I figured that since I have a monster truck (Savage X) and a Truggy (Hyper ST), I might as well go for an On-Road Car to complete the family! After hunting around for a while, I decided to go after the HPI RS4 3 18SS on-road car.
This is a 1/10 scale nitro on-road car. Forum feedback is that this is a good on-road to start for beginners. Furthermore, Tai Seng was selling this at a promo price of $350! This is a complete unassembled kit with a 18-sized engine.
Even the body is a clear un-painted one. The kit comes without electronics (i.e. no radio and servos included), which is exactly what I want because I already have my trusty old Futaba 3PK and does not need to have another lousy stock radion lying around doing nothing.
There are 2 car bodies version to choose from : The Lamborghini Gallardo and the Ford GT. I like the Lamborghini version more so I chose that one. The RS4 3 is a 2-speed setup car and the timing of gear change is adjustable by means of a 1.5mm hex screw. Tighting the hex screw will delay the gear change while loosening it will result in earlier gear change. Most of the stock parts are plastic.
Assembly is pretty easy, thanks to the well-documented instruction manual. The assembly process is split into various stages and the parts for each stage assembly are packed into individual packs and labelled with an alphabet. During assembly process, the only issue i came across was the air filter element. I guess it has been packed for too long as the air filter sponge element almost disintegrated into little pieces when I inserted it into the air filter. In the end, I had to go back to Tai Seng to get another air filter as replacement.
I spend about 3 nights of 3 hours each to assemble the complete car together, including electronics. And another couple of hours for cutting the body, spray painting and applying decals. As this is the first time I am assembling a RC car, the time taken is naturally longer. I am sure a professional would need only 3 hours at the most to complete the entire assembly process. :-)
Below are some photos of the completed car :
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| Completed assembly! |
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| Front harden foam bumper and shocks |
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| 18SS Engine, Cone air filter, and you can catch a glimps of the 2 speed clucth bell. |
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| Pull-start system |
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| Hitec Digital Metal Gear servo for stronger steering control |
Below are some pictures with the completed body!
Breaking-in the engine was relatively easy. The fuel tank came with a primer. All I need to do is to prime the engine with sufficient fuel and a couple of pulls later on the pull-starter, the engine fired up without any problems. I left my first 3 tanks on idle mode. With the relatively small fuel tank (75cc), each tank took aound 7-8 mins to be consumed. This is also because I was running the engine very rich during break-in procedure. On the forth and fifth tank, I ran the car at very slow speed with frequent throttle blips to blow the excessive fuel out from the exhaust.
When weekend came, I took the car out for some high speed runs and also took the opportunity to tune it for higher speed through leaning the high-speed-needle (HSN).
Performance of the car has been very satisfactory for me. Although the box mentioned that the car has capability to run beyond 50+mph (80+kmh), I don't feel that my car was really running at that kind of speed during WOT (Wide Open Throttle). But still, the car felt fast! Well, maybe I can lean the HSN further for better speed but I am not going to do that at the moment. At least I still have good control of the car at the current speed. I'm not about to risk crashing the car just yet! :-)
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