Ultima, Prodite, Iron Man & H.King's Childhood Revival of Mini 4wd.

Well, as some of you may know, I'm back to the good ole' times of Tamiya Mini 4wd 1/32 scale racing/modelling cars again.

Remembmer the time when we all used to spend our parent's money on some small scale car models that does nothing but goes around in circles in pre made tracks with certain specifications and in which modifying those cars will make you think their going faster and faster but are indeed a whole load of false sales tricks?

Yep..those were the days..

It's kinda hard to find one of those shops that sells those cars nowadays. It used to be everywhere but now, only a handful of shops sell them.

Only 4 people bought the new cars and are therefore part of the revival. Me, Samuel, Rayney and Yan Hui.

These are the cars we bought:
Me: Neo Falcon
Samuel: Grasshopper
Rayney: ?¿?¿
Yan Hui: Black Saber

(Sorry. Can't remember Rayney's model.)

Yan Hui's Black Saber did not come with a motor. It was stated that the motor was an optional part not included.

So this is what my car looked like:


yep.

We did some research on modifying our cars and we saved up for the neccessary parts. Samuel was the first to buy his parts and he modified it when we went to Kenrick's house on Saturday. He also bought me a front bumper for my car. We went to Kenrick's house as he had a track for Tamiya cars. He wasn't the only one however but he was the only one who had his house open to us. We set up the track at the viod deck below his apartment and we played there. Samuel was undoubtedly the fastest as he had some additional parts to his car that none of us had except Yan Hui who had some.

After playing for some time, Yan Hui took out his tool box full of Tamiya parts and we started modifying our cars while listening to his story of how he managed to get a whole load of useful and some useless parts.

We went to Kenrick's house after that so we could further modify our cars.

Rayney didn't come so we couldn't judge his car.

In my opinions, here are our strengths:
Me: Rechargable batteries.
Samuel: Great chassis layout.
Yan Hui: Futuristic looking parts

The story however, starts before that.

Here's my part of the story, before we went to Kenrick's house.

On Wednesday, Me and Rayney finall got our hands on the PRO series of Mini 4wd Cars. Unlike the older, traditional ones, it featured a double shaft motor and different chassis layout. The motor was placed in the center with batteries on either side, supposedly lowering the car's Center of gravity. After buying the cars, we went to my house to get them fixed. I used some batteries which I thought was going to be good but when I tried them, the motor wouldn't run. We both knew something was wrong. I found out i was using the wrong batteris when Rayney went home to use his own batteries and it worked and mine worked too when I changed my batteries.

On Friday, Samuel and Yan Hui brought their cars to school. I was supposed to bring mine too but I didnt. They ran their cars in a drain near beside the benches at the central staircase. After that, we decided to run the cars on the stage and someone would be at the other end to catch them. Yan Hui was the first to play on the stage and when his car flew off, we had to fix it for him. After a while, Samuel and Yan Hui wanted a race on the stage. Both cars flew off repeatedly.

Yesterday, Shermond brought 2 of his cars and some spare parts and motors. He had a Hyper Dash 2 motor still in good condition and seeing how well it performed at Kenrick's house the other day, i wanted to buy it from him at $7, $2 off the original cost. After a useless haggle, he decided not to sell it to me. That night, me and Rayney went to buy some parts. I bought a set of one-way wheels and a Hyper Dash 2 motor. I also bought Rayney a pair of stablizers. Went back to assemble the parts and did the modifications after that.


So now you might be wondering what you should put on your mini 4wd.


A motor of course!

Motor:
Personally, I prefer using a Hyper Dash 2. Why? Because It's the only one I've got besides the stock motor. OK but seriously, why a Hyper Dash 2? Well firstly, it does not drain that much energy like a plasma dash. It has a satisfying performance and is able to keep up with most other cars.

Rollers:
I would say aluminium ones work best. Especially those with ball bearings. They are hardy and do not bend much. When using rollers, always remember to remove the rubber rings around them. THose rings increase friction between the car and the track.

Bumpers:
I would suggest using either aluminium bumpers or hard plastic ones. This makes it easier to attach more parts to your car like front stabilizers and such.

Wheels:
Smaller wheels are better than bigger ones. Bigger wheels are good if you have a weaker motor but they raise your car's center of gravity and therefore makes it more unstable. Small wheels are the best. There are also different kinds of wheels. The best type of wheels I would suggest for your car is one-way wheels. This makes it easier to turn at corners. Why? Simple. When turning at corners, the wheels at the other part of the track needs to cover a larger distance than the wheels on the inner part of the track. Stock wheels cannot move independently like one-way wheels and the wheels on the outher part of the track are dragged to cover the larger distance. One-way wheels move independently and the wheel on the outer part of the track is not dragged. Some people say that one-way wheels are heavier. Well, I personally weighed them and it turned out that stock wheels are actually heavier. But then again.. my stock wheels are big so it goes down to your opinion on them.

Batteries:
Rechargables are best.

Enough said.