Help me build a Tamiya 1/10th scale R/C car

In My Humble Opinion
1

For Christmas, my wife bought me a Tamiya Plasma Edge II, and it is supposed to be delivered today. Along with the kit itself, I ordered a 224 radio/receiver* from Tower Hobbies and a Futaba S3010 servo.

A little background: my brother - who’s 10 years older - had an original Tamiya Hotshots back in 1987 or so. When I was a bit older (I think about 12) I wanted to follow suit, and I had a Toyota Prerunner (essentially a Manta Ray with a truck body and wheels). Unfortunately, that got broken and then lost in a move from the UK to the US.

I’m not planning to race the thing - not even sure if R/C racing clubs still exist - so I don’t care that this is an entry-level model. ~$200 for a 4WD kit is pretty impressive, considering I paid a lot more than that in Christmas and birthday money for the Prerunner all those years ago. That said, I know Tamiya kits are almost infinitely upgradeable so I may replace bits of it in the future.

More significantly, I haven’t built one of these things in about 25 years. What do I need to know? Common mistakes to avoid? Are there parts that won’t be upgradeable in the future if I go with the stock bits during the build process? Perhaps most importantly, do they make spray paint that works on polycarbonate now? Painting the Prerunner with a tiny can of enamel paint and a brush took forever, and the finish was awful even though it was “inside out.”

Also, I don’t know anything about modern R/C batteries. In the 1990s, from what I remember, they were all basically the same. I bought this one because it was cheap; will a different one (LiPo? mAh rating?) make a noticeable difference?

*I picked the cheapest transmitter/receiver combo I could find because I don’t like pistol-type controllers. I couldn’t find a non-pistol (stick) type anywhere online except for six-channel ones with displays and stuff for RC aircraft. For the Prerunner I had an Acoms Techniplus set exactly like this and it was just perfect. If I ever find a new product like that I’ll replace the transmitter.

2

Don’t worry. Tamiya stuff is as close to perfect as you can get. It’ll go together fine and work fine when it’s done.

Tamiya makes a wide range of spray paints intended for use on polycarbonate bodies. Tamiya Color Spray Paints for Polycarbonate. As I recall, it’s the usual practice to paint the inside of the (clear) body, so that the final finish looks super glossy.

3

Yeah, Tamiya is the shit!

4

I was hoping you would weigh in! I did paint the inside of the body last time but you could still see brush strokes through the polycarbonate. Maybe I was just terrible at painting.

If the body doesn’t come pre-masked, any suggestions for products for masking off the bits I don’t want to paint?

5

Depending on how much you plan on using it, I would probably upgrade the gear set and maybe throw some metal oil filled shocks as the plastic ones tend to grenade pretty quickly. My buddies Grasshoppper ate both shortly after he put in a brushless motor, esc and battery pack while my venerable Traxxas Bandit was fine. I miss that thing, I never should have sold it…

I used masking tape and a lot of patience when I painted mine. If you have OK air brush or spray bomb skils you may want to go that way. Lots of light coats to avoid drips.

6

Use Tamiya (yellow) masking tape for the edges and fill in the big areas with 3M blue painters tape. If you need to mask a curved line, Tamiya makes a nice narrow flexible plastic masking tape that works well.

7

Update: I posted a build and upgrade thread here.