HPI Formula Ten – World Exclusive
Well, it all started in April 2009, when HPI released teaser shots of a car that set tongues wagging and message boards alight.
HPI built their company up in the 1990’s based on the business model of selling upgrades for various Tamiya cars at the time. One of these was the Tamiya F102, a rear wheel drive pan car with a realistic F1 bodyshell. In Japan, they were hugely popular, and after a while, HPI saw the potential of the market, and released their own design F1 chassis constructed from carbon fibre, alloy and graphite. It was successful when placed head-to-head with the other main race-spec F1 car, the Corally F1, but the class was dwindling with the rise of touring cars, and HPI abandoned the area.
However, Japanese race fans continued to run F1 cars, and Tamiya supplied their needs with the F103, and the four wheel drive F201, each with newer and newer bodies. Indeed, the latest incarnation, the F104 is the car to beat amongst all the small-volume manufacturers such as Cross, Tech Racing and more. These are all top-end racing kits that need high-grip and well prepp’d surfaces though, what about Jonny Beginner?
HPI’s return to the F1 class is with the Formula Ten, a plastic tubbed rear wheel drive chassis with a pan-car-style floating rear pod and T-bar. Up front, there are fixed length wishbones and sliding pin and block hubs, just like a 1/12th chassis. Drive is direct through a rear gear diff and 48dp pinion and spur gear. One of the main appeals of the chassis is the use of existing electronics – ‘normal’ 1/10th touring car ESC’s, motors, batteries and radiogear will drop straight in, although the appeal of lower voltages (to make the car easier to drive) is not lost, so the car comes with a 4 cell stick pack battery holder comes in the kit, to compliment a 6 cell one.
The Formula Ten was announced in April 09, but nothing more was heard until late July where the car was placed on a Hong Kong shop site (RC Mushroom), for the bargain price of around £60 ($99.99, shipping around £30). This seemed too good to be true, as Tamiya’s F104 runs at £230! A quick look on Modelsport UK, and they had it to pre-order for £99…..so, order placed with Mushroom.
That was Thursday night, and the car actually arrived on my doorstep Monday morning! Super fast shipping, and well worth the extra that EMS was.
After a quick poke through the box and the usual ”ooooohh…..ahhhh” noises associated with a new toy, it was on to the build.
I’d love to dish the dirty and say it was terrible, nothing fitted, and it broke at the sight of me, but that’d be lying. It was very straightforwards, and everything just plonked together without any fuss or protest. The manual was clear and concise, around half of it devoted to the build, and half to the maintenance of the car.
Its aimed at the low-cost racer, and the spec reflects this. The rear pod is made from plastic, as are the front wishbones, hubs, tub and wings. The rear axle is steel (with orange anodised alloy wheel adaptors), and the upper deck is FRP. Topping this off is a friction shock absorber and damper plates, just like a 1/12th pan car. And although the rear axle runs on flanged bearings, the rest of the rolling parts are bushing’ed. All of these mentioned parts can be replaced, with carbon fibre or orange anodised alloy, and a few tasteful choices may appear on mine at a later date………..bearings are already ordered.
The build time was around 4 hours, not including electrics or body. Speaking of which though, its a stunning mould. HPI are really hitting form with their bodies at the moment, and this a incredibly detailed, from the drivers cockpit to the sculptured exhaust areas. Topping and tailing it are the best looking F1 wings I’ve ever seen on an RC car, they aren’t adjustable so won’t confuse the driver when it comes to setup. They bolt on easily, so with new wings and body, it can be brought up to 2009 F1 spec without the need for a new kit. Mine will be finished in the Red Bull colours of Mark Webber.
I’m unsure what to put in it, electrics wise. Brushless and LiPo would be a riot, but I think it’ll be too much of a handful for my lame skills. Initial runs will be with a slow brushed motor (silver can probably), and 2S LiPo, but 1S and 10.5 will be where I’m looking to go.
Overall, it was a fun build, and a very cheap way of getting scale cars back in RC. Just like the Tamiya Mini class, this has the potential to be very popular.
See below for more images from the build, and if you have any questions, please comment on this article.
Written by garry.
Tamiya M05 Setup Shenanigans
I raced the Tamiya M-05 at DMCRC for the first time last night. There were 3 more of them out there, and it seems there’s a bit of a struggle to get a set up that works!
I faffed about with mine a bit, and got it to work okayish, it was still a bit twitchy, and had a bit too much turn-in.
Tyres were key, as usual, I discovered the ones I were using weren’t actually glued on any more, so once I fixed that they were a lot better! I was using the usual S-grips up front and M-grip on the rear combination favoured on carpet. Other folk were using A-types, but I can’t afford them!
My car is short wheelbase, I think it might work better as medium or long. But that’s not easy to change without a longer bodyshell, so I’ll stick with short and get it to work.
Springing was a bit weird, I ended up with super ultra hard springs, on the rear! And on the front about 2 grades softer. I was running a front roll bar, but not a rear one.
The M-05 has it’s front shocks leant right in, I keep thinking if they were stood up more it would be lesss twitchy? I don’t know. I’ve seen 3-racing do a shock mount which offers two wider positions, I think that will be worth experiementing with.
The other thing I did was put about 2 degress of camber on the rear. The M05 Pro comes with adjustable rear links, but not front links. So the fronts remained at kit camber (about 0.5 degrees I’d say) – if they were adjustable, perhaps I could have increased camber to try and reduce the amount the outside edge of the tyre grabs as it rolls into the corner, to attempt to reduce the twitchyness. I’ll have to try and fabricate some short front links.
The end result was a car that was quick, the fastest lap was on the pace, but it was difficult to drive, it was all too easy to turn in too quickly and for it to hit the corner, so I made a lot of mistakes. The new steering system is too sharp, the old M03 steering was more forgiving!
Oh, yes, the other thing I’m going to try is to sand down the outer edge of the front S-grips, and maybe try the old superglue on the outer sidewall trick.
All in all the M05 is cool, it corners flatter, is more accurate and fun to drive. It’ll take a few meetings to get them performing well, and then I think we’ll have some really close racing.
Written by simon.
SHMCC 1990s Off-Road Track
Back in the 80s and 90s, off-road 1/10th buggy racing was all the rage. At SHMCC the track was off-road then, as the above rare VHS footage shows.
In the late 90s, people wanted the cars to look more like cars, like rally cars. So shorter shocks and wishbones started being fitted to buggies, and a rally car body shell. These handled a whole lot worse off road, so people started racing them on car parks instead. Thus they soon turned into touring cars.
Nowadays touring cars are arguably a bigger racing class than off-road, but many of us hanker for some off-road racing again! Oh how nice it would be to go back ten years to have a go on that astroturf!
Written by simon.
BRCA Rd3 – Cotswolds
Ok, I’ll be updating this a bit later… but as a bit of proof of a non-lazy result…
Does this mean I’m no longer a Lazy team member?
Written by ed.
Tamiya M05 Pro Build
The Tamiya M05 Pro has been built. The ridiculous amount of plastic is indeed ridiculous, as at the end of the build I still seem to have a lot of bits left over!
I’m going to race the M05 at DMCRC, where it will be racing against other M05s, and M03s. With that in mind I built it for carpet racing.
The basic kit goes together okay, and the gearbox is the same inside as the M03. I took the ball diff from my M03, and the carbon shafts, and dropped them in the M05. I also put the CVDs on the front from my M03 too.
The bearings with the M05 seem good enough, a bit greasy, so I flushed that out and re-lubed. The rear of the car got the hardened axles from the M03, as you’re guessing now, I’m basically taking all the nice bits off the M03!
I used a set of Tamiya TRF shocks too, the original ones, some blue ones would be nice, but I don’t tend to have spares of those kicking around, unlike Ed, who has them coming out of his ears. These have a lot of spacers inside, to reduce droop, and they went straight onto the M05, and provided exactly the same ride height, even though the top mount geometry is totally different.
(I didn’t even consider building the clear shocks, they look just stupid, and I’m sure I’d break them before they even got on the car…)
The front anti-roll bar from the M03 fits straight on (with a little trimming of the link to clear the gearbox), but the rear one doesn’t fit at all, the mounting it totally different.
The steering on the M05 is nice, the bump-steer is virtually gone, and the geometry will be better. But, the stock plastics are rubbish in this area, there’s a lot of slop, bending of the ‘rack’ and I’d say as soon as an alloy replacement is available this would be a very god area to upgrade.
(Along with front alloy hubs, which shockingly aren’t included in the Pro kit, even though Tamiya do them as an option! What’s all that about?)
The electrics slot in so neatly at the back, a huge improvement. The received and speed control have plates to sit them on, but I decided to mount them vertically instead, very neat, less plastic.
The battery mounts are totally different, but I didn’t even take them off the sprues, the quick release one went on instead. The servo rod is so long, and too shiny, so I stole the idea of heatshrinking it to make it blend in better.
Body posts are in the same place as the M03, so existing shells drop straight on it. Which is a good thing, seeing as they don’t supply one with the Pro kit.
The verdict? It looks excellent, a general improvement over the M03 in several areas, and I think it will handle a lot flatter and more keen to change direction. Recommended!
