We have more AKA news right HERE on BigSquidRC.

Some of the tires also got further upgrades. For instance, the Cityblock 2 had its tread opened up slightly to help it dig in deeper, the Wishbone 2 had its tread pattern condensed for more traction and longer wear, and the Handlebar got slightly taller pins. The new tires range in price from $26 to $39 for pre-mounts.

AKA didn’t forget about upgrading their inserts, they now have asymmetrical cores for more sidewall support. Both their new Red (#33017 soft) and Black (#33016 medium) have a price point of $18. Hit up the AKA Website for more information.

We reviewed the AKA Enduro SC’s a while back, Click Here to read the review.

13110SRW 1:10 Buggy Handlebar LTD Rear (Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted White
13110SRY 1:10 Buggy Handlebar LTD Rear (Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted Yellow
13110VRW 1:10 Buggy Handlebar LTD Rear (S Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted White
13110VRY 1:10 Buggy Handlebar LTD Rear (S Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted Yellow
13107SRW 1:10 Buggy Impact Rear (Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted White
13107SRY 1:10 Buggy Impact Rear (Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted Yellow
13107VRW 1:10 Buggy Impact Rear (S Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted White
13107VRY 1:10 Buggy Impact Rear (S Soft) HEXLITE Wheel Pre-Mounted Yellow

Retail price is $28 per pair and you can get more information on the official AKA Website. Give THIS link a try for more AKA news right here on BigSquidRC.

Want to learn more about AKA? Check out THIS link right here on BigSquidRC.

Would you like to read more about AKA products? Hit THIS link right here on BigSquidRC.

AKA is producing Handlebars for a wide variety of vehicles- 10th scale buggy, 8th scale, and for short course trucks. And talk about variety, some Handlebars are available pre-mounted, some just with inserts, and some just the tires w/o inserts. AKA is doing their best to accommodate your tire needs, whatever they might be.

To get more information on the Handlebars and all of AKA’s products hit up their Official Website. Hit THIS link to read our latest AKA SCT tire review.

AKA Enduro tires have gained quite a reputation for being one of the premier race tires money can buy. Today we’ll be taking a closer look at the AKA Enduro, specifically the short course truck version, to see how it stacks up in the bashing world. Do they last? Do they have incredible traction? Are they worth your cash? Read on…

From: AKA
Direct Link: Enduro SC Soft Compound

Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Cubby

Specs:

Part #: 13002SR
Fits- Most short course truck wheels, front and rear.
Street Price: $20 per pair

What’s Needed To Complete Install: Grab some new wheels, some Bob Smith thin CA glue, and you are ready to go.

Build Quality: A bit of excess flash on the center of the outer carcass, but none found along the bead that would making gluing difficult.

Test Drivers: Cubby, Brian, Tim and Iron Mike

Test Venues: Leisure Hours outdoor track in Joliet Illinois, RC Outlaws in Collinsville Illinois, St Louis Dirtburners, a city park baseball field, and a cul-de-sac.

Set-up Notes: I mounted the AKA Enduro SC’s on our MIP/STRC/RPM tuned Losi Ten SCTE 4wd short course truck. Speedo was a Castle Mamba Max SC, motor was a Castle 1410 four pole 3800, radio system was the incredibly uber Futaba 4PK Super-R, and we used a Dynamite SpeedPack 3S 5200 Lipo to completely over-power the beast.

Performance:

Street: Yes, the Enduro’s are a relatively small pin “race” tire, and therefore you shouldn’t even think about running them on the street. However, we ran them on pavement as a part of testing and they lived much longer than expected. Relatively speaking, there is a lot of meat on the Enduro’s, thus a lot of rubber to burn off. If all you do is drive on pavement they will not give nearly the life of a dedicated street tire, but, if you absolutely must run them they’ll give amazing traction and won’t be burnt off in just one run like most “race” tires.

Grass: The Enduro’s get better traction than a street tire on grass, but because of their small pins traction isn’t that great in the green stuff. If driving in grass is your thing, you’d be better off with something like a Pro-Line Badlands SC.

Dirt: Running on a prepped dirt track surface is exactly where the AKA designers intended the Enduro’s to be run, so that’s where we spent 90% of our time. Soil type varied a bit, but we ran on multiple hard-packed outdoor tracks with a light fluff on top and larger loam on the outside if you missed the primary line. We ran on the tracks both when they were bone dry/dusty, and moist. We found the Enduro’s to have exceptional forward bite with good side bite in both of these conditions. The Enduro’s, with all their sharp edges, yielded rather incredible mechanical grip, resulting in exception corner speeds and great traction when powering out of corners.

We’ve logged thousands of laps on the tracks we use for testing and know when a tire is dialed, the AKA Enduro’s were certainly that, arguably giving better overall traction than any other tire we’ve ever used. I must also note, we found the wear rate to be quite low on the Enduro’s. Great traction plus low wear equals a kick ass tire.

Summary:

Time To Bash – 8/10 - Gluing up tires is not a 5 minute job, but as far as tires go the AKA’s bolted up with no fuss.

Car Show Rating – 8/10 - Not a scale looking tread, nevertheless, our reviewers liked how they looked.

Bash-A-Bility – 8.5/10 - No rips, no tears and excellent wear characteristics.

Fun Factor – 9/10 - All that mechanical grip equals more speed, and more speed is always more fun.

Value – 9/10 - The AKA’s come with perhaps the best insert money can buy and the tread pattern has a long life. All that at a quite reasonable price represents a good value to us.

BigSquid Rating – 8.5/10 - Tentacles. The AKA Enduro SC’s are not the best tire for street, grass, or loamy dirt driving, but if you spend the majority of your time bashing on a prepped outdoor track the Enduro’s are a fantastic tire.

Need more news from AKA Racing? Hit that link.

Are you brave enough for the Friday Mystery Link? Click here!

BigSquidRC: What trends do you see coming for the rc basher market?

Gil: I think there will be a bigger push for more value for the dollar. That is why we at Firelands and HobbyTown have been focused on creating a product and sales strategy to bring entry level products to market that have incredible value and service support.

BigSquidRC: Gil, you are a living legend in our hobby and an IFMAR world champion to boot. What changes would you like to see made to modern rc racing?

Gil: I would like to see fewer classes. There are so many classes now that it dilutes the value to both the industry and the winners of the important classes. It’s become too easy to win a National level race if you cherry pick the easy classes.

BigSquidRC: Of all the current big name factory racers, which one do you feel is the best ambassador for the hobby?

Gil: Michael Losi of course! (I may be a little biased).

BigSquidRC: Your thoughts on the scale realism trend in rc now days?

Gil: I am a big fan of scale looking cars. It has always been a big challenge to keep a class looking scale. We as racers always look to push rules as far as possible to improve performance. If there are not strong rules in place before the pros get involved scale classes tend to be short lived. We have seen how popular scale classes can be (1/10 2wd buggies of the early 80′s, Touring cars of the 2000′s and now Crawling and Short Course). Hopefully we will be smarter in the future and write stronger rules to keep the scale look when classes are young.

BigSquidRC: Has Traxxas grown too big for their britches and forgotten their core enthusiasts?

Gil: Traxxas did a good job changing the industry. I for one was very slow to react to the RTR world they created. Only time will tell where the Basher enthusiast will find their next thrills.

BigSquidRC: What would it take to get you back to designing and producing complete high-end rc race cars?

Gil: I’m not sure right now. It is an interesting challenge to learn the general enthusiast market. My current hope is to build our current Firelands brands into industry leaders. Once we have accomplished that maybe there will be time to work on something racing again.

BigSquidRC: The Anza RC hop-up parts were awesome but we haven’t seen anything new from them in a while. Has the Anza line worked out as expect and are there more goodies on the way?

Gil: We are proud of the success we had with the Anza line so far. We almost put a Anza outfitted Traxxas Slash on the podium (4th place) at the Roar Nats last year. I think it’s been a while since a Traxxas car was that competitive at a major race!

BigSquidRC: Helion has a short course truck and a truggy version in both 1/18th and 1/10th scale. Is there a plan to jump to another scale, or will we see a new vehicle on one of those two scales?

Gil: All the above! We have more ideas than time to build them.

BigSquidRC: It seems that the HobbyTown exclusive deal has worked pretty well for the Helion RC line. I know all of our local HT’s move a good amount of product. Will the Helion RC line always be exclusive to HobbyTown USA’s?

Gil: We have enjoyed a great relationship with HT thus far. We are able to work together to provide value product with good parts and customer support that customers have been very happy with.

BigSquidRC: We are all going outside to do some bashing and we know you want to come after your incredible display of bashing skills at our demo at the HobbyTown convention over the summer. What vehicle do you bring (You can only take 1) and why?

Gil: I would take the Dominus TR Brushless. Where else can you find that much fun for less than $260?

Since their introduction AKA has made a big splash in the rc racing scene. Thankfully they have just released a new tire with us bashers in mind, their new Moto tires for 8th scale buggy. The Moto’s have large, widely spaced lugs that look much like a dirt bike tire, which in theory should be perfect for driving on loose surfaces and on gnarly terrain. Are the new AKA Moto tires worth a try? Read on…

From: AKA Products
Direct Link: Moto 8th Scale Tires, Green Compound

Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Cubby

Specs:

Part #: 14010SR
Fits- Most 8th scale off-road buggies
Street Price: $25 per pair

What’s Needed To Complete Install: Wheels and some Bob Smith thin CA glue

Build Quality: Knobbies had sharp edges, we didn’t notice any unwanted flash, and the red closed cell inserts were excellent in quality.

Test Drivers: Cubby, Brian, Tim, Iron Mike

Test Venues: St Louis Dirtburners off-road track, a gravel parking lot, and a large grassy field

Set-up Notes: We installed the AKA Moto’s on our resident pro drivers Hot Bodies VE8 4wd 8th scale electric buggy. Speedo was a Castle Monster, motor was a Castle 2200, radio system was the uber Futaba 4PK Super-R, Hitec handled the steering duties, and we used 6S worth of MaxAmps to turn the tires over with authority.

Performance:

Street: We did a minimal amount of driving on pavement with the Moto’s. The Moto’s were certainly not designed with pavement in mind, if the majority of your driving is on the paved stuff I’d highly recommend you look elsewhere for tires (like some Pro-Line Road Rages).

Dirt: On hard packed dirt with a layer of light fluff on top the soft compound of the AKA’s yielded good mechanical grip, more than we expected from such a large lug tire. However, that came at the price of tire wear, the knobs were noticeably worn after just a couple of runs.

On loose loamy soil (and small gravel) the Moto’s penetrated and shoveled out a huge roost. If you are driving in loamy conditions and looking to accelerate to warp speed in a hurry, the Moto’s will get you there.

The Moto’s gave a reasonable amount of side-bite, perhaps more than you’d expect could be had loamy dirt. They won’t dig in and traction roll your buggy, but they offer enough side bite to get you turned around a whole lot better than any small pin tire could in the loam.

Overall- The Moto’s shine in loamy conditions.

Summary:

Time To Bash – 8/10 - There is no need to trim off any flash, just glue them up.

Car Show Rating – 9/10 - It’s hard to get flashy with tires, but our testing crew liked the look of the dirt bike tread on the tires.

Bash-A-Bility – 7/10 - Wear was a little higher than expected and we ended up ripping a pair of them under a full 6S assault.

Fun Factor – 8.5/10 - How could we not have fun throwing 30 foot long gravel roosts off a 6S buggy with big lug tires on it?

Value – 8/10 - The AKA’s come in at $25 a pair, pretty much a normal price for 8th scale buggy tires. For that cash you get some trick looking tires that give good traction in the loose stuff.

BigSquid Rating – 8.1/10 - Tentacles. Are the AKA Moto’s the best bashing tire on the market for an 8th scale buggy? Unfortunately we didn’t compare the Moto’s back to back against the class leader the Pro-Line Badlands. Do I smell a tire shootout? What we can say for sure is the Moto’s gave us good traction and put up with a lot of abuse. If you bash your 8th scaler in loamy conditions the Moto’s are certainly worth a look.