Check out the Pro-Line Racing Epic Bead-Loc wheels. The design was created to make changing tires much easier. The one sided bead-loc captures both sides of the tire evenly. No gluing needed. The are built to fit the Traxxas Slayer front and rears.

News from Team Associated about their upcoming e-Conversion kit for the RC8, RC8T, and SC8. It’s designed to neatly convert your nitro to electric power. Comes with straps, battery tray to support 7.4 to 14.8v LiPo packs, new sealed receiver box for proper electronics placement. Also comes with two pinion gears and two spur gears and all needed hardware to mount the components to the chassis. The RC8 conversion will need the RC8e body. MSRP is $129, so you should see it for less when it ships in late December. Hmm.. if only I had a motor RC8T!

You are seeing it here first! We got our hands on the new Castle Creations Mamba Monster 2200kv Combo a little early! It comes with the Neu/Castle Motor, (designed by Steven Neu and Castle Creations), a Pinion, and the Castle Link. The street price when it starts shipping to the public should be $299.

Some additional info: 18 Cell NiCad/NiMH or 6S LiPo ready. Brake is proportional with adjustable curve. Can reverse with lockout, low voltage cutoff is programmable. ESC size is 2.2″ x 1.9″ x 1.4″, connector type 6.5mm bullet.
Neu-Castle 2200KV is intended for 6S (25.2vold) operation, and built for monster trucks and buggies.

I’m a big fan of the Castle Link and software. We will be doing our best to get this into a vehicle for testing ASAP! Stay tuned!

Here is the winner list and drawing for the November 2008 Big Squid RC Contest! I’d like to thank all of our readers for their support, and for sending in those awesome Fan Pictures! Keep sending those pictures in! Next month is the Grand Prize Drawing for the brand new RTR Duratrax RT-X 27 Monster Truck! ALL names go back in the hat for this drawing! We will have a few extra prizes this year as well!

Here is the video! Wow, I need some better lighting. No idea why it came out so red.

Congrats to our winners! We will be contacting you shortly.
1) Fredo - Illinois
2) Igor P. - Europe
3) Jacob T. - California

A new company has asked us for help in a new RC radio survey. You will see the banner floating around here and in the forum for the rest of the month. It’s a little long, but it’s for a good cause. If you have ever wanted to let someone know your feelings about the current state of RC radios, here is your chance! You can tell them what you like, what you don’t like, and how to improve them.

So if you have an opinion you want to share, click the blue banner and let them know! Oh yea.. and you could win $250!

Our good friends over at HobbyMedia.it dropped us a line about some info and pictures they got on the new HPI Racing Cyber 10B! It sounds like it will be shipping in very early 2009 in Japan, and is aimed at the newer more amature racer. It’s electric, and 4WD.

It showed up a few days ago as a possible Hot Bodies vehicle, complete with picture.. but it sounds like HPI has claimed dibs! It will be interesting to see what name it’s under if it shows up in the US!

Just a quick note, there is now an official Mini RC Forum over in our forums area. We used to get a pretty good Mini/Micro crowd around here, as well as doing a lot of videos and reviews in the 1/18th scale area and thought it might be a good idea to get something started with the coming of the 1/16th scale E-Revo and Slayer-EX in the near future! I’m sure people will want to discuss hop-up, motors and batteries, but also know that there are a ton of people really into the Mini/Micro scene! Heck, we have some of the top 1/18th scale drivers in the world already in our forum and posting news on our page, so it seemed only appropriate!
If you are into the Mini’s, make sure to head over to the new Mini RC Forum and check it out!

Over in our RC Reviews section I have posted up the written version of the Gears of War 2 - RC Centaur Tank Review!! Is it really the worst RC vehicle to hit the market recently? Could someone make a vehicle that can’t roll and steer at the same time? Head on over to the RC Reviews section or click the picture and find out!

The video review is there as well. Also the video has now been posted over on Youtube. So if you want to see it there, just search on BigSquidRC Gears and it should come up.

Here is a video review of the Gears of War 2 Centaur Tank from Best Buy that you could get with the special edition pre-order OR buy outright for $30. I’ll post up a full web review later today, but I wanted to share the video review with everyone since that part is done and ready to go. Basically it’s junk. It’s one of the worst RC vehicles I have ever seen or touched, and I have seen a ton of them. This is worse then any cheap Toys R’ Us vehicle you could ever buy! Do NOT buy one of these!

Now that everyone has recovered from their turkey induced coma, let’s get down to the nitty gritty-

Tebo is signed up to the hilt with the K-crew. Ya, ya, I know you heard the news days (weeks?) ago, so it’s no huge surprise. What is a bit surprising is Tebo leaving his electrics at AE, having also signed up to exclusively run Kyosho electric trucks/buggies. The nitro MP-9 is more than up to the challenge of winning, K-car electrics, well, have not been dominant for a long, long time. Also, I suppose some people that are not so deep into the sport might think that Tebo changing over to AKA tires and Orion electronics might be a surprise. But seeing as Kyosho owns AKA and runs Orion America, most likely it was just part of the deal. Tebo is nearly 100% Kyosho now, except for now running Byron’s fuel (best fuel on the market, or at the least, the best people behind the fuel, IMO). Before, Kyosho had an “American Dream Team” of talent, now, with Tebo on board, it’s even more so. Here’s hoping the very best to JT with his new Kyosho rides, and here’s hoping that Kyosho and their even stronger “Dream Team” can come up with cars/trucks/buggies that someone wants to buy.

AE, the biggest, baddest, gnarliest American car manufacture announced their way-super-dope RC8 electric conversion this week. Smart move? Those 8th scale electrics aren’t flying off dealer shelves as one would have thought a year ago, so perhaps just putting out a conversion kit is smart. On the other hand, AE is just throwing their hat into the ring of the conversion market, along with Novak, Castle, Tekno, ect. If they’d just sell the buggy already outfitted for electric, there would BE no conversion market.

While I’m on the subject of 8th scale electrics, I had heard weeks ago that Caster Racing might be submitting a buggy for an official BigSquid test. Maybe it takes months to get one? Just say’n…….

Now onto this weeks “Hot Deals!!”.

Traxxas has announced that they will give you two free 7 cell battery packs when you purchase an E-Revo. Props to Traxxas!

HPI has become the second manufacture to announce factory cash back. Buy certain HPI/Hot Bodies products, ship’em your receipt and UPC code off the box, and get $100 back! Props to HPI!

And perhaps the best deal so far? A Tower Hobbies internet special where you got $20 off a $50 purchase. This deal just expired, but every week Tower seems to come up with new hard to resist savings. It’s obvious Hobbico/GP/Tower is trying hard to get your business.

Just a note to all you BigSquidRC readers- if you happen to get a flier in the mail or email box that shows huge savings, forward it to Brian at BigSquidRC dot com so he can share the savings with all our readers.

Lastly, it seems the “Cubby Awards” has taken on a life of it’s own. I get paid per reader, and Brian has always told me I only had 3 readers, resulting in diddly crap for net take home pay. Well, either my 3 readers have been voting 20 times a day, or I have more than 3 readers, because votes for the Cubbies have been pouring in at a rate that even freaks me out. If you have not Voted, it just takes a couple minutes, so start mashing those keys!

Till next week, support your LHS, support your local track, and get those votes in.

Your Cub Reporter

Recently we posted some news about the Caster Racing USA ZX1.5R and that it would be shipping in December. Well, we just received a bunch of new pictures of the vehicle, so I’m guessing Caster Racing is getting ready to start shipping them! Enjoy the pictures.

Last weekend I stopped out at the Leisure Hours Raceway track to check out a little impromptu rock crawling action and take some pictures. A bunch of guys showed up to brave the weather and just have some fun on the LH RC Rock Crawling Course. It was a good time, and there were all sorts of vehicles. Everything from the big scalers to the new Mini Losi Crawler.

Bernie has been working on getting some bigger rocks as well, so it was time for a little king of the mountain. It was great meeting a few new people that were fans of the site, and always cool to see people with Big Squid RC stickers on their vehicles before I even hand any out. Make sure to keep your eye on the Rock Crawling Forum for any future crawler bashes. Also, make sure to check out the forum for a new RC Rock Crawling Poll! Leisure Hours is wondering if there would be an interest in setting up an indoor course for the winter. So make sure you head over to the Rock Crawling Forum and voice your opinion!

Hey all,

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy Turkey Day. Since many people are looking at a 4 day weekend, make sure to try and get outside, get some fresh air and some RC bashing in while you are digesting all that turkey and stuffing!

Here is a new picture for the Fan Pictures section, and to enter the Big Squid RC Contest.

Remember, we only have two drawings left, and someone is going to win a brand new Duratrax RT-X27!! Make sure to head over to the Big Squid RC Contest page for all the details! Good luck!

We just recieved word that the Caster Racing USA ZX1.5R has an official ship date of December 10th, 2008.
The ZX1.5R is lighter then it’s previous model and has 16 different upgrades. It also now comes in KIT form. It’s been tough to get RC’s as a kit lately, and sometimes a lot of the fun is putting it together yourself. (As long as there are good instructions!) Head over to the Caster Racing site for your pre-order goodness.

Last week I cover the weak links of the Traxxas Slash. All though few; the Slash has them. Last week I talked only about the shocks, because it’s the one thing that needs to be fixed right out of the box. They will pop off just tooling around the drive way. All of the items that I am going to talk about in this report are things that don’t have to be replaced; unless you plan on strapping in tons of brushless/lipo horsepower.

The c-hubs, steering knuckles, and axle carries are all a point of interest and can be fixed in the same way. The strongest option is of course aluminum. The aluminum will keep these areas from breaking as long as it doesn’t get run over buy a car.  There are two problems with the aluminum. First is of-course price. With the aluminum parts ranging from $20 to $30 it’s not really worth it. Second is that they are so stiff that they will make other parts break. The one other option that you can consider other than just keeping spares is RPM products. RPM parts use a very flexible nylon plastic that will bend, but not break. With the parts running about $9 they are a lot cheaper than the aluminum parts and week links won’t be created down the line. Only problem that might end up happening is that some tracks won’t allow the aluminum or the RPM parts. So be sure to check the rules at your track.

One other problem only happens in really dusty conditions or really high horsepower. The spur gear in the Slash is a really tough chunk of plastic, but it can be destroyed. In dusty conditions the huge hole in the stock spur gear cover allows a lot of dirt to eat up the spur gear. The cheap fix is just a simple little piece of tape. This works good, but you’ll need to replace it often, because it will fall off. A more permanent set-up is the RPM gear cover. The RPM gear cover has no hole and is made of the same nylon plastic as their arms, axle carriers, c-hubs, ect. So you know that it can take a beating. When running brushless and lipo the will even get pushed past its limits. To keep from striping the teeth right off the gear just simply loosen the slipper clutches nut till the slipper will slip for about a foot or two. If you have enough power it should pull a nice little wheelie and keep your spur gear intact.

All of these points don’t really need to be hopped up. Its all about how hard you are going to drive your Slash. If your just tooling around your drive-way then you may never break anything. However; if you plan on strapping in tons of power and getting 25 feet of air at I-Hobby. You’re going to want to a little bit of modifying. Till next time. Keep it rolling.

Jason Annis

So far the response has been pretty hot and heated! All sorts of vehicles are coming in for the Car/Truck of the year as well as Man of the year! This is just a reminder message to keep those votes coming!

During the second week of December I’ll be holding my first “Cubbies” awards. These will be awarded based on reader responses, in conjunction with my input and input from a variety of industry insiders. Email nominees to Brian at BigSquidRC dot com for the following categories-

08′ Car/Truck of the year-
08′ Worst Car/Truck of the year-
08′ Best piece of rc gear of the year-
08′ Biggest POS rc gear of the year-
08′ Zero to hero of the year (person or item that came out of nowhere to pwn)-
08′ RC Man of the year-

Your Cub Reporter

There’s something about a big conversion like this that I really dig. This is the Exotek Racing R14 Team Associated RC18R Conversion. It takes your RC18R and makes it a 1/4th scale on road power house. It’s got all sorts of carbon fiber goodness, lower CG, 1/10th scale sedan style front bumper, some new aluminum parts like server mounts and center bulkhead, and comes in blue or gun metal! All this for under $150. Sweet. For all the details, here is the direct link to the Exotek Racing R14 Conversion.

Working on a electric RC this winter? Blue Groove RC Concepts has these 11″ Battery / Utility straps to help secure your stuff to your ride. They are made from nylon with a plastic buckle to help prevent shorts, and have a velcro type inside to keep things closed. Their press release also says they make a cool watch strap. Hmm.. I think I know what I’m getting Cubby for X-Mas!

For all those that are doing a little holiday shopping for that special someone into RC (yea.. you!), Futaba has their winter Rebate Program going! You can get cash back, or a bigger merchandise certificate on most of their newer radios systems. Make sure to head over to the Futaba page for all the details.