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Hi All,

Just thought it was time to introduce myself, I have been lurking and reading for a few weeks now.

I am 35 and recently just happened to spot a Tamiya Thunder Dragon on ebay by chance while looking for something else. Got me thinking about the good old days as a young boy racing my Tamiya's. So i won the action for the original Thunder Dragon fully original with everything included to run (- one front bumper).

After racing it around a few times i decided to get some upgrades and try to improve the car a little. So far I have got a Front Bumper, made a steel A5 part, Fully Ballraced, ECS and a HPI 15t firebolt motor, 3800 battery and a new charger.

I used to own a Grasshopper and a Striker that I raced in the local Tamiya club back in Norway where i grew up. I must say that it is still great fun to burn around with these things.

Regards,
Aleks

Welcome on board

I think there are a lot of 30/40-somethings reliving their youth here

Hi Aleks,

Welcome on TB !

Welcome Aleks! You're not too far from me - I live near Milton Keynes.

Welcome, aleksb. Like Jonny mentioned, many of the individual stories here are strangely familiar.
Some pics would be great.

Here is a couple of pics. Not to keen on the colour but it is what made it catch my eye originally when I bought it. The suspension needs sorting as the years have made them super soft. The bumper arrives in the post tomorrow. Any recommendations on how I achieve dual front suspension setup with this car? And I am running stock pinion gear, any recommendations on this one to please folks

Sent from my Sensation using Tapatalk 2

Sent from my Sensation using Tapatalk 2

Hi Aleksb!
Suspension is soggy cos it's missing the spring spacers (Manual calls for them to be fitted at build time, & it needs them).

Stock pinion is best for best run time with best speed from a standard motor.
You can go larger for more top speed, but run time will be less & acceleration will suffer.
If you go smaller, acceleration will be slightly better, not a huge change in top speed, ever so slightly more run time.

If you stick a tuned motor in it, you'll need to go a couple of teeth smaller on the pinion to make the higher rpm work for you, otherwise it'll just get hot & flatten the batteries quicker, with only a slight increase in speed.

Loads of people will disagree with me on here, but personally I'd ditch the ESC (Unless it's a good quality high rated one) & 3800 Nimh(?) using with a 15T motor as both will be restricting full current flow, meaning the motor will never deliver the full power it is capable of.
Personally I'd go back to MSC & use good quality NiCd packs (Tamiya, no more than 1400mAH).
Run time will be around 4-5 minutes & the car will be quick. I personally prefer fast for 5 minutes than limping about like a sick cat for half an hour!

I've also yet to find an ESC that delivers full battery current to low-turn motors (No limit LRP AI was actually worse than a cheapy chinese one) & I've never owned an Nimh that delivers anywhere near as much current as NiCd (Making a low turn motor a pointless mod).
For proper angry speed & acceleration, it appears Lipo & brushless is the way to go, but if like me you can't afford that, I'd suggest MSC & NiCds is the next best thing, or ESC if you can find one that actually passes the current that the spec says it will (ESC specs are all lies as far as I can see)

Thanks for the welcome guys

@eddrick

I did fit my ESC with the old silver can fitted and to me it did not seen any slower at all, only difference that i noticed is more control over the car. But to my untrained eye I could of course be wrong. I fitted a Modelsport UK Sniper RV-12 ESC, seemed a good price for the kit.

I then fitted the HPI Firebolt 15T motor and instantly noticed more power and speed, could be that the old silver can had seen it better days tho.

The battery is a Overlander Tornado 3800mah 7.2v NiMH battery, and seems to deliver the same performance as the battery that came with the Dragon. But again that battery was not stock Tamiya, it was a 2200mah 7.2v NiMH one that also have seen better days I think.

The motor seems to stay relatively cool after a good run so the stock pinion gear should be fine for now without burning out the motor.

A appreciate your advice and might run with it when I pick up another Tamiya as soon as the finances allow it.

Now I am off to find some spring spacers for the suspension

Cheers,
Aleks

aleksb wrote:

Now I am off to find some spring spacers for the suspension

Cheers,
Aleks

PM me your address - I've got some spare ones you can have.