What to put in my Tamiya P34 / F103?
 

Hi. So I purchased a Tamiya P34 kit and it should arrive this week. I have always wanted one of these but not sure where to start as far as motor, ESC or servo, hoping for recommendations. There are no on road tracks near me and it being an older design obviously wouldn't probably be comparative anyway so its primarily going to be just for fun on the streets. But I would still like to make it quick without breaking the bank because i would like to find the closest track and some point and run it, but i domt wamt it so slow that it gets in other peoples way. It comes with a Tamiya Torque Tuned motor. Worth using? I would just give it a go and see how it is if i had the spare electrionic to toss it in and try but i don't. So I wondering of a cheap no name brushless combo off ebay would be worth trying(would lipo batteries even fit in an F103?) Or if i should just stick with a brushed motor and NIMH batteries. Anyway any help would be appreciated. This was a split second beer fueled decision whe. I bought it so I have done exactly zero research on setting up a 1/10 F1.

You're way overthinking it. I fyou just want to play around. Buy parts that look right to you, and enjoy it. The torque tuned motor is plenty quick.

You know you are absolutely right. I have no idea what the nearest on road track is to my home base in San Diego but its likely not close, so more then likely it will never see anything beyond parking lots. Plus i've got a bunch of 6 cell NIMH batteries from when I restored the RC10B2 I raced as a kid so might as well double up on the cara that can use those. Haha Brushed ESCs have to be crazy cheap now i would imagine with everything being brushless now. Would a hobbywing 1080 be a good choice? I am having troubling finding a lot of info on modern brushed ESC.

The torque tuned will be fine, most F1 classes run 21.5T or 25.5T which aren't that fast. My son has an F103 with a silvercan and it goes fine. The F103 would probably do ok at a track still despite being old.

Did it come with the TBLE-02S ESC or none? I would buy one of those if it didn't come with one and then you can switch to a brushless motor later if you want to.

Yeah the 1080 is a fine esc. Go build the kit, lets see it run. :-)

It being the six wheel vs the standard f103 is why i assumed it wouldn't do as well. Haha

No this kit only comes with the motor. I actually thought it came with an ESC until I looked up the specific kit i got. I got the most recent rerelease of the car. I will look that ESC up. Ideally I want to get electronics that would allow me to also run lipo and brushless if I chose and also be more race oriented as while I don't think this car will get raced I do like to have that as an option, it would also be nice in the event I swapped the electronics between cars.

Also here is a very specific question for anyone who has owned this specific kit. How long do the foam tires last? The rear wheels and tires are standard f103 as far as I am aware but the front four are unique. I have wanted this kit ever since I saw one in the 90s, but never got it over its many rerelease because I always worried about being able to find spares of those front tires. Even now, while I can find them on eBay, no online stores I can find seem to carry them, and if they do they are sold out. I have no idea what kind of parts support tamiya offers on a kit like this.

The car out of the box is understeering hard. Running a cheap 17.5t is the maximum driveable power in this chassis. Also a 60$ servo should do the job pretty good. Batterywise I would go for a standard lipo brick. Shorties will just make the car more difficult to drive (snappy).

Any fixes for the understeering issue? Is it an issue of the steering geometry or a weight issue?

Id run a brushless 17.5 and if its to fast to drive Id turn down the Th endpoint after setup.. a 60$ servo I have no idea what that is.. but id run a 145oz servo at least.. standard brick again I have no idea what a standard brick is as in mah. Id run a 5000mah 2 cell...something over 35cB 30cc.. have fun with this seen the Original 6 wheeler sit in a hobby store window for 30+ years then heard a guy bought it but had a lot of sun damage to parts in the box(box was major faded from sun)..

The understeer comes from the missing camber. The only way to fix that, is to build custom front suspension plates...
For 60$ or less you will get proven 0,09s 10kg low profile servos. With standard sized brick I meant a 8.4V 2s 5000-8000mAh lipo with a length of around 139mm.

It arrived! Really looking forward to getting started.https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...f884f57f54.jpg

This kit was always a shelf queen. It will not drive as well as a conventional F1 but you will always be the coolest car in the paddock. It was designed to be functional in regards to being close to the actual car for the cool factor. It has all kinds of geometry issues but required to get the front to turn all the wheels.

Don't worry about performance, just enjoy one of the coolest designs in F1 history, even if it wasn't that succesful. Good on you for getting it, super cool!

As for foams, use SPF 30 banana boat to soak the tires as traction compound. Works awesome on pavement.

Hello and welcome to the p34 club me and another member in this thread (Link) both have one and we are great fan of the chassis. Here is one of mine currently running a custom 3d printed chassis and being used as a fpv platform. It has a Tamiya RS-540 sport tuned motor connected to a Tamiya esc as well.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rct...e6672787ea.jpg
Just have fun with your p34 that is what they are made for, plus the attention you can bring the latest and greatest f1 platform to the track but a simple p34 will get more attention.

This was my approach to this chassis:
https://www.rctech.net/forum/showpost.php?p=15447974&postcount=14714

https://www.rctech.net/forum/showpos...ostcount=14717

It took some time, but look and performance increased.