decontstructor

First of all I'd like to say hello, I've been reading ur forums over the last week or so as I am looking into getting back into this hobby. It has been probably 18 years since Ihave enjoyed driving my RC car. Ihave an 11 y/o son that is now interested in getting into it and he has sparked my old interests. I had to go and unpack my old RC car. I have an RC10 with graphite chassis and ball bearings, it also has the stealth transmission. It has the pyrimid style spikes on the tires, both front and rear. Iremember getting it right when the stealth transmission first came out. Iwant to say it's from 1991.

I am wondering if it is worth putting new electronics on it and racing again or if times have changed so much that i'm better off getting a new car. I don't really care for the ready to run kits for me as I enjoy putting things together and working on them. If i was to buy a new car I would probably end up getting the RC10B44.1 as Iwould like to go with four wheel drive. I know those kits come without electronics, so I was thinking of getting the electronics and tossing it into my old car to see if it is something Iwill actually go out and do. If I enjoy the old car Ifigure the new car would be worth the buy, but if Idon't drive my car very much then I'd only be out the cost of the electronics. So Iguess the biggest question I would have is would the old car be worth putting a brushless motor into it and lipo's or would it be better to just buy a ready to run rc10b4 that comes with everything?

I am definitely interested in seeing the brushless motors and lipo's on a car, Iremember my old car being quite fast (or so it seemed at the time) and I can't imagine how much faster it could be with the upgrades to electronics. Thank you in advance for reading this post and possibly replying. I could also upload some pics if anyone was intersted, after Iclean some cobwebs and dust off the car. lol.

djyjrlz

from what i can gather the old rc10's are still quite competitive if set up right and driven well. they are also incredibly well made, unlike some cars of today :P 

john01374

I would absolutely fix up the old car. I have an old RC10CE that was a B-Day present way back when I was about 12 and still bring it out for the occasional vintage race. In bashing it holds it's own with modern 2WD chassis but it does take some tuning. The Stealth trans is pretty durable but I would stick to mild brushless systems. As djyjrlz said.. Lipo batteries are the way to go so don't waste your money on NiMh.

decontstructor

Thank you both for replying, sounds like I'll be looking at getting my old car running again. Ithink I'll enjoy working on the old one more then just buying a RTR car too. I'm excited to have a new project to work on. lol

BKoz559

My Feedback: (3)

Photos, please. Ienjoy an old RC10 project.

I concur, a mild brushless system and a 2S LiPo. You will have fun.

One thing I wanted to addis that you should also consider replacing the wheels and tires for your car. The old spikes were cool for the day but by now the rubber is hard probably starting to crack. Under brushless power they will likely disintegrate. The problem is that small tires to fit the rims are difficult to find. Ibelieve the RC10 graphite had 2.0" wheels instead of the B4's 2.2" wheels. The other problem is that the rear axles on a RC10 are much thicker than those on the B4 so, simply trying to mount modern 2wd buggy rear wheels on your RC10 isn't as simple as it seems. The front end is easy; the axles are the same size so Ihave mounted B4 wheels to my RC10 without modification.

There are a few ways to get around this if you choose to use B4 wheels; one is to swap out your axles / drive shaftswith MIP CVDs for the RC10 but swapping the MIP RC10 axle and ordering MIP B4 axles and make a "custom" CVD kit. That's because the RC10 drive shafts are shorter than the B4's but,you need the B4's axles. You also need new ball bearings and will have to shim the axle with either the Associated B4 aluminum cone axle spacer or stack washers between the outer bearings and the drive pins. The other way is to enlarge the center hole of a B4 wheel to fit onto the stock RC10 axle. However, you can potentially drill the hole off-center and render the wheel useless. I don't believe you would have to shim the axles with this method.

There are other tricks I've read in other forums but the first suggestion is one I have done personally; it just takes some doin'.

decontstructor

Iuploaded four pics, hopefully that worked properly.

I've been to my two local hobby shops now, one told me to sell it on ebay, and the other got excited and wanted to help me rebuild it. Iguess I know what hobby shop I'll be frequenting. Idid find out Ihave an older version of the RC10 then I thought. It is the model that came out before the stealth transmission so I have the old 6 gear one. Does anyone know if that could handle brushless? I've gotten everything I need to get the rolling chassis back to new. I'll have to post some after pics here soon.

BKoz559

My Feedback: (3)

Ihave the same model, a #6025 actually. It's about 1989 vintage and yes, you have the 6-gear tranny.

Several years ago while the B3 was the newest thing on the market Iupgraded my RC10 with the Stealth Transmission because Iwanted to make mine more competitive. You can probably find a used Stealth Transmision on eBay for a good price. Associated made a couple of different versions over the years (i.e. different final drive ratios) but the current models use the 2.6:1. So, if you are thinking about going brushless Iencourage you to look into upgrading the transmission. Brushless motors create large amounts of torque that I believe will be more than the 6 gear can handle even though it uses coarser 32 pitch gears.It's design is more complex than it has to be which I feel is also it's biggest weakness. The Stealth is so much smoother and the modern ball differentials will hold up against a brushless / LiPo power system.

I'm willing to bet that your original electronics still work. Do you have access to a working NiCd or NiMh battery pack? I'm sure your original batteries are dead by now. I wouldn't plug a LiPo into your ESC but you can try to get it rolling anyway as it isuntil you decide whether you want to upgrade this car or purchase a new kit. It would be cool to ressurect this RC10 but a new transmission, some LiPos and a motor/ESC system will set you back about $250 - $300 for nicer equipment and that's not really considering a new LiPo charger. While on the other hand the B44.1 is $300 on it's own plus all the new electronics and support gear you can easily top $750 depending on what gear you choose.

decontstructor

Sorry it took so long for the reply but Iended up getting stuck with a 30 some odd hour shift. I just got home and am just a little tired. LMAO...

BKoz559 ty very much for the info, you've been a huge help. Iam looking at getting the parts to do the same thing you did with the rear tire issues. I was hoping to get away with just using my old tires but when I started to take apart the car to clean and put it back together Inoticed the tires were def in need of replacing. Here's what I've gotten done so far to the car in the new pics (hopefully Iupload them correctly). Iwas kinda thinking of just putting new tires on the front rims, but at the same time Ihad a lot of time to kill on my hands sitting at a desk baby sitting a phone that didn't ring for so long so i stripped the old tires off the front rims and cleaned em up as much as possible. In hind sight Ishouldn't have wasted the time, Iwould have probably gotten better use of my time thumb wrestling myself.

BKoz559

My Feedback: (3)

You worked hard on those rims. You should be able to reuse them, however, this gets to the original problem of finding 2.0" tires.

Ilooked online at Stormer Hobbies and found 2" rear tires https://www.ssl-stormerhobbies.com/c...s&pn=LOSA7378S. This was the ONLY set I cound find so, grabbing at least 1 pair might be worth doing. Ihave the same set on the rear of my RC10. If you cleaned your rear wheels well enough then you could glue a set of these on there and be one big step closer to running brushless. Using these tires also means that you wouldn't have to swap out your axles and drive shafts, yet.

I couldn't find a set of new 2.0" front buggy tires but, all is not lost as you can still mount B4 rims on the RC10. You will need 4 new B4 front wheel bearings beause the old RC10 bearings are flanged and will stick out too far on the wider B4 wheel, thus causing the wheel nut to clamp too tight against the bearings.

Even after all this, you should still swap the 6-gear tranny for a Stealth tranny. Here's an example Ifound on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Associat...item20bada9e83 The price seems right and it's actually from the RC10 era. I wouldn't dish out more than $50 -$60 for one.

You've quite a task on your hands. Not impossible but this will take some effort. It's up to you to decide whether retrofitting is worth it or starting from scratch with a modern platform will be more reasonable. Consider which route would give you the greatest satisfaction and go with your gut.

decontstructor

Ihad looked at eBay before for the stealth transmissions and I had never seen one for 30 bucks before. Ibought the one you linked. Thanks. I also am going to put B4 rims on the RC10, Itold my local hobby shop the info you told me, and they said, "Yep, that'll work". lol... I will be getting something new, but Ihave been enjoying putting this one back together. I feel I owe it to the old car to get it back to running order before Istart with something else. After Iget everything together I'll post pics again.