Haven't updated in a long time!!

Wow so little time.  I hope to find time to add what I've done to the Mini-t
- RX-280 Motor upgrade
- Losi Aluminum Shocks
- Body Paint & Decal work
- Smasher Tires & Chrome rims

- Currently I've discovered that the outdrive cups suck and you have to put a spring in it.....more info to come.

Brushed Engines...

So I've been researching brushed engine upgrades, and have narrowed my options down to about 3 different engines.   First let me start off by explaining why I'm looking at brushed motors instead of brushless motors.  The primary reason is that I don't want to have to upgrade the ESC/Reciever/Servo just yet, but also it wouldn't be as much fun to just throw money at it and install a caste creations sidewinder and build the fastest car I can....that would get boring pretty quick.  I'm hoping to drag out the improvement process and also learn about how the gear ratios, timing, etc impact the performance of the Mini-T.

So now that I've got all that out of the way, I think these are the 3 best options I have:

• Venom Fireball 370p, ~$8 - This motor seems to be the cheapest option for increased speed, however it seems as though its hit or miss whether you get a quiality motor, and I've also read folks complain that they don't last very long.

• RX-280, ~$15 - This motor is recommended very often, and was actually recommended to my by one of the Horizon employees over the phone.  It seems that this motor adds significant performance increases while only giving you the option of replacing the brushes in the event that they wear out,.  Sadly, it doesn't seem that you can adjust the timing on this motor.

• Reedy Stump Puller, ~$35 - This motor also seems to be used as much as the RX-280 and is highly recommended.  It adds significant performance increases but is also rebuildable, and you can adjust the timings.

I should point out that I have not yet tested any of these motors, I'm just documenting my research so I can keep them straight.   Currently I'm thinking that I will go for the RX-280 and use it for some time until I eventually move to a Reedy Stump Puller to learn about rebuilding motors.

Upgrades: BRP Racing Front Bulkhead/Chassis Brace

After reading about how many problems folks have with the front bulkhead breaking, I decided to drop about $10 on the BRP Racing Front Bulkhead/Chassis Brace.  I have to admit that this little piece definately seems to strengthen the front end, and was a breeze to install given the included instructions!  Well worth the money IMO.

Back up and Running!

So I've been offline for a while - mostly because my Mini-T had been out of commission.  I contacted Horizon again and now they sent our a new ESC/Reciever unit - how its working beautifully!   So what have I been doing? mostly racing around outside, I have to say this little truck can haul with just the stock motor and a 6-cell NiMH!   I did install the BRP Racing front bulkhead brace to strengthen the front end a bit.  I  also have some Losi Aluminum shocks (LOSB1110) coming in the mail! This is getting way too much fun :)

When I install the shocks I'm hoping to find some time to snap some pictures and document what I did,  so far I'm planning on using 35 weight shock oil all around, but if it continues to bottom out on the jumps, I might move the back to 50 weight...we'll see.

Mini-T woes

So after getting my Camber tie-rod fixed on Friday, now it seems as though my Mini-T is having servo problems!! Argh - why is this wonderful little RC vehicle so problematic for me??   I wonder to myself whether it was a smart buy, but the little vehicle seems so popular, I don't know if I'd have bought anything else anyways - i mean there is even a location here in Cincinnati where folks race them!   Perhaps everyone just upgrades all the electrical components in them or something?

No clue...anyhow, now the problem is the servo in the Mini-T it works fine for a while, but then it gets "stuck" in a position and won't center itself.  No sounds from the motor or anything.   If I flick the motor, it tends to straighten out.

I'll likely try to get it replaced on warranty, but the Engineer in me wants to open it up and figure out what the heck is wrong with it.  Apparently in order to upgrade to better (non-stock) servo, you have to either replace your ESC and Reciever, *or* hack a server to be a 3-wire servo instead of a 4-wire servo.....so once again, this Mini-T is out of commision....:(

Upgrade: RPM Wide Front Bumper

So in an effort to avoid breaking any more camber links, I decided to go ahead and purchase the RPM Wide front bumper. There really isn't much to installing this component - basically it is just a matter of unscrewing the four screws underneath the front of the car, and remove the stock skid place, and install the new front bumper/skip plate in its place. According to the guy at my LHS, some RPM components have a lifetime warranty, however he had no idea if the front bumper was covered under thier warranty....we'll find out once it breaks :)


Here is link to the part I purchased at my LHS: RPM Wide Front Bumper


It seems to perform really well - it sticks out very slightly further than my tired, so if I have an head-on collisions with a wall/post/whatever, I'm hoping it takes the impact instead of my wheels/camber/steering links. So far a few hits the car took seems to bounce off the bumper, I can't say its 100% protective obviously, but it works very well with head-on collisions.

Yikes! My Mini-T is out of commission!!!

Sadly, while racing the Mini-T around the basement with my son, I manged to crash it into the wall and break one of the camber tie-rods!! Argh - and i was *just* at the Hobby Shop the other day which is like 20 miles away! Looks like i will be making another trip there soon...


Now I am trying to decide whether to replace them with the stock rods, which break somewhat easily, but only cost about $2.00 for 6....or do I upgrade them to Titanium turnbuckles which cost about $23 on Amazon? Decisions decisions....right now, I'm thinking I'm going to buy a couple packs of the cheaper rods and a front bumper to dampen the impact of head on collisions...and see how it goes. If I break both sets even with the bumper, then I'll spend the $ on the Titanium set... (yes, I'm that cheap - but I'm also thinking I want to keep the weight down on the vehicle, so I'm avoiding attaching many metal components to it......for now)


Anyways, here are the products I'm looking at:
- Standard Losi Camber/Steering Link ($2.00)
- Titanium Losi Turnbuckle Set ($26.00)
- RPM Wide Front Bumper ($6.00)

How-To: Properly set the gear mesh.

One of the first things you will notice about the Mini-T is that the stock shocks have absolutely zero dampening power. I realized this the first time i ramped the little car in my basement and it bottomed out. After a few stunts, suddenly the car wouldn't move and made a loud whining noise when I pulled the trigger. As it turned out when it bottomed out, it moved the engine slightly and the gears weren't meshing.

As a newbie fix - I opened the cover that contains the pinion and spur gear and pushed the engine all the way up and tighened down the screws.....THIS IS WRONG. Yes, after doing so, the car ran, but it made a god awful racket when pulling the throttle, the noise was the two gears rubbing too much.

After a bit of research, i found the right way to solve the problem, and how to properly set the gear mesh here [losi.com].

The solution for properly setting the gear mesh between the pinion and spur gear was simple! All you do is put a peice of paper in between the two gears, push the engine against it, and then tighten down the screws, remove the paper and bob's yer uncle! (See the video for precise steps)

How-To: Install Ball Bearing Upgrade (Wheels and Hubs)

The installation of the ball bearing upgrade was pretty straight forward....well once you figure out how to do it, that is! :)

**I'm hoping at some point I can get pictures to post with these steps. But unfortunately I didn't take any pics as I did the upgrade.

Front Wheels:

1. Use the wrench which came with the Mini-T and unscrew the wheel nut on one of the front wheels.

2. The wheel should come off and inside both sides of the wheel, you will find a little black plastic bushing.

3. Use a small screw driver and "poke" out the little bushings from the opposite side of the wheel, they should come out pretty easily.

4. Replace the 2 bushings you removed, with 2 ball bearings. You will need a way to push these in, I found that if I use the side of the wrench that came with the mini-t, it works perfectly for this.

5. Put the wheel back on, and tighten the nut. *Note don't overtighten the nut, the wheel should spin freely.

6. Perform these steps on the other front wheel.

Rear Wheels:

1. Using the wrench that came with the Mini-t, remove the wheel nut on one of the rear wheels.

2. Remove the wheel. *Note there are no bushing in the rear wheel, they are in the wheel hub.

3. In order to remove both of the bushings from the wheel hub, you will need to disconnect the rod end from the ball stud on the hub. How do you do this? Just take a small slotted screwdrive, and pry it off, it should pop off with a little force.

4. Now you can remove the drive pin from the axle and the wheel hub should now be able to flip down so you can replace the bushings with bearings. **Note the axle and dogbone will come off, don't lose them or the drive pin - or you will have to make a trip to the hobby shop!

5. Once you have replaced the bushings, you can now reverse the steps and put it all back together.

6. Perform these steps on the other rear wheel.

Losi Mini-T: Ball Bearing Upgrade (Wheels and Hubs)

Another upgrade which I made within two days of owning the Mini-T was to upgrade the Wheel and Hub bushings with Ball Bearings. My understanding here is that this upgrade will increase speed and extend the run time of the battery. I had actually went in thinking about upgrading the motor to the rx-280 (many, many recommendations online for this motor as a *cheap* upgrade to increase speed...obviously if money was no factor, I'd go brushless, but thats a topic for some other day.) The guy at my local hobby shop mentioned that the ball bearing upgrade would have a much more significant improvement in the vehicle versus upgrading the motor to another brushless....and it was the same cost as the rx-280 to boot! So I decided to take his advice and go with the bearings.

How to install the Ball Bearing upgrade

Losi Mini-T: Battery Upgrade

After playing around with the Mini-T for a day or so on dry cells, I immediate thought to myself that this thing needs more power. (Insert Tim "The Toolman" Taylor grunt here) It turns out that upgrading the battery is one of the first most important upgrades to make in order to increase overall speed. There appears to be two choices which are the most preferred: Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) or Lithium Polymer (LiPo).

I went with a 6-cell Dynamite brand NiMH battery - my reasons for this choice were 1. Cost and mostly 2. Apparently its dangerous to charge LiPo batteries.....if you don't believe me, read up, and also note they make a freaking "don't burn your house down" bag for you to charge the LiPo battery in....so basically it was a no-brainer for me :D

**Note when you upgrade to a rechargable battery, you will want to use the battery "holder" that came packaged in with the spoiler and the shock pre-load clips. This holder will sit in the battery area, and hold the rechargable batter in place. You won't use the battery pack that holds the dry cells anymore.

Losi Mini-T: Initial Setup

Ok, so I had to write this post first, basically I need to point out everything that *I didn't* know when trying to set it up. Now that I'm wiser I hope to pass this information along to anyone else how happens to find this site! :)

If you're completely new to this like I am, the first think you are likely to do is want to install 4 dry cell batteries (assuming you didn't already drop money on a NiMH or LiPo battery upgrade, if you did, then you probably aren't reading this site anyways!)

How to install batteries in the Mini-T.

Next, you might be wondering what that long tube is that came with your Mini-T and where its supposed to go. That's your antenna tube. What you do is feed the antenna wire through the bottom of the antenna mast which is right next to the reciever. Then you will feed the antenna wire though the antenna tube and insert the antenna tube into the mast. Finally put the body cover back on;feed the antenna tube through the hole in the top of the body cover.

Trust me, this is all coming out sounding more complicated than what it really is.

Losi Mini-T: How to install batteries

I can hear the cohort laughing now! "This guy is writing a How-To on battery installation!" they will shout! Yes, it might seem silly, but for the utter R/C newb like myself - it took me a good 15 minutes, just to figure out how the heck to install 4 dry-cell batteries into the darn thing! To hell with manuals, I say! In my defense, I had a 3-year old climbing all over me, and explaining to me that I was in the process of breaking my new toy car so I totally overlooked the "Getting Started" guide on the back of the Price List/Exploded View.

So, to start off this blog right - here goes nothing.

**NOTE** This is a pain to do repeatedly with dry cells. After doing these steps a few times, and also wanting an increase in performance, i ended up upgrading to a recharable NiMH battery.

1. Take the 4 pins out of the top of the car, which hold the body cover in place.

2. After removing the body, disconnect the battery if it is not already disconnected.

3. Remove another pin which is located just in front of the reciever.

4. You might have to adjust some of the wires (including the antenna and antenna tube) to make enough clearance, but lift up on the place carefully to make enough room to remove the battery box.

5. Once the battery box is removed, you can pry it open and install your batteries.

6. Reverse the steps to reinstall the battery box.

My First Mini-T

So I just got my first "hobby-grade" electric car, namely the Losi "Mini-T". As a complete newbie to the R/C world, I thought I would create this blog to capture details and information that I learn about the Mini-T and I also hope to capture details on upgrades that I make why, and how I did them.

So to start things off, here are a few snapshots of my Mini-T:

I've owned if for 2 days now, and I've already dropped in a 7.2v Dynamite Nickel Metal Hydride battery and ball bearing upgrades on the wheels. I'll try to describe how I made those upgrades in the next couple posts.

My initial impressions of the Mini-T are "wow", but of course this is coming froma guy whose last radio controlled car was a Tyco Turbo Hopper from the 80's or so. :)