a sport for the budget sensitive. I didn't realize how costly everything was going to be simply because everything is larger. I am looking forward to finding some places to take this vehicle and play some more. I hope that my experiences get better and better as I learn the capabilites of the vehicle and become a better driver. would I do it again. absolutely. would I do it differently- absolutely. I would have done some research first before getting one. I might have known what I was getting but thats not me. Jump first and figure the rest out later.. stay tuned for more drama... thanks for reading my rant.
Mind you I have never had a 1/5 scale before. I am mechanically inclined but not a gear head. I can take things apart and put them back together but I am not a guy who can replace a head on an engine. I have just enough knowledge and experience to be dangerous. I get this desert buggy home. I fire it up. It runs like crap.. it won't get out of it's own way. Once I feather the throttle a little and get the RPS up, it starts to move and rip. I start looking for the manual online and figure out the carb adjustments but it doesn't help at all. I give up and take it to my local hobby shop. The car came with a big bore kit which wasnt installed so I asked the guy to tune it. He calls me and says he cant get it tuned either and wants to know if I want to throw a new carb on it. I give him the ok. The call come in again an hour later and he says the carb didnt do the trick. he's going to have to pull the motor and look at it. I had a big bore kit that came with the car so I tell him, if you are going to pull the motor, please put the kit on. so far, I am dissappointed but ok because I am only going to be into this thing for 100-150 bucks. I get another call and he tells me the big bore kit is shot- it has damage from dirt/sand in it. I ask him how much to throw an new motor in it. 220 bucks. I sigh and say ok. I also asked him to throw in a 8000 RPM clutch spring. To shorten the story a little- I get the car back finally after a week _(guy went on vacation). the thing rips. I am so excited. I fire it up and go tearing across my 2 acre property with it. It has a pipe so it is screaming.. My son is running for cover my wife thinks I am nuts. After a couple small jumps.. the thing loses it front wheel drive.. I am pissed.. WTF.. I am now into this car for trade plus 450 dollars and I got to play with it for 5 minutes. I find these forums and discover the drive shaft pin issue- I get a new drive shaft and throw it in the car. I am back... ripping around the yard again at obnoxious speeds and great fun. oh, no. the car stops.. out of gas.. phew.. I go to start it and the pull starter breaks WTF. I pull the top off and start looking at things. I take the back end off and fix the pull starter. I am back.
I fire up the buggy and back to tearing up the yard. suddenly another stopage.
I come to the conclusion that its the battery pack that is dead. I throw my secondary pack in it and zoom I am off again-
all of a sudden the thing takes off out of control. I have no control of it. It rips down the front yard doing cartwheels- thank God it flips upside down and shuts off. Apparently, I didnt clip the battery pack in securely and the connection was loose causing erratic control or lack of. I examine the car some more and discover I sheered a bolt off that holds my pipe on. Now I have a bolt stuck in my engine housing and no pipe. I say screw it and run it without the pipe to make sure everything else is ok. you can imagine how loud this was.. anyways.. the rest of the car was fine so I park it. Which leads me to today. I have to go get and extractor and try to remove the bolt.
in conclusion. - sorry this got so long but I felt like i had to tell this story and experience.
My wife thinks I am nuts. I love this thing even though it's been a pain in the butt. it looks awesome, sounds awesome and so fun to drive. I am not going to drive competitively but as a fun project, I think I found something that I will enjoy. Even though I have a 28 cc motor, and higher rps clutch spring the car doesn't get out of the hole great but it's a fairly stable platform. I am not sure about the durability of the car because I don't think I had enough drive time with it. I like tinkering with it so I don't mind taking it apart a little here and there. On a scale of satisfaction with the buggy 10 being the top- i'd give it like a 7 simply because of the issues above. If I didn't have the driveshaft issue, i'd rate it a little higher. The complaints about the shocks and the front end diving and digging in are legit too. Since I haven't driven the 5t and some of the other 1/5 scale cars, I don't have the experience to compare but from a new guy getting into large scale cars, its been an experience. I wouldn't reccommend this sport to anyone that doesn't like tinkering with their car. You also have to be mechanically inclined or the thing will probably be in the shop more than on your lawn. It's also not a sport for the budget sensitive. I didn't realize how costly everything was going to be simply because everything is larger. I am looking forward to finding some places to take this vehicle and play some more. I hope that my experiences get better and better as I learn the capabilites of the vehicle and become a better driver. would I do it again. absolutely. would I do it differently- absolutely. I would have done some research first before getting one. I might have known what I was getting but thats not me. Jump first and figure the rest out later.. stay tuned for more drama... thanks for reading my rant.
