well, 1st let me say i am bummed.

new car i got on the 11th is destroyed.

ok i had it all dialed in and had some great times all ready in my ultra MBX Pro. hauled but and was very responsive and extremely durable.

my faile safe was installed and all was good.

todayi started her up and it was acting strange, steering seemed off and the throttle was jerking in spurts, on off when i tried to give it some gas.

so i thought i might have a faulty fail safe and proceeded to remove it to run a test, what a horrid mistake that was.

i t seemed at 1st to fix the problem and then seconds later it bailed. full throttle taking off into the street and within 2 seconds had smashed into the tire of a van.

i ran after it and the car was on fire. the entire chassis had folded in half exploding the gas tank and folding everything else in half.

i got the fire out as quickly as i could and then brought the car back inside to access the damage. everything seems pretty jacked exceptthe front and rear ends, the entire middle of the car is scrap now.

so i took the reciver out and it had melted from what it seems the inside out which i now am assuming what the problem with the car was.

i am hoping ofna has good customer support and will help out otherwise i guess i got a bunch of scrap parts to use .
i hope they will fit in another kit as i think the engine is ok and if so there is no need whatsoever to buy anything other then a kit or an 80% kit.



pictures to follow soon.

and to think i was getting ready to get a throttle return spring tomorrow.

here are some images.

and again

so can anyone suggest a good kit or 80% that i can use these parts in still to save some cash, i have invested to much cash to not get something new working again and ASAP as well. i am jonsing to get on the road.

holy crap the chassis folded before anything on the front or rear end broke?? thats insane...hey i will trade you a rpm upgraded sport maxx RTR for those wheels, front and rear end assembly, and engine plus 200 on your part if you want

going down to ofna's office in the morning, spoke with someone who seemed pretty helpfull. might havethis baby rebuilt by the weekend even i hope.

or something else like the 9.5 pbs

customer service was more then willing to take a look at it.

i'll tell ya though i do not want another airtronics reciever !!!
damn things caught on fire from the inside out.

Sorry to hear your troubles. I have been in a similar situation before and now refuse to run my car without a failsafe and throttle return spring.

Good luck in your rebuilding. I wish I could suggest something.

If it makes you feel better I did the same thing to my HPI Rush. Ran into a brick wall going about 35-40 mph. Folded the front and rear of the car inwards. I had to buy a new chassis, front bumper, graphite deck, and front servo.

1) Where was the fire? The fuel lines are like brand new. EDIT: Dude nevermind. HOLY FIRE BATMAN!

2) A throttle return spring wont help in your situation. Sounds like the battery died on you or got too low.

3) I doubt Ofna will rebuild it for free.

the fire was in three places, on the street where the fuel was all spread, also on the gas tank as you can see it melted and 3rd the reciver melted inside out. so two separate fires.

wish it was as simple as a dead battery, they where and still are fully charged.

ofna never said they would rebuild it for free, but they did say to come by and they would help me with some options, maybe help me dig up some replacment parts and such .

srry to hear bout that. I really do need a fail safe. lol driven my NT almost a gollon and still no runaway!!!

YET!!

The pipe, header, front/rear shock tower and the shocks look fine! Just kidding, that sucks. Runaways leave a terrible feeling as you are watching them run dont they?

oh yes they sure do.

looks like i might be able to save the engine, as long as it did not bend.

sucks i took the damn fail safe out.

I finally resorted to a PCM radio for just that reason. I have way too much $ in my cars to not, but the JR-R1 PCM radio wasnt cheap either, but at least you can count on it as long as your power source holds out.......

after testing all the parts batteries and so forth and then running another car with a JR remote/reciever with no glitches same channel i have noarrowed the accident down to the airtronics blue cheap reciver. seems for whatever reason it decided to fry cauing the throttle to open wide and the car to blow up.

if i had not removed the fail safe i'd only be replacing a melted reciever and not have to worry about all the above mess.

so bummed...

makes you wonder why when something goes south, why doesnt it hit full brakes rather than full throttle doesnt it?

Odd thing these ofna buggies are. I just got mine fully built and broken in today. I went to run it in the street for it's first real run and sure enough it took off on me, or rather at me. as it hit full speed towards my ankles i grabbed it and ripped the fuel line to the carb off, and dropped it all in one motion. The end result was a scratched up radio and a bald tire. Sorry to hear about yours. I guess I am kinda glad I risked my own saftey to grab it seeing what the end result of a full spead head on collision.

wow i wish that wa son video...i dont know what woulda been better the actual event or your reaction

hahahaha

if ofna says your out of luck buy this.....just get another brand new in the box buggy, take what you want and hock the rest on ebay.

ive done it and yoru sure to make your money back and some free parts. you could even turn a profit if you play your cards right.
heck i might even buy your kit for you and sell you what you need and hock the rest. lemme know

I would be pissed. Will you buy another one?

i was wondering that as well right after it happened. why oh why did i have to test the fail safe and remove it as well as why could it not have gone all wacky in full brake instead of full throttle.. had a bud look at the mess and he almost starting sobbing it looks so bad in person the pictures do not justice.


i'll make a little video of it and post it if you all want to see how bad it really is.

my reaction to it on film as well as the little fire explosion would have been great to have. first thing i saw was burning dollar signs as i ran as fast as i could to the mess trying to distinguish the flames before whoever owned the van came out freaking cuz there was a fire under it.

now all i can do is laugh and hope that ofna helps out tomorrow morning.

worst case i do what packfan said and buy a new one, sell the engine, the pipe, wheels and so forth and try to make at least half the cash back i'll have to spend, all the servos are melted into the reciever as well as the switch.
i am not looking forward to breaking it down at all.
i might hit you up for advice on that packfan if things don't work out at ofna tomorrow.

what really sucks was i was hoping to buy a savage SS when they came out and now i am might have to use some of those funds on this.

rrrgggghhhh.

A throttle return spring sure does help with dead batteries! When the batteries die or get shaken loose or whatever, its the only thing that would help. When you have no power, neither do the servos, allowing a spring to close the throttle if its set up properly.

It sounds to me like you had some localized interferance that may have created a full throttle condition, the failsafe may have helped with that, maybe not.

By the way, do you want to sell me those tires/wheels?

LOL, man, somethines we all do something silly. I once had weird issues with the radio and couldn't tell what the Venom FS was telling me so i disconnected it and ran the radio without the VFS to find out how it was acting and realized it was the battery since the servo were responding slowly. I then took the batteries out to charge and put everything back together with another battery pack- but *GASP* I forgot to put the VFS back in! I drove the T-Maxx for 2 weeks without it having forgotten completely about it, luckily nothing went wrong until I realized something was missing and so I put it back in. I double check EVERYTHING now when I reassemble, clean, etc.

I also use return springs on rotary carb engines, haven't figured out a slide carb return spring setup yet.

i'll know soon if i want to sell scraps or if i am getting something i can use them on.

in the meantime here is a quick spin around of the car.

sorry for the glitchy camera movement, if it doesn;t really show i can redo it if ya like.

http://tattooforums.com/MOV01435.MPG

BTW, I forgot to mention, in one of those pics, the fuel tank looks like a plastic grocery bag!!! What a wreck! And you're going to sell scraps? I saw the walk around video and that's nasty. Are the servos up for sale and are they working? Good luck on the rebuild too.

damn, that looks really bad. I guess you wont be at revelation any time soon.