I spent some time a few months ago digging through some boxes of stuff I had packed away since my last move.  Much of the boxes and bins were filled with crap, and most of it was worthy of a trip to the Goodwill, or the garbage.  One box contained a pile of old radio controlled car parts, and I quickly dug through to see what had survived.

Building, tinkering, and racing rc cars was a kind of closet hobby of mine about ten years ago.  It is one of those hobbies that not too many people quite understand.  This is because they think of rc cars as the ones you see on the shelves of your local Wal-Mart.  The cheap plastic TYCO models that can barely make it over thick carpeting, and crumble when you take it off of a small jump.

The hobby type of rc cars and trucks are in a completely different league.  These little machines are meticulously engineered to be strong, fast, and light weight.  There is also a thriving aftermarket parts business, which means that these cars can be repaired and tinkered with, which is half the fun of the hobby.  This is also why I was able to take a 10 year old nitro rc car that was completely non-functioning and rebuild it.

A lot has changed with rc cars and trucks in the last ten years.  The first thing that I noticed that had changed was the speed of these little machines.  The HPI Nitro MT truck that I had purchased in 2000, was a very fast four wheel drive truck for its time, and could achieve speeds of nearly 40 miles an hour right out of the box.  The new cars and trucks are being advertised as running at speeds of 70+ miles per hour.  That is freaking fast.

The second change I noticed was the cost.  Owning an rc car in 2000 was not cheap, even with some of the entry level stuff.  Just to get going with a new nitro rc car, you could easily spend $500+ on the most basic kit.  Now, you can get your hand on a new nitro kit for less than $200.

The third change I noticed was all of the RTR (Ready to Run) machines out there.  These dominate the shelves of my local hobby shop.  It is a very disappointing trend, as half of the fun of owning an rc car was driving one that you build.  The other benefit of building your own kit is that you know how to repair it.

The last thing I noticed was the technology that goes into the newer kits.  Many of the electric models come with brushless motors, which are quiet, and crazy fast.  The remotes don’t use crystals to communicate anymore, instead they opt for 2.4 GHz communication.  This allows for telemetrics to be received by the remote telling you the state of your battery, or the heat of your nitro engine.

Rebuilding my old Nitro MT was a very satisfying experience.  At first I was nervous that I wouldn’t be able to find parts for the truck, but thanks to eBay and Google, this wasn’t an issue.  I first tore the whole thing apart and cleaned it up.  In the process I noticed many broken parts, and quickly had a nice long list of parts to buy.  I started by ditching the old engine, which had been neglected for a long time.  I found a new engine on ebay for $55 (I had purchased the engine I was taking out of the truck for over $200 ten years ago) that came out of a RTR box for the HPI MT2 (my truck’s younger brother).  I slowly started receiving packages from hobby shops all over the country, and began to bring my truck back to life.  The parts all fit perfectly, and the final product looked almost like a brand new machine (see all the pictures at the end of the article).

Unfortunately, the weather here in Minnesota has gotten pretty ugly.  As I write this, it is raining, and the temp is supposed to be below 0 tomorrow.  I plan on breaking in the rc truck as soon as the weather gets a bit nicer, and will hopefully post a video of the machine running in all her glory.

If anyone is interested there are some great forums at rcuniverse.com, and there are still plenty of kits you can build from the ground up available at your local hobby shop (or at towerhobbies.com).