GT3B vs. 4pL
 

I'm looking to upgrade from my gt3b but can't break the bank to do so. Will I see a difference going to a Futaba 4pl? I've had 0 issues with the gt3b racing at local tracks and just curious if i would be just wasting $. Anyone????

Considering the GT3B is the worst radio I've ever owned and considering the 4PL might be the best radio in its price range, YES it will worth the money, definitely. It's an investment but see it this way: you won't need to change it before long and it might be just as important if not more as your car and electronics. I've owned different radios but the GT3B is the highest rated crap I've ever seen. I wouldn't even use it for bashing. It just doesn't feel right. It was actually a radio for my girlfriend and she simply hated it. I thought she was exagerating, but when I tried it I realised she was not. It's really so bad.

If you can get around the track at all with the GT3B and all it's lag, you'll be way more competitive with the 4PL. If you're still learning how to get around the track, it's probably the lag holding you back. Very, very hard to collect a slide or catch a roll when you don't know how long it will take for you to do so.

Or, let me put it this way, would you rather drive to work in a 1979 Ford Pinto that turns way after you've moved the steering wheel and brakes long after you've hit the brakes or a 2012 BMW?

I have both and yes the 4PL is a very nice radio. However I'm not finding a big difference in lag between the two. I raced off road 1/10 and 1/8 scale for over 10 years. I flashed my GT3B and it has more features than the 4PL and the timmer is much easier to use. The GT3B has a slight edge in range. One thing I learned from racing is you can't buy yourself into the winners circle.

The GT3 was banned from our local RC scene do to interference

That's what I've heard as well. I'd hate to travel to a race event to get there and find that my equipment is banned. I pulled the trigger and ordered the 4pl. I spent $235 for the radio and extra rx plus with discounts and free shipping. Couldn't pass it up. Thanks for all the comments.

I had a GT3C that crapped out on me the third time I used it. It just shut itself off while I had my $3500 baja sc flying across a parking lot. The onboard kill switch did it's job and cut the engine, but I had no steering or brakes. Wound up crashing into the back tire of my real car. I tried for two hours to find the problem to no avail, so in the garbage it went and ordered a 4pl. A really awesome radio!!

as a rookie/regular driver/racer. I doubt you will feel much difference, if any, in response time, etc.

However, with bigger price tag, comes more responsibility.
If you crash a $1000 car because a very rare signal problem.
you can't blame the GT3B much because it's too dirt cheap.
But you can blame the hell out of 4pl because Futaba makes it, probably got changed even refund. (never experienced this kind of situation, so not sure)


*GT3C is a failure, guess they are a small company, got lucky with GT3B.

i watched a similar situation with a flysky radio, although it involved an fg f1 sportsline (1/5 scale gas f1 car). radio crapped out 3/4 down the straight, guessing around 40mph. kill switch shut the motor off, however 25lbs at 40mph and a curb about 50' away doesnt end well. why anyone would trust their $1500 r/c car to a cheap radio is beyond me. really the cost of the car isnt the big thing, its what happens when you have something of that mass going at those speeds, if something goes wrong the car is generally the least of the concerns.

....

I'll tell ya why...because im an idiot!! As I was putting together my baja, and as everyone seems to do on the baja forum, is to one-up each other on everything they buy for it. So I bought an Airtronics M11X system. At $500 (with the aluminum case), I soon realized that this was way more than I really needed. I sold it and was looking for a replacement and all of the reviews of this Flysky GT3B system looked great. It had the features I needed and the price was crazy cheap. Then I saw the GT3C, which was the latest model. So I bought it thinking it was going to work out great for me. Anyway, it's now just another lesson learned in this hobby. Don't buy cheap radio equipment and DO set the failsafe on your throttle/brake servo!!

You made the right choice buying the 4pl. Great radio and i love the features and feel. The lag is waaaaay noticeable with the flysky once you've used the futaba. The piece of crap flysky made my truggy run away full throttle in the middle of a race. It was garbage after that. I only still have it so the next time my buddies have a firepit, that thing is gonna burn. Not to mention 50% of the flysky's recievers went bad and or glitched.

just noticed my dex210 glitching my first real track practice using a flysky gt3c re calibrated and it got worse then i noticed the antenna was bent exposing the wire on the transmitter i tried to fix it no good still , my 4x4 sc was working fine all day then broke a rear hub threw the receiver in the buggy re calibrated it to my #1 channel for buggy and had all my settings had to adjust a few end points and worked perfect , for now i ordered more receivers but i have tried the 4pl and i like it more then i reseached it now i plan to buy it

There is a known problem with the power button, i've seen numerous attempts flysky has made to fix it, but the problem persists.

I take a toggle switch and rewire the power button. Fixes the issue

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-m...0/IMG_1408.JPG

Also, if you flash the flysky radios with a new firmware, you'll get a slightly better response time, a lot more features, and no bugs in the firmware

I sell a flashing kit

http://www.overkillrc.com/products.h...201&id=5053464

Also, if the response time is a HUGE issue for you, or if it causes interference with your buddies shitty spektrum radio, you can upgrade to a frsky 2.4ghz module fairly easy, which will turn the 20ms latency in the flysky module into 9ms and still maintain reasonably prices rx's have a very secure and strong link, and doesn't cause interference. Theres alot of guys in airplane land that swear by frsky and run some pretty expensive planes off of it.

i agree spektrum makes terrible radios, but the real sh#*&y radio here is anything with the flysky logo on it. You'd have to be a complete moron to trust you're expensive kits to this piece of crap, even with all the jimmy-rigging you do to it it is still the same piece of crap radio it was before. Sometimes the phrase "you get what you pay for" isn't true, but in his case it is. I've learned the two things you can't cheap out on in this hobby are servos and radios.
I can't even understand why i used to run this crap. The fact that it made my truggy run away from me @ 40 mph, with fully charged rx & tx batteries, is enough to turn it into firewood.