It’s a pretty common practice to use a black Sharpie or similar permanent marker to draw a paint scheme on the outside of a body to use as a guide when trimming mask and painting. Take advantage of the fact that Sharpie has expanded their line of markers in both terms of tip types and,…
Don’t be in a rush to throw out the packing material that your ready-to-run radio came shipped in. Many radio come in bubble wrap bags or soft foam bags. These bags are often considered disposable, but they make for great continued protection for your radios when you go to the track or out bashing. You…
Your RC truck can get downright dirty after a bash session or a day of racing. Sometimes your truck can even get pretty nasty with mud. Don’t leave that mess in your trunk or in the back of your SUV. Instead get an inexpensive boot tray and leave it in your trunk. The tray is…
A clean truck works better and is a whole lot easier to work on. When you’re at the track or out bashing, you can clean parts with wipes made for cleaning you. As an added bonus, they come in handy when you need to get cleaned up a bit too. There are wipes specifically made…
A common parts failure–especially in high power applications–is a drive pin. Either the pin in a universal joint fails or the actual drive pin in the axle. If you’re repeatedly bending pins, try a high quality drill bit. You can even find high strength drill bit blanks, but sacrificing a drill bit will do just…
Many RC vehicles use self-tapping screws when securing plastic parts. In most applications these work perfectly fine, but these screws that cut their own threads can also loosen in certain plastic. This is especially true when the parts are in high stress areas like suspension components. If you’ve noticed a self-tapping screw habitually loosening, replace…
The Deans Ultra Plug is arguably the most popular aftermarket battery plug in RC. As well as this connector performs, it can be improved. The common complaint about this connector also happens to be one of its advantages–its compact size. People complain that because the connector is so small they are often forced to grab…
Most people use a single layer of servo tape to secure their receivers. You should actually use two or even three layers of tape. The thick amount of tape will act as a shock absorber for the delicate receiver. This is a good practice whether you run AM, FM or 2.4GHz. Side note: never run…
Servo wires flopping around inside your chassis look hack but also are vulnerable to moving parts like gears and drive shafts. Neat wiring is far less likely to get damaged. The easiest way to take care of extra long servo wires (and speed control wires) is to coil the wires around the shaft of a…
On-road racers know that setup wheels are needed to get consistent and accurate camber readings because inconsistencies in the tire’s sidewall will impact results. You can buy expensive setup wheels or you can use a set of unmounted rims. If you run truggy, a set of unmounted 1/8-scale buggy rims will work great and if…
The scalloped replacement grips sold for transmitters may be a bit too much for many people, but the stock foam grips can be improved–especially for long races. To make it easier to maintain your grip and make it much easier to find it should your hand move, use a sanding drum on a rotary tool…
When you’re rebuilding your truck’s suspension, use a Sharpie or similar permanent marker to write the shock’s specs on the side of the body. Traditionally, this tip is used as a way to record of the shock setup, which is, indeed, helpful, but the real benefit is during the reassemble of a truck that has…
Body post hole reamers make creating holes in Lexan easy, but unless you have one that has depth marks, it’s also easy to make the holes all slightly different sizes. Marking the depth with a marker will make getting the same size holes every time almost foolproof.
Many racers fill out setup sheets, and the info on these detailed sheets is incredibly valuable. There’s one piece of information that isn’t often included on setup sheets yet has a profound impact on setups. That item of info is the temperature. When you race, write down the temperature somewhere on your setup sheet. The…
There are a lot of little parts and all sorts of hardware in a kit. to help keep it organization and from going missing during a build, use a small drawer organizer tray. You can find trays for desks and kitchen drawers that are perfect for RC. Even better, they can often be found at…