Originally Posted by
tvih
Well, turns out I couldn't wait and got the M-05 V2 R kit already. But I must say my first impressions aren't that great. Even though I had looked at the part list and also briefly at the manual, it still seems there's less aluminum overall than I somehow expected. And the plastic... doesn't inspire confidence. I'm only at step 6, and as I was screwing in the king pin to the front upright, the damn upright cracked from that side well before the screw was even all the way down (and I noticed that apparently you can't even screw them all the way down... at least not without inviting more chance of cracking). Not sure how long it'll last in use, and according to the above posts epoxy-ing it won't work either. Sigh
Does even modeling glue have any effect? Although since it's not particularly strong, I suppose it wouldn't help too much with longevity.
This isn't what I'd call a cheap kit, and especially coming from the offroad side of things this kind of plastic just seems... cheap and crappy
And of course, aluminum uprights cost a relative fortune and are NOT available in black, the all-black look being one reason I went for the R. Is the M-07 plastic better? Not that it'd help me at this point.
Oh well. Hopefully no more setbacks...
The rant aside, tires question. For indoor carpet, do the 53215 slicks have more grip than the 50683 radials? These two are the allowed options in the race class I'm participating in, in addition to reinforced slicks which to my understanding are mainly for outdoors? I kinda assumed they would have more grip, being slicks, but after dry-mounting them and thinking on it again I then I realized I don't know what type of rubber either of them are and so on. The radials obviously look a lot nicer, so if the grip is at least as good as the slicks, they'd be nicer to have (although I have to use this set of slicks first anyway since I already bought 'em, I guess).
The chassis and suspension parts are mostly ABS. ABS can be glued with solvents. You will find ABS glue at tyour local hardware store. Or you can get some Methyl Ethyl Ketone (M.E.K.) at the same place, and a metal tipped applicator bottle. That'll let you bond the bits back together.
Even screwed all the way down, the kingpins don't sit tightly against the hub carriers. I ended up shimming mine. A lot. The hubs and carriers are weak points on the chassis and tend to crack. Keep those in stock.
It's worth noting, that the M series cars, saving the M07, are designed to be cheap first, easy to assemble, second, and race cars never. That's why a car like your M05r has carbon reinforced suspension arms, new chassis changes to allow you to set droop. Even then, there's a whole lot of changes to make if you want things like steering to be consistent. (it has terrible bump steer..)
There are some real advanges to the ABS that Tamiya uses on the low end kits. Mostly, that it bounces. You can really put a mini though some poop before it breaks. For example, I had front hub bearings break down without the hub itself breaking. (of course, I've broken three front hubs...)
Having a plastic steering bridge isn't something to be upset about. My yeah Racing steering bridge has bent twice. The plastic won't do that, and the plastic parts fit tighter... when I built my second M05, and I took care, and time, i found that the plastic steering bridge was shockingly good, if done well.
The girlfriend built this one:
She wasn't hurried, and it came out really well. That said, it was to sell, and I hope the buyer is having a good time with it.
While we're at it, the Yeah Racing rear hubs are trash. I went back to the stock plastic.
Also, when you buy springs, be sure you get the right ones. They're the set of springs with just three sets of springs, instead of four. The ones with 4 springs are the hard springs for touring cars, and lead to an impossibly evil car to drive.
I run a square stick pack. How I do it, is I leave the "wings" in place, and wrap a velcro strap around one side of the battery.
Because I wrote a long article, and it's relevant right now:
A Real Life Tinker Gnome: Tamiya M05 - Last weeks news, but still an interesting platform.
The M07 is made mostly of glass reinforced plastic. I haven't checked if it's ABS or Nylon. I really like my M07. It's a full on, complete, decent, touring car. Just, tiny sized. and many of it's parts are symmetrical, so you only need to stock "one" set of swingarms, instead of left and right swingarms, or front hubs, or many other parts.
My Writeup on the M07 is coming... And an update to my M05 story.