i like this. i dont race or own a bandit. the idea of seeing some one put the effort and time into actually seeing what it needs or does not need. to get a beginner basher grade buggy to be competitive intrigues me.
its very much a copy of Associated's old RC10 in the first place, so if its set up correctly it WILL directly compete with one. I liked Traxxas in their early days when they were the budget copycats, its shameful that they are now so litigious. they do make good products, but customers are paying more for those lawyers..
@@caedenthefarmer9918 theres actually a guy in the US that races a bandit competitively and wins plenty. Started as a joke but it does a hell of a lot better than everyone thinks
Ive raced a bandit many times. With traxxas upgraded shocks, the right springs and oil, and the correct tires for the track the bandit is competitive. I did quite well with it and had 1/10th the cost vs the average car in the class. A few of us ran bandits at that track. It was fun. I did put a few stick on wheel weights on the front to get the weight displacement right. Made a world of difference
So, I used to race traxxas back when traxxas raced. TRX1 and SRT. Watching a bandit run those times is testimony to what the 90s were.. just a basic car that worked. Thanks for doing this. Put a quick servo in it, and watch it pull another second off. The amount of time you lost compensating ( quite well! ) for that stock servo would be a huge gain.
I love this series. I think it's a good sign for anybody new into racing that if you want to at least get in an run with guys (maybe not beat but at least be competitive) you can do it for not a ton... Also goes to show how big the right tires are. Can't wait to see part 2. Keep up the good work. Got a sub here.
I did the same thing with my LCG Slash 2wd. After a few mods, I was turning faster laps with it than my TLR 22SCT 2.0. I won the 2wd mod A-main with the Slash. 😜🤘
cool video. i always wanted to see an IROC style race with the top r/c drivers in the world where they all get the same bone stock bandit or something else silly and watch them duke it out.
stock class was a lot like that, you could adjust the suspension and choose your pinion was about it. there used to be stock class Tamiya Hornet racing had to be a Hornet or a close clone to enter. 27 turn 20 degree brush timing 05 motor with bushings, required to race.
Did it at the 1986 1/12 roar nats. Gave all A main qualifiers Dustbuster vacuum cleaners and they needed to use the batteries and motors from them for a demonstration race. It didn’t slow them down much. Skill trumps equipment.
Cool vid, fun to watch. Basically the Bandit is a design that lifted it's whole format from what 90's Losi were doing. With a faster servo, adjustable turnbuckles and a better esc/motor, it will probably go quite well.
before Losi was Associated's RC10 with the widened front A-arms and stealth transmission they started doing in 1986. the geometry very similar to the Tamiya Fox (its monocoque chassis IS a pain tho!) was a great handling car.
@@modelnutty6503 thx for that, I have an RC10, I think it's a worlds or close to it. It has the Stealth transmission. It's a bit of a hodge podge to be honest. I bought it 2nd hand.
Subscribed! I love seeing someone else try this. I converted my bandit to mid motor and brushless recently. It was a lot of work. I used fusion 360 for the chassis that is now cut out of carbon fiber. Loving the build series and can't wait to see more
Never watched your channel before but love the idea of someone taking a cheap off the peg RTR and taking it racing. Makes for a really captivating watch. I dont own either of these vehicles either. Cant wait to see what happens next. Great vid, well done :)
Quite surprised and impressed! I'm gonna send this video to my Dad who own a Bandit. Im a big traxxas fan and I know that they are usually bashing machines more than racing rcs. In the 2wd category between Slash, Rustler and Bandit. The Bandit performs a lot better in cornering. Lately I bought a slash 4x4 ultimate with the LCG chassis. Can't believe how good the handling is. Comparable to a Losi SCT. Great video man! Can't wait for you to upgrade it
First vid I’ve seen of yours, you got my subb. Love this! I’ve been thinking the same. 2k buy in to go race is just nuts. I’m really curious if the brushless motor options will do enough to race competitively.
Racing RC cars on track is one of the most fun things I’ve ever done! If only I didn’t have the debilitating mind set of upgrading toygrade cars to complete with hobby grade stuff 😅 I’m currently working on a Tyco Porsche 962 to compete in some carpet racing against Schumachers, Awesomatix, and XRays 🤣
Sadly everything is consumer based and money driven. From toys to electronics and full size vehicles. People rush out to get the latest and greatest. I was on that bandwagon for a long time with dirtbikes. I had kids and wasn’t able to buy a new bike every year or two. So I focused on technique,setup and taking care of what I had. That transferred to RC when I was racing. Cool to watch.
that is that 272 transmission for you. i will agree the tires that come with them suck and believe it or not the bandit platform has been around for over 28 years now. i had one back when they first came out and they where fast but the transmission would fail all the time from plastic gears. i raced it anyhow and won many races. the only thing i hated was needing to have a spare idler gear because i would strip one out every weekend racing it and i got to where i could change it out in about 5 minutes. i was so happy when they finally did the revision on the transmission making all the gears in metal making them much more dependable
Thanks for doing this. It shows all the haters that a basic, old design can still be decent and fun. Traxxas has never really been the go-to for racing but with a few small mods, they can be competitive.
@@mxacres back when short course class was in its infancy, I raced the slash 4x4 vxl against many of the early mini buggies that were cloaked under sc bodies. I won many races with it. We also currently race stock bandit carpet offroad indoors, they are silly fun. The differential is the weak link in the handling. The pro version has the good differential but at that point its cheaper to buy a rtr based off of a race platform.
I’m heavy into rc’s and rc videos (love drifting videos, I have 2 and the closest track is 3 hrs away). His is One of the best rc videos I’ve seen. Love the comparison.
i dont race off road, but have raced oval with the traxxas platform both on the slash and bandit. won and podiumed several races with them, but it takes alot of work and trial error to get it to that point.
Quite easy to make it faster. Swap the ESC and motor, drop the esc down to the chassis tray. Next get proline rear hubs, and proline front hubs...etc. If you need any help give me a shout. Also go with the longer from arms in the front the steering will be a good bit more and run the TLR zero offset wheels in the front.
I can tell you from experience the car really doesn't matter, I used to race my mini mgt associated monster truck in the truggy class for fun after I was done racing my buggy, I would actually podeumed every race by just being consistent and smooth, good driving can make up for a slow car.
Back in the day when monster trucks were a thing, I raced a E-Revo with the 700 drill motor in it against Eight-T/RC8-T etc and would win. Sometimes it's the setup and driving. Math doesn't care how much you spent.
I’m doing this similar thing now but moving all electronics to the front. I made a Chevy 3 window body with just enough room to fit the electronics up their. Bandits come in at about 20% weight on the front wheels fast in a straight line but hard to turn. Looking to get about 43% weight on the front
just joined a shortcourse group , going back to rc after like 22 years break. They all run tlr they were laughing at my stock slash with stock tires, one borrowed me his tires ... LOL hello guys im there !!
On a track surface like that, I would try a sealed diff in there. Experiment with the fluid viscosity to balance corner entry and corner exit feel. You should be able to get that car to rotate better through the corners to drop the lap times. A servo upgrade would be nice, nothing real fast or expensive. And I've always ran 1/2 to 3/4 oz. of extra weight up front at the bulkhead for some more on power steering on these rear motor cars.
Thank you for this video. I’ve been wanting to upgrade my bandit. Been getting bored with it but now I know I can get those tires and I will now upgrade that pinion gear.
Oh... Protek or Savox metal geared servo... Must haves for the bandit. Heads up. The stock electronics are notorious for realeasing the magic genie smoke... Spectrum makes a 40A brushed combo. And the motor has ball bearings on the shaft. Whereas the traxxas unit only has brass bungs on the ends of the armature. ✌️
Hey dude im Andrew in the country of Australia im 47 and way into RC and this came up on my feed and im right into this as i have just bought a traxxas bandit and rustler just the 2S range with the lights and stuff but i do want to modify it / them so will be watching this series closely and im sure its gonna be fun cheers and happy holidays to you bro :-)fun and cheerful :-) times ahead .
I neither race nor own a bandit but I do have several Traxxas vehicles and love them. Of course I also love my Associateds, my Losis, and so on. I’ve never seen your channel before but this was an awesome video!
First time seeing one of your videos. And hearing bud dog rc got me thinking and wondering if it’s the same one that I used to drive by all the time. If it is, small world and that’s cool haha. Entertaining vid as well.
Very cool, I use to race my Rustler on a backyard track in the early 2000's. It kinda sucked to hear Traxxas fell off of racing and geared towards more bashing. I have a Bandit now that I wanna get going!
i was 10 in 2003 and got a bandit for christmas that year and the owner of the hobby and track i raced at would get pissed that i was not racing a losi or associated now every one is running a slash.
Reminds me of when the jato 3.3 came out and I showed up to race with a brushed duratrax evader and managed to win, not because I was a good driver but because no one could keep those things on the track 😂 and mine would only go like 13mph so I had no choice but to stay on the track
That's what many people really miss in logic of racing. It's not how powerful your car is. Even with real cars. A GT. 350 will be better suited for a winding track then a GT 500 mustang. Took me a lot of time and money to figure it out.
Go ahead and buy everything RPM makes for the bandit. Except for the castor block. Replace the stock units with the aluminum traxxas bits. Throw on a set of some good metal body shocks. Drop back down to a 27T pinion. You'll be faster out of the corners. Buy a full bearing kit from Jims or Fast Eddie's. (The brass bushings are garbage) Split the transmission and try some 20,000 wt diff fluid. Aluminum hexs are pretty standard and worth it. Inyegy makes a very nice Carbon fiber 2 layer deck/chassis as well... Avoid Aluminum a arms. RPM Nylon is what you want. You'll never break em. 2s brushless will get you another 3 seconds off your lap times. Good luck!
Great videos , the cars fast becuase its based on the traxxas trx-3/tcp , well the suspension geometry is . i raced the TRX-1 and trx-3 and they handled the bumps soooo smooth. Especially the TRX-1 the shocks made a BIG difference on the cars . I went from a lowly 2nd in the b finals qualifying to the A FINAL 5th and challenging the all Ireland champion at the time , I had moved from a schumacher cougar 2 to it and it was the best car I had back in the day .
I ran a TRX3, SRT and Blue Eagle LS back in the early-mid 90's and they were great cars. My home track had a lot of factory drivers, so I couldn't win many races regardless of my car, but I let a factory driver run my SRT once and he dominated with it. I am also old enough to remember the team guys experimenting with mid-motor setups, but they didn't feel that they were faster, which is why I am so surprised to see everything has gone that way now. I'm looking to get back into it with my 6yr old son now, and I think I'll just stick to the old school rear motor and see what happens. Also, the Bandit chassis has a longer wheelbase than the TRX3 by about 3/4", so if you can locate and old TRX3 chassis you can shave time off your laps in the corners. Everything should bolt right up to the old chassis.
Mudboss uses the slash. I bet if you prepped the diff like we do with mudboss it would drive even better. Basically get all the grease out of the trans diff. Bearings prep the shields and probably be very competitive. Also a thing to remember being a rear motor configuration its characteristics are going to be different. This will definitely be competitive on the club level. A friend of mine and I had did this running off road with the rc10 T and a tamiya Stadium Blitzer. He brought the blitzer out when it was a handout motor race and won.. by a pretty big margin. That was in the early 1993-94ish?
Cool series man, I have a Bandit also, it s a cool platform. I like the how you recorded the footage on the track, I m thinkin you had help as opposed to ful head cam. I m surprised it doesn t wheelie with the slicks though...
Great video and details 👍. Do you know if I can change the body to another shell? Are most same scale shells made to be universal in fitment? I was thinking of an older truck style and saw custom shells and was wondering if they would fit if they are also the same scale.
good stuff! that servo is way faster than they used to be back when the slash came out haha. just shows you dont need to spend a lot to be fast. just put the right tires for conditions and your good. hell you couldve probably shaved those stock tires, put foam in them, dope em, and theyd get you most of the way there.
cant wait to see more, i always wondered the same thing too. it can easily be converted to stadium truck too. or truggy whatever they call em now days. i miss the days when they had nitro indoors, the eyes tearing, soar throat, burning in the nose, the good ole days, now everything is electric and fast af.
@@DetoursRC oh really? I need to go look this up. I still have my old tub chassis RC10GT which I have been itching to race... electric is fun and easy, nitro gets in your blood.
@@blsully yeah ignite design makes conversion kits for the tlr, associated and xray stadium trucks. They are nice I have the tlr 22t 4.0 nitro. Some tracks have races for them.
Maybe this will help your decision I have a grave digger stampede from 10+ years ago. It still works and we still drive it. Simply changing to a 22t pinion and running a 2s lipo made it a wheelie machine. Just today I put in a 10+ year old esc and a 6000kv brushless motor I had lying around. Geared down to 18t given the kv of the motor. It is now almost undrivable. Moral of story, stampede is a great platform and just changing one gear and nothing else makes it super fun to drive
@@fartdonkey8290 on the contrary I have a 10+ year old velineon rustler. I ended up having to swap the receiver I guess it got wet or something over time it was acting funky.. No throttle then BAM all the throttle. Receiver swap, bound to a new transmitter and she was off to the races! I forgot how bad steering servos used to be! Lol
I have a 4x4 stampede brushless and a 2WD BRUSHED rustler. For neighborhood play the rustler is the favorite. Crazy how nice it is for such an inexpensive toy. For off road and hill climbing it’s amazing how well the 4x4 stampede does. Its climbed stuff I never thought possible.
The next thing I would do is graft on an anti-roll bar on the rear end. I don't see anyone selling a Bandit specific kit, which seems crazy, but with a little creativity I'm sure something can be done.