what are you talking about? the wing mounts to the tower on all the hellfire wing mount kits. and as for the turning thing it will turn good if you mess with it enough. the real issue is the breaking of parts hpi didnt do a very good job at designing some of them.

hey...mojoe..no offense bro,but you need to know what you are saying before you say it.

The best thing you can ever do to the hellfire is to kick the stock chassis out the freaggin door.

And whta are you talking about with the wing????The wing mounts to the shock tower.

AMEN BRO.

so you need a $80 aftermarket chassis?

and how isnt the wing not incorprated into the bodyshell?? (look at the pics below)

maybe the ones i saw all had the standard red body with the wing on the body shell. maybe they have an option of an aftermarket body and wing on the shock tower?

but come standard, they arent really race bred.

and the price $600!!!????

CRT can be had cheaper. what are people thinking!!!

like i said the pics posted by NITROSENSE look more like a truggy, but how much to get it to that stage? another $200???

By the time you stuck a good .21/pipe/radio gear in a CRT it would be more than $600 wouldn't it?

hey mojoe try getting mugen or kyosho parts with a reasonable budget and a hobby shop that doesn't carry those cadillac parts.... sometimes racers great creative... and make their own mods and own setups, instead of photocopied results and suggestions from car action....the hellfire owners if they can be patient will learn alot about how race vehicles work and how to tune them, many of them were bashers first, and they figure that the hellfire would be tough as nails like the savage, well some parts are and some very weak, but it does have one of the better stock engines that should last quite a few gallons...we have guys at our track that have less than 2 gallons replacing that hand grenade of engine made by ofna( rtr crt .28) this center diff racing world is new to alot of us and with time i will be a good enough driver to warrant a $1500 truggy/ engine combo...but for now i will take my mild mod hellfire( carbon top plate, werks clutch, and nova 528) and practice my skills driving and save the bashing for you "pros" with unlimited budget. peace out[8D]

exactly you said "GOOD"

well i wouldnt classify the rtr equipment on the hellfire as "good". I would just say sedequate for rtr. but not for racing.

most of the hellfire owners here waited over 12months for the hellfire, when the CRT was already availble. they were savage owners and for some reason even with the heps of breakages with thier savage and thousands of dollars worth of hop-ups they still decided to wait for the hellfire.. ***. what gives.

the savage stock was a peice of crap. and the hellfire stock is does not do what its supposed to. i.e be a race bred truggy to compete with the crt, str etc.

funny that, I've seen this repeated elswhere but I haven't seen where the Hellfire was being marketed as solely a racer. They went to some lenght to call it a competition truck but we need to not fool ourselves, RTR's by their very nature are compromised, they are built to a price point. If you buy a RTR and complain about the radio gear for instance, you're living on another planet because no RTR except in recent times the LST and the Mayhem ST come with radio gear worthy of much, I may be forgetting one but it's always been the way, weak and so-so AM radios. A lot of people I know who blew their servos on the Hellfire blew them because of a setting on the radio and the fact that they didn't read the handbook. Most of them took it in their stride because they aimd to change the servo's anyway because quite frankly, if you aim to race, you needed something better anyway.

Playing Devils Advocate here, most guys did come from MT's, some from buggys, almost all instead of driving the stock truck went about swapping diff fluids and moving shocks around not understanding what it was they were doing.

To compare the Hellfire directly with the CRT and STR is missing something, these two are aimed at racers 1st then everyone else after where as the Hellfire is the other way around. IMO, if you've been around the MT nitro scene long enough you should understand what I'm talking about. Most of the loudest complaining over the months has come from newbies with unrealistic expectations and judging buy what I've read in the forums over the months, guys flexing their knowledge to an audience who don't wholely take on board the knowledge they're trying to empart. Witness the critisism of the body mounted wing. Quickly, which other truggies have this feature? Have you heard anyone critisize them. It started with the LSP for the real newbee amongst us.

Here's food for thought; Think of the thousands of Hellfires,CRT's,LSP's that have been sold, review the number of contributor on these and other forums, you'll see a pattern. A couple of guys have bad luck with their kit, some become deeply unhappy, firstly because its' their firt truggy and they don't know what they are doing, their first time trying to race a truck and don't understand the dynamics in trying to hustle the thing around a track at race pace. Their answer, it must be the engine, it must be the radio gear... the list goes on and instead of looking at themselves, they blame the truck. Think of the thousands of others that are having a whale of a time with their truck and besides the odd breakage that happens when you hurl a object around at 25+ MPH with abrupt stops, tumbles and the rest, have nothing bad to say about their kits.

What's that Fox News saying "Fair And Balanced". We'll I've rarely seen that displayed with many RTR trucks over the years.

I'm not defending the Hellfire, I don't own one. I drive a CRT but I knew that for racing purposes and after my experience racing the LSP last year, an RTR was not going to give me what I wanted as a package. Unless you are extremely gifted noone is going to pull a RTR out of a box, put fuel and bat's in a be competitive at a racetrack. If you don't understand what diffs do and what all those adjustments are about, you'll take a fairly neutral handling truck that doesn't do anything particularly bad and turn it into a mess. I've watched it all season.

As a RTR the Hellfire comes with features only seen on High End buggies like the XB8, with a little patience I submit that it could be made to compete head to head, on any given day with the CRT,STR an the rest.

There are a few Hellfires scoring well in some series if you keep an eye on race results from around the world, it's just the sea of CRT's that's keeping it from shining. It's the difference between a kit, made for the track and a RTR made for everyone, no compromise vs compromises, HPI should have made the SS first then followed with an RTR like Jammin did with the CRT. It might have been a different story had they did and so many wouldn't be disappointed.

Just my 2cents

Amen!

(, still waiting for the kit. )

as always dnell, nice work and well stated..................ive read your stuff on other forums and you are always spot on and try to help!!!

thats a good way to put it man, hopefully THAT will explain it to people having trouble.

I was at work earlier, hence the short post. This could be considered the full length rant.

Some of what I am about to say is just speculation, so it may be off mark. Correct me if I've gone astray.

Since this trucks announcement last November, it appears that HPI has been trying to pull off something new. Not an easy feat for a company that has only produced a few competitive on-road models and a whole lot of bashers. What has been unfortunate is the way they went about the product release. From an engineering standpoint, the Hellfire's design is pretty remarkable yet HPI shot themselves in the foot for releasing the RTR version first. An RTR at the $600.00 price point simply cannot have the right materials in place for full competition use. I won't rehash the results of that decision. Those can be seen all through this and other forums, and I've read to many to even consider repeating the basics. Like any company, model manufacturers are always under the gun to made good on their investments, and it seems that HPI's marketing department may have been responsible for compromising the Hellfire's reputation by pushing it to market before the engineers could get the full option kit into production. Parts were broken, expectations were crushed, and tempers flared.

Time moves on.

I still don't own a Hellfire, since the kit version hasn't hit the distribution channels. That should be resolved this month. I did consider picking up a Lightning Stadium to fill the gap, but the deal fell through and the truck never materialized. So now there is still a pile of servos, batteries, diff and shock oils, tires, and an extra Spektrum receiver sitting here on the workbench. My LHS has promised the first SS kit through their doors to me. I could go out and follow the crowd by buying another truck, but I remember taking a similar leap of faith on another car over a decade ago. It was called the Kyosho Burns. Since this is my return to racing after a long (and getting longer) absence, I'll take another leap.

BTW- Very well put Dnell. Even if I'm wrong about this truck, I'll still respect your opinion on the basis of your reason alone.

Dnell, well i disagree that most these hellfires are bought for the purpose of bashing. i.e not for racing.

This truggy is desinged for first time racers. i.e people who used to own a Savage MT and now saw how fun it was to actually race buggy. But still wanted a Truck based vehicle.

My point was after owning a Savage, and the thousands of $$$ of hopups required on the SS (yeah and if you owned one you would know).... whtf would you even bother with a hellfire for.

and now reading thru this thread, and seeing the design first hand my suspicions have been confirmed. too many hopups required just to make it even as strong as a real truggy. and thats not to even commenting on its overall handling capabilities[>:]

anyway each to thier own.

I'm sorry but that's not what I said or meant to imply. What I would say in addition though if you've owned and raced any of the RTR MT's i.e Savage,MGT,LST,Revo,. To go racing there are some changes that need to be made and we all know what they are. You could go to any of the websites associated with these models to read the same critisisms over and over again.

My point about bashers, and I was one before I started doing both is, you need to learn to race. Most of us that turned to racing learned very early that trying to hussle a truck around a track ain't easy.

I've seen a well set up Hellfire going very well stock engine and all. I've seen another fitted with a Novarossi engine running strongly as well. Knowing what I know about racing and racing in the Unlimited Class, coupled with what I know about RTR's by their very nature. I feel most of the critisism of the Hellfire is partly unfounded. Almost every truck or kit released since I've been racing has had some issue or another, it's part of the hobby. If anyone enters the hobby or buys a truck should expect something to not be quite up to their expectations, for the most part the only thing needed to race the hellfire competetively is a new servos, and item that you should expect to change in a RTR, the rest of the truck is pretty well constructed, yeah a few had problems with A-Arms breaking and Hing Pins droping out but HPI responded to customer warranty claims. You just can't ask more than that.

I know a guy who got his Hellfire and without driving it changed the diff and shock oil. Why? He'd not driven the truck to see what the base setting represented in terms of handling. From there the complaining started. He complained about the engine being sluggish, Why? He hadn't run a gallon through it yet and most engines don't start showing their real color until a gallon has passed. He complained about the cornering but watching him at the track, he entered the corners wrong to begin with, coupled with not knowing how the base set-up worked, without trying that, you can't know what to change or try first.

People don't have to spend thousands, they chose to. There are usually a few components that may require hop-up investment but most of the rest is up to the job. Racing is expensive and stock parts are the most cost effective way to keep spares. The basis of the Hellfire is as sound as the LSP that preceded it. To be completely fair it's as tough as most buggys and truggys from what I've seen.

So, RTR's are a compromise plain and simple. If anyone believe parts shouldn't break or fail during race and play are fooling themselves. It's always happened. I don't ask people to believe me, if you read through the archives of many of these trucks forums you can see for youself.

Perspective is all that I'd hope people understand about the hobby/sport and to notice that a handful of people, in real terms, have any serious problems (unlucky) and the other hand full, their troubles can be traced back to themselves and their expectation, unrealistic belief in their skill level and so on.

In short, people taking themselves too seriously. MT racing has been until this year, The Year of The Truggy, Fun and Funny. If people study and take notes they can buy a Hellfire, RTR or SS and get a lot of enjoyment from it. They may never experience any of the problems that some of the loudest complainers go on about.

It's official, the Hellfire SS is hitting the distribution channels. Tower has it on back order. Can only expect the price to come a bit.

[link=http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0095P?FVSEARCH=Hellfire+SS&FVPROFIL=++]Tower Hobbies - Hellfire SS[/link]

The price has dropped like a rock. From $782.00 to $529.00.

Hi Hell Fire Guys,, Here is the new Ver of the BCE HF Pro, 7075 t-6 Racing Chassis
Some of the new features include side guards,
New low cost LSP mount, this allows oem motor use (pull start)
or your HiPo After Market rocket! (Bump Start)
It Will also Be in Our Team Black Ano..

This chassis, with our New 7075 HD Pro towers,
will allow you to get the most out of your HellFire.
I will Have the Tower Pis up soon.
Thank you Guys, for all of the great emails I hope
this is what you guys wanted.
More Info soon

Thank you Bill >>>>>>> Info [email protected]

What is the price?

email him for a price.

I highly suggest picking one of these up. If you want to keep that competitive edge then replace they diving board oem chassis and slap one of these on. It will really help you in suspension setup. The truck will become more predictable and the tunning options become more sensitive and more reactive.
Cant say that it will win races for you..thats up to you,but.. it will help you get there by allowing you to dial the hellfire in more true.

I bought a Hellfire recently and would like to know which more clutchbell indicated… 13T was very short in the track where I run. Somebody had some similar experience?

I am running with mine hellfire in a land track with bumps… Would know to say if it has much difference between the original tires and the optional Nubz? Somebody had some experience in this exchange?

Official, I am in line at Tower for an SS, with an N528XR, JP-1 and CF plates.
Looking for a Bad transmitter.

junk the factory differential, there poor quality, trade up to hpi racing hot bodies part# hbc8178 there hardened and helical cut, they handle the power of my modified nova rossi motor with no problems, prior to finding these I tried different weight oils, shiming, teflon grease, and still broke diffs in two laps after installing the nova rossi motor, keep the 7000 wt oil in the center diff!! min!! I run 10000 wt and no more gear problems