Touring car advice needed please
 

I usually race outdoor off-road but recently i've found myself becoming sick and tyred of all this endless warm sunshine(not) so am looking into racing touring cars on carpet indoors. I've never raced on-road so any advice would be appreciated.

Modelsport are doing the Schumacher Mi1 for £125, would this be a good beginner's car? Am I right in thinking it's the same as the original Mission from circa 2000/2001? Are there any alternatives in about this price bracket? I don't really want to spend a fortune just to find out if I enjoy it, but I do want to start off with a new car and build it myself.

I have a 2.4Ghz radio and servos I can use so no problems there.

Also I have an MRT VX Pro and an LRP V7.1 speedos sitting doing nothing, along with a couple of (new) Reedy 8x1 brushed motors (If these sound a bit aggressive, both speedos have power limiting facilities). What race class would these motors put me in?

What kind of figure would I need to budget for trying different tyres etc., bearing in mind I probably won't have the sensitivity of a seasoned TC driver?

This is all a bit like black magic to me so thanks in advance to anyone who responds to this and points me in the right direction.

You can pick up a brand new sakura zero s for under £100 brand new. For that kind of money you cant go wrong. Chassis is a lot more upto date than an mi1, its not too far off the what all the upto date touring cars are now. The first hot bodies cyclone was a very good car and they bought out an S version (not sure if its still available tho).

best thing to do motor wise pop down the club your thinking of racing at and find out what classes they run they will be able to give you more of an idea. Same with tyres realy you could buy foams but the easyer and cheaper option would be to buy a set of sorex 28's and some tyre addative. They will give plenty of grip and dont have the downside of chunking like foam tyres do.

Thanks, I looked at that and it looks good, parts are pretty cheap as well.

Sakura Zero S seems to generally get good reviews. Much more modern design than the Mi1.

The other option is to go for a decent used car... the difficulty being telling a decent one from one that's bent and worn out, which won't be clear from the pictures.

Your motors aren't likely to be legal for any class. Most clubs don't run brushed any more. Some might allow you to run a 27t or 19t in with the 13.5T brushless, but that will depend on the club.

The only tyres you need are Sorex 28JB, so at least that side of things is cheap and simple!

Thanks, also how necessary is tyre additive and what effect does it have? Does it shorten tyre life?

again, depends on the club you want to race at. some clubs dont allow addetive.
It basically softens the rubber, so yes it does shorten life a tad.

But to be honest, tyre life on TC is so cack anyway its not worth worrying about. I tried TC for a while. Aside the fact i found it very boring having done off road, at nearly 30 quid for a set of tyres that are pretty much useless after 5 minutes, its just too expensive. Hence why the arse has fallen out of the class recently and many have turned back to off road.

If you want some cheap indoor circuit fun, go for a mardave or the new schumacher superstox

It will increase grip a small amount, and shorten life by a small amount as well. If you need it or not will depend on the track, some are already high grip so it won't be necessary.

Touring cars can be as cheap or as expensive as you want to make it. At club level drivers will go weeks without buying new tyres. On some tracks they do lose their edge after a couple of runs, but at club level this isn't going to make a big difference. and that's no different to off road where the top guys will fit new tyres every couple of runs.

A big +1 to that.

Indoor carpet, the tyres will last well - basically until the tyre is worn right through to the belting canvas. You'll be measuring in meetings not runs.

I took up off road after TC
 

Funny how people cross over to other disciplines.

IMHO - if you are buying new go for the Xray T3R - fully uprgradeable to the full T3.

Second hand you can pick up an Xray t2'009 or a T3 for less than £100.00. I've tried Schumacher, Yokomo, and Hot Bodies, and just like working with Xray's - excellent durability and the forum has genuine input from team drivers like Hagberg and Paul LeMieux on a regular basis.

The best tyres indoors for smaller tighter tracks are Sorex with a blue insert - like they use at maritime. on larger tracks the sorex 32's. LRP 28's are good as well..

What you will find is that tyre will have a tendency to come of the rims because grip on carpet is high, and the forces on the tyre have this effect, so get used to doing a bit of gluing.

First of all touring cars are awesome, the racing is really competitive and like previously said you make it as cheap or expensive as you want.

sorex 28s (pre built) are a good choice and will last ages, I have run them for a season (11 meetings) before without dropping too much time on the other drivers and just starting out you probably wont tell the difference to start with anyway .

Motors etc, generally most people will be running 10.5 or 13.5 brushless nowadays but if you get yourself a decent 19t motor (if you dont want to buy a brushless system) then I'm sure they will let you run with this, or they do at my local club as your slower in terms of speed compared to the brushless (but its a cheap way of getting started)

As for the car itselfs, the surikarn sounds good but I dont know how much help you could get track side as I dont know if a lot of people run them (same for the mi1 tho) the other option is to either look out for a second hand newish car or try to stretch to one of the racer versions of the cars (these are usually quite a bit cheaper than the team kits and can be upgraded as you want)

Also keep and eye out for good deals like the tc6 was available at a couple of shops for £200 when the 6.1 came out.

Additive: get some lrp or something easy and quick to apply, softens the rubber a little to help the tyre get upto temperature when you first get on track, with out additive on most tracks you will be disadvantaged straight away and the car will tend to slide alot until the tyres get to temperature.

Enjoy and have fun!!

On the topic of tyre life I just set personal bests at Cotswold today with 20+ run old tyres...

If you must buy a new car another vote for the Sakura Zero S here. It even comes with gear diffs as standard. Most people replace the dampers with the alloy versions, they are much cheaper than other manufacturers shocks, but you aren't going to notice any difference for club racing. The only downside to the car is that spares aren't widely available in the UK, but they are available from rcracinguk.com.
The best choice though is see what's popular at your local club and pick up an older version second hand as you then have lots people you can ask for setup advice.

Touring cars run much less powerful motors than off road, to control the speed. 13.5T motors are pretty common at club level, check what your local club runs. If you want to get running cheap most clubs would allow a 19T or 27T brushed motor depending on the class of brushless motors used. You can pick up good condition motors on ebay for £10-15 as no one runs them these days.

Again go to your local club, ask what tyres they use and buy one set of them, that will do for some time unless you damage them. For additives again ask what the local racers are using and get that, the additive ends up in the carpet as everyone races on it so using the popular additive means you won't have problems with using the wrong additive.

As long as you don't take the corner off the car in an accident, your biggest ongoing expense is replacing damaged bodies every so often.

A set of Sorex 28JBs last for weeks, even months, before they are worn through.
How long do the tyres last on your buggy then?

An interesting question, I race on astro so when it's dry I usually have too much grip (to the point where i've dremelled half the spikes off a set of Schumacher 1/8th minispikes) and a part-worn set can often give better performance than new ones. Likewise with my 1/10th buggy (yesterday I did my best 1/10th run with 3-year-old dremelled green minispikes:woot:).

During winter it's slippery so they tend to lose the edge a lot quicker even though the spikes are still there.