teacher brent

Hi guys, August 8th is Chinese Father's day. I'm not Chinese but when in Rome(Taipei actually)... So the boy and I will head over to our lhs, speedrc.com.tw , and do a little shopping. I think either Tamiya Jeep or a Team Magic e4js. Does anyone know this car? Great parts support here and looks like a deal at about $135 us or so. anyone have ideas?

madmax22

I heard about the team Magic's, and heard some good stuff, a steal at that price too!

teacher brent

looks like a deal, I saw it at Wolf Hobbies for $239, $324 rtr. Russell is almost two and loves rc, I rigged an internal antenna on the old stampede and called it his. I'm planning to bring him to the hobby shop and see what he goes for. Savage Flux? baja 5ss? ah...no. I'm paying for my own gift here. :}

madmax22

what electronics does the RTR come with?

teacher brent

It says Hard radio and esc. I don't read Chinese so I'll check on Saturday when we go. i'm more into the kit, it might be a roller, thinkin a Novatech brushless should make it go.

HomeDawwg

Im running a Team Magic E4 (the origional version). It is a seriously good car imo, balance is awesome and to date havnt broken any parts. I realise the Js is the lower-budget version, but i cant see it being a bad car if its anything like the origional

teacher brent

Are you running horsepower in it? I'm thinking brushless/lipo. there's a big long track we run at on the weekends. They bring out the 1/5 scale cars sometimes and really put on a show. I've got a tt01 with a Novatech brushless and it's just too nervous at speed.

iexion

E4JS for $135 [&:]?!?!?!?!
Honestly that is the #1 kit i want to get right now. IMO go for it. You cant get it in the states for a price like that. NOT EVEN USED!!!!!
Sheesh i might have to take a trip to TAIWAN

teacher brent

Done deal, I'll pick you up at the airport. bring Traxxas parts and a dozen donuts from the US, eh?

iexion

AGREED!!![sm=lol.gif]

teacher brent

Happy father's Day!

teacher brent

I oughta be ashamed. I've had this car for over a month and hoping to run it this weekend for the first time. Here's the question, what pinion should I get? Just get me in the ballpark, I know you can't pinpoint it for me. I'll be running a Novatech 4000kv brushless with a lipo on a long track.
Thanks.

rufus2000

sweet car, I don't know about the pinion setup but I'm sure others will chime in.
Which hobby shop is it? 135?? wow that's cheap. Was in taipei a while back... wish I had known. Maybe they take internet orders, at that price I'd go for it even if shipping is a bit pricey

teacher brent

speed-rc.com.tw site is all Chinese but email them. One of the guys speaks good English.

rufus2000

will do, thanks for the tip!

teacher brent

Let me know how it goes.

ElectricGuy007

Team magic is trinity right? Same company. I have a Team Magic starter box zipper bag that I use for my 3pm 2.4 GHz radio.
I also heard Epic bought out trinity. Most of the team magic stuff is top of the line like X-ray.

teacher brent

It looks to me like Trinity used to distribute for Team Magic. Team Magic, K Factory and Hard Racing are all the same company. Wolf Hobbies is selling Team Magic in the states now.

Wolf Hobbies

Hi:

We have received some requests to monitor this forum and re are happy to do so. Over the next week or so we will be posting some of the tips and setup help that we have come up with in the development of this platform. We do ask that if you have a specific question please email us directly as checking PMs on different forums is hard to do with a packed schedule and Icannot promise a timely response. Also if there is a posting on here that needs a rapid response please let us know via email or our 800 number.

There is asimple trick for picking a pinion and spur for the E4s that doesn't take a lot of trial and error. Ifyou add the number of teeth onthe pinion to the number of teeth on the spur youshould end up with 140 -150. If you do then you will have plenty of room forfine tuning or setting your final drive with yourtemp gun. For example ifyou are looking for a 5.0 FDR and you have a 2.0 internal ratio then you need a pinion / spur ratio of 2.5:1 (2.5 X 2= 5) Starting with a100 tooth spur that wouldmean a 40 tooth pinion gear. Add up the teeth and it is 140 teeth. Thatputs you at the lower endof the adjustment range.If you have a 106 spur and a 43 tooth pinion that would add up to 149 teeth.That would put you near the top of the range. Either one would work and still leave you some room to make adjustments.

Another big question is which car is best for which conditions. The following is a post from another forum that you might find helpful:

Good questions. The answer is based not just on my experience but also feedback from almost all of the team and sponsored drivers. This is not intended to spark a debate but is our opinion based on experience and tons feedback. The general feeling is that because of the suspension geometry and the centerline mass the car is more responsive with the thicker chassis used on the FS. Other cars go through such massive changes in center of gravity during cornering because of the battery mass hanging out in space. Turning in one direction the center of gravity goes down as the car leans and in the other direction it raises. This makes most cars inherently unstable and they have to resort to stiffer springs and sway bars to counter the imbalance problem. With the stiff springs and sway bars the cars rely on chassis flex to maintain tire contact with the ground. Since the E4 does not have that problem it is possible to go with softer springs and shock oil. In this situation the stiffer chassis makes the car more consistent and responsive. In full size race-cars the challenge is to make the chassis as stiff as possible and make the suspension do the work. The reason is that suspension reaction can be dampened with the shock absorbers whereas chassis flex cannot be dampened and leads to oscillation. We have tried every combination of chassis top deck and stiffener posts and have come to the conclusion that the fastest combination of parts on carpet regardless of tires is the FS upper and lower deck with the front spacers installed. For asphalt we also found that the FS chassis has an edge over the thinner RS chassis for most drivers. Whether the front spacers are used or not depends on tires, track surface and driver preference. FYI: at the Reedy race we experimented with several chassis (some custom made for the event) and we all ended up using the stock FS upper and lower decks (In the spirit of full disclosure, the upper decks we used were the Wolf Hobbies decks which have the same dimensions as the stock decks but use countersunk flat head screws to better keep things lined up in the event of a crash). The bottom line is that it is always easier to make a stiff car compliant than it is to make a soft car stiffer. I have a carpet and asphalt car. They are both FSs.

As for the steering systems we have found that the single arm is better on carpet. On asphalt there is a split. I hate the single arm on asphalt because it is too responsive (being over 50 I don't have the benefit of years of video game "training" that most of you have.) so I use the double arm. My son (and Dave) on the other hand find the car too "mellow" with the double arm and use the single exclusively. All in all we find about a70 - 30 split favoring the dual arm steering for drivers that race on asphalt exclusively. The single arm has issues with bump steer that requires about 7mm of spacers but we have a really slick solution but just haven’t had time to put it on the web site yet.

At the risk of sounding silly I have to say that Jaco blues seem like they were made for this car. Whenever I have a test day and get frustrated that I cannot get the car to do what I want (like when I test with a tire that is going to be a spec tire at an event) I slap a set of blues on the car, it just flies and I get me confidence back. I always look forward to going to an event that uses the blues because I know that my car is pretty much set up as soon as I put it on the track (purple springs in front, pinks in the rear and 30 or 35 shock oil depending on whether it is asphalt or carpet)

Why is there a price difference between the FS and RS? Because we bought all the E4FSs that TM produced. We got a better deal from the manufacturer and can pass on the savings to you. We pulled out all the stops on our Christmas sale. Times are tough for us all and we really want everyone to have the best season ever so we even dropped the price on the RS to match the FS to level the field and make it possible for everyone to get whatever they want. In fact we only have a few of the special edition cars left. If you email me and ask nicely I will give you $75.00 off on the remaining stock of those cars. (this also helps us see how many of our customers follow this thread and lets us know how much we should spend on advertising here)

We really appreciate all the support and kind words we have received over the past two years. We consider all of our E4 customers special. You all could have followed the herd and bought what everyone else bought but you blazed your own trail. In our opinion this makes you ALL special. This sale is our way of saying thank you and to help you to show everyone else the quick way around the track.

iexion

I really really wanted a E4 [] but much like very many of us, we have to weather thru these "tuff times"

Aside from that, its great see that the only "hobby shop" here in the U.S. that sells Team Magic Kits is taking some time to browse over the forums every once in a while. I honestly don't know of very many people in the US who have a TM-E4 (they are also extremely rare on eBay)

Thank you for taking the time so post a very excellent "tips&tricks" to the Team Magic E4 [sm=thumbs_up.gif]

I will be looking forward to purchasing an E4 kit hopefully in the near future. (And I will hold you up to that $75 off offer)

wolfhobbies

We need to let everyone know that our sale is coming to an end soon.We would like to have it go on indefinitely but we just can't afford to do so.We moved a lot of cars and that is good for us all. The more cars that are out there the greater our knowledge base. We are also at the end of the line for the limited edition cars.At this point there are only a few left.We will not be making any more of those but we are working on some other developments.Thank you to all of you that participated in our Christmas / New Year sale.It was our biggest ever.It was our attempt to make things a bit easier for all of us that have been hit hard by this economy.Thanks again from all of us at Wolf hobbies