Genghis

i am thtinking about racing with my T-Maxx 2.5R. I dont really want a new engine right now. It is all stock. what do i need to race?

R/C Madman

My Feedback: (1)

There are a lot of good ways to set up a Maxx for racing. It all depends on what you want to spend? $100-$1500?

Genghis

probally around 200 bucks to start with

R/C Madman

My Feedback: (1)

Suspension and tires is where you should start and remove reverse. Some good shocks (Traxxas Big Bores work well) and Proline bowties. Also make it as light as you can.

I no longer have a T-Maxx and I never raced it so, here is what you should be trying to do.

Genghis

what will make it not turn over as much?

Timmahh

wider stance and lower center of gravity. keep it wide and low. the trade off of weight to steel gear diffs, would be a biggie for me, the steels are soooo smooth and free moving when set up correctly. I m gonna do a Racer Maxx, use stock chassis. with alum or ti chassis braces, rmp bulks and widemaxx arms, all RRP FOC Tranny, with 3.3 drivetrain and full sealed ball bearings with stock case steel geared shimmed diffs. already have these ready.. probably gonna power it with a HB 26. maybe a CEN 46.
Timmahh

Genghis

if i raced stock or close to stock will i get totally annihalted?

tadecker

I suggest race until you know how to drive. Sounds like you are new to racing. Go with stock and see how you do. Once you learn to stay on your wheels then worry about what to buy.

And by the time you can stay on your wheels then you will know what to buy. Or at least met enough people at the track that can help you.

Timmahh

you ll get more wins with control than you will over speed, practice practice and more practice will get you there..... get a good understanding of how to set up your suspension and some good shocks as Madman stated, also better servos as well as teh noted foc tranny. lose anything you dont need and keep weight and cog as low as possible. a set up station can work wonders for the messed up handleing. im starting a Tmaxx racer build in a week or 2 when i get parts here.
Timmahh

evomac

I just got into the hobby myself. I kinda threw myself into the mix so to speak. When I got my tmaxx off a friend I ran into some problems with it so I had to replace the motor, receiver, and steering servo.

Once I did that I took it up to the track 1 day before the local club met. I literally spent about 4 hours just running the course over and over again. Making a little tweak here and a little one there.

Here are my recomendations to get started (well at least this is what I did)

1) Replace your stock steering servo. I wanted my tmaxx to not break the bank so pick up a hitec 645mg its only about 45 bucks and I couldn't believe the difference in turning over the 2055 (stock traxxis servo).

2) Do you like soccer, if so take your stock wheels / tires and practice your punting game . In all seriousness that day when I started to practice on the stock tires, once I started to get comfortable my friend gave me a set of his bowtie tires and it felt like a brand new truck. My lap times increased substantially. About 90% of all truck class racers at my club use bowties, as mentioned above scope out your local track and see what they are using but bowties seem to work great the the Maxx.

3) Get the traxxis forward only conversion. I just did this a week ago to my truck. The piece costs only $11. For 1, you can't use reverse at all in a real race. 2 I couldn't believe how much stuff came out of the truck just by ditching reverse (you lose about 3 gears, a servo, and a servo rod). For some reason my truck seemed a lot faster after doing this.

4) Now this is a personal recomendation from my own experience. GET A FAILSAFE. Its about 23 dollars or so but should you lose signal to your reciever the last thing you want is your truck running away at 40mph and even worse off during the race it goes off and hits a spectator.

5) Get a receiver battery pack. The 4 double A's do go through pretty quickly with the upgraded servo. Plus the response just seems much greater when you have a battery pack powering the car

So far you are looking at ~50 for the tires, $11 for the Forward only conversion, $45 for the servo, 10-15 for the battery, and $23 for the failsafe. This leaves you with about 50 - 60 dollars left. I'd recomend as stated above, a new shock setup. Also another viable purchase would be a new body for your truck. They are around 20-30 depending on what you get. However they are much more sturdy then the stock tmaxx body and if you are going to be racing it you will be bumping into other trucks, flipping, etc..

On my first race weekend I qualified 2nd for the B Main in the stock monster class (was pretty happy about that considering their are 3 tiers). I was actually doing quite well in the B main (had a chance to get bumped up to A) but my reverse screwed up and somehow slammed the car into reverse while I was going forward. I went a lap down before the servo finally engaged forward again. (another reason why I swapped the forward only conversion in).

So for a very minimal budget you can have a very good solid racer. Also my suggetion is stick w. the stock monster class. Don't try to bump your Maxx up to Open Monster class. I've seen a couple of guys throw in huge engines and spent a ton on upgrades and still get smoked by near stock lightnings and what not.

Also save some coin for gas, because even with the best truck out there you won't go anywhere without gas