Tips For RC Cars

Nothing can elicit a high-pitched scream of joy from a grown man like the first blip of the throttle on a new RC vehicle. Whether it's the fumes of nitro or the high pitched whine of the electric motors, there is something intoxicating about launching a small vehicle on 4 wheels from 0 to 30, 50, 60, even 70+ mph in less time than it takes to blink.

If you are just getting into the RC Hobby, there are several items of consideration. The biggest consideration seems to be nitro or electric, then typically whether you want an off-road vehicle or on-road, or 2 wheel drive or 4 wheel drive, then cost typically determines whether you get a 10th or 8th scale (there are others, but those are the most common). If you are going at this alone, I highly recommend buying new. Sure there are good deals on Craigslist or eBay for used RC items, but 90% of the time, there is a reason that person is getting rid of their RC vehicle. If this is your first RC, you will without a doubt spend more money on a used truck than if you just bought new.

So you decided to buy new, with all the considerations mentioned above, what do you do? For me, I had 400 bucks in my pocket-which these days will hardly buy you a motor-and the best bang for buck I could find was the Traxxas Rustler. Came with a.15 motor (not even sure they make them that small anymore!) and it would run all day long...plus, even with that small motor it would flip itself on its back if you didn't take care when launching it. That said, my opinion as far as "ease of use" and ease of finding parts (yes, you will break it!) would be to go with a Traxxas brand model. You can always find parts for them at your local hobby store, they are fairly well built and are all in all great starter RCs. Yes people will argue with that sentiment, but honestly they are hard to beat for a first timer. They take out some of the guess work w/ their electric start which keeps the motor safe and doesn't allow the user to try and start a flooded engine; among other things.

Concerning the Nitro of Electric argument, consider this. With the introduction of high output batteries over the past few years, we now have battery powered RC Monster trucks that can do 70 mph. 5 years ago you could buy the parts to make any truck do that, but now you can buy them off the shelf ready to go. LiPo batteries have raised the bar for power output and have made it possible for electric trucks to keep up with-and in many cases-outrun nitro trucks. It is amazing to watch an electric truck silently-almost serenely-float by a nitro truck that sounds like a screaming banshee.

The biggest pro and con to the decision is cost and ease of use. You can easily spend 1000 bucks upfront for an 8th scale LiPo powered monster truck. The same truck with a nitro motor would probably cost 600 bucks, but over the life of the truck with the cost of gas and glow plugs, you could easily reach or exceed that (That argument does not take into account breaking of parts, which probably cost about the same for either). As far as ease of use, do you want to charge and go, or do you like to fiddle and tweak things? There is a definite art to tuning a nitro truck, and to keeping it running. I love running my electric vehicles, but at the end of the day, there is something to be said for the sound and smell of a nitro engine as it hurdles through the air after a big jump

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