Originally Posted by
Mike Elam
I dont know which is best, both can be setup good on any track by a good driver. I also ran 1/10th scale modified classes for years. Once you jump into one of these the first thing you will think is it has no motor..LOL even if you have the best one out there, they are not that wild punch of modified electric. The twitchy part I have not found one that is as twichy as mod buggy can be. One question I did have for you is what upgrades are you needing for the rc8? the things different are very very cheap to get. I was having a hard time deciding as well. The rc8 and Losi here at the time were very close in price, it came down to 1. I would have wanted the losi flex chasssis which was another 80 to 90 dollars. and to top it off I have heard they wear faster. That in itself was enough for me to decide to go with the RC8.
That's a good point on the Losi wear. There is a bit more to maintain the Losi compared to some other buggies... but Losi parts are some of the least expensive in the industry. 3 particular areas that I know of wear are: Ackerman plate bushings (there's a mod on the Losi thread that I have done to mine, problem solved, for about $2) center differential cases (there is an upgraded one with metal inserts to solve that, less than $10) and the front-center CVA shaft. (Sorry, no fix for that- it wears faster than most buggies due to the extreme angle of the shaft.)
For a comparative price for parts, here is a good example:
I have a front top plate that cracked around the screw hole from over-tightening a screw. The replacement for that and the chassis brace (they come as a set) was about $5. I haven't put it on, as it hasn't failed yet... the parts are sitting in my toolbox waiting to see how long it takes to get worse.
On my old Mugen MBX5 Prospec, the front top plate alone was about $16... and I managed to break 2 of those.
Although the flex chassis is nice, the car is competitive without it of course. On the RC8, everyone I know that runs one adds Jammin "super big bore" shocks to get it to handle the rough stuff better. (But then again, in Europe you don't have the "supercross" style tracks with the huge jumps and rutted, blown-out surfaces that we run on here in the US, so that may not be an issue.) The Losi of course comes with the big bore shocks to begin with (and now everyone is copying them...)
One other area to consider on cost is tools: The Losi uses SAE sizes for hardware, in other words, fractions of an inch, instead of Metric like virtually every other manufacturer.