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FG 4WD Baja Buggy Competition, Build And Review

rcgawker — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:44:37 +0000

I’ve had every type of car there is from electric RTR, to nitro kits, and I have never really sat down and chronicled my experience. This article will give you a glimpse into some of the tricks and gotchas I experienced when building my first large scale FG 4WD Modellsport Baja Buggy.

SPECIAL NOTE: If you are interested in getting a 2 speed metal gearbox for your FG Model do NOT order from this site. http://snipr.com/fgracing he sells inferior products and has horrible customer service.

To start off when you build a new kit you are always at the mercy of the manufactures instructions. Some manufactures are better than others when it comes to the easy of the build. In the case of the FG Modellsport the instructions were about average. Due to the fact that the car is manufactured in Germany there are some grammar and spelling errors in the instructions. Be that as it may the instructions are for the most part easy to understand even if you only look at the pictures.

Ok, that being said the first thing I always do before building a kit is look through the instruction a couple of times just to see if I see any funky things I might not be prepared for. Second, I layout and look at all the bags to see if there are any special tools i might need. In this case FG Modellsport does not include a single useful tool. In fact the only tool that is included is a Philips head screw driver/wrench that for the life of me I could not find a single use for.

So lets talk about the tools needed for this kit. For starters almost every screw on this kit is a torx head screw. So if you don’t have a set of torx screw drivers you better go get some. Here is a short list of important tools you might not have.

Required Tools
- Torx screw drivers
- Allen wrench
- Ruler with millimeters
- Tooth brush
- Liquid Tread lock ( blue and red )
- Spring stretching tool
- Drill
- A small hammer (rubber if possible)
- patients

During the build I ran across a few head scratching moments. The instructions would say “this would be much easier if you use the FG mounting tool”, but they didn’t include said tool and I had no way of getting this tool. So I had to figure out an easy way to do things. Here is one example I found while putting the front differential together. There are four gears that need to fit in a box the tricky part is trying to keep them all in the right position as you slide them in to that box. Of course FG says if you have there tool it’s easy but I didn’t so here is how you do it.

Slide the gear axle through the differential gear wheel first, then set it on the differential housing and remove the axle. This will allow the gears to be pushed down into the housing with ease. Then tilt it on its end and push in the drive axle.

Once I came to the engine everything seemed to go together pretty easy. There is one thing that I noted that could come in handy to those of you who are trying to install a clutch bell on any nitro or gas engine. When you try to tighten any clutch bell on any engine mount you will find that it turns as you screw it on. One trick I found was that by shoving the end of a toothbrush in the exhaust manifold just above the piston and slowly pinching it in there you can secure the piston from moving with out doing any damage to it. The soft plastic of the toothbrush will not harm the piston and you can crank away at the clutch bell.

The next rough patch was when it comes to installing the servo saver. This little piece is a pain in the butt. If you don’t the right tool here it could take you a while as well as could injure your fingers. This is where the spring stretcher comes in handy. Make sure that the servo saver axle turns smoothly in the bushing or you will quickly burn out your servo.

The last little annoyance I found was the brake guild rail hole was to small and I had to drill it out. Not a major deal just something i noticed.

For the most part it was smooth sailing as far as the build goes. I did have a couple of screws strip out in the soft aluminum so be careful, and I don’t really like the way the receiver box is designed. It is “sealed” sort of, but its in a place that is so hard to get to if you have to do any tweaking to it once it is installed.

UPDATE: It has come to my attention that there are 6 holes in the front axle housing that will allow dirt behind the bearing that hold the belt wheel. These can be easly filled by using small headless screws. I used #8-32 TPI headless screws. First I tapped the holes using a 8-32 hole tap. Then put my small screws in. It took about 20 mins to do and was very easy. A word of warning when using a hole tap. It is best to use tap it by hand but if you do use a drill go very slow! These taps are not that tough and they will break off in the hole if you try to force it.

Working on the car could be a little easier, but perhaps I’m just spoiled and use to working on cars like the Traxxas Revo which is so well thought out.

In summary I love the look of this car. It is such a work of art and was a real joy to build.

This is a the video of my FG 4wd Baja Competition. It took me 3 days to build but you can see it in just over a minute enjoy.

The wonderful world of large scale radio control.

rcgawker — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:55:42 +0000

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If you live in the United States you have probably seen 1/10 and 1/16 scale RC cars from manufactures such as Traxxas, Losi, Team Associated, HPI, and more. However, there is a whole other class of RC cars that you might not be aware of. That is the 1/5 and 1/6 scale (or large scale) gas RC car. These cars have been around over seas and the USA for decades but in the USA they are rarely ever seen, where as over seas they are much more prevalent.

These cars don’t run on electric or nitro they run on gas, specifically a gas and two stroke engine oil mixture. That’s right, the same gas your car or lawn mower runs on. In fact, if you have a gas powered weed eater you have the very same type of engine that most of these cars propel themselves with. These model cars are much bigger than normal RC cars and are powered with engines ranging in size from 23cc to 30cc two stroke engines. You can get these models in various types including buggies, monster truck, or track cars; it all depends on your needs.

Here in the United States the most popular of the large scale RC car is quickly becoming the HPI Baja 5b. This is partly due to the fact that more local hobby shops are starting to carry it, and the ease of getting replacement parts. It comes in a number of configurations: Baja 5t RTR, Baja 5B 2.0 and SS, and the Baja 5b RTR. But there are many other manufactures of these great cars so before you settle on one over the other, take a look around at other manufactures such as FG, Redcat, Smarttech, and FS. They can all be found at reasonable price from places in the United States like largescalealloy, fgsupply, and davesmotors to name a few.

What’s so great about them?

With large scale RC cars the days of wet glow plugs and starter boxes are a thing of the past. These RC cars come with pull start engines and spark plugs. They are tough and some come with full disk breaks. Also say good bye to high price nitro fuel, at twelve dollars a quart this can quickly add up, and even at three dollars per gallon, gas is far cheaper. Another positive thing about gas fueled cars are their run times, 40 plus minutes of run time. That can be double and sometimes triple the run times of some electric or nitro cars, and they don’t need tuning every time you go out either. After the first tank or ‘break in’, you will want to tune the engine for maximum performance. The key thing here is that tuning them is very easily, usually requiring only minimal adjustments, and you only do it once. They don’t lose their tune, and the tune is much more abuse resistant unlike nitro engines. There is also no battery discharging, or cooling required before reuse like some electric cars.

What about speed?
If you’ve been running RC cars for any length of time this question seems to be the number one question, “how fast is it?”, and the answer is always the same, “well that depends”. Gas fueled cars are no different with respect to set up. Engine size, exhaust pipes, and gear ratios all factor in when getting that all too important top speed. When it comes to large scale, a three foot, 30lb car at 30-40mph is an awesome site. At 50mph it can get downright frightening. Keep in mind these cars are big, and high speeds are not always necessary to have fun with these models. So will your out of the box Traxxas Revo beat a FG 4wd baja buggy out of the box? Probably, but after the Traxxas Revo has run out of nitro, and your waiting for the engine to cool, the FG Baja will still be going strong.

The cons
So like everything in life I need to mention some of the cons. The first big one is price, the expensive initial investment in the cars, these guys are not cheap. Secondly, mixing fuel isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world, but thankfully you don’t have to do it often. Hop up parts are expensive and a little more difficult to get as these cars are not as popular as their 1/10 scale counterparts. Lastly, they are also quite noisy even over their nitro cousins.
So if you decide you would like to get into the world that is large scale RC, I think you will find that it is as much or more enjoyable as their smaller cousins.

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HPI Baja 5B 1/5 Scale Buggy (guy gets powned)

rcgawker — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:41:21 +0000

These things are big, fast, and LOUD! Watch this guy get powned by one.
The Baja 5B is a rear wheel drive 1/5th scale off-road buggy that is nearly 32″ in length! Its design is revolutionary for large scale RC Cars, following the style of classic Baja buggies with long suspension arms for great ground clearance and large suspension travel. The big size allows the Baja 5B to go where smaller buggies can’t and makes the Baja 5B’s driving experience as close as you can get to the real thing.