Racer's, lets talk about the new breeds of 2wd buggies...

[kaiser]

Most likely stuck in the West Coast port shut down and strike for the backorder fills. San Pedro/La port is a few months backed up. So they are playing catch up right now. (supposedly the T5M's are sitting out there now which is paid for and i am waiting for)

now that i've decided on the b5m, the wait is on for them to arrive. waiting....

i've decided to order the regular b5m, along with ft arm mounts all around, clamping hex's, x rings and few sets of wheels.

riddle me this, why two different wheels? 60mm and normal....? que pasa?

[slotcarrod]

60mm is the new wheel, more like a 1/8 buggy wheel bead with less side wall flex. I think it is best for high traction tracks, I also think it may be less weight as well. Problem is some tracks and races do not allow them.

[kaiser]

so the same tires fit both wheels?

[slotcarrod]

No 60mm or 2.4 tires are different, but some guys mod 2.2 to fit! http://blog.jconcepts.net/2014/12/jconcepts-new-release-60mm-2-4-dirt-webs/

[kaiser]

gotcha, i'm going to stick to 2.2's for now.
thanks.

[kaiser]

WOOT! some limited quantities of b5m's finally came ashore and i got one.

can't wait for the build.

[alien3t]

if they came ashore. hopefully that means the T%M's are here? ugh waiting and waiting. get a regular, b5m, or the new lite version?

[kaiser]

regular, i want the 4 gear and i'm not concerned about weight.

[kaiser]

i think the t5m's are with the ft lite's, still showing late march.
the regular b5m's showed mid march until lunchtime today.

[kaiser]

funny mis packaged spur in with my b5m kit, the 81tooth is a kimbrough for a six gear. the 72 is correct, but theres no way the kimbrough will work.
luckily i have a ton of correct spurs.

<--- not in love with the new ball cups. tight, which i can work around but it's a pain, and one was broken in the bag. (crack in cup area)

i'm digging the build so far, got about 3.5hours in so far. gearbox/diff done and started the turnbuckles last night, until i found that broken end.

[JHarris]

There wasn't a single mention of the 22 in this thread. Don't get me wrong, the B5M is a good car. Jeremy won the 17.5 national championship with one last year, but it's no better or worse than the 22, yet nobody chimed in with a TLR suggestion.

[kaiser]

personally i just wasn't interested in the tlr.

[Beau S]

my 2cents

im not a loyalist.. I've typically found myself sticking with AE 2wd buggy, Losi 4wd for most of my racing life. I've tried lots of different cars and keep coming back to this.

I ran the 22 from the time it came out, switched from a B4.. loved it. Upgraded it to 22 2.0 susp and steering components, loved it. Then had a racing hiatus. During the 1st 6months of that hiatus, TLR came out with new upgrades, that would cost about $100 to get. Then mid became dominate and now I would need to upgrade to brass parts too. Then 3months later they now have a new short chassis that runs shorty in mid. etc... I found that I would have to spend ~$250 on upgrades to get my 22 1.0/2.0 up to racing spec after not racing for about 1yr. Which even if I bought a new 22 2.0 i'd still have to spend about that much to upgrade it. Love the car, don't love the cost of keeping it racer spec'd.

That being said, Yok & Kyo update their stuff almost as often, but with parts availability kinda sucking.. even though they are great cars!
Xray & HB have buggies too.. HB not out yet.. but again its parts availability. Oddly, its easier to get parts for the Re-Re 10's than some of the modern buggies. lol

AE B5m, maybe the "boring" car now, but it works... but it has tons of parts support that are very nicely priced... but you can build the kit out of the box and race it w/o having to drop another $200 on upgrades (you can choose to buy ALL the trick stuff but you can race the kit, esp the B5m lite).. I have a B5r that I bought for a donor to use for an RC10 project, but by fall, it will be a B5M and ready to race. Even if its just the regular B5m not the Lite Ver..

[kaiser]

i did drop some coin on a bunch of ft goodies, but even then it came out cheaper then the tlr/yz2/k car.

the car that intrigued me the most was the yz2, almost pulled the trigger.

a voice of reason entered my head (which sounds alot like mark westerfield lol, thanks bud), and i came to my senses and got the b5m.

i'm going to run mod with it, hopefully i can get some of the guys running stock to move. i don't quite understand why all the local fast guys are running stock.
i mean whats the point? all you hear are complaints about cheating, dropping massive coin on upgrades to loose weight..... same old stock! lol

i'm excited to get it on the track, especially the big outdoor track. it will be a fun challenge to get it to hook up on a loose surface....i look foward to it.

[Beau S]

HA! I think that's always been the point of stock class - Who's the fastest cheater!

The newbs do better to enter a straight Novice class than a Stock Class anymore.