8th scale buggies are known for being great bash machines. For big brushless power the 835E comes with a 2200kV motor and 120 amp Onyx speed controller. A 2.4 GHz radio system is standard and removes any worries of radio conflicts, while big bore shocks help soak up the nasty stuff. Throw in some grey anodized parts for bling factor and the Duratrax 835E is ready to turn heads and go big at your local bash spot.

The 835E is available in 3 color choices- black, white and yellow. The part number is #DTXD78** and its street price is only $399. Expect the new 835E to hit hobby shop shelves in mid June. For more information on everything Duratrax click THIS LINK for their official website.

The work week is nearly over, thank goodness it’s Friday! Check out a BigSquidRC TGIF Mystery Link.

Some of the highlights of the Cobra Be RTR are – waterproof speed controller, 2.4 GHz radio gear, metal gear servo, big bore shocks, aluminum shock towers, 7075 aluminum chassis, and 1850kv brushless motor. Part number for the new buggy is #600006 and you can get more information over on the Serpent Website.

Check out THIS LINK for more Serpent news right here on BigSquidRC.

The new part number is #6401-F111 and it has a street price of around $590. The latest edition of the Thunder Tiger MT4-G3 should be hitting hobby shop shelves in late May.

Hit THIS LINK for all the information on the new MT-G3 at the Thunder Tiger website, and check out THIS LINK for more Thunder Tiger news right here on BigSquidRC.

Some of the features on the RC10B4.2 Race Spec include- digital metal gear steering servo, 3300kv brushless motor, 2.4 GHz radio system, and water resistant speed control and receiver box. The part number for B4.2 RS is #9042 and the street price is $249. Hit up THIS LINK for more details and information.

Spin the wheel and take a chance on a BigSquidRC TGIF Mystery Link.

The new part number is #7039 and the street price is $260. Hit up THIS LINK to view more specifications over on the Team Associated website.

We have a lot more Associated news right HERE on BigSquidRC.

It is no secret I hate nitro, so I found it quite “interesting” that Brian would drop a nitro car on my desk for review (then he RAN out of my office). The new Duratrax Nissan GT-R has all the makings of a success, it has a big engine, a 2 speed tranny, and ultra hot scale looks. Did we have a good time with it, or did I end up smashing it to bits with a hammer out of frustration? Lets find out…

From: Duratrax
Direct Link: Nissan GT-R
Unboxing Pictures: Unboxing the Duratrax Nissan

Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Cubby

Specs:

RTR or Kit: RTR
Age: 14+
2wd or 4wd: 4wd
Shaft or Belt: Bones
Electric or Gas: Nitro
Waterproof: No
Scale: 1/10th
Length: 17.32″
Width: 8.46″
Height: 5.31″
Weight: 4.1 lbs
Wheelbase: 10.2″
Clutch: 3 shoe
Transmission: 2 speed
Motor: .18 ST18-S Super Tigre
Radio: Duratrax 2.4 GHz
Differential: Rear only, spool in front
Slipper Clutch: None
Driveshafts: Bones
Shocks: Plastic bodied, oil filled
Servo Saver: In rack
Screws: Phillips
Bearings: Full set
Tires: Duratrax street tread
Battery: None included
Part Number: DTXD51**
Top Speed (measured by BSRC): 34 mph
Warranty: 90 days limited plus Stress-Tech 12 months
Street Price: $299

Primary Competition: Traxxas Nitro 4-Tec, Associated TC3 Nitro

What’s Needed To Complete: 6 cell Ni-MH for roto-start, 4 AA cells for receiver pack, 4 AA cells for transmitter, fuel, glow igniter

Build Quality: The quality of assembly looked good. Nothing was binding, shocks were not leaking, tires were well glued, camber settings were in the ballpark, etc.

Test Drivers: Cubby, Brian, and Iron Mike

Test Venues: CostCo parking lot, city park, and a cul-de-sac

Set-up Notes: We used a Duratrax Onyx 3000 mah Ni-Mh pack for the roto-start, Venom AA’s for the car and transmitter, and O’Donnell 20% nitro fuel.

Turning: The Duratrax had some push at speed, but could turn on a dime with a tap of the brake. Pounding on the gas rewarded the driver with some serious, yet controllable, drifting action. The stock tires had good grip helping the Nissan GT-R maintain good corner speed. Overall, no major complaints and a blast to throw around in the corners.

Jumping: Yes, of course we jumped the Nissan GT-R, it’s a regular part of our testing regimen, regardless of vehicle type. And just like you suspected, it is an on-road car, so it jumps very poorly (but is a LOT of fun to do!). If you plan on doing a lot of jumping skip the Nissan and buy a dedicated off-roader.

Bumps/Whoops: We didn’t drive the Nissan “off-road” as such, but we did drive it on some pretty rough pavement, gravel, and smooth hard packed dirt. The Nissan handled cracks in the pavement well, but you could hear the back of the chassis slapping on bigger hits. Still, the suspension soaked up what it was intended for quite well.

On-Road: This is the forte of the Duratrax Nissan GT-R. If you are looking for an absolutely gnarly nitro on-road machine, it truly fits the bill. It corners well, it has an animal of an engine, and it just flat out hauls ass on a large paved surface. It doesn’t traction roll, and it’s a blast to drift at high speeds. Very fun.

Grass: Yes, we tried the Nissan GT-R in the grass, and no you won’t want to. Its ride height is simply too low, it just can’t move in the grass (at all).

Tires: The tires were a relatively soft compound yielding great traction and that must be appreciated. However, when mated up to a monster of an engine they wear quite quickly. We burnt through all four tires in two quarts of fuel, you’ll want to pick up spares for the long haul. The stock inserts are a bit soft but usable.

Power: I don’t drive much nitro, in fact, very little. However, I don’t have to drive a lot to know the .18 powered Nissan GT-R has good yank. When properly tuned it burns all 4 tires off from a dead stop and keeps burning them off till it hits top speed. It blows through first gear in short order then second gear kicks in like a warp drive. It revs quickly, and has more than enough yank to keep a smile on your face.

Radio: The included radio worked well for us, range was great and we had nothing but glitch free performance. However, its ergo’s weren’t as good as some of the recent RTR radios we’ve tested. The wheel to trigger relationship was good, but the trigger was a bit too large and the wheel was plastic covered, not foam.

Broken Parts: The Nissan GT-R can get going real fast in a real small area, thus we ended up slapping a lot of hard objects with it. The good news is nothing broke during “normal” testing, and we hit a lot of stuff real hard with it. Only when we tagged a curb full speed during the torture part of our testing did we finally manage to break the car. We ended up tearing off the left front wheel, but at that kind of speed I highly doubt many (if any) cars would have walked away unscathed.

Misc Notes:

The Duratrax came in nice packaging with an easy to read manual.

A clear protective coating came over the body to keep it in pristine condition during shipping. Nice.

We weren’t a fan of the tiny body clips.

The Nissan comes with a plastic pipe. It’s relatively quiet for a nitro, quiet enough to run in the cul-de-sac without the neighbors freaking out.

The cut-out in the body for the exhaust exit didn’t line up with the actual pipe. We broke out the body scissors to correct the hole and keep a lot of unwanted exhaust gook out of the chassis area.

There were no holes provided for a glow igniter or the roto-start in the body. We busted out the body reamer and made some for easier access.

The second arm on the throttle/brake servo horn gets in the way of the receiver box lid, we cut ours off.

Our car wouldn’t start with the stock ultra-rich carb settings. We had to go a half turn leaner on the high speed and an eighth turn leaner on the low end for ours to even think about firing up. This still yielded an ultra-rich setting with engine temps around 110 F for break-in.

We ran O’Donnell 20% fuel and it seemed to work great.

Nothing actually “fell off” our car during testing. If you’ve driven much nitro, you’ll know that is actually an accomplishment. However, the rubber coupling on the exhaust header did come loose. Nitro cars really should come stock with a flanged header, this has been a problem since the beginning of time. Btw, when the coupling comes loose it causes the pipe to slide forward and bind up the steering on the Nissan.

The stock windows are a bit cloudy due to the clear sticker over them. We got out a hobby knife and removed this film for crystal clear windows.

Like most nitro engines, the Nissan really leans out when the tank is nearly empty. Resist the urge to keep driving, bring it in and fuel it up to keep temps in check.

Speaking of temps, we had great power at 220 F with our final carb settings. We ended up at about one and a half turns out on both the low and high speed settings (65 ambient, 400 ft above sea level, humidity 40%).

The brakes work ok on the Nissan, but the car could use more. For a car with Warp 9 power it needs brakes to haul it down in a hurry too.

You can drive the Nissan in a relatively small area, but then it’s just an exercise in trying to get slowed down before you slam something hard. The most fun to be had with the Duratrax Nissan GT-R is in a large open parking lot.

Do you remember what a PITA it was to properly set the shift point on a T-Maxx? No worries about that on the Nissan GT-R, the shift point was perfect out of the box.

We had issues with the stock receiver pack set-up. It worked fine for the first few tanks, but then had a short in it causing the car to lose electrical power (read- runaways are pretty gnarly on a car like this). The stock receiver pack consists of putting AA’s in a plastic holder, this is just begging for issues and I highly suggest you install a proper receiver pack before you do much driving with the car.

Our car turned tighter to the right than to the left. We had the travel maxed out but still couldn’t get enough throw for full turning both directions.

Did we mention the Nissan GT-R has a pretty insane power to weight ratio? Ya, it hauls, and more importantly, we had very few engine tuning issues during our testing period.

We experienced some “spider cracking” in the paint job on our review car. Not a lot, but some. Perhaps there was an issue at the factory while applying the paint.

The wing and rear view mirrors on our test machine did not get destroyed during testing, a nice surprise.

Best Mod Under $5: Spare glow plugs. Our stocker burnt up on the 3rd break-in tank, you should always keep a couple spares in your box.

Best Mod Over $5: Ditch the stock receiver pack set-up and switch, buy a real receiver pack to keep from having a dreaded runaway.

Summary:

Time To Bash: C You are looking at roughly an hour to charge up the roto-start pack, then perhaps a couple more hours breaking in the engine. The Duratrax doesn’t take longer to get going than another nitro vehicle, but it will take a few hours before you are up to full tilt.

Workability: B The Nissan is logically laid out and easy to work on, but we wish it came with hex hardware.

Car Show Rating: A The Nissan GT-R is the best looking Duratrax vehicle to ever hit the market, and overall one hot scale machine. The body, wheels and tires all look top notch. It looks so good you have to think long and hard if you really want to scratch it up by driving it.

Bash-A-Bility: B We did end up breaking the Nissan GT-R, but it withstood a lot of abuse with no issues.

Fun Factor: B Big power, 2 speeds, and good handling result is a machine that is a blast to drive.

Handling: B The Duratrax drives well, you can point and shoot it, or drift it all day long.

Value: A The Duratrax is $30 cheaper than the Associated TC3 Nitro and a whopping $160 cheaper than the Traxxas Nitro 4-Tec 3.3, yet performs at least as well. The Duratrax Nissan GT-R is the best value in its class.

Parts Availability: C Out of three local hobby shops none of them stock many Duratrax parts, and none had the parts we needed for repair. However, they were easily found, and in stock, on-line.

BigSquid Rating: B The Duratrax Nissan GT-R provided quite a nitro thrill at a very reasonable price point. If you are looking for the nitro experience, the Nissan GT-R is a solid car.

The Rival Mini Monster comes with a 2.4 Ghz radio system, four oil filled shocks, 370 brushed motor, and 6 cell Ni-MH battery pack. It’s an RTR, so it is ready to drive right out of the box, and its part number is #20111. June is the expected release date, and you can get more information at THIS LINK on the Associated website.

Looking for more Associated news? Check THIS out right here on BigSquidRC.

Monster trucks are the weapon of choice for a true basher, their large tires give them plenty of ground clearance for grass driving and driving over large clods of dirt. One of the latest entries in this product categories comes from Helion, a division of Firelands Group and an exclusive product at HobbyTown USA. We’ve been trying to destroy the new Helion Invictus 10MT for weeks now. Did we succeed? Read on…

From: Helion RC
Direct Link: Invictus 10MT
Unboxing Pictures: Unboxing the Invictus

Review By: Cubby
Pics By: Cubby

Specs:

RTR or Kit: RTR
Age: 14+
2wd or 4wd: 4wd
Shaft or Belt: Shaft
Electric or Gas: Electric
Waterproof: Yes
Scale: 1/10th
Length: 16.61″
Width: 13.27″
Wheelbase: 10.83″
Motor: Radient brushless, 540, 3500kv
Speed Controller: Non-sensored brushless, Radient Reaktor
Low Voltage Cut-off: Yes
Radio: Helion HRS-3.1, 2.4 GHz, 3 chan
Differential: 2 gear diffs
Slipper Clutch: No
Driveshafts: Bones
Shocks: Plastic bodies, oil filled
Servo Saver: Horn type
Screws: Phillips
Spur/Pinion Pitch: 32 pitch
Bearings: Yes
Tires: Helion chevron pattern, foam inserts
Battery: 8 cell, 1800 mah Ni-MH
Part Number: HLNA0248
Top Speed (measured by BSRC w/ 2S Lipo): 26 mph
Warranty: 90 days limited
Street Price: $290

Primary Competition: Traxxas Stampede 4×4

What’s Needed To Complete: Four AA batteries

Build Quality: We saw no leaking shocks, nothing was binding, no excessive flash, camber/toe settings were in the ballpark, everything appeared to have been assembled correctly.

Test Drivers: Cubby, Brian, Tim, Sam the Noob, and Iron Mike

Test Venues: RC Outlaws in Collinsville IL, Cliff Cave Park in Oakville MO, CostCo parking lot, and a backyard.

Set-up Notes: We ran the Invictus bone stock initially, then went to a 2S 6500 mah MaxAmps lipo with Traxxas connector adapter later in testing. We used a Hyperion 720iNet3 to charge both the stock pack and the MaxAmps.

Turning: Just like the rest of the Helion line-up the Invictus has a LOT of steering, in fact too much on high bite surfaces, and so much the truck is hard to drive in a straight line. The front end is overly planted making the rear very loose. In a typical corner the Invictus plants hard at turn-in and the rear starts sliding around.

Jumping: The Invictus is a backflip machine. Leave the gas pounded off a jump face and the Invictus loves to backflip, even on small jumps. If you are coming from 2wd or from 4wd with a center diff, the Invictus is lots of fun to backflip but for normal jumping the lack of a center diff makes the truck ultra sensitive to trigger input. A slight stab of the brakes on a 2wd barely nudges the front end down, on the Invictus a little brake drops the front like a brick. Otherwise, due to the large tires and decent suspension take offs and landings are a joy. The big tires and all the travel can soak up crazy amounts of airtime. For example, when jumping off a second story roof the suspension/tire combo soaked up the ultra high impact landings arguably better than many other vehicle we’ve recently tested.

Bumps/Whoops: The Invictus is a beast in the gnarly stuff. Once again those large diameter tires and ample wheel travel can soak up some very rough terrain. We found the spring and damping rates worked well with the chassis, just point it and pin it, it will blast through the chop like a champ.

On-Road: Overall, the over-steer of the Invictus makes it hard to drive on-road and in the corners the rear end likes to slide out. It certainly soaks up pot-holes and road-joints very well, but generally it was hard to drive. There is an upside, the Invictus can be made into a much better on-road machine with a few simple changes.

Grass: The Invictus drives quite well in grass. It has decent ground clearance and those chevron tires give just about the right amount of side-bite.

Tires: Obviously the stock tires are chevrons so they look scale (which is very cool in our book). For actual rc driving they weren’t bad. They give very good bite in mud and they are manufactured from a compound that lives a long time but isn’t rock hard. For their intended use on a monster truck the stock tires hit the mark quite well. The foams were right in the ballpark, not too soft nor too hard.

Power: The included Radient Reactor brushless system has decent overall power. It provides enough power to wheelie, backflip, and throw crazy roost. However… the stock power system cogs like crazy and it runs really hot. The Invictus is overgeared out of the box, and the stock battery pack is not capable of putting out enough current to quench its demands.

Even by simply holding the Invictus up in the air and hitting the gas it cogs and takes a long time to hit max rpm (and it gets worse when the wheels are actually on the ground). Stock, the power system just isn’t set-up for a vehicle of the rotating mass of the Invictus.

We did drive the Invictus multiple times with the stock set-up, meaning stock gearing and battery. The 8 cell Ni-MH ended up running even hotter than the motor (more on this later), proving the stock pack just isn’t up to the task it is being asked to do. When switching over to a lipo (that we know first hand can handle some pretty insane current demands), it still cogged more than we’d like to see, indicating that it was over geared or the brushless system just wasn’t up to the demands of the rotating mass involved.

To get down to what the truck actually drove like, all stock it coggs a lot and often times took a while to get moving (in both forward or reverse). Once actually moving, after its soft low end programming, for sure it had good yank. It had decent top end (although it couldn’t pull its entire gearing) and had enough mid-rang snap to make big jumps, blast up hills, etc. Going to a quality Lipo cut most of the issues out, still some cogging, but a lot more mid-range yank.

To boil it down, yes, you can drive the Invictus with the stock battery and gearing, but I would highly recommend dropping as many teeth on the pinion as will mesh up, and going directly to a quality 2S Lipo.

Radio: The stock Helion radio had great range and weight distribution. The trigger was of a decent size and was nicely located in relation to the grip and wheel. The wheel had a decent foam on it and all the spring rates felt perfect. Overall, a decent and very usable RTR transmitter.

Broken Parts: We did not break one part on the Helion Invictus, even after crazy/stupid abuse. However, we did have some issues. The first thing we do with a new test vehicle is do a mph test. That takes about 2 minutes then we start taking pictures. While we are taking pics we are somewhat cautious to not break the vehicle. So… halfway through the first pack while taking pictures the Invictus spit out one of its front driveshafts. Our local HobbyTown USA didn’t have one in stock yet, so it was a day-ender. We hate day-enders, especially when we didn’t even crash or abuse a vehicle and it happens. Because it might take a while to get a replacement (They are at local Hobby Towns now, but we got our truck early) we dug through our parts box and found an Axial 96mm shaft that was just slightly shorter than the one the Invictus spit out. The Axial bone was much thicker than the Helion part, so we had to bust out the Dremel and do some mod’ing. An hour later the Axial bone would fit in the Helion’s outdrives. When we put the front bones back in we tightend up the pillow balls to make sure they couldn’t accidentally pop out again.

We then went on with our normal testing and didn’t break anything. The Helion lived through some massive crashes, deep water dives, and generally proved tough as nails. If a test vehicle lives through normal testing we start doing stupid stuff. The first “stupid” test was to huck the Invictus off a second story roof. We did that (3 times) to grass with absolutely no broken parts. We then flat landed to pavement from two stories up and ended up bending the center driveshaft bad enough that we will need to replace it.

Misc Notes:

The Helion motor runs hot, but the battery runs even hotter. The hottest day we drove the Invictus on was 70 degrees Fahrenheit, yet we saw motor temps over 160 degrees and over 165 on the battery. The battery got so hot its heat shrink shrunk, the high temps have us concerned about the stock battery life.

The Invictus is very waterproof. We had it over its roof in water multiple times with no ill effects. Kudos to Helion on how waterproof the Invictus is.

The speedo fan was quite loud, but things get hot, and it apparently needs it.

We didn’t notice this out of the box but after a bunch of runs the rear hubs had developed a lot of slop, causing a wobble in the rear tires under power.

We had a lower front shock screw back out. No biggie, but something to keep an eye on.

The clear pinion/spur cover looks neat and helps keep the nasties out of your gears.

We measured run-time at 9 minutes. The stock pack is listed at 1800 mah, but we measured it just over 2000 during a 1C discharge. 9 minutes run-time sounds like a long time to an old schooler, but feels quite short compared to the “norm” now days. When we popped in a 6500 mah MaxAmps it would run longer than we felt like driving it for.

The stock body clips are of a nice design. Sadly they are a bit too thin and bend easily (then disappear).

We’ve been blown away by the packaging from other manufactures lately, the artwork on the Helion box is a bit disappointing.

See the two neat little flags on the back of the body? Look fast, because they won’t last there long.

The red anodized pieces that come stock on the Invictus look cool.

The drivetrain on the Invictus rolled exceptionally free. This is a good thing, it means nothing is binding, giving you longer runtimes and more performance.

The stock servo is quite slow. Normally that is a bad thing, but on the Invictus it helps take some of the bite out of the trucks over-steer.

I was getting the truck ready for the first top speed testing when I realized there were no AA batteries for the transmitter in the box. I dug through the box and searched all over for them, I simply couldn’t find them. I then called Brian and chewed him out for “stealing the AA’s” out of the Helion box. Brian is quite the practical joker, and he owes me about a hundred pranks, so I thought the missing AA’s were his idea. I was wrong, the Helion comes with everything you need to get running except AA batteries. Helion, can ya please just drop in some cheap AA’s? Thanks in advance!

Best Mod Under $5: A new pinion, any pinion smaller than the stock.

Best Mod Over $5: A high quality Lipo battery.

Summary:

Time To Bash: C We didn’t use the included charger. Why? Because the manual says it takes “4-5 hours” to fully charge the pack. That is forever in the RTR bashing world. If you are using an aftermarket charger you can hit the track in about an hour.

Workability: B Good layout but we are not fans of Phillips hardware.

Car Show Rating: C Scale looking tires with good looking rims couldn’t overcome the body and graphics. We were just not feeling it on this one.

Bash-A-Bility: B Having a “day ender” on the first pack isn’t good, but at the end of testing we didn’t end up breaking any parts. This leads to some serious potential!

Fun Factor: C We had a blast running the Invictus through water holes, over mulch piles, and across a rough field, but the cogging and over-steer held back its fun factor score.

Handling: C The Invictus had its upsides- great suspension and ground clearance, and it’s downsides- too much steering and too touchy to trigger inputs while jumping.

Value: C The Invictus is $290, the Stampede 4×4 is $430, that’s a $130 difference. The problem is that it will probably cost you over $130 to catch up the the Stampede in electronics quality.

Parts Availability: C Our local HobbyTown USA didn’t have the front bone we needed to get going early in testing, but we knew we had the truck before it actually shipped! Helion parts are only available from a HobbyTown USA location, and as of this writing, they do have the parts in stock.

BigSquid Rating: C+ You have to admire the Invictus for taking the best we could dish out without breaking any parts, and with a few mods it can be an epic basher. However, out of the box its power system, over-steer and dog-bone issues keep it from hitting the mark.

The Stampede comes with a brushless ready transmission, ProGraphix body, waterproof XL-5 speed controller, TQ 2.4 GHz radio system and Titan 12-Turn motor. The new part number is #36054 and it should be right around the same price point as the old Stampede. For more information on all things Traxxas hit up their Official Website.

Looking for more Traxxas news? Check out THIS LINK.

With the new Thunder Tiger Desperado being a RTR, there is no need to waste hours building a boat, it’s ready to jam right out of the box. For size the Desperado has a length of 27.2 in, a beam of 7.3 in, a height of 6.1 in, and it weighs in at 2.7 lbs.

The Desperado Jr also comes with a bunch of features that everyone is looking for-

* Water cooled outrunner brushless motor
* 2.4 GHz Ace radio system
* One piece ABS hull
* A magnetic hatch
* Rudder flexes out of the way when hitting objects
* Part #TTRB5026 (green) and #TTRB5027 (blue)

Expect a street price of $250 and a release date of late March. Check out THIS link for more Thunder Tiger news right here on BigSquidRC.