Your radio shouldn’t be taken for granted. It is, after all, your only link to your drift car, and the only means for you to control where it goes - and where it doesn’t. If you’re relatively new to RC, you might have started out with an inexpensive AM radio (or it came with your RTR kit.) If you’re looking to upgrade, here’s some stuff we’ll suggest to you that you’ll need to know or look for before you walk into your LHS or jump online to drop some bucks on a new setup. You can also use these tips if you’re already running an FM crystal-based system, or are looking to replace a radio system that’s broken.

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Gear pitch is as important as pinion and spur size. Choosing a certain gear pitch can make your drive system smoother, or stronger, or less prone to damage, or easier to strip, or just plain noisy. In RC, there are generally three commonly used standard gear pitch measurements - these are 32-pitch, 48-pitch, and 64-pitch. There’s also other gear pitch measurements (i.e. Tamiya’s “module” metric pitch) which we’ll go over later.

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We offer this article for those of you looking forward to our “Drift Showdown” series, but do not know what tire you should start with. We here at RC DriftClub have spent quite some time comparing drift tires, using different chassis, motors, setups, etc. and I’d like to share our findings. Alphabetical order, with “plastics” first, then rubber-based following. Please remember, this is strictly our opinion from our experience with the tires listed, but it’ll help novice drivers decide what tire they should try out. All testing done with different electric chassis, with motor ranging from Mabuchi all the way to an 11-turn mod.

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Here’s one of those never-ending debates. When it comes time to select a touring car chassis for drifting, one of the decisions you’ll have to make in the process is simple: shaft or belt drive? What’s the cost difference? Does one perform better? What are the pro’s and cons of each? Since this is always a hot topic, I’ve decided to offer my knowledge to weigh out both drivetrain types.

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A slipping ball differential does a lot of things to your chassis, and they’re not good. Not only will you be going slower than others and wasting battery runtime, but you can damage stuff that will give you a DNF. So, it’s always good to periodically check your ball differentials for tightness. Here’s two ways to check your diffs: One is a little awkward for some, depending on how large your hands are:

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Gearing your car correctly is a basic way of tuning your car for the course, or to change how you want the car to react when you’re on the throttle. You can set up your gearing for low-end torque to give you that punch coming out of a turn, or you can set it for high-end horsepower for more speed. In RC drifting, you generally lean towards a higher ratio because torque is what makes the wheels spin. In order to set up your gearing, you need to figure out how to calculate it properly. Since different chassis have different spur gears, pinion gears, and internal ratios, the “Final Drive Ratio” is generally a number that is good for comparison. In other words, you can compare gearing between two different chassis by looking at the final drive ratio. That way if you want to match the response and top speed of a different chassis, you can do so by figuring out the same final drive ratio for your car.

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