Tamiya's Gravel Hound
One of Tamiya's newest 1/10 EP 4WD buggies for 2004. I never intended to get one, but when the LHS gave me a good price on it I picked one up. Took me about 3-4 hrs to put it together - very quick because of the low parts count and Tamiya's excellent finishing which required no additional hand-fitting.

First Impressions
Upon completing the kit, here are some impressions:

• simple layout, should be efficient enough for a entry level buggy though.
• center plastic rod... hmmm... I wonder how much abuse this would take.
• driveshafts are metal although the axle cups are plastic like the TT-01(touring car).
• I said "like", but not entirely identical. Although the two look similar, the cars are actually quite different.
• Shared parts between TT-01 and Gravel Hound (that I can remember): center shaft, diffs, bevels, front knuckles, motor mount... and that's about it.
• Although the diffs are identical, the Gravel hound has the ring and bevel pinion in metal whereas the TT-01 is plastic. Should make for a more durable ride... heavy though.
• Shocks look to be decent oil-units, although it's wierd that the rear shock is not only longer than the front, it's a different diameter altogether. As such, they don't really share any parts.
• Haven't run the car as the electronics still need to be put in, but off hand the 40wt oil seems a little soft all around.
• Testing will tell if the wierd front shock laydown design works.
• The suspension arms look beefy and they have a little flex, should last a long time.
• gone are the goofy TT-01 suspension arms that have the "hingepins" molded. This car uses real hingepins, albeit the Tamiya screw on type.
• Only 3 stock gearing options.
• Stock chassis is the cheapo shiney black Tamiya plastic... it's fine, but I was cheezed to see a few (just a few) of the screw holds showing small white stressmarks when I put the self-tapping screws in. (update: one of the holes has already stripped although I've taken a lot of care with the screws)
• transmission seems smooth. It comes with 8 bearings! So you only need 8 bearings for the wheels to finish off the car.
• I wish Tamiya would throw away all it's 3x14mm step screws though... Those suck bigtime!

All in all I think pretty reasonable for the money lah. 8 bearings, oil shocks, some metal gears, very little parts count and easy assembly (after all, it's a TAMIYA!)

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First Run Impressions
Took my GH for a spin tonight!

It's running a Tamiya SuperStock-T motor which is supposed to be quite torquey. Stock gearing is high so it should be a good match.

The buggy tracked straight and launched off confidently. I was pleasantly surprised at the acceleration which was smooth and quite zippy.

• Top speed wasn't ballistic but it is just a stock motor. Kept me happy though. I'm terrible with speed estimations so I won't even try.
• The buggy ran quiet and the beauty of shaft driven 4WD vehicles is how the drivetrain just glides when the throttle is released. It tracks straight with no hint of torque steer.
• Handling is better than I expected. In stock trim it's really great for starters because it understeers on power. Release the throttle and the rear gets around controllably. I only ran the car on road so far but it actually seems pretty much at home there. To see any real off-road action, the shocks are definitely gonna need some tuning... stiffer oil for starts, especially on the rear.
• After a couple of runs I heard a clicking sound coming from the front gearbox... I took the front tranny apart and simply couldn't find the problem. It mysteriously disappeared after re-assembly... go figure.
• I run side-by-side packs which have been shrink-wrapped together and they don't sit well in the stock chassis because of some bracing. Either the bracing has to go or I have to lose the wrap. Oh well... I have some stick packs lying around somewhere.

All in all I'm quite happy with this. For it's price it's a very decent basher and should be pretty durable too. It's not gonna win any championships, but I doubt it's designers ever had those intentions. In fact, it handles better than my expensive Dyna Blaster truck which was loaded with so many more features. Goes to show that there are times when keeping it simple pays off.

But...
Something that needs work is actually the shocks on the car. I suspect it has to do with the tolerances of the pistons and the shock bodies. The shocks are very hard to tune because they hardly respond to oil changes at all. I've changed to a 1-hole piston and upped the oil from 40wt to 70wt and only noticed a small change in damping.

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Finally, some pics! - late night bashing

Met up with a friend just before midnight and we went bashing at a local park. It was dark but just bright enough for us to set up a small track and do some laps. Here were some pics we took. The first 4 show my GH which still hasn't had its shell painted. The last pic shows my friend's GH which also has an unpainted shell (he's really lazy... lol!).

The cars ran without any problems and we had a blast. The tires hooked up alright, but not great... I think they could really use some foams. Both cars had a slight tendency to nose-dive off jumps but a little throttle input keeps it flying level as you see in the pics.

I've done some suspension tuning (apart from shock oil and mounting position changes, I'm running AE shocks in rear) and it's effect is very noticeable compared to my friend's stock car. However, despite trying a variety of setups, I have a few grouses with the suspension so far:

• Even running very heavy damping, the car still bottoms out pretty easily. I think it's basically suspension design here.
• The rear uses long shocks but the travel is wasted because the car bottoms out about halfway through the travel. Again, this isn't really championship suspension geometry here.

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A Tribute to a Buggy from the past...

Here are some pics of the shell that I just finished painting for my Gravel Hound. I thought the sides of the shell were a little "thick" so I painted a strip of black to give the illusion of it looking a little sleeker. I think the illusion is pulled off quite well. I tried to use the paint scheme to shape the shell to look a little more to my liking and I quite like the end result.

I thought of several ways and color schemes but in the end the red and white colors were inspired by my love for an old buggy - the Kyosho Turbo Optima. So this is a case of old meets new where the old buggy look meets with new sleeker lines. Here's a pic of the Turbo Optima for comparison. :)

Personally, I think the Gravel Hound looks a lot better than Tamiya's Baja line of 4WD buggies that preceded it.

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More on my Gravel Hound on page 2!