Why not get both?

This is not the answer I was looking for

I do have both and right now, my personal peference is for the M03. The steering wipers, Tamiya's terminology for the steering linkages, are very easy to bend on an M05. Once bent, there is no easy solution. I race the M03s and run the M05 for fun.

Before there are 97 guys saying they've had their M05 for X many months without bending theirs, I do my racing now at a carpet track where the barriers are velcroed down and are relatively unforgiving. I also tried to order 2 sets of wipers from Tower last week and they only had one in stock. That's on the workbench now to replace the ones that were bent in the last attempt at racing the M05.

Once the rumored steering upgrades come out, that may change my mind especially for carpet.

The M03 is the standard, you can't go wrong with it. Everyone makes parts for it and the are readily available. The M05 is still new, and some parts (and kits) are hard to get.
Go to www.rc-mini.net for setup and tuning your Mini. The M03 article tells what is needed to build a competitive car.

Sorry to raise a newbie question, I've been out of R/C for many years and trying to get back into R/C by getting into mini racing. I'm just about sorted on my car (M-03R) but a little confused on what wheels/tyres to get. I've been searching around for a while but couldn't find any clear answers.

I'm planning on running at my local track which is an indoor road track (Windsor, NSW, Australia).

Any advice would be appreciated (especially from anyone on this thread who runs there).

Thanks in advance.

Talk to the people at your track. They'll give you the best advice on what will work best there.

cheers i've already got the alloy one i need a new servo and wondered what ones you boys are useing?

Ginge

i use a JR DS821 DIGITAL Sport servo...doesn't have metal gears (like I usually like), but seems quick enough for the mini and doesn't have overkill torque

Plus its one of the cheaper digital servos I found that was a name-brand servo

also, if you use the Tamiya servo savers (like I like in the mini), Tamiya gives you the parts to use JR servos - unlike hitech servos

Interesting... On your ABC, do you change to the ball end top Tamiya's?! or stick to ABC's?!

Ok. Question. With the m-03 whats the differences between the M,L ?

I brlieve its the wheel bases.
There are 3 different wheelbases with minis.
Short medium and long

I used all the TAMIYA parts since the ABC upper & lower ball ends are different sizes. They were bigger on top & smaller on the bottom, compare to TAMIYA's one size. Also, there was no way to use the TAMIYA upper ball end on the Genetic chassis because it's a screw-in type, so I had some spare TA02 threaded ball ends that were used for a better solution.

M = Medium wheel base
L = Long wheel base

what lubricant do you use in your mo3 gear box+diff ?

a lot of guys run the gears dry...the diff doesn't need much either

i put grease on the gears in my mini the first time i built it back in '99 - and the couple of rebuilds since then, i've run the gears dry