Tamiya Hornet 2014 ?

As Tamiya made a new version of my first Tamiya RC car (Holiday Buggy) on a newer and improved chassis 30 years later, I decided to do the same for my second Tamiya RC car, The Hornet, also to tribute the Tamiya’s most sold RC car with 700.000 pieces, not counting the recent re-release! Since its basic chassis and gearbox design still is used on a current kit (Rising Fighter), the base choice was obvious, as in my humble opinion, the reliable, light and fast rear solid axle gives the Hornet its “personality”. I tried to adapt the re-release Hornet decals as well as possible on the different body which I painted black.

Only hop-ups used were ball bearings as well as yellow CVA dampers and yellow Super Fighter G wheels as I think they match the colour concept better then the original white wheels, something which Tamiya also did on the Super Hornet. In times of modern ready-to-run high-tech buggies, the Grasshopper/DT-01 chassis seems an extreme anachronism, but it brings great memories to many hobbyists and with its great robustness and simplicity is still a good choice for young beginners, not to forget that on a straight line it is faster then any modern “weapon”.

Hope the simple and successful solid axles will stay even longer in the Tamiya program, lets not forget that also Midnight Pumpkin/Lunchbox and Clod Buster are some of the most and longest produced RC cars ever and maybe Tamiya will come up with something similar in 2014 to celebrate 30 years of Hornet, who knows, maybe in the future power efficiency will be important combined with solar or hydrogen drive concepts and then this primitive chassis will be modern again…

Rally Ready – Tamiyablog Suzuki Swift M-05Ra

Rally Up a M-chassis car. This was only a dream many years before. But sometimes dreams come true, and now you can build your own Mini Rally Car from a kit. Two types, the Suzuki Swift Super 1600 and Alpine A110 are available at the moment. The Alpine also as an XB-Version.

To give the chassis more ride height, Tamiya uses new designed F-Parts for the M-05Ra. It´s a big advantage that you can build the chassis also with the standard M-05 ride height. So it´s no problem to use your M-05Ra machine also for normal M-Chassis street racing without using extra parts. Different attaching points on the C-Hubs are making this possible. Our car is equipped with some of the most popular Hop-Ups used in the M-Chassis scene, like full ball bearings, universal shafts, oil filled shocks and a ball diff. I used the new M-05 Ball Diff in combination with the new M-05Ra reinforced Differential joint set. Although i´ve heard about some durability problems with the new M-05 ball diff. But, time will tell. Another tip, if you want to use oil filled shocks on your M-05Ra, the 54000 M-Chassis damper set isn´t recommended here. These are fantastic dampers, but they are too short for the M-05 Ra Rally Setup. They are only useable with the normal M-05 ride height. Standard sized touring car shocks are ideal for this car, like the Tamiya black Super Mini C.V.A. shocks or the classic Tamiya 53155 Aluminum damper set. If you use the super Mini C.V.A. Shocks you have to take note that the shock pistons are long enough, because on some cars, Tamiya uses shorter pistons for the Super Mini C.V.A. Shocks. Furthermore we used a Tamiya High Tourque servo saver + a strong metal geared digital servo in combination with the good and well priced 3Racing carbon steering set. Gives a much more precicse steering mechanism.

Ok, that was on the technical side. Now some words about the body. As seen on the Tamiya M-05 Abarth 500 body before, Tamiya made some small but nice changes to the Suzuki Swift body parts. You can now use LED´s on the front and back of the car. This adds a much more realistic look. As a regular reader you may know, we always like to use alternate paintschemes on our bodies. A normal and understated “Skyblue” was used for the little Suzuki. But looks great, using the Tamiya mascot sticker set.

Thank you very much for reading.

Enjoy M-05Ra !