I was supposed to start off the weekend by riding out with the Desert Bike Club but couldn’t get myself to wake up at 6:30 in the morning for a 7:15 meetup. But I still managed to save the day by heading down to Bnaider. A friend of mine built an RC track at his chalet so I took two cars, my Tamiya FJ CR-01 crawler, and my Xray 808e buggy.

[YouTube]

The video above should give you an idea about how fun these cars can be. Mine is the pink one that starts off strong and then falls behind.

I like this shot since it captures an interesting moment when 3 off us go airborne but each one heading off to a different direction.

These two aren’t RC cars but they’re still cool toys.

XRAY 808E from Mark on Vimeo.

I wasn’t planning on shooting a video, it just came to me while playing on the track so I didn’t have a tripod or a second hand to help me out. It’s not a great video but it still should give you a rough idea of what it’s like to race an RC car around the track. For some odd reason my edit turned out to be just 35 seconds so I repeated the lap twice in the video (it actually takes over a minute to race around the track without mistakes). If this track doesn’t convince you to get a race buggy then I’m not sure what would.

Earlier today I passed by the newly revamped Kuwait Science Club RC track near 360 Mall. I was the only one there so I managed to take the picture above of the track completely empty. It’s really huge and pretty difficult to race around at least for a newbie like me. There are some very cool jumps that had my car flying off the ground except the jumps usually ended with a sharp right turn so my car would end up flying off the course. Still lots of fun and I didn’t damage anything. I shot a video which I’ll try to post later tonight but for now you can check out a large panorama of the track by visiting this [Link]

The new Kuwait Science Club offroad RC track just got completed and it looks incredible. I’m going to be out of the country this weekend so I’m only going to get to try it out next week. Only 1/8 scale truggies and buggies are allowed on the track which is located near the Kuwait Science Club behind 360 Mall. [Link]

The Radio Control Car Club of Kuwait track next to 360 Mall is one of the largest offroad tracks in the world and it’s currently getting a makeover in preparation for the new season.

They’re changing the layout and rebuilding the whole thing to make it even better than it was before. I can’t wait till it’s done so I could race my car there.

If you’re interested in becoming a member it’s just KD20 a year but you need to have a car and it needs to be 1/8 scale. The weather is becoming a lot better so if you’re interested in getting a car there are four shops I know of that sell the best 1/8 scale cars:

Extreme Hobby – 24348123
Pro Hobbies – 24313277 (where I got mine from)
Hobby Time – 24346744
Al Hamar – 22431989

You can check out more pictures of the track underconstruction on the RCCCK Facebook page [Here]

I finished building my 808e around 2 or 3 weeks back but was waiting for the motor and speed controller to arrive plus the batteries. Once they arrived I took the stuff to Pro Hobbies to have them professionally solder the wires together for me as well as setup the buggy for me. It’s now ready to take to the track which is what I am going to this next weekend. So far it kicks ass!

Here are the parts I installed if anyone’s interested:
- Tekin RX8 Competition Brushless System
- Tekin T8 1900kv Motor
- Savox 1258TG Servo
- Turnigy 4500mAh 4S 30C hard case battery

Bader, a friend of mine who also won the Tamiya 501x buggy from the My Toy Facebook competition uploaded a video of his car in action around the My Toy offroad track. It looks very cool, I’m nearly finished building my car as well, just waiting for my motor and batteries to get delivered by Aramex. I don’t know what camera Bader mounted on the small 1/10 scale buggy but I already asked him and once he emails me a response will post it here. [YouTube]

My Toy have ended their 501x giveaway and have started a new competition in which you need to send them an edited RC car video. I sent them the one I made of my FJ Cruiser (below) which I think is a pretty cool video specially since it was my first.

Tamiya FJ CR-01 in Kuwait

Update: He used the GoPro Hero HD motorsports version with 3M mounts which you can find on Amazon [Here]

The progress on my XRAY 808E RC buggy build has been pretty slow since I’m taking my time with it. My brother has also started his first build ever (pictured above), he’s putting together the Tamiya 501x he won from the My Toy competition on Facebook.

An advantage I have over him though is the fact I’ve already started buying the electronics for my car while he hasn’t which means my car will probably finish before him. I ended up ordering the Tekin T8 1900kv motor with the RX8 electronic speed controller (both pictured above) as well as two 4s 4500mAh hard case batteries. I ended up ordering the motor/esc combo online since I couldn’t find it locally and I ordered the batteries online because they’re a lot cheaper than here. I still need to get a servo (the small motor that steers the car) and tires which I will most probably get from Pro-Hobbies since that’s where I got the XRAY from.

Now the aim of posts like this is to try and introduce people to new activities or hobbies to my readers. Building cars is a great way to kill time and it’s an activity that is heavily supported by the local RC shops and a hobby that I really love. I am by no means an RC expert, I’m learning as I am going along and the people who work and run the RC shops are extremely helpful. So don’t be scared to build a car if you haven’t before, it’s as easy as LEGO. I didn’t know the difference between LiPo batteries were a few days ago or even the difference between a 1900kv motor and a 2650kv motor for example. I’m still learning! But if anyone has any questions about RC cars post them below and I’ll answer them.

After building the amazing Tamiya 502x last week I got back into the RC cars mood again. So, over the weekend I decided to get another car to build and passed by Pro Hobbies and purchased the Xray 808e. I’ve had my eye on the Xray 808 since 2009 but back then they only came in nitro versions until last year when Xray released the electric version of the same car and called it the 808e. Xray is a high-end radio controlled car company and they’re sometimes called the Rolls Royce of RC cars. As soon as I opened the box I understood why, everything looked just incredible and felt top notch. From the thick plastic bags the parts are placed in to the glossy fully colored manual and the “authenticity certificate” it comes with. Makes the whole package feel more expensive than what I paid for it.

[YouTube]

One of the main reasons I wanted the Xray 808e is because it’s a 1/8 scale car which means I will finally be able to take it to the Radio Control Car Club of Kuwait (RCCCK) off-road track near 360 Mall. It’s one of the largest tracks in the world and it would be a real shame not to take advantage of it. You can watch the video above of the track which I shot last year.

Usually when I start building these cars I zone out and ignore everything around me (including the blog) but this time I am going to take my time by dedicated only 2 or 3 hours a day to work on the car. Hopefully it will be ready sometime next month before it gets too hot. Still need to think of a color scheme, the wheels are white and the spoiler is white so not sure what color I am going to paint the body yet.

After spending a week building the car and then painting it, I was finally able to take it out for a spin. It’s a race buggy and I should have taken it to the Tamiya track to test out but since I wanted to try and capture some nice shots I decided to take it to an empty desert instead. I feel guilty for doing that to the car but I was careful not to bash it too hard since I have to give the car back once I was done with the review.

I don’t have that much experience with buggies since the only electric buggy I have is the Tamiya Frog and it would be really unfair to compare the two since the Frog is actually a design from 1983 while the 502x is a current generation carbon fiber framed racing buggy. But, I have taken a ton of RC cars and trucks out to bash in the dessert before and from all of them the 502x as expected handled the best. Usually when I take the cars out into the dessert to bash they spend a lot of time flipping onto their backs or over or under steering. With the 502x the car managed to flip only once onto it’s back and that’s an incredible achievement with me since I’m a really careless and abusive driver. It also handled incredibly well turning when I wanted it to turn and gripping the dirt and loose pebbles with great east. It also took all the jumps like a champ and whenever it was in the air time seemed to stop for a second and everything went in slow motion until it hit the ground again. That’s why my brother was able to capture so many air shots, the car just floats in the air.

It was really fun building and driving the car and it’s going to be really tough to give it back. But, last night I found out I won the 501x in the My Toy weekly draw so maybe they’ll let me keep the 502x instead. If you’re interested in Tamiya’s, the dealer is called My Toy and they’re located in Tilal Complex on top of In Living Color. It’s a huge store which I’ve posted about before [Here]. You could also participate in their weekly draw to win a 501x by visiting their Facebook group [Here]

The pictures above were taken by my brother but were post processed by myself. To see my brothers post processed photos click [Here]

I finished building the Tamiya 502x earlier today and managed to finished cutting up the body, masking it and then painting it in fluorescent pink. The color came out cooler than I was expecting, I painted the rear wing black and the wheels as well which helped give the car an aggressive look. Going to take it out tomorrow and have my brother snap some pictures while I send it flying off some jumps. Should be fun.

Note: The Tamiya dealer is called My Toy and they’re located in Tilal Complex on top of In Living Color. Here is a link to their website [Link]

The build was fairly easy although there were some difficult moments. The car frame and a large chunk of the parts are in carbon fiber with a lot of metal parts as well which is expected since this buggy is race ready. But, for the price and purpose of this car I would have expected even more metal parts at least for example when it came to the steering parts which are currently mostly plastic. Tonight I’m gonna try and get the electrics done so I could then prep the body for painting and if everything goes smoothly I might have the car up and running by Saturday.

By the way for those of you who’ve never built a radio controlled car before you need to try it since it’s really a lot of fun. I always compare it to Lego and IKEA, if you like building and putting stuff together then you’ll really enjoy building these cars specially since you get to drive them afterwards. They’re a lot more challenging than building a Lego police station or an IKEA cabinet as well as more rewarding.