Rally Cars

[Josh11886]

I'm thinking of buying an HPI Rally car. I have not seen much on other rally cars and was hopeing to hear what you all think.

[Mason Copeland]

You might not get very many responses b/c there r like 3 other rally THREADS and they r empty.

[IceMaxx]

I have an HPI eRally and I love it...very fast and responsive...
It's outfitted with an LRP IPC Pro Sport ESC, XR2 radio gear and a Trinity Chameleon Pro, changed the pinion to a 28t and it cruises...

I really like the handling aspect, it does real nice 4 wheel drifts through the corners...

[athowells]

There is a few electric rally cars out. The is one by Kyosho (http://www.kysoho.com), Associated TC3 Conversion (http://www.teamassociated.com), Losi (http://www.teamlosi.com) Tamiya (http://www.tamiya.com/english/e-home.htm)
I am thinking about getting the RS4 Rally and I can't wait. RALLY ON ;)

[outsider]

I JUST got my Rally last night. I spent 8 hours building most of it till 2 AM. It looks really cool so far. I'm already thinking about a paint scheme...

[sixandeightstringer]

If you want to get into rally for cheap, you can get a Losi Rally Weapon for a steal nowadays - check eBay (an eBay store there has about 90 of them at $70 a pop) and Stormer Hobbies Online for the two best prices I've seen.

FYI, the kit used to cost over $250. :eek:

[KartMan]

Does anyone have any experience with the Rally Weapon? I have two TC3's that I am convering to Rally and need to come up with a third Rally to start a class where I race. Will the Rally Weapon be able to keep up? Also, how is the duribility of the Rally Weapon? Also, how will the TC3 stand up to being jumped and crashed?:confused::eek: :confused: :eek:

[sixandeightstringer]

I raced rally with my Losi for the first time ever on Sunday. In a field of 8, mostly HPIs and other "popular" cars, my Losi not only kept up but passed most of them. I was running an old Midnight 2 stock motor (in dire need of replacement) and a 26 pin pinion, and the thing just hooked up! Considering it was my first time rallying (and only my second time racing - I started with my TC the week before) I did quite well.

The only complaint is that the U's hang really close to the edge of the outdrives on the front wheels; I tore up an outdrive pretty bad. You may consider trying to find some aluminum "outdrive savers" to keep this problem to a minimum.

Here's a pic of me leading the field (mine's the green color-changing Focus):

http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/e8df4142/bc/Rally+at+Cooper+River+-+Sept.+23rd+2001/DSC00075.jpg?bcMwHt7AUhTCtOUV

[KartMan]

Which do you prefer? I have many years of racing under my belt therefore I will be racing the TC3, but my fiance has NO racing experience. That is why I thought about getting her the Rally Weapon. So she could thrash it up, and not have to do much work to it.

Thanks :) :) :) :)

[sixandeightstringer]

I don't understand what you mean by "which do you prefer?"

I have three cars, 2 TC's and a Rally. They're all Losi - two Street Weapons and a Rally Weapon - which is great for me because I share one parts bin between the three cars.

All I know is that my Rally Weapon turned some heads on Sunday. The guys at my track were quite surprised to be passed by a $70 car, driven by a newbie - using a two-stick radio. :D

[KartMan]

Sorry.... I thoughy when you said that you started the TC the week before, you were referring to the TC3 from Team Associated. I do however think that the Rally Weapon will be the kit of choice for my fiance that has never raced before. Was the kit easy to put together? Does it come with bearings? Are there any options that come with the kit?

[sixandeightstringer]

It's quite easy to put together - the instructions are mostly clear and well illustrated, and it comes with everything you need. It comes with every available bearing except the steering bearings; it has bushings for them. It comes with adonized red shocks, includes a bottle of shock oil and tubes of assembly and diff grease. It also comes with a body and stickers, though mine was a little mis-formed (no biggie) and don't trust the mount hole dots they so kindly scribble on for you - my rears were in the wrong place!

It doesn't come with an inner body, but really doesn't need one too badly, as the drivetrain is completely enclosed. Horizon Hobby has a "Street Weapon Dust Cover" that is just a formed piece of lexan - I got one, but I'm not sure how useful it's going to be.

Stormerhobbies.com has the car for $89.99, I think. You might also try ebay to get it cheap. At Tower, it was in their daily sale last time I looked, but it was still at $123 or so.

[Serius Black]

Actually, the Rally Weapon never sold for $250. Most hobby shops were selling them for $140 to $170 when they were first released. In my opinion, they've always been a great deal, and a severely under rated car.
I've raced both the HPI Rally and the TC3 Rally, and feel that the TC3 is a much better performer. It's semi-sealed drivetrain lends itself to offroad, and the shaft drive simply makes the car feel much more responsive.
The TC3 needs a few minor mods done to the chassis to gain a few critical mm's of suspension travel, and changing out the springs that come with the conversion is a must, but otherwise, it's as good as they get.
The obvious downside to the TC3 Rally is the cost. I used a Team Kit ($199), and the Rally conversion ($59), so it made for an expensive rally car. The upside is that you've got everything it takes to return the car to onroad duty, and one of the best at that!
Between myself and a buddy that drove the car in a local 6 week championship, I broke one rear arm, and that was on the very first lap the car served as a rally. If you want to see how the car fared in one of the largest rally series in the US, check out the WsRC Championship Resluts on rcrally.com. Tim O, the first place driver, drove the car in the last few races, and usually finished more than a lap up on second place. To be honest, he did nearly as well with the HPI, but this just goes to show that the TC3 gives nothing up to the competition.
I was only able to run one or two races in the series, so I didn't do well on points, but I finished well in the individual races.

[grimlock3000]

Check it out, you can buy the Rally Weapon for $69.99 here:

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1635050774

Or you can just search for Rally Weapon and bid on one of the kits you see from the same seller. Feedback for the seller is great btw. I was going to get a Factory Team B3, but for so cheap, I figure I can try the Rally Weapon for a bit.

Anyway... I had an HPI Rally for almost 18 months. The car is great but the inner body is a double edged sword. With the inner body on, the electronics get HOT. I eventually resorted to cutting up the inner body and replacing some of it with a fine mesh speaker grill fabric. Also, once something gets into the inner body (and it happen quite a bit), it is trapped there. When running without the inner body, stuff get caught in the belts and sometimes even the motor :eek: The car is built like a tank though and withstood many punishing crashes. With the HPI car, the slipper clutch helps a lot and running thicker shock oil is a good idea too (I was running 50 front/40 rear). One bad thing about the Rally Weapon is that to get a slipper clutch, you need to order the parts for the XX4 slipper indivually and it ends up costing around $45 (more than half the cost of the car itself now).

The HPI Rally eventually met its end a few weeks ago when I managed to snap both the top and bottom chassis plates in one extremely uneventful incident of hitting a car tire at half speed.

[sixandeightstringer]

I was going to post that link, but I couldn't find it.

That's who I bought mine from - no problems whatsoever. His feedback is good because his service is good. The kits are brand new in shrink wrap.

[aphex4000]

Is there good aftermarket support for the Street/Rally Weapon?

Now I'm thinking about selling my TL-01 and picking up a Rally weapon. The TL-01 is a great car but upgrades are limited.

[sixandeightstringer]

Well, yes and no.

Bad News: Losi has phased out the Street Weapon. The way it looks, they're pretty much not making the Rally Weapon anymore, either.

Good News: Since the Street Weapon, the Rally Weapon AND the XX-4 (four wheel drive buggy) all share most of their parts in common, there are a lot of hopups and replacement parts still available. Also, they should continue to be available through Horizon Hobbies (horizonhobby.com) since they now own a large chunk of Losi.

Also, since Trinity drivers once raced Street Weapons, there's a good number of SW hopups -- most of these also fit the Rally car. (for instance, there's are a couple of bulkhead braces in adonized aluminum, outdrive savers, etc.) Ditto on the XX-4 (there's a Trinity XX-4 replacement front blue bulkhead.)

Finally, I've found a mess of stuff on eBay, including graphite chassis, bearings, titanium turnbuckles, replacement bulkheads, wheels and tires, etc., etc.

As you get to know the car, you start to realize what parts can be cross-referenced to the vehicle you have. I have two Street Weapons (an IWC and a stocker for backup) and the Rally Weapon. This works well for me, since I can use one parts bin for two (and conceivably, three - if I got into 4WD buggy) entirely different classes.

[aphex4000]

Sixandeightstringer, thanks for all the great info...still trying to weigh the pros and cons of switching cars. Think I'll sleep on it...thanks again!

[sixandeightstringer]

Another good thread on the subject:
http://www.radiocontrolzone.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23886

[bbb]

I've got 2 Rally Weapons for sale or trade if anybody is interested. One is never opened, factory sealed in the box and the other is built with 20T motor and Rooster ESC, never ran outside. Email at bend@min.net if interested.

[Crazy J]

I have a tamiya tao3 subaru rally and I have to say it handles great and is pretty fast with a midnight pro 2 motor on it and an msc but I wanna get into nitro so I might sell the car for right price. But I really like the way the car seems to handle for stock.

[abs0lut3]

guys, I have to say that TB-01 (impreza and soon to be Evo VII) is a worthy rally based car especially since it's convertible to TG-10 for gas and hey..lots of options!. Plus, the street price for those cars ranges from $150 to $170 bucks..no more..hopefully less :D I'm pretty happy with my TB-01 especially with 3000Mah batteries...they take off like there's no tomorrow hehe

well..I hope I can run my car at a rally scene soon...Huntington Beach here I come =)

[T3GT]

All I have to say is...

TC3 RALLY!!!!!!!!:D

[T3GT]

Sorry about the fuzzy pics...:(

[dugrant153]

wow!

Is that the HPI body?

[T3GT]

Yep!!!:D

[dugrant153]

How'd you do it?!

Like, how'd you mod it? (the inner body).

and that's the 200mm outer Subaru body, right?

[T3GT]

Yea....200mm Subaru 2001 WRX....the inner shell had to be cut to fit the TC3....

First, find out how high you want the guys to sit in the car body........I cut the top so that it fit on the TC3 chassis with no binding or big gaps....make sure that as you trim away access that you keep the right height at all times...just trim away a little at a time til it fits right......

The bottom piece has to have the middle cut out to form sides and be able to be attached to the bottom of the chassis by velcro.....the height I choose left a small 1/2" gap on the sides, so I used some spare scrap lexan to join the top and bottom and reinforced it with Duck Tape inside and out, and covered it with some cool HPI stickers.....

It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to do it because I tried to cut it up as less as possible so I wouldn't waste anything since it costs $24...But I'll be able to use them in just about every Rally Body I'll get.....

Hope this helps dude......Here are a few Pics to help you......:D

[T3GT]

Front view!!!!:D

[T3GT]

Reinforced Gap!!!

[T3GT]

....and the Guys in their Glory!!!...LOL:D

[Poolboy51]

I think I've decided that I want to get an electric rally car as my next car. I've narrowed it down to ethier the Tamya TB01 or TAO3 rally or I'll get a Kyosho then massively upgrade whichever one I get.

[RustlerBoy]

Im buying an RS4 rally! What hopups should i get right away?

[Poolboy51]

Rustler Boy-
Have you actually bought it yet? I'm not sure, but my friend says it's a real pain in the ***** to get the battery out so he just charges it out of the car. He also had over-heating problems and almost fried his green machine! There was also some bing in the front when he turned but he fixed it. Try RCRally.com (http://www.rcrally.com) . Their supposed to be all-rally, but thy're biased toward RS4 Rally. They have some helpful hints.:D

[Stampedeguy]

i've had my rs4 rally for 2 years and all i've broke is a ball stud for the shock. I have no hop ups except for some chrome wheels. They already have bb's it's chassis is extremely light. when I had my tekin rebel reverse and a speed gems 15t in it is was VERY fast easily 35-40mph! now i'm puttin a 13t in it it's gonna be wicked fast! the car doesn't really need any hopups unless you wanna get all fancy with aluminum parts and such but maybe a heatsink motor plate would be a good one.

[Stampedeguy]

Here's my rs4 rally Ifound that rally cars are good for people who like on road cars but don't race them. there ground clearance is higher and you won't hit every rock or pebble that's in the street. Even though I have street tires on mine it still works well on the crushed stone trails in my neighborhood.

[T3GT]

Rally cars are perfect for the enthusiasts who just want to have a car that resembles a REAL car in looks and in performance......and then they are perfect for racers too.....I love racing mine....plus I have plans to just play with it by slamming a 69 Camaro Body with some cool chrome rims and street tires......It's the perfect RC car...........Onroad--Offroad--anything else.........and it's FAST!!!!!.......:D

[dugrant153]

I really love racing rally car/street car style. I really don't like it when you slam the car super super close to the ground, cause then you're stuck with onroad only.

BTW, how to make bodies look more "street" style or rally style?

Also, is the rally kit NEEDED for doing just simple dirt drifting? And can the street look be achieved without the rally kit?

[T3GT]

I don't know....The street version is too low to the ground for regular driving in the streets and regular offroad surfaces(hit a little rock or a slight uneven surface and it flies out of control).....so I never even built it in street form, just built it Rally only....

[r/c_fan2000]

Thats why I went for the rs4 rally for my first on road car. My friend got a strickly on road car and he keep braking it because its so coles to the ground.:D

[dugrant153]

I've run my 4-tec (and now my TC3) on my sidewalk without any problems. Some scratches happen when I hit big rocks and stuff, but those can easily be dodged or moved.

My 4-tec had about 1.5 cm of clearance, and my tc3 has a little less (like 1.3 cm). That's really all you need unless you're going to run on big huge rocks. Street running at that height should be fine. The rally kit is not NEEDED, but it'd be good to have anyways. I don't have it yet, and my car seems to run fine.

[dugrant153]

hey T3GT... can you tak pics of your Innerbody mod for the TC3 with the innerbody ON the chassis? I've made cuts, but there's some gaping holes, and I want to know if I positioned it properly.

[T3GT]

These are the best pics I could get at this time...Hope it helps....

[T3GT]

Here's the side....

[T3GT]

For the front and back, I had to put a couple of Lexan standoffs underneath to keep the inner shell at the right height and level with the chassis....It's hard to see them, but they are there...( the standoffs rest on the shock tower...and the front rest on the diff housing)

[dugrant153]

OH!

You use mudguards?!
hmmm...

how do you cover the sides? oh wait! Ah! It makes sense!

Thanks T3GT.

[T3GT]

Here's the top view...

[dugrant153]

Do you mind if I see the bottom as well?

Thanks in advance. I really admire how good your TC3 looks!

[T3GT]

No problem....Excuse the dirt...It's still dirty from racing it on Sunday....plus I'm getting a digital camera soon, so Better pics will be in the near future......:)

[T3GT]

Thanx.....:D

[T3GT]

If you keep the sides strong and the bottom fastened good with velcro, it'll stay in place pretty good....plus, Less dirt inside the chassis, and it Looks great...I love it

[dugrant153]

Oh... that picture doesn't really look like the bottom.... Is it?

[dugrant153]

A couple more things:
How'd you make the mudflaps? How'd you get the lexan to bend that way?

And does the innerbody keep the body out?

Also... I still need a look at the bottom. That's the trouble spot on mine right now.

Thanks man. Sorry to get you taking 1.5 million pics of your car.