Review: Tamiya Blackfoot 2016

Making More Memories in 2016

Ok, a show of hands; how many people reading this owned an original Tamiya Blackfoot? I can imagine quite a few of you put your hands up; the Blackfoot is one of the most iconic vehicles ever produced. I had an original one back in 1990 – there’s a nice long story behind it, but basically my best friend Mike and I went down to the local Hobby People to ‘look’ at RC cars. That, of course, is never how things work out and each of us left there with a Tamiya Blackfoot, a pair of batteries, charger, radio system and some other small goodies to personalize our rides.

Mike and I had a LOT of fun with these trucks, tearing up a local dirt lot, jumping up and down the curbs and drag racing on our street. I wish I still had that original truck, but to be able to own a re-release is definitely good enough. Time to take a tour of the 2WD MT that kindled my love for this hobby.

Features
Chassis
The first thing I’m sure you’ll notice is the Blackfoot’s very unorthodox chassis layout. It’s considered a ‘space frame’, using a pair of molded plastic halves to form a monocoque design. The resulting assembly is very rigid and incorporates a small aluminum skid on the bottom to protect the upright steering servo. The battery installs from the bottom as well, using a small white pin to keep the battery door shut. While there have been a few updates over the years, the battery area didn’t see one. Designed to originally fit NiCd and NiMh packs, it’s a bit tight when trying to install a LiPo battery. Thankfully there’s an easy fix; add a few #2 washers behind the battery stop end-plates to space them out and your LiPo will fit like a glove.

Up on top of the chassis sits a black, molded cover that is used to help keep debris out, something that wasn’t included on the original truck. There are also a pair of tabs to mount the electronics; the ESC on one and the receiver on the other. While intended as chassis braces, I used one of the black supports to wrap my ESC and servo leads around to help clean up the look a bit.

Suspension
The front suspension on the Blackfoot uses a double-wishbone design with long, coil-over, oil-filled shocks for damping; again, something the original truck didn’t have. Inboard, the wishbones mount to aluminum blocks that attach to the chassis. Out at the tires, the front axles sit in lowered steering arms that mount in heavy duty caster blocks. The plastic parts are big and beefy as is the mounting hardware – there are no puny parts on the front of this Ford.

Moving to the rear, Tamiya has opted to keep the original truck’s classic trailing arm design. Plastic rear swing arms pivot in holes in the gearbox with a capture point out at the chassis. These pivot points rely on grease (included in the kit) to reduce wear, so make sure you liberally coat these spots during assembly. The rear shocks are just like the fronts except they use a different spring rate and are mounted horizontally along the side of the truck. As old-school as this may seem, it actually works pretty good.

Tamiya includes 3 pre-load spacers per shock to adjust ride height, a nice tuning option depending on which type of battery you will be using. Since a LiPo is much lighter than a NiCd or NiMh pack, I didn’t need to use all the pre-load spacers and opted for the 4mm spacer in the front and the 1mm in the rear. I tried a couple different configurations but this setup is what I found to be the best.

Drivetrain
The heart of the Blackfoot is the slender, multi-geared transmission that is mounted at the rear of the truck, attached at two points between the chassis halves. This transmission uses a molded plastic center insert that is sandwiched between aluminum plates; these plates hold the unit together as well as keying all the internal gears. It’s actually an over-complicated setup, using pins and retainers to tie it all together, but the end result is an amazingly smooth gearbox. I’m loving the new molded skid plate mounted to the bottom – after a bit of spirited driving, my original truck wore through the underside of the transmission. I won’t be having this problem ever again!

The Mabuchi 540 motor (included in the kit) mounts at the top and uses a series of gears to transfer the power down to the grease-filled, planetary differential and out to the tires. The rear wheel adapters are a bit odd as well, using molded nubs on the wheels to key into recesses in the adapters. This is all in line with the original truck, however Tamiya has upgraded the actual drive axles to a set of universals (and still retaining the rubber joint boots!). I can’t say thank you enough for this – the original truck had some wacky multi-point male dogbones that keyed into the similar female outdrives. These would strip at the drop of a hat and you’d end up buying ALOT of replacements or upgrading to a Thorp drive system (who remembers those?). Anyway, It’s nice to see this 21st Century upgrade.

While I’m enjoying the trip back down memory lane, I do have one gripe, though, and that’s the fact that the Blackfoot still uses plastic and Oilite bushings instead of bearings. Now I understand it’s a re-release with a specific price point, but a set of bearings couldn’t change the cost all that much. This is one of those ‘must-do’ upgrades anyway and having to perform this after the fact means a pretty substantial tear-down, something the owner of this truck may not want to do.

Steering
The steering setup on the Blackfoot is actually quite simple. There’s a servo, a pair of threaded rods and the steering arms … that’s about it. I opted for one of Tactic RC’s TSX35 Sport servos to handle the steering, a basic servo that offers 73oz of torque and a speed of .16 seconds, quite enough for the Blackfoot. It is secured to the truck via an adjustable mounting system and uses a servo-mounted servo saver to help protect the gears. A pair of metal, threaded rods extend to the plastic steering arms; these can be used to adjust the front toe if needed. The steering throw is good however you’ll experience both bumpsteer (see the definition here: http://www.competitionx.com/rc-tuning-bumpsteer/) and quite a bit of free play – both things the original truck was famous for. I’m OK with this though – it’s all part of the Blackfoot’s charm.

Electronics
Tamiya has included both their TBLE-02S Brushless ESC and a Mabuchi 540 brushed motor, so that saves some initial spending for you. This combo has enough power to spin the tires, especially when it’s teamed up with our Duratrax Onyx 5000mAh LiPo battery. To control the Blackfoot, I installed Tactic’s TTX300 transmitter system.

Tamiya has made mounting the electronics pretty easy. There are two molded tabs at the top of the chassis that are wide enough to tape the ESC and receiver to. In this location, the wires on the ESC will reach both the motor and battery with ease.

Our Duratrax LiPo battery was a bit big for the battery tray, but after our modification it basically drops right in (see the Chassis feature above for mod). However there’s a catch; Tamiya’s TBLE-02S is great for brushed or brushless applications, but it’s not 100% completely LiPo compatible. So what does that mean? Well, almost every current ESC has a feature called Low Voltage Protection (LVP) and it detects when the battery drains to a certain voltage and then cuts the power, protecting the battery from going below that particular voltage.

LiPos don’t like to go below 6.0v, but the TBLE-02S’s cutoff is set at 5.0v. That’s a problem. There are addon electronics you can buy that will raise the LVP to 6.0v, but that’s another expense. If you’re not sure you want to deal with it, stick with a NiMh battery pack and you’ll be ok. Either way, the TBLE-02S is still 100-times better than the wiper controller the original truck had!

Body and Bumpers
While the body is not a re-release from the original (it’s pulled from the Blackfoot III kit), it still looks absolutely fantastic! It requires assembly and includes the chrome front grill and rear bumper, tinted glass, driver figure and roll cage with lights. You can customize it with paint but because it’s molded from ABS resin, you can’t use standard Lexan paints and have to paint it on the outside (unlike Lexan bodies where you paint from the inside). The truck also includes a pretty substantial, chassis-mounted molded front bumper and a great-looking set of semi-pneumatic tires wrapped in the famous Blackfoot yellow offroad wheels.

Performance
My original Blackfoot was at home on quite a few surfaces, but the track was not one of them. Interestingly enough, the empty area Mike and I use to drive in was still empty (although slightly upgraded), so I felt it was only suiting that I had a little play date there. It’s got it all – dirt, wood chips, bumps and rocks – just how I remember it. So, without further ado…

Speed and Braking
Tamiya has supplied the Blackfoot with the right equipment for fun times. They are masters of the Mabuchi, so the gearing takes full advantage of that motor’s strengths and weaknesses. The ESC is also programmed for play time and, coupled with the LiPo battery, there is plenty of that play time available. On the asphalt, it gets up to speed quickly, getting a little air under the front tires and hitting a top speed of about 20mph. This is a good clip when you’re working with a high-CG truck that is pretty top heavy (that body’s a whopping 13.7oz).

The brakes work well too, but one thing I noticed is that the delay from neutral to brakes is set very low in the ESC; tapping the brakes to slow down and then applying them again throws the Blackfoot into reverse, so the rear tires immediately start spinning backwards. It’s actually kind of fun while you’re on the dirt or other loose surface but just be careful when trying this on asphalt; doing this kicked the truck around wildly and almost sent it on its side. You don’t want to be sliding that beautiful Ford body on a rough surface like asphalt!

Steering and Handling
The Blackfoot has plenty of steering; the big treads on the tires do a great job of aiming the truck in the direction you want. Because of the amount of free-play in the system though, you’ll probably notice quite a bit of deflection when turning on bumpy terrain. There’s not much you can do about it other than maybe adding a metal-geared servo and removing the servo saver; that’s just part of the charisma of this truck.

The handling also stays true to the original. It’s still a little animated on rough terrain, but the addition of the oil-filled shocks is a huge improvement and helps keep all 4 tires on the ground. I drove it on dirt, wood chips and gravel and it did great, weaving around and staying in complete control. The power is just perfect for maximum fun and if at any time it started to slide sideways, I could power-drift it through the turns.

To spice things up a bit I decided to take the Blackfoot through some larger rocks that were in the area. As long as my intended path was relatively flat, it would make the expedition without any troubles. However, any uneven sections would hang the truck up and, because of it’s lightly-loaded fluid filled gear differential, cause the Blackfoot to spin one tire and get completely stuck. I knew this would happen but thought I’d give it a shot anyways. Moral of the story; stay on flatter land and you’ll be a much happier Blackfooter.

Durability and Maintenance
Unlike the original Blackfoot, the 2016 model gets exceptional marks in durability. All the parts are thick and strong and the hardware rivals that on full size cars. I didn’t get full crazy with it, but I did take it through some larger rocks and off a few curbs and it held together perfectly. The weak points of the original (mainly the axles) have been addressed and updated to keep the Blackfoot out for fun instead of on the workbench for repair.

Maintenance-wise, you shouldn’t have too much to worry about either. The oil-filled shocks don’t require a constant re-greasing, the dust cover should help keep debris off the servo and the rear axles, well, we’ve talked enough about the rear axles – the upgrade to universals has been heavenly. I am a bit concerned about the longevity of the plastic and Oilite bushings, so if you have it in your budget, pick up a full set of bearings when you buy the truck. A good set is available for around $10-$12.

Tuning
There’s not a whole lot of tuning options on the Blackfoot, but you can tweak a few things to improve the handling. Ride height adjustments are available on both the front and rear of the truck. There’s also front toe and front axle height. The shocks are fully adjustable with options for spring rates and oil viscosity. Other than that, just get out and drive it!

Additional

Spec Data

Conclusion
For those of you that had an original, the Tamiya Blackfoot 2016 is definitely a trip down memory lane. It doesn’t really matter if it handles well or is super fast, it’s a piece of sheer enjoyment for exactly what it is – a fun RC truck. For those of you that didn’t have a previous model, don’t expect a top-level race machine. It’s a bouncy, fumbly truck, but it’s just plain fun to drive, and looks really good doing so with that fabulous Ford body. It’s a piece of re-released history, and I’m happy to say that I enjoyed every moment it was running. Now it’s time to clean it up and shelve it next to a few of my other ‘keepers’. Thanks Tamiya for the memories, again.

Features – 7
Appearance – 9.8
Performance – Speed & Braking – 8
Performance – Steering & Handling – 8.5
Performance – Durability & Maintenance – 9.5
Performance – Tuning – 5
Overall Value – 9

Connect
Tamiya, www.TamiyaUSA.com
Duratrax, www.Duratrax.com
Tactic RC, www.TacticRC.com

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