TOPIC:

Hi,

I have found my old Tamiya Madcap RC cars in boxes and want to restore it. I have been reading all over the place over the past week and starting to get a bit comfortable with the new RC stuff but still have tons of questions. I was only a teen enjoying his RC toy back then and at some point the car stopped moving, didn't have much money to fix it back then and lost interest. Not sure if the motor is burnt or the resistor (the a chunk of ceramic gone). I will try to test the motor and any tips regarding the troubleshooting would be appreciated.

It is all stock setup except for the front shocks which I changed to oil shocks back then. I have seem to misplaced some parts: front bumper, body shell and wing. Also some part are in zip lock bags right now so I will take a thorough inventory before shopping around for what is missing. Also, I still have my charger and the two Ni-Cd battery packs.

I am not quite sure where I want to bring this, but for now I believe I will get it back rolling with the stock stuff and possibly invest a little bit on the performance side.

From what I understand I should be able to use Ni-Mh packs instead of the Ni-Cd, but other packs would require upgrades.

I am tempted to change the MSC for an ESC, is it worth it with the stock motor?

Any suggestions are appreciated! I will post pictures later on and start building my shopping list

Hi JSP,
Firstly take some pictures of your madcap.
After, you can find for low cost
ball bearings, a tamiya esc like teu 105bk (largely enough for the 540) and a set of rear oil shocks(the most expensive) and like I said you the aloy motor plate

Yep, what Stingray said...

Definitely worth changing the MSC for an ESC. An ESC will be more controllable, give longer running time and make it less likely that the car goes flying into a concrete post when the MSC jams

ESC's in the old days (like the Acoms AP35) were pretty poor, but modern ones are a no-brainer unless you are a stickler for originality.

Martin wrote:

Yep, what Stingray said...

Definitely worth changing the MSC for an ESC. An ESC will be more controllable, give longer running time and make it less likely that the car goes flying into a concrete post when the MSC jams

Definitely remember the stuck MSC!!

Martin wrote:

ESC's in the old days (like the Acoms AP35) were pretty poor, but modern ones are a no-brainer unless you are a stickler for originality.

I'm not

stingray-63 wrote:

Hi JSP,
Firstly take some pictures of your madcap.

Their coming, was too anxious to start a thread

stingray-63 wrote:

After, you can find for low cost
ball bearings, a tamiya esc like teu 105bk (largely enough for the 540) and a set of rear oil shocks(the most expensive) and like I said you the aloy motor plate

Any specific bearings in mind?

I was eyeing the teu-105bk, this will work with Ni-Cd, Ni-Mh, LiFe, but not LiPo is that correct?

I will post the front shocks pictures, maybe someone can identify them, I have no clue what they are.

Also, regarding the TEU-105BK, it seems to limit the motor upgrade capabilities, unless I don't get this right.

Look om rc bearing. Uk they have kit for all tamiyas. Tamiya esc are enough for standard motors with nimh and nicd aqs. For lipo you need more expensive esc

I am not the biggest fan of Tamiya ESCs myself since they have no failsafe and are quite limited.
Cheap option would be an Mtroniks and in my opinion LRP is the most solid choice.
I wouldn't bother too much with the old motor but get a nice replacement for that...
Definitely get some bearings, that's an excellent upgrade (and they're cheap nowadays).

www.rcbearings....uct_id=226

I have ordered the bearings from RCbearings, good prices and the shipping to Canada is fair.

Thanks!

Any suggestions as to replacement motor?

I was looking at ordering the tamiya sports tuned and the teu-105bk esc from tamiya-shop.ca, but it seems a lot of people are unhappy with them and I don't know if I should order from there.