Rogue Element Components SRB Gear/Motor Cover

I got a set of these alloy gear/motor covers recently.  

The packaged kit

Chris Cazan, owner of Rogue Element Components, offered these for sale only to subscribers of his email list back in the beginning of November 2011.  

Sand Scorcher (SRB) Gear/Motor cover kit contents

These parts were so unique and cool looking that I had to get a set.  I'm not one for chrome or bling usually, but these parts seemed to offer a classy upgrade to the bland stock clear gear and motor covers that come with the SRB kits.

I installed these parts on a shelfer Super Champ that is not quite finished.  It took a bit of cutting and sanding in order to fit the clear lexan window into the gear cover, but the fit is tight enough to not require epoxy, especially for a shelfer.  I decided to leave the finish as-is, which means all of the tool marks and rough spots are the same as I got them from Chris.  The only thing I think needs a bit of work is the motor cover.  There are two issues with it:

• It does not account for the electrical tabs that exit the rear of the motor, forcing you to bend the tabs outward, and even then both tabs touch the cover which would result in a dead short if power were applied to the motor.  It is possible to cover one or both tabs with heat shrink tubing, but the fit is very tight and I would be concerned about the cover cutting into the heat shrink insulation due to vibration over time.  If Chris made a small cutout in the motor cover or altered the design of the three spokes so the width was reduced, even just 1 or 2mm, it would have made all of the difference.

Both tabs are bent outward, but are still touching the cover

 The stock RS540 and Tamiya Sport Tuned (black) motors have plastic insulation surrounding the electrical tabs that exit the back of the motor.  This insulation isolates the tabs from the rear metal motor endbell to prevent shorts.  The insulation also sticks out of the back of the motor about 1mm to 2mm and the motor cover spokes hit the insulation, meaning that the cover cannot fully seat over the rear of the motor.  The insulation acts as two high points that allow the cover to rock back and forth.  Since the cover cannot get closer to the back of the motor, there is a gap between the cover and the gearbox on all 3 screws.

The insulation is black in color, surrounding the motor tab

Given the amount of detail Chris dedicated to these parts, I'm a little surprised that he did not encounter these issues during fitting.  Still, even with these issues, these are amazing parts and quite unique.  For a shelf queen, the problems are minor and with some cutting they could even be eliminated. 

About Rogue Element Components

Rogue Element Components is a custom machine shop owned by Chris Cazan that produces extremely limited machined alloy and plastic parts for radio control models, including hop-up and accessory parts for Tamiya vehicles and rock crawlers of any type.  The items are built to order and Chris keeps no stock on hand, so if you don't order an item when he offers it for sale, you will probably never get another chance to buy it again.  On rare occasions an item will be offered more than once if it was popular or Chris receives enough queries asking for another manufacturing run. Chris will do custom one-off work as well.

If you have an interest in very unique and detailed parts for your radio control vehicle, sign up for his email list by visiting the Rogue Element Components web site linked above.  Every few weeks you'll get a new product announcement from Chris via email with details on what is being offered and how to pay a deposit or full amount.  The item(s) will arrive in the mail about a month after he starts manufacturing.

Disclaimer:  I am not affiliated with Rogue Element Components in any way.

Tamiya Buggy Champ and the Gold Edition

   Tamiya released the Buggy Champ in 2009 to much surprise and astonishment in the vintage RC community.  The Buggy Champ was actually the original Japanese name for the Tamiya "Rough Rider" released in the US in 1979.  The reasons for why the names were different in Japan and the US are not clear, although they could be simply because MRC, who was the US importer for Tamiya at the time, thought that the name "Buggy Champ" did not sound aggressive enough for the US market.  I have no facts to back that up, so it is just one possibility.   

   The original Rough Rider was the first of the Special Racing Buggy (SRB) models from Tamiya, which include the Sand Scorcher, Ford F-150 Ranger XLT and (some SRB purists would disagree with me on this) the Super Champ.  The SRB series was an effort by Tamiya to build radio controlled vehicles that were race-ready while still retaining many realistic features from the 1:1 scale vehicles they were based on.

   For the 2009 re-release, Tamiya kept the Buggy Champ name for the US market.  The reasons behind this choice are not clear either, but may have to do with trademarks on the Rough Rider moniker or because TamiyaUSA, now the sole importer of Tamiya products for the US, did not care how non-aggressive the Buggy Champ name was and decided that it was cheaper to use the same box art in all countries.  Again, I have no facts to back any of this up, so it is just an idea.  

   While not exactly the same as the original 58016 Rough Rider kit, the 58441 Buggy Champ is considered a "re-release" because it contains mostly the same parts and design elements that made the Rough Rider and the SRB platform such a vintage classic.  Tamiya even recreated the blister packaging that was so popular in the early eighties, which is really impressive to look at in person.  Many enthusiasts, me included, believed that Tamiya would never release such a kit again due to the sheer amount of metal parts and expense in manufacturing that goes with it.  As it turns out, Tamiya did not even have the original molds used for the major metal components for the chassis and had to create new ones based on an original example vehicle that Tamiya had in its possession.  The Tamiya engineer in charge of this effort claimed that it took only a couple of weeks of work to get the measurements required to make new molds.  I think that is impressive, and shows how much effort Tamiya is willing to expend in order to re-release kits.

   The Buggy Champ Gold Edition was a special edition of the Buggy Champ created by Great Planes Distributing and TamiyaUSA.  Great Planes is one of the largest radio control distributors in the US and is the place where almost all hobby shops and online stores get their Tamiya kits and parts.  Their marketing department wanted to create an exclusive edition of the Buggy Champ, so the Gold Edition was born.  The following pictures were taken by me shortly after receiving the Gold Edition of the Buggy Champ from Tower Hobbies.  I was one of the first to receive and post pictures of it on TamiyaClub using my Photobucket account.  Members of TamiyaClub were anxious to see what it was all about.  As it turned out, the only differences between the regular Buggy Champ and the Gold Edition were the painted body and stickers on the box.  The body was painted in Tamiya TS-84 Metallic Gold, but the roof section was not painted, probably because it was still attached to the parts tree and would have been difficult to paint quickly without getting paint on other parts that did not need to be gold in color.  Pricing on the Gold Edition was actually cheaper than the regular version, which was one of the reasons why I bought mine.  The gold can be sprayed over or left as is, so it does not detract from the regular kit at all in the grand scheme of things.

  

Special Gold Edition sticker distinguishes from the regular box

The blister packaging on the left and right sides display the major parts in a neat way

Same body as the regular kit, just painted in TS-83 metallic gold

The Tamiya TEU-104BK ESC was included

Since there was no official kit number for the gold edition, 58441 had to be covered by a sticker

The Buggy Champ Gold Edition is now discontinued by Tower Hobbies, and Tower no longer sells the regular edition either, however TamiyaUSA still has the regular kit in stock (at a premium distributor price so as to not compete with local hobby shops), so you could still have good luck finding a Buggy Champ at a local hobby shop.