ASK Cub Reporter- 02.02.2012- Your Good Questions, My Hack Answers

Bruiser
Tamiya Toyota 4×4 Bruiser on the Comeback Trail Come on Guys, Tell me more. 1295.00 msrp? Are they on crack?
The Kellets

Cubby– Yo Yo Yo, MTV Raps, and thanks for the email.

More info on the Tamiya Bruiser– well… for those that haven’t heard of it before its considered one of the most bad ass 4×4’s in rc history, with the originals being some of the most sought trucks that the rc world has ever seen (some go for over a grand on Epay). Way back in the day when it was first released (in 1985) it was totally uber and state of the art. But today, not so much. While still quite a respectable scale truck, a base E-Revo is gonna crush it in every possible way.

So… for a few more facts on the 2012 version-

New planetary gears in the tranny.
Refined clutch.
New axle housings with diff gears.
540 motor (much smaller motor than the original 750).
I have heard the new ones are going to have a street price around $700 US.

So is Tamiya on crack? I’m am gonna say Yes!

Is Tamiya gonna sell some new Bruiser’s? Yes, the collectors and scalers are going to go nuts over owning a new one. But… there are just so many other great cars/trucks/buggys at or below the $700 price point that the Bruiser is going to be a hard sell to the masses. And while it’s neat Tamiya is releasing it again, a large part of what made the Bruiser one of the all time greats was the fact you couldn’t run down to your local hobby shop and buy one. And personally, I’d much rather have seen Tamiya grab some blank sheets of paper and created new uber cars that will some day be considered classics instead of doing yet another re-release. If you aren’t moving forward you are moving backwards, and right now Tamiya, at least in my mind, is becoming less relevant every day.

Helion Reviews
Awesome reviews and tips! Please keep them coming. I recently bought a Dominus for my son and I and it’s a great little truck and ready for some mods to it.
Would love to know what other truck bodies will fit on it. I love the style it comes with but they don’t have any skins for it at places like http://www.upgrade-rc.com/
We’re trying your upgrade mods this weekend.
thanks again,
Gabe and Kaleb

Cubby– Hey Gabe and Kaleb, glad to hear you are having a good time with your Helion Dominus. We’ve been hearing from HobbyTown dealers that the Dominus has been a good seller, and I can see why, amazingly our test unit is still in one piece, and we treat everything like we stole it around here.

We put our Dominus hop-up series into the hands of our “pro racer guy” Tim. He’s been slack’n as usual, but you can expect to see a few more articles on the Dominus in the next couple weeks. Next up is how to mount a LiPo into the Dominus (which isn’t as easy as it should be), then putting more power in it, then some bling stuff. The Dominus is a good truck out of the box, it doesn’t need a whole lot of work, nor a lot of expensive parts to have fun with.

As far as what other bodies fit on the Dominus- if the body will work on a Slash, it will work on the Dominus. But lets say you are looking for something different than a short course body. In that case this is what I recommend-

1. Take your Dominus into your LHS with you.
2. Find a body you like.
3. Ask the LHS employee if you can remove the body from its packaging to test fit on your Dominus.

Some LHS’s (the better ones) will let you test fit a new body, others will not allow you to remove it from the packaging, making it much harder to see if it’ll mount up properly.

Any which way, shoot us pics of your Dominus when you get it dialed.

What Gives?
how come off road tracks look like on road tracks now days? since when are off road tracks supposed to be smooth and hard packed?
Gale

Cubby– You are preach’n to the choir here Gale. It’s really a shame the state of modern rc tracks, and not just the off road ones.

So why are modern off road tracks smooth and hard packed? IMO they are glass smooth and super high bite so that racers can go pinned all the way around the track. Going wide open after every apex is easier and yields lower lap times than racing on rough and loose tracks. Back in the day track owners used to pride themselves on making difficult tracks, now days it’s all about building tracks that keep the racers from bitch’n (and they bitch about anything on a track that they can’t take wide open or give them 2G’s in the corners). Modern tracks allow a lot of power to get put down and allow lesser drivers to go pinned all the time, but because of that they are boring as hell to drive on.

Modern on-road tracks are actually worse, having absolutely nothing in common with uber full scale tracks. Modern on road tracks are perfectly flat with ridiculous grip, and are even more boring than modern off road tracks. Local on road rc racing is a ghost town, hummm, and people wonder why. If you have never raced full scale road course before I can assure you the best tracks in the world are anything but flat and ultra high grip. The very best full scale tracks are not only challenging but downright scary to race at speed.

But perhaps the worst feature of both types of modern tracks is this- being extremely one lined. Go to a big off road rc race and you’ll see a 2 foot wide blue groove line all the way around the track, go to a big rc on road race and you’ll see a foot wide sauce groove all the way around. And every corner is one lined, period. That isn’t good for passing, that isn’t good for fun. If a track builder out there wants to be revolutionary- every track they design should have one corner where the outside line is faster than the inside line. As is, the inside line is the fastest 99.999999% of the time, and just how much fun is that?

That’s it for this week. Shoot me your questions, requests, and resumes to Cubby at BigSquidRC dot com!

YOUR Cub Reporter