Foxy

Please have a read of this text before you watch the vid, as it's relevant to my extended experience with the car.

OK, since the review was finished, I've been putting some extras on and addressing some issues.

First thing was that rotten can exhaust. Had to go, in favour of an X-can. That helped, but not as much as I wanted. Smartechs 28 has no guts after about 12k rpm. So the next thing was to install the experimental engine that Smartech had sent me along with the car for review. Thanks Nelson.

I have to say I had delayed testing it and concentrated on acquiring my MCDs instead, because I wasn't expecting anything great. After all, whoever heard of Smartech engines??

My bad. If I had known what a difference it was going to make, I would probably have put it in before the review was finished. Fortunately, I still have time to add another video to the review before it goes live in the RCU Magazine, so I will be adding a shortened version of this one. This engine SCREAMS! And if you haven't got a thunderbolt and haven't experienced how power sapping all 4wd drivetrains are (I still haven't locked the centre diff either), then you can't really appreciate what a fine piece of kit this engine is. It's on it's second tank and I haven't tuned it yet either, so it definitely has some power in reserve, as it opens up and I find a better tune.

Lastly, the stock steering servo crapped out on me last weekend. Was pretty funny actually, driving on the flat, just suddenly no steering. Walking toward the car, I could hear the little servo motor whizzing and going round and round!! Turns out one of the gears inside is a steel gear pressed into a brass one, and it was just rotating at the join, where it should have been solid. No big deal. To be honest, you can't expect much from RTR servos, especially at this scale. So in went a Hitec 5745 digital. Steering is great now, and I loosened the servo saver to make sure it wouldn't take too many hits while jumping...

So total expenditure so far, lets say the engine was $200 for the sake of argument, of course I haven't paid anything for it, it's a review sample, and pre-production. The X-can $80, the servo I picked up off ebay for $50. That's $330 on parts that anyone would be looking to change on an RTR, and the car is now a hell of a lot of fun to drive. When I lock that centre diff, it's gonna be wild.

So, the vid has lots of jumps. As you can see toward the end, I started to get the hang of it. The TB has pretty good air control, if you throttle in the air, it brings the nose up quickly and noticeably. I like how the car jumps, but it was hitting the ramp a bit hard cos of the soft shocks. I'll change out the oil soon and then I'm sure it will fly and land better. There were a couple of good ones though. Of course it took a few tumbles, and held up perfectly.

These changes to the car really made it a new car. It's a night and day difference to how it was out of the box. So, enough of me waffling, enjoy the vid...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6pi5uDm3_g

Xtfreak

Very nice. Is it 4WD?

Foxy

Yes. Here is my very in depth review of the car... http://members.freezone.co.uk/jonfox

hellya

They should have slapped that 23 in the buggy from the get go.................Nice video

Foxy

Thanks man.

lbsickboy

hi foxy

real nice read and a nice vid just want to know if you will be making any more vids on this one it does look promising
but the ?is would you go out and buy one your self
oh did anything break after that or not be honest

jasrx

cool vid , yeah the smartech 28`s arnt that good [ my uncle has just brought a smartech monster truck with a 28 in it] first time i drove it i was expecting more rpm from it .

Foxy

There will definitely be more vids. Next weekend I really want to try hitting the ramp at full speed. I'm gonna break the car one day anyway, and if I don't it will be absolutely awesome to land a 15 metre long jump.

Honestly, no breakage at all today. The receiver wire got cut by a roof landing, but that's hardly the car's fault, when I put spektrum and have a 5 inch antenna, that won't be an issue.

Would I buy one... Hm, that's a difficult question to answer, since I have one. It's hard to imagine myself being in the market for one. If I was looking for a cheap 4x4 buggy, then yes, I would definitely look at it, intently. I think it is good value for money at the low end of it's retail price ($1200). For $900 on ebay, it's definitely a bargain. If it helps at all, I can tell you that I am not planning to sell it, nor would I accept any offers for it right now. I'm enjoying it a lot. The handling is the deal, it's like a lizard.

Thanks Jas... the FG vid with my DDM dom torque pipe (and the ramp ) is uploading right now... [8D]

Foxy

High quality link just became available. [8D]

aluminum crusher

Duh on me but was that the stock motor in it on the above video. If so what is the CC's of the one motor that they sent you?

Cal-Torque

Nice!
It's good to see Smartech trying to progress to the next level.

badz

My Feedback: (1)

it looks like it's coming along pretty good, you don't have the smartech pipe to test do you Foxy? It'd be interesting to see how well that works, I think for the overall price of the car you can't complain too much it pretty much needs what every other rtr needs...nice review on it...keep us posted on that smartech 23cc'r

Smartechracing

yes, Thunderbolt 4x4 buggy

Slammed

way cool

Smartechracing

Nice video
The 23CC is under tooling.

Foxy

Hey crusher... No, that video is the 'special' 23cc that was sent to me to test along with the car. The stock 28cc is no comparison. Up until now it has been a secret, but as Smartech says, it has now gone to the production line. As you can see, it is a SICK engine. Once again, 2nd tank, no tune, and look at it rip. If Smartech can supply the Thunderbolt, maybe as a pro version, I dunno, with the cool body and this 23cc engine, they will have a huge hit on their hands.

No, I don't have the carson mielke pipe, which I believe hellya is correct in saying would be the best pipe for this car. However, I really don't feel a need to throw any more money at this car now, it has more speed than it needs, great acceleration (will be even better after I lock that centre diff, even though I will lose steering doing that). From now on, it'll be upgrade as I break.

Mr Terminator

Thats shed loads better and makes the buggy what it should've been from the beginning,nice vid Foxy...

Nathan9492

Great vid mate

Foxy

Thanks guys!

Smartechracing

We set up engine department since 2005. Start to produce Petrol engine in 2006. Now we have 23CC and 28CC for RTR version.
This year we started to design a new 23CC engin, the new 23CC will comming out this October.

We will keep on improve our products

Thanks

Xtfreak

Very nice review and video.

lbsickboy

hi smartechracing are the motors 4 bolt cilinder head or just the normal 2 bolt ones like the old zen 23 26cc

Foxy

lbsickboy... read the review, all is revealed... They are 3 bolt heads.

lbsickboy

oh sorry my bad didnt have time to check it out

thanks foxy

Foxy

No probs bud. You could always skip down to the relevant section, I know it's a long review, but I've dealt with the review in clear sections, first powerplant, then drivetrain, suspension, etc, etc.