When I saw this kit pop up on eBay, I couldn’t resist having it. The Porsche 911 GT1 ‘96 is one of my favourite race cars of all time and I also have a model of nearly this exact car in my childhood Scalextric collection.
On collection, the previous owner told me that he used to work for Porsche in some capacity, which makes sense as this car is in mostly German language packaging and listed as pre-assembled. From what I can tell this isn't something that was widely available off the shelf. Upon closer inspection of the car itself it was obvious it had been well used at a time, with a few minor cracks in the front of the shell and some scrapes to the chassis and body of the car, but really in good nick for something that had probably last seen the light 20+ years ago.
Once I got it home I gave it a quick go straight out of the box, with a knackered old NiCad (before I’d started buying new batteries), and it worked fairly well on first test but definitely needed a bit of work. The stock pinion seemed pretty slow, but I think it was as much down to the battery. The original Acoms transmitter also didn’t power on as it was all corroded in the battery compartment so I used my own old mint Acoms Transmitter with the crystal swapped out.
I never really got on with the old mechanical speed controllers. They either never reached fully open, or they got stuck and you get a runaway car... so that needed replacing with a new ESC and the old Acoms radio gear could do with replacing too. The original transmitter was actually non-functional as old batteries had corroded the contacts in the battery compartment so I kept the crystals and binned the transmitter.
As always, the first thing to get upgraded was the bushings to bearings!
I don’t understand how or why bushings can be considered acceptable in any level of RC car in this day and age, especially given how cheap a set is. It’s just so obviously a business decision by Tamiya so they can sell you an upgrade straight away (so I obviously went with a third party manufacturer)… anyway tiny rant over…
Full teardown soon commenced and bearings added along with a bunch of Hop Up upgrades from eBay. I also greased the diffs and the transmission while I was in there.
We have two small unforeseen complications that come with this particular chassis kit (mostly because I'm a total noob to RC!). The first one is that the 911GT1 kit is a short wheelbase 237mm TA03RS, meaning the shell can't be transferred to any of the modern chassis’ because none of the new ones can be set up that short. Equally if you want to use the chassis with a different shell then it's nigh on impossible to find 237mm wheelbase touring bodies for anything other than astronomical prices... Secondly this is a discontinued chassis, so original hop-ups are quite hard to come by and often expensive, being sold by collectors. Occasionally bits pop up that are part of teardowns of non-functioning cars so come a bit cheaper. What's annoying is that there have been TA03RS reissues in the not too distant past. In 2022 there was a Porsche 911 GT1 Street that was released on TA03RS, but Tamiya seemingly didn't put out any additional spares or hop ups for it so there's still a wild second hand market and a handful of small companies making spares in China and Japan, which of course is slow and expensive to ship to the UK. Stabiliser bars are like hens teeth and generally mostly only attached to full builds. It's odd because they come as a set with other hardness bars, but those other bars appear to also have gone missing.
Anyway, over the course of a few months I managed to source alloy c-hubs, rear uprights, gearbox cover/motor heatsink, and front knuckle arms. I like to have metal parts for bearing to sit in if possible and the gearbox cover/motor heatsink felt necessary for larger pinions and the planned brushless motor upgrade! Who knows how effective it will be though as it’s basically just a metal plate attached to the motor mounting plate, so heat transfer via the screws is not exactly going to be the most efficient process.
Initially I found a used Hobbywing 10BL120 brushless sensored system with a 10.5T motor on eBay; presumably removed from some sort of racing buggy. The ESC needed new battery connectors, as it was wired with bullets for shorty Lipos, so I stuck a Deans T Plug on it to match my batteries. I’ve also popped in a new servo, which has drastically improved the steering response! The old Acoms AS12 just wasn't doing the body justice, so I went with an SRT CH6012 9KG 0.07s servo, which I'd highly recommend (see review post).
First test after the new electronics went in, with the biggest pinion you can fit in the chassis (25T), and it runs fast! Outrageously punchy. That upgrade to the steering servo has made a big difference too, and a lot of the slop in the old servo saver negated by upgrading it to the newer Hi-Torque one, and using the aluminium arm upgrade. I’ll also need to glue the tyres down as they nearly peeled off the wheels!
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| With the original kit dark gold wheels (which are the wrong colour for the car) |
I have now swapped the Hobbywing system for something more controllable for this model. The SkyRC Toro TS50 combo with 17.5T motor. It seems a lot more sensible interms of speed, still with a fair bit of punch. It's not going for land speed records but it might make for some fun running at an Iconic Cup some time in the future.
Original Kit:
Tamiya TA03RS Porsche 911 GT1 (Pre-Assembled kit - import from Germany?)
Upgrades List:
- Full bearing set Sealed
- Aluminium Rear Uprights (Tamiya)
- Aluminium Front C-Hubs (Tamiya)
- Aluminium Front Steering Knuckle Arms (Chinese repro)
- Aluminium bearing steering assembly (RC Dampers)
- Aluminium Motor cover/heatsink (Tamiya)
- 25T Pinion (Tamiya) (a range of other pinions from 20T for tuning)
- Stabilizer Set Medium (Tamiya)
- Carbon Shock Towers Front and Rear (RC Aidong)
- Carbon front foam bumper adapter (RC Aidong)
- Tamiya Foam bumper
- SkyRC Toro TS50 ESC
- SkyRC Toro 17.5T Motor
- CoreRC 4000mah LiPo battery
- SRT CH6012 Servo
- Tamiya Hi Torque Servo Saver w/ Aluminium arm
- Tetsujin Chrome Wheel Rims and Gold Daisy Inserts
- Tamiya Slick Racing Tyres
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