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Doesn't seem to be much going on in the Tamiya forum, and this isn't vintage anyway, so I figured I'd post about it here in OT.

Anywho, I'd been eying the Tamiya 801XT for some time, since they had been on sale for $200-$250. Well, last week, the price for the kit dropped to $99 shipped! I was all over it. It showed up yesterday afternoon, and what a kit!

Now, I have never owned a Tamiya before, and given equal pricing, this would not have been my first choice. That'd be an RC8T, followed by Kyosho, Xray & Mugen. But with the sale price, it was a no-brainer. It's not that I had any dislike for Tamiya, just that they don't really have a presence in off-road racing, and the aforementioned brands have much history and success in 1/8 off-road.

All that said, I am VERY pleased with this kit. It is perhaps a little more delicate in a couple areas than the competition, but gleans with the usual Tamiya quality I've seen on other Tamiya TRF kits. Well made parts and very good assembly instructions made building it a snap. Well, an 8-1/2 hours snap, anyway. lol. Certainly a lot of parts, but it went pretty smoothly. Tamiya does include everything you need except for assembly tools, which consist of 1.5, 2.0 & 3mm socket head and 4mm & 5.5mm hex.

I did rob the Novarossi .28-7RT engine and AE XP3SSi radio gear from my RC10GT street fighter to build this. I had a couple of Kyosho KS200 high torque MG servos on hand, and for now I'll be running the OFNA Buggy8 pipe & header I had in the parts bin. This kit does not come with tires & wheels, either, but I already had a set of Proline Tazer VTR 4.0" tires I mistakenly ordered instead of 3.7", so I just had to get wheels and foams.

Very slight modification and shimming of the engine mount to install the engine equipped with a rotostart, but otherwise had no snags at all. I have not run it much on account of body still needs finished, but what little I did left me quite impressed!

















And with one of my RC10GTs and my OFNA Ultra LX Comp for size comparison. This thing is BIG!

Wow, that's a lot of truggy for the money! Nice score and nice job on the build.

Painted!

Candy blue, candy purple, Inca gold and pearl white.

Does nobody here have interest in 1/8 nitro? I figured some people would be curious about a kit being liquidated at such amazing prices........

You´ve done a good job painting it -
And I Loooove 1/8 nitro buggies, this one I´ll buy in about 20 years from now

this one I´ll buy in about 20 years from now

Don't think it's ever gonna be cheaper than it is now, if you're interested in one.

I had a chance to run a tank through it earlier today, now that the Nova is pretty well broke in. Holy crap! These things are amazing on a track. I thought my 1/8 OFNA buggy and my Prolite handled my rough, loose track pretty well, but this truggy puts them to shame. You have to really try to make it end up on it's lid, it flies through the air more gracefully than any other kit I've ever run, and cornering is incredible.

It's my new favorite runner, at least on big outdoor tracks. It's far too large for the indoor track we run, even if they permitted nitro. Not that it wouldn't run it well, but I suspect I'd have some very angry 1/10 buggy owners after this 9 pound beast flattened a few of them that got in the way.