mattayl

hey guys i just placed my order for my hpi rs4 3 18ss+ with 68 camaro shell. its the kit version and i can't wait to start assembling it. some things i need to know though are:
what glow starter and fuel etc should i use and buy??
i am getting an xs3 or mx3 sanwa radio, what do you think i shuld get out of the two?? also what other things are needed before i start her up and start breaking her in. what fuel should i get and what are your thoughts on the 18ss+ so yeah if anyone has one or knows abit about them on any topic please teach me i need to get to know the car back to front. thanks heaps


matt

Foxy

Firstly, you will get to know it back to front by building it. As for glow ignitors, just get a good one with a high capacity battery and ideally a little meter on the top showing how much charge it has, they're not complicated, there are not different types or anything. You should use 16% nitro fuel. My thoughts on the 18SS are that it is a great car. Sturdy enough for enjoyable parking lot bashing, yet adjustable enough for club racing. As for the radios...they're both good, but I still think you should get a futaba 3pm FASST, and servos separately.

mattayl

yehh haha but i dont have enough money, as for other upgrade parts are there any good upgrade parts under 50$ that will be good and help the car? cuz i have 50$ spare cash left over for minimal upgrades

Foxy

Get a couple of good receiver packs, or a steering servo. What did you get for servos in the end? Or are you really going to try to use the stock ones that come with an FM radio? If you are, then use that 50 bucks to get at least a hitec 625mg, it's a good strong touring car servo for the money ($40 iirc).
The car itself does not need any upgrades. See what breaks and replace it with an upgrade part as and when. Even in a racing car, this is the best policy and what I do.

Your first 'upgrade' should be a receiver battery, that little box that holds 4AA batts is the first thing that must go.

mattayl

hey, nah i havent got a radio or reveiver or servos yet, i only have ordered the car i just got outta hospital yesterday as i had a my tonsils and adnoides out so i have to stay at home for 2 weeks no excessive contact with people so i dnt get infected so i bought the kit and i will be making it in my 2 weeks off school spare time which will be awesome so i need to save up for another 4 weeks or so when i get better to get radio and servos and a receiver but yeah, on the 18ss+ whats wrong with the receiver box? is there any thing else on the 18ss+ that i should change or something? also whats a good brand of glow igniter all i can find are the heads of them not the full thing and also is 20% nitro fuel good to run in the 18ss+??
whats some of your other thought on the car?

Foxy

20% is ok. There's nothing wrong with the receiver box. When I say receiver pack, I mean receiver battery. The car comes with one of these:



You put 4xAA batteries in it and that's what powers the receiver and servos. This should be changed for a high capacity high current rechargable receiver pack. This is ALWAYS the first upgrade to do on these 1/10th nitro cars, as the AA batteries are heavy and don't give enough current to properly power the servos (you'll immediately notice the difference when you upgrade it, the servos will be faster and stronger). You need one of these...

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXFJT1&P=7

Next upgrade should be servos. Then tires. There's nothing else the car really needs out of the box, it is the 'ss' version, HPI has already included half the hop ups that are available for it. Foam tires would be a good idea, then later upgrade the engine and pipe, or get a couple of different bodies...stop worrying about upgrades to the actual car until you break something.

mattayl

yeh thats true thanks heaps for the guidance also, because i dont have radio gear, servos or receiver is it possible to manually break in the engine without the radio as in some how manually do it? or isnt that possible? cause when i get the kit some time this week i will want to build it and hear her roar haha is it possible to break it in without radio gear?? also is there anything else about the 18ss+ you can tell me about things to look out for and things to change to improve it for example how to tune the engine perfectly??

Foxy

It's possible, but I wouldn't recommend it. Also, be sure and run at least 5 or 6 tanks at low speeds through it before you try to make it ROAR. As for tuning, get first hand help from someone who knows. It's very difficult to do this over the internet.

mattayl

yeh ill probably just break it in when i get my radio and receiver/servos but i dont really know anyone that can first hand help me break it in, also another question how long will a full 75cc tank of 205 nitro fuel get me in the 18ss+ and how could i make the fuel last longer?

Foxy

About 6 mins and there's nothing you can do to make it last longer.

Try this tuning guide, it's probably the best one on these forums... http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_5517128/tm.htm

mattayl

6 mins?? i heard you could get 10 to 15 mins out of a 75cc tank, whoah its going to be quite expensive wont it?? 1 litre of 20% nitro fuel over here is about 7-15$ depending on what you buy but yeah how many cc's are there in 1 litre?

Foxy

You heard very wrong. 10mins is what you get from 125cc tanks on 1.8th cars with larger .21+ engines, IF you are very economical with the gas. The only thing you can do is go to a smaller engine to decrease fuel consumption. On the track my RB Matrix .12 gets 5 and a half minutes, because it's aggressively ported, and of course I'm driving hard. You'd be surprised how long it feels like when playing around, and you can just fill it up again and go again. The average lap of an on-road track is only 20 seconds, so it's a lot of laps before pits.

Buy fuel in 2l cans (its more economical), and by the way, we pay 35 EUROS for a 2l can in europe. So don't be complaining about your prices for fuel.

There are 1000cc in a litre. (remember car engines, 1litre, 1000cc??)

mattayl

are you serious???? 35 euros for 2 litres thats unbelievable. maybe i have been getting the wrong prices and items but i think its about 8-15$ for a litre of fuel. so really a 75cc fuel tank will take 12-15 full fill ups and that would consume 1 full litre and that would get you roughly 50 minuted to an hour of use?? basically? so 1 litre of fuel would get you roughly an hour of speeding around?? so yeah also with the hpi rs4 3 18ss+ kit what tools will i need to assemble the kit?? will i need any glues etc??

Foxy

1000/75=13.3, lets say you won't be driving on a track to start with, so won't be full throttle all the time, so lets say you get 7 mins (I doubt it though) per tank. 7*60=420seconds. 420 (tank duration) * 13.3 (number of fill ups per liter) = 5586 seconds. 5586 / 60 = 93 mins or 1.5 hours per liter. 3 hours constant play from $30 sounds like a bargain to me. It's a full day of bashing, you won't be driving all the time and I've NEVER used an entire 2l can in a day, EVER, even on race weekends. $10 an hour still makes it cheaper than running a full scale car.

As for what you need for the build, download the manual from hpiracing.com and look at the first couple of pages.

mattayl

oh ok thanks. actually yeah that fuel consumption is really good. my nitro rc in comparison will be better fuel consumption than my family car hahaha. but yeah what kind of brands make the best nitro fuels? and is there a really good nitro fuel specific for the 18ss+ so yeah also is the 18ss+ fast and can it handle tight corners?

Foxy

Yep, it's fast (about 50mph) and it handles pretty good, but everything is adjustable, so you can change it's handling characteristics if you want to. Ask your local hobby shop what fuel he has. Of course the more expensive (usually) will be the better uality fuel. I use RB race blend and when that's not available Tornado, but those are both european fuels (french and dutch respoectively), so I doubt you'll be able to get them in Oz.

If you put foam tires on, you can increase the handling by about 100% over the rubber tires, but they wear out faster.

mattayl

oh ok yeah i heard foam wheels were good but wore down quicker. really dutch fuel? haha im partly dutch and id love to get my hands on some of that. but yeah i will just build it when i get it and try make the best car i can and customise it heaps to suit my ride. also is the 18ss+ well protected by the chassie like if there are little 1-2 mm rocks on the road and i was tearing up the street is there anything the rocks could do to harm the car? or is the car built solid to withstand small rocks?? or are there items to buy to help protect the car more?

GYNAIKAS

Ok foxy42 said almost everything correct but as an 18ss owner I hove some slightly different suggestions. I'd personally go for the MX3 but futaba is also a great choice. First of all if my budget was $50, I would not go for a servo or battery pack. These things should be bought later when you'll be ready for track racing. If you were an advanced driver with a pure racing car, then those two would be the first priority, cause every other hop up needed is already on any pure racing car out there. So I'd say go for the MX3 that has better servos than the futaba and temporarily keep the crappy receiver pack. Since you have the 18ss+ version, the stock aluminum pipe is good for starting so you'll replace it with a racing one by the time you decide to become competitive on track. Air fuel is one of the best I've ever seen so there's no need of changing it. Since it's an 18ss, heavy duty parts are all in the kit so you don't need CVD's either. If I was you my first investment would be a spring set that comes from GS (3pairs of springs, 1 pair of hard ones (red), 1pair of medium ones(blue) and 1pair of medium/soft ones(yellow). Using the red front and the yellow rear will give you amazing stability with the stock suspenssion settings (as the manual sais). The stock tyres are crappy...you should get even high quality semi-slicks from kyosho or foam tyres for better grip. Also, after a long research I found that the best fuel tank for the 18ss is the one that FW-RR uses (Kyosho) that is also 75cc but has no pump (no air leaks),has overflow managment system and good fuel absorbing system. But fuel tank is not one of your high priorities either, go for it later on when you'll need something more "racing" out of your car. So initially go for tyres and springs to make your car stick on the ground so you can practice driving and become faster, even practice on track!

Also here are some very useful "hints and tips" for the kit construction:

1)(SOS) Always when a screw goes into a metal part use THREAD LOCK!!!
2)While filling the shocks with oil try to do it perfectly cause it also helps in car's stability and once you fill them moove slowly the shock up and down and then refill again till it's completely filled. That's because air is trapped under the shock piston and although the shock seems full it's not.
3)(SOS) Don't forget to fill the differentials with silicon oil. Use 10.000-15.000 oil at the read differential. At the front use Either 15.000 WITH the spring the manual shows or 50.000 WITHOUT the spring.
4)(SOS) While installing the engine on the chasis make sure that the gears (engine's gears and transmittion gears) are not too stressed or too far either cause they might get damaged while running. Just make sure they are as close as it gets without making sound when car is mooving.
5)The 2ng gear shifting point shown in the manual is wrong, you'll have to adjust it according to your needs later after break in is over.
6)While break in, running one more tank than the manual says in every step is for sure better for your engine.
7)FIRST break in and adjust everything fine and then install hopups.
8)(SOS) Make sure that you use thread lock at the flywheel's nut and stiffen it as much as you can!!!
9)(SOS) Be sure you installed the clutch shoes at the proper direction just like they're shown in the manual.

If I remember more I'll post again. Now as for the fuel 20% is fine, 25% is also affordable but I'd reccomend a 16% RACING one with castor oil (LRP makes one of the best). Finally foxy's right, depending on your "throtle apetite" fuel lasts about 3-7 minutes.

mattayl

thanks heaps gynaikas and foxy u 2 have been the biggest helps on these forums, dead set ledgends. k firstly this will sound like a really noob question but what is thread lock and what does it do? and is the 18ss+ hard to put together? and if i leave it stock for a while without any upgrades will it be good enough to shred around tight corners with?

Foxy

Yes, it's a good car stock. Imagine, many peolple are happy with the evo plus, which is the same car without any hop ups. thread lock is best described as 'screw glue'. When you put a metal screw into a metal part, it vibrates out easily due to the vibration from the engine. So you dab some (BLUE! NOT RED!) threadlock onto the thread of the screw before screwing it in, it holds it tight under normal running, but still allows you to remove it easily later. I'd say the 18SS is an easy car to build, but follow the manual carefully, HPI manuals are very good.

mattayl

oh ok so blue thread lock is what i need? what sie does it come in and also how much is it roughly?? and yeah the 18ss+ im hoping will shred oh ok so it helps it stay together? nice also though what speeds can the 18ss+ reach stock? and what parts are crucial in making it get faster yet keep its traction and duratability?

Foxy

You're getting ahead of yourself, man. Drive it first, see how it is, enjoy it. Then you'll have an idea what you want it to do better. You tell us, we tell you how to acheive it. An LHS guy told me years ago, why do you want all these hop ups? I said I want the car to be stronger and faster. He said, how do you know it's not strong enough or fast enough already? I said, good point!

Moral is that it's important to establish a baseline, to know how the car performs, before AND after you make a change. If you really want to know about handling, read this... http://users.pandora.be/elvo/

PS As I said earlier in the thread, it'll do abotut 50mph stock, which is seriously fast.

GYNAIKAS

The blue thread lock included in the kit is everything you need. Don't foget not to use grease in the diffs that you will oil fill!!! Use grease in every other part mentioned at the manual but not there! One drop of thread lock at every small screw and 2-3 at the flywheel's nut will be just fine. The reason we all use thread lock is that engine's vibration cause screws in metal parts to synchronize and get loose. The 18ss with stock gearing, perfect break in, perfectly tuned stock engine and ideal weather conditions using 25% fuel can reach 50-55mph. If you modify the engine with racing synchronized pipe and inner modifications (sleeve,ports,crankshaft etc.) like I did you hit 55-60mph with stock gearing. Believe me it's fast!

mattayl

yeh thats true, thanks heaps man, u guys have given best advice ever. i have to just concentrate on saving up for radio servos and reciever and failsafe. also this is a really noob question but where is the break button on the radio? or instead of pulling on the radio trigger do you pull it?? how does it work and also where do the servos go? and how do they connect?

Foxy

Push the trigger to brake, pull to accelerate. Servos can (usually) only connect one way, don't worry about it. Consult the manual of your radio if you are not sure. If you plug them into the receiver the wrong way round you could damage them, but usually this is pretty tough to do. You've done all the preparation you can, when you have it in your hands, I'm sure you'll be fine.