So, there is this freaking awesome hobby shop near my new apartment, and I've been stopping by here and there just to look at all the sweet RC airplanes, and cars, and trucks, etc. I never had real RC cars when I was kid, just the toy ones that you could get at Walmart. Anyway, I know there are touring cars and buggies, but I guess there are trucks and even more like rock crawlers and just all kinds of crazy stuff. Just wondering if anybody here knows anything. These short course trucks look pretty baller...
PS - I definitely prefer electric to messing with nitro.
Depends on your income, brother. I just had to let one of my side-projects go because I wasn't about to spend money on it and the city doesn't like junk sitting in my driveway. Goodbye go-kart. 
By all means, if you can afford to play with remote controls, I prefer the flying ones. See the earlier drone thread for rules and regs. 
SCTs are great for racing, but as most people just bash, I'd recommend a stadium truck. Traxxas, Losi, and HPI are great. If you want something cheaper, there's the Duratrax Evader EXT2.4, although you'll need to upgrade some gears to go brushless.
So what's the difference between SCT and Stadium? Just what you use them for?
Tower Hobbies is the giant. Once you compare their prices to a hobby shop, you will only mail order.
If you have any smooth on road areas to use it, a Tamiya M chassis is cheap and a great intro to the hobby of real RC equipment. You will literally giggle like a girl when you drive it. No man is stoic enough to keep a straight face when driving a Tamiya Mini Cooper. After 30 years of doing RC cars I always come back to Tamiya.
What are your plans for one? Just for playing around, or do you want to actually "race" them? Both of my boys have Traxxas short course trucks. They love them, but they just goof around with them. They were around $250 each. However, in hindsight, I think I would recommend spending a little more up front to get a brushless motor. The brushed motors wear out quickly, though they are cheap to replace. Straight out of the box, they'll do around 30-35mph. My older son now has a brushless motor and is going to upgrade the stock battery. Once he does that, it'll go a lot faster.
They do break parts though. He's already broken a lower control arm, and currently has a broken shock and knuckle. Not hard to fix, just a PITA because of all the tiny screws.
Cousin_Eddie wrote:
Tower Hobbies is the giant. Once you compare their prices to a hobby shop, you will only mail order.
If you have any smooth on road areas to use it, a Tamiya M chassis is cheap and a great intro to the hobby of real RC equipment. You will literally giggle like a girl when you drive it. No man is stoic enough to keep a straight face when driving a Tamiya Mini Cooper. After 30 years of doing RC cars I always come back to Tamiya.
Not necessarily! My guy in town matches most if not all online prices!
I bought a BRE 510 RC car a few years ago, just because I thought it was cool. I knew nothing at all about RC, so I gave it to a friend who is an electronics guy, to figure out the power...He knew nothing, but figured it out, gave me a monstrously fast car back, so fast that I have nowhere near enough skills to keep it in a straight line. Now he owns about a dozen, races indoors weekly, travels a thousand miles to competitions, and spends more time and almost as much money as if he were racing a full size car.
Beware the slippery slope.
Traxxis is a great way to get going and be mid-pack competitive. I had an Associated RC10 Team car and that thing was awesome, but it was aluminum tub and was great for bashing.
Stadium trucks do look like the most fun though.
I would go to your local track and see what the most popular class is and go that way. No since in spending money and go out there and run around by yourself.
Oh yeah and expect a 13 year old to kick your ass with a stone stock car.
I have two vastly different hobby grade RCs:
HPI Wheely King
Team Associated Apex
Both are 4WD and both are a flaming hoot in the right environment. The Wheely King is a great yard basher and really forgiving. Not that fast, but I wanted an old school monster truck feel, so it delivers what I want. I actually modded it for better handling and now I miss the challenging floppy handling.
The Lexus is a brushless on-road only setup that is only happy on large smooth areas. It will break the tires loose from a decent roll. It is a drifter, so tons of power, marginal traction, much fun.
Both cars were ready to run and included everything right down to the batteries for the controller. In fact, after two years I'm still using the original controller batteries in the Wheely King.
Oddly I use the stock plug in wall chargers for both. They both came with a battery and I picked up one extra battery to keep charged just in case. I have an old school quick charger but my play sessions are usually only 20 minutes or so anyway.
And if you're wondering if you should try flying, the Champ is a great entry starter.
Try to keep your local hobby shop in business if you can. Mail order is great for big purchases, but it sucks waiting a week for parts.
Plus a billion on the Champ being fun and easy to fly.
I like taking the nitro motor out of old rc10gt and switching to brushless. Cheaper, faster, cleaner...
But really for me, wrenching on the cars is more fun than driving. I like buying older cars and replacing what's broke. But flying the planes is more fun than working on the planes, to me. And know I've started to fall into the fpv rabbit hole...
Klayfish wrote:
What are your plans for one? Just for playing around, or do you want to actually "race" them?
Honestly, I don't really know. I had a few hours to kill on Sunday after my hockey game and walked around for 30 minutes just oogling stuff. I just don't even know what exactly people are doing with them, and which types are for what. From what I gather, for off-road there is generally buggy, stadium truck and short course? And 2WD and 4WD versions of those, and electric and gas versions of those? But the 4WD isn't raced as much, or is raced more? I dunno, most of google searches are finding stuff that is more than a year old. On-road is much less popular, it appears (I assume that has to do with racing locations).
slefain
UberDork
10/6/15 10:40 a.m.
Do NOT get into RC car racing. Let my friend the Joker show you how that goes:
Off road will be the better place to start as it is more versatile. Electric will also be easier. I've owned old school buggies and they are fun, but grass is not their element. I'd grab a Traxxas Slash RTR 2WD and see if you like it.
The Slash is great. Good for bashing and there are races for them if you feel the need.
Another vote for Tower Hobbies.
I have this
About $140 and 30+ MPH. That is the 'brushed' motor. The 'brushless' is about another C-Note and goes almost twice as fast.
So, it turns out the club at work is into on-road 1/10 Tamiya stuff and has some "community cars" that are slow and good for novices. Sounds like a win.
Regarding the burning money aspect, this is probably a stupid question, but where does the money go? It seems like high-end kits are ~$500-800. Am I looking at the wrong stuff? What are the consumables, tires and batteries? Is the expense "keeping up with the Joneses" when new stuff comes out? Entry fees? I mean, I agree, that is a lot of money for a toy, but that's like a set of tires for the autocross car.
Tires, batteries, new body's after you gnash up the old one. Once you start going faster, things break exponentially. I've seen on road lipo powered pan cars literally explode hitting a curb.
LainfordExpress wrote:
So, it turns out the club at work is into on-road 1/10 Tamiya stuff and has some "community cars" that are slow and good for novices. Sounds like a win.
Regarding the burning money aspect, this is probably a stupid question, but where does the money go? It seems like high-end kits are ~$500-800. Am I looking at the wrong stuff? What are the consumables, tires and batteries? Is the expense "keeping up with the Joneses" when new stuff comes out? Entry fees? I mean, I agree, that is a lot of money for a toy, but that's like a set of tires for the autocross car.
Tires, batteries, motors, gears, suspension pieces, steering bits, bodies, plus spares and tools. Then there are upgrades.
Yes it is cheaper than autocross, but it can also add up real fast for such a tiny car.
And one makes you want like 7 more.
So, it appears I'm most likely to get a 1/10 4WD on-road electric touring car. I like the idea of adjustability, so I think I want a little more advanced one that I can fiddle with. Can you start with a bruch motor while you learn how to drive them, then upgrade to brushless later? What brands/models should I look at for 1/10 4WD on-road? I've built a PC before and fiddle with cars, so I'm not intimidated by a kit. Is it better to get a complete one or piece one together, choose your own battery, radio, etc?
If you want to race, go to some races and see what people are running. If it's all 2wd buggies, and they're 75% running Associated, get an Associated.
Otherwise, I strongly suggest getting started the old curmudgeonly way. Buy a kit from your local hobby shop. Tamiya, Losi, Yokomo, HPI and Associated are all good at bagging a kit and writing instructions.
If your chosen kit doesn't include ball bearings and oil filled dampers, consider getting those at the same time and building it out with those parts. Otherwise, I'd skip performance parts for the moment.
Take your time, and build the car carefully. Don't open any baggies until the instruction tell you to. Use hand tools on fasteners. Clean up plastic parts where you remove them from the sprue.
Follow the instructions closely, and most kits will be done in a few hours.
For me, kit building is one of the best parts of the hobby.
If I could just build car after car, run two packs through in a parking lot, and move to the next one, I'd be happy.
