Buyer beware, Fine Design rips off yet again!
 

Anyone seen these?

The original machine with a 26cc motor & radio could be bought direct from China for a mere $460Aud.

Then Chris at FD has stupidly put his name to an inferior product & a pathetic excuse for a conversion!!

I could do better with a stick of gum & some plastic wrap! :lol:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NEW-Brushless...rkparms=66%3A2

"Very fast, even stock can hit 52 mph out of the box with 8s lipo"

Includes everything below:

*240 amp 2-6s brushless speed control ($250 speed controller)



Pure engineering !! scotch tape, bathroom caulk and a bottle cap

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/j...Finedesign.jpg

I thought this pic ^ was a joke till I saw the auction.. its crazy.
phil

lol !! thats really the pics !! look at the mount nuts, haven't even hit the nylon to lock them. Spent alot of time on that one :eyes:

:lol: engineering at its best there!
phil

He should have used more hardware store parts, and less grocery store parts on this conversion. I cannot imagine the possiblilities when he finally finds the plumbing isle...

I had to laugh at the foam "noodle" pool toy as a battery spacer. I use them in boats for flotation, but as a battrery tray component.... I guess if you accidentally drive in the lake it may be useful...

This guy never fails to amaze me.:no:

God I hope not. What an embarrassment. That noodle in there is hooolarious.

Anyone have a link to that buggy stock? Sounds like a cheap alternative to the 5b...

I took one look at that and peed myself laughing.

Silicon sealant to stop the motor wires flexing?
Bottle top to cover the exposed rear shaft on the motor?
Poorly cut pieces of nylon and mounting srews that are too short?
Piece of pipe lagging next to the lipo with a rubber band to hold it in place?

That guy needs a serious reality check...

"11g total weight"

You guys can laugh all you want but consider the weight savings!

Edit: Serious question though, where can one obtain that blue motor clamp looking thing in the picture? I wonder of a pair of these would work as a decent motor mount...

King Motor Baja 5B $499 shipped, you can use the other $1000 to make a real conversion

Its a KM baja 5b... You can get them for $450 on ebay.

From what I've heard, the material quality on those knock-offs aren't a patch on the genuine HPI articles. You can even see that the plastics are different, just looking at the finish (they're shinier than HPI parts, and have more visible seams). Personally, I'd stay away...plus, it'd be supporting the guys who've stolen HPI's design IMO.

I did alot of research on the km baja's and their suppose to be every bit as good as the hpi baja 5b rtr version but half as much. Every part is compatible accept the battery box on the km baja is a little different but it can be switched out.

I did not ice the arms looked a bit different... Not sure if I will bother.

Sounds like good info, where did you do the research?

And Ive heard back and forth conflicts on who actually came up with the design... I heard KM came up with the design and sold it to HPI which they want to patent and nothings gone threw yet. The other way around just doesnt make sense to me... Why in the world would HPI sell their design to an off brand chinese manufacturer....

www.Largescaleforums.com, www.hpibajaforum.com, www.RCUniverse.com

looks like this is happening a lot now, the RC18t is an example, the amount of chinese knock offs of that is amazing.

As for "fine" design, that guy is a crook, he took some money off me years ago and never sent me what I ordered.

I thankfully never ordered from him because I read some bad feedback about his customer service setup when his site first came out. Ive avoided his site ever since...

The KM and the HPI most likley roll out of the same factory somewhere in China.

I am going to incorporate more bottle caps on any future conversions I do. :rofl:

A buddy and I actually have the km bajas. Honestly I couldn't be happier with the purchase. Very few r/c items have I opened up and thought man that was def worth the money. I've ran 2 gallons through mine now, and knock on wood, havn't broken the first part, except for the body is trashed. Full choke 1 pull, then choke off starts 2nd pull every time. The shocks are a joke out of the box, you need to drill the holes larger in the pistons, and put some lighter oil, and they work fine. Yeah, I did feel kind of bad, but I didn't really look at it as taking a sale away from hpi, I would have never forked out the money to buy a real one. They will make some money off me when something breaks, or for upgrades. Supposedly there is a roller package in the works, just the car no radio, no motor, That would be even better.

Ya I heard that aswell. The new 29cc KM Baja Pro version is out also.

Didnt know you could have high def gears :)

Wow, this is just.... wow. I simply can't find the words to describe the loathing I feel for this imbecile.

There are so many things wrong with just the description alone, I could go on for pages. And then the pics, wow...

For once, I am almost speechless...

So Brian I take it you'll be buying 3 of them? :lol:

I wouldn't even take 1 free...

Well, maybe, but then I'd keep the Neu and ESC and sell the rest. Too much work to re-do everything wrong with that setup.

OK, I was able to come up with some words to describe the conversion: A retarded one-armed monkey could do a better job using nothing but a pick-axe.

Heavy duty :whistle:

There have been times in which I have considered one of the 5B knockoffs, but in the end it always comes down to: "Where would I keep it?" There just isn't enough room in my already over-crowded garage. Would be cool though...

:lol: I like it!

I still don't understand the reasoning behind converting the 5b to a brushless vehicle beyond noise reduction.

Converting nitro makes sense to me because:
-Nitro is expensive, $40-50 a gallon
-Nitro motors wear out somewhat quickly
-Carrying a glow starter and a tuning screwdriver and a fuel bottle around sucks
-Nitro is particularly messy
-It's easy in a nitro sized vehicle to get vastly improved performance from a brushless setup for a similar cost to nitro.

It's just not the case with the 5th scale gasoline powered RCs. Sure, gasoline is loud but it's way more durable/reliable than nitro and WAY cheaper to operate.

Why converting gasoline to brushless doesn't make sense to me:
-Same performance. I haven't seen a brushless 5b that was any faster than a gasoline 5b with a pipe. Hell, brushless actually seems slower.
-Much more expensive. Gasoline is really cheap, huge batteries/motors/escs are not.
-Much less runtime. I remember the guys on the Baja forums saying they were getting 40 minutes of runtime on a single tank.

I guess there's a uniqueness factor to it, it's fun to see the conversions. But personally if I had a 5b I'd just run gasoline. I don't feel like battery tech has come far enough to make anything above 1/8th scale make sense price vs performance wise.

1/5th large chassis fits alot of lipos for true HV setups. Gas is fun and cheap but its weed whacker loud. Setting up a true brushless 1/5th onroad with front and rear disk brakes would be sweet too

just were have you seen brushless 5B's running around? If it was done by Fine Design then yes it was probably not that fast and not that great. Stock 5B's only run around 40mph out of the box, you know brushless will be faster then that top end and take off, no way a gas will hold a candle to brushless. I'm talking neu 2215 on 37 volts, not a 1515 size motor.
lipos 220.00=10s 5000 zippy, I have seen cheap 100.00 esc work on the baja from across the pond. BL is so much cleaner to work on and bring into the house for those really bad repairs.

Now I am thinking of a conversion for the baja...

Wondering about a few things. How are the pinion gears held on on the stock clutch setup?

Also, since it is 2wd, I wonder if a 10-12s setup with lipos capable of 100amps would do, along with a 100 amp or so plane esc? That would be about 3.5hp factoring in around 30% loss. Is that enough? I can't imagine the 26cc motor being good for much more than that. 40mph is fine for me, I am in no need for huge speed with this beast.

How about a pair of 1521 motors? I know pairs are usually frowned upon, but I have everything here to do it, save for some cheapy speed controls.

What is the gear pitch on the 5b pinion and spur? Looks big, like 1.5 mod???

Yup, it's Mod 1.5.:yes:

Maybe I was wrong on the quality of the KM Bajas, then...though I'm sure I read of one guy having issues. Still, I'm not sure I'd buy one. IMO, it's clearly an HPI design, but I don't know...it just doesn't sit well me me.

Back on track, though...I can't believe Chris Fine is still in business! Castle should stop supplying him with ESCs; the number of them that his customers have blown because of them being used in the wrong app, or over-voltage like in that ad, must be huge. It'll be giving them a bad name.:whip:

I've only seen brushless 5Bs on youtube and I haven't been impressed with any of them. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong ones :intello:

The Neu 2215 is $425... You said it would be good on 37v, how much are we talking for the rest of that setup?

I agree that it's cleaner and not as noisy. But when you're talking about battery powered vehicles the cost for performance ratio gets pretty bad when you start making them big. Currently, the way I see it, is that brushless can't hold a candle to gasoline in terms of value for 1/5 scale.

this is one of the more impressive brushless baja's ive seen, looks to be a fair bit quicker with better acceleration that stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=IT&hl=it&v=b9cp_d71MkI

look at his other vids as well, i believe that he is a member here.

ps, the vid gets good at the 5 min mark!

I wish MR Fine was a better businessman and more honorable, I'd like to buy more lehners but will not buy through him

What the hell is that stuff on the front of the motor?