alexhore

So my lad is 7 next week and he loves cars. I have previously bought him off the shelf £20 cars running off AA batteries for round the house but they were never gonna hold his interest so I think the time has come to get hime something a bit more real for the park. Loads of space in the park with not too much to bump into but paths can be narrow and leaves and mud around so went with a buggy but avoided braking the bank on his first I don't mind wasting cash upgrading later while the Mrs aint looking...

Its too early to consider upgrading it speed wise, I want him to be able to control it but I would like to hear of any suggestions for improving its stability or customisations we can carry out together while waiting for the battery to charge.

Can I buy any 1/18th shell or do I need to stick to buggy type shells maybe even of the correct brand?

Can you recommend a second reasonably priced battery or would it work out better value to swap it out for li-po considering I already have spare connectors and a Lipo charger of my own? The focus is not speed, I would prefer 2 or 3 relatively standard batteries over an epic moter busting 3s, the longer he can drive it without going home to charge it the better!

Fiend_UK

Colt is pretty damn stable out of the box. It's not a big acrobatic jumper but it does hold terrain well. Like most budget mini/micros stuff can break, it might be worth investing in suspension arms and axle hubs early on.

Aluminium shocks are not too expensive and seemed to improve handling a bit as well as stopping shock oil leaking.

The car is pretty nippy on 2S and pretty fast on 3S but the motor might well catch fire with one full 3S battery's worth at full throttle.

The one thing I would recommend is making a bumper, it helps a lot:


Here's some speed testing and minor bashing:

alexhore

Thanks, his birthday has been and gone and been out a couple of times with it. He is learning the basics in terms of steering and despite the parks size there is a lot of full throttle bumping going on so I was thinking big bouncy tires before I read this. Ill have a look at creating a bumper got loads of carbon sheet I can use.

Fiend_UK

Carbon fibre is super-tough but hard to cut out and bend, can also put a lot of stress on the screws going through it and into the diff case. Nylon seems much better so far.