Tamiya Hornet mods

I’ve made a few changes to the Hornet to improve it a bit.  First of all, there is a limited selection of tires, so I got the hex conversion for the rear wheels.  It basically uses an aluminum spacer to take up the offset that the regular wheels have and lets you use modern buggy wheels.

It doesn’t leave a lot of threads for the thickness of the wheel.  I took a look at DE Racing, AKA, Kyosho RB6, Pro-line, Jconcepts and Associated B6 wheels, and the Associated wheels were the thinnest.  They leave about 5 threads on the axle for the nut, and I recommend sticking with these to get the maximum amount of material for the nut to thread onto.  Here are some Dirt Hawg tires I’m using for the street.

I’ve also been playing with the suspension on the buggy to get it to work a little better.  One of the main weaknesses of the Hornet is that it is super light on the front of the buggy and very heavy on the rear.  I had a 35g TLR brass weight lying around that fit perfectly on the front end above the axles.  The weight softens up the front end so it’s not quite as bouncy and a little more plush.  You can use lead tire weights or whatever, but I recommend putting some weight on the front end because it is crazy light there.