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Baja King

As a result of surfing forums and RC sites, the passion stroke back. Today, a buggy comes in to join the BlackFoot Xtreme. A 4-wheel-drive vehicle, faster than the Blackfoot, but with a lower ground clearance. I directly fitted a more powerful motor and a full set of hydraulic dampers. This one will also be mainly painted yellow (official color scheme: just perfect as I had a yellow can left).

The Baja King / TL-01 family

The Baja King uses the same chassis (TL-01B) than the Baja Champ. This chassis is the on-road TL-01 variant with different front uprights and longer arms (to make it larger, thus more stable on off-road tracks).

58221 - Baja Champ

58191 - Calsonic Skyline GTR

The TL-01 chassis (on-road)

There are only two models based on the off-road version of this chassis (TL-01B). The TL-01 thought received many different bodyshells, an off-road adaptation where only tires were changed, and also an on-road evolution with the TL-01LA which is only a classic TL-01 with options directly included into the kit.

Photo gallery of all the models that share that famous chassis in addition of those presented above:

58195 Alfa Roméo 155	58201 Celica GT-Four 97	58212 Peugeot 406 ST	58216 Ford Escort WRC	58219 Mitsubishi Lancer EVO IV
58222 Ford SVT F-150 Lightning	58223 Penzoil Nismo GTR	58226 Subaru Impreza WRC (ltd ed)	58228 Ford SVT Mustang Cobra	58233 Castrol Mugen NSX
58237 Lexus IS 200	58238 Schlesser Buggy Megane	58241 Ford focus WRC	58244 Mercedes CLK GTR Orig.Teile	58246 Stadium Raider
58251 Lexus GS 400	58255 Calsonic Skyline GT-R	58260 Mercedes Benz CLK DTM	58263 Opel V8 Coupé DTM 2000	58264 Castrol Toyota Toms Supra
58273 Subaru Impreza WRC 2001	58277 (= 58273 painted) Subaru Impreza WRC 2001	58283 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup	58287 Nissan 350 z	58289 Ferrari Modena
58292 Ford Focus WRC 02	58293 Beams Integra Type R	58296 CLK DTM 2002 AMG

This is a wide family and one can easily find what he likes. The bodyshell brings the main difference among all these models, and sometimes rims and tires may also vary. The 58238 kit was never released due to a body licence problem. It would have been based on the same setup as the Stadium Raider (58246) with its off road wheels.

So let's get back to the Baja King and its assembly process. I will proceed like the Blackfoot Xtreme: the chassis on one side, the bodyshell on the other. The bodyshell is made of lexan (thus transparent) and will not need as many paint layers. Instead, the bichrome scheme (yellow-silver) requires to apply masks: not as easy as it seems.

The bodyshell

There are two methods for painting the lexan body: cutting and then painting, or reverse. I chose the second one which seem better as it avoids paint projections on the body. Because the paint must be applied from the inside.

Always start with the darker color (here silver, then yellow). Otherwise, the lighter color will be affected by the darker. Anyway, prior to apply the silver, you have to hide the parts that will be painted yellow. This is not the easy part of the job since the body is not plane at all (the body perfectly moulds the chassis). Two layers of silver paint later, it needs to dry for 24 hours. Then, it's time to remove the masks and to apply the yellow paint. Removing masks should be done slowly and with much caution. Final steps: cutting the body and piercing body mounts holes.

Assembling the chassis

First step is the assembly of the differentials and gearboxes: unlike the Blackfoot Xtreme, they are not pre-assembled. Much better for replacing plastic bearings with ball bearings. Next step is to attach the gearboxes (front and rear) to the chassis frame, including the propeller shaft. For dampers, I directly fitted optional hydraulic ones. The assembly is quite easy, just slightly harder than the Blackfoot Xtreme's. The main reason is that there is less room inside this chassis. Everything fits perfectly, but there is almost no room left.

Well, until I noticed a problem: the front wheels were rubbing against the uprights. Very surprising for a Tamiya model. So, I asked for help on forums: soon it becomes obvious I made a mistake. The uprights I assembled are for the on-road version of the chassis. Off-road version are provided in the box with the motor: that's why I didn't see them because I left the stock motor to use a better one (the Sport Tuned). Quick disassembling, then I fit the correct uprights: they fit perfectly and front parallelism is now correct (as per magic ).

That's it, the chassis assembly is finished. Electronics are installed and cables are tied. The electronic speed controller still needs to be set up: very easy, it's done within a minute. Last step: adjusting the trim for direction.

I couldn't resist to test this new model. Slowly going in the apartment shows everything is fine. Even tires marks on the floor indicate the motor works very well.

I was amazed by the suspension travel of this buggy: the ground clearance is quite low thought. On the playground, the buggy will probably get stuck on its chassis if I would ever try to crawl some rocks (well, I won't). On pictures below, the 4 wheels touch the ground naturally (ie I didn't press the chassis on the ground).

   

The Baja King is now finished! There are some paint mistakes due to the masking tape which is not 100% efficient. Stickers hide most of them anyway. For decoration as for colors, I decided to stay "box art", the "official" scheme Tamiya decided for this model. Now I look forward to the first run!

Custom changes

As previously mentioned, I decided to include some options directly during the assembly. Hydraulic shock absorbers replace the stock friction models (those are just slightly better than springs), and a 23 turn Sport Tuned motor replaces the stock Mabuchi 540. Not to mention ball bearings everywhere. According to several reviews, this buggy speeds up by 5 km/h when it is fully ballraced (from 28 to 33 km/h with the stock motor). With the Sport Tuned motor fitted, my Baja King should be close to 40 km/h at top speed.

No specific protection for electronics at the moment. The chassis layout is very different from the Blackfoot Xtreme's, so I will have to consider a new approach, if needed. However, I have already made a few changes. The first one it to have the cables better tied: I fitted a spacer and a screw on the chassis, then I used a cable tie to maintain the motor cables. I made a second mod to enhance the antenna pipe stay. A second one is made the same way to enhance the antenna pipe stay because it detached from chassis very easily.

Cleaning the buggy after the first run took a while: dust, pebbles, mud, everything is spread all over the chassis by the front wheels. In particular an impressive amount of pebbles at every corner of the chassis. Well, this chassis was first designed to run on-road and this version is adapted to off-road purposes. Indoor, this problem does not exist...

That's why I decided to install a few protections to avoid pebbles to block mechanics, including the propeller shaft which is very exposed. The smallest pebble could block it and severely damage the whole transmission and the motor.
I simply used a cut tree bag and scotch to wrap all around the propeller shaft. Yes it is ugly, but it deserves its purpose. With the bodyshell on, you can't hardly notice it.

I also wrapped the battery pack: its housing is very tight but I found pebbles inside and they scratch the cell envelope when you try to remove it. In practice, the problem remains: so I tested another method by taping each side of the battery pack at chassis exit. It is much better as no more pebbles go inside.

Chassis weaknesses

With more experience and multiple runs, I can make a more detailed review on this model. In addition to the above drawbacks which needed some early modifications, there is another one that is even worse. The chassis has a serious weakness in the front arms: these are not maintained by an axle but only from the front bar, as shown on pictures below.

  

On the on-road version of this chassis (the TL-01), the problem does not exist because the arms (front and rear) are shorter, which greatly lowers the efforts on arm support. On the off-road version (TL-01B), the problem arises because of the track itself that stresses wheels thus arms. Not counting jump and poor landings.

Because of the front chassis design, it is not possible to strengthen it: at least, I can't see how. The elusive shape of the chassis, the movement the arms must have and the direction tie rods all make it impossible to modify this section of the chassis. Nor is it possible to stengthen the gearbox by fixing a reinforcement plate fitted below the chassis because the screw would perforate the gearbox, hit the gears and block them. Not to mention a reinforcement plate would reduce the ground clearance and would hit the ground hard with the risk of destroying the whole font gearbox. Widening the front bumper would also be useless as it can't fully protect the wheels thus can't reduce the efforts on the arms.

  

This weakness consequence after a few runs are cracks on the underside of the front gearbox as above photos show. Repeated efforts cause the cracks and gears are not protected anymore against dust and pebbles that just rush into it. The only solution is to completely change the two part chassis frame... and to be careful for the next runs.

On the above two first photos, you can see the servo head which is not protected at all. When I saw this, I immediately tapped the hole: big mistake. All the pebbles then accumulate under the servo head and block it. Well, that was just meant to be. So I recommend you leave this opening: all the pebbles will enter there, but they can escape easily and avoid the servo block. Well, they will escape this section of the chassis: many pebbles will go further into the chassis frame. Ironically, if there are weight rules in competition, I hope cars weighing occurs after the race: you can cheat at start up with a light weight buggy and be certain to match the minimum weight at race finish thanks to everything the chassis swept .

Last drawback for this model, not very important compared to the previous one: the rims attachment to the rear arms. The inner rim diameter is very close to the upright axle. When running, especially in curbs, pebbles can easily enter inside the rims. Nothing unusual if they can escape the same way. But space is limited, so they tend to remain inside the rims and slow down the wheel rotation or even completely block the wheels. You can easily notice when this occurs: the buggy can't go straight and may even keep cornering. Again, no solution for this one either.

Adapting the TL-01 on-road chassis to the off-road TL-01B is not fully successful. Pros are a very good chassis balance you can notice especially when jumping, excellent corning curves and the chassis ability to support powerful motors. Con is the front arm fixation weakness. The rear upright axle being to close to the inner rim diameter is just a detail in comparison.

To conclude on a positive note, the pleasure of driving this model is still very important thanks to its great behavior. Well if you don't like to vacuum, just run the Baja King and you're done .

Some photos

The Baja King is very impressive. Driving is totally different from the Blackfoot Xtreme. Much faster, it has a much better handling and its better general balance makes it a great jumper: great!

             

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First publication: april 14, 2008 Last modified: august 05, 2009

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