Reviving my Yokomo RPS SE

[Mike88]

Hi all! First time post (new member) for me. I received a box of old RC cars from when I was a young lad. In the box was my Yokomo RPS SE and an Airtronics XL2P controller. I wanted to see what battery options I could go with to see if this baby is going to run.

9E0916F7-662D-4AC4-8DF5-C4F1A8269B6B.jpeg (33.26 KiB) Viewed 2284 times

9E0916F7-662D-4AC4-8DF5-C4F1A8269B6B.jpeg (33.26 KiB) Viewed 2284 times

[a01butal]

Nice to see your little 834b, some good options on that baby. Also, welcome to RC10talk we like the finds like this so keep the story coming.

[Coelacanth]

Yeah, but we don't want to see it posted in the "Forum Rules" section.

[Mike88]

Rookie mistake! Sorry gents! For battery options, it originally had a Playtron NiCd 7.2V 1200 Mah. Anything that I could upgrade to nowadays? I’m just getting back into the RC thing after 35 years.

[Dadio]

Things have changed a lot with battery's and these days its more a question of can the car handle the battery , NiMH battery's can be fitted straight in and can easily be 2000mah 7.2v , that's probably the kindest way to go , the motor ,gears and speed controller will all cope . If you want a bit more oomph then you can fit a 2 cell lipo , these would be more like an 8.4 v battery in the old days and you can easily fit a 5000mah lipo but the down side is the mechanical speed controller might not last long and you'd have to stop every 5 min or so for the motor to cool down because its will get far hotter than with old school battery's ! Next up the evolutionary tree would be go Brushless , modern rc motors have also leapt ahead and modern brushless motors are far more efficient so you can run them way longer without having to let them cool down , its fairly normal to run a car for 30+ min at far higher speeds these days , the motors do need a brushless speed controller to run them , now it you run a brushless motor and ESC (electronic speed controller ) then you could run on either NiMH or Lipo battery's without a problem and the NiMH will be kinder to the transmition , the gearbox would be the next week link and that's the limiting factor for vintage rc cars .
So you have to think , do I want to keep it vintage ? (I would ) or do I want to upgrade it with modern electronics , might I suggest if you want a car to go like a bat out of hell then a modern cheap car can do that better and you can easily replace parts where as a vintage car if you brake something you could hunt for months to find a replacement part .
Your car looks great by the way ,I love the old 834b's .

[RC10resto]

So you have to think , do I want to keep it vintage ? (I would ) or do I want to upgrade it with modern electronics , might I suggest if you want a car to go like a bat out of hell then a modern cheap car can do that better and you can easily replace parts where as a vintage car if you brake something you could hunt for months to find a replacement part .
Your car looks great by the way ,I love the old 834b's .

You definitely want to consider what Dadio has said, you have a fairly rare car that looks to be in great condition

[Mike88]

Thanks you Dadio and Brian for the informative post! I think you’re absolutely right about keeping the vintage aspect of the car and maybe better to run a cheaper RC car just for S and Gs.

Question: What are 834bs going for now a days? I’ve not seen any on the market.

Thanks again!
Michael

[Dadio]

I'm not going to put a price on it but I will say that they rarely come up for sale I the condition yours is in ,maybe a car like yours goes on sale every 18 months to 2 years , I think in the last year two mostly complete cars were on eBay and one or two incomplete cars , even original parts are scarce and can go for silly money .
If I were you I might get a 7.2v 2000mah NiMH pack and a new body for it and maybe lightly drive it , others here on the forum would just display it as a shelf queen .

[naushad]

Some very nice pictures of your dogfighter.
Hot trick parts with nice RPS blue dampers.
I would say easily over 300$ in that condition.

[Lonestar]

Thanks you Dadio and Brian for the informative post! I think you’re absolutely right about keeping the vintage aspect of the car and maybe better to run a cheaper RC car just for S and Gs.

Question: What are 834bs going for now a days? I’ve not seen any on the market.

Thanks again!
Michael

The RPS is one of the Holy Grails of RC... welcome aboard!!! you want to run her veeerrrrry gently at most... she's an old, fragile, expensive-to-fix lady...

[Mike88]

Really appreciate all of the love and replies on the 834b! It was pretty special back in the day as my parents upgraded me from a Super Champ (I still have and is in rough shape) to the Yokomo. I raced a little bit back in the 80’s and did fair. Then I started upgrading parts. Then...my friends and I found girls. The love of RC racing parted. I loved pulling this from my parents basement to see it hadn’t changed. No undercarriage scratches. Tires minimally worn. The only fear I have is running her as I’ve seen the cost of replacement parts are costly. Thanks again for the post and the community! Looking forward to chatting!

[Dadio]

I still run mine from time to time but then I have three (how did that happen?), one very stock , one retro moded and a third that i cloned with CAD and 3d printed so I could have one I could drive without regret .

[Lonestar]

I still run mine from time to time but then I have three (how did that happen?), one very stock , one retro moded and a third that i cloned with CAD and 3d printed so I could have one I could drive without regret .

I have three! One to display, one to open, and one just in case!!!



(don't worry man it isn't just you... I'm like that too )