New Ken Block RC Car For Sale

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Ben Leave a comment

Hi,

The prices you find here were accurate on the 3rd of march 2011, but using the links to the sites below you should always be able to find one for around $300.

To find a Ken Block RC Car For Sale in the shops below, I recommend you to use the search keyword: “Ken Block 16″ or “Ken Block Fiesta” in their search box. It worked for me on all the sites. (NOTE: The following keywords are not reliable: “ken block ford” or “ken block RC”, I don’t know why.)  

In the US there is Ken Block RC Car For Sale on Amazon.com from $279.95 to $359.99, or I’ve seen it on Ebay.com ”buy it now” price from $289.99  up to crazy $523.99 . On both sites some of the sellers do free shipping within the US, and most of them offer shipping internationally for extra cost.

If you are in the UK, you can try Amazon.co.uk (BUT I haven’t seen any there when I’ve checked) or Ebay.co.uk. I’ve seen ‘buy it now’ price on Ebay UK from  £269.00 to £294.99 and some offer free shipping within UK, some not. Some deliver overseas, some don’t. When I type this,  269.00 GBP = 437.744 USD, so I’d rather wait a few extra days to get it, and I’d buy it from the US as detailed in the paragraph above, or CLICK HERE to go to that shop where it sells from $279.95, and pay extra shipping around $40.00-$50.00 (BUT for example one US company declares this: “Customers with shipping addresses outside of the U.S.A. are responsible for all duties, import taxes and brokerage fees. These are *not* included in the cost of shipping or handling of your order. Customs, duties, and taxes vary widely from country to country; please check with your local customs agency for details on estimated costs.”)

If you are somewhere else (neither US nor UK), my first idea would be to check it on Ebay.com, since I’ve seen it available there with sellers shipping worldwide. If you have Ebay in your country, check that first, might be cheaper, but not necessarily, since these RC cars come from the US anyway(?or r they manufactured elsewhere?), and I think the fewer hands they pass through, the cheaper they are gonna be.

If you know another store where you can get it cheaper, can order online and you can get it delivered to your door, please let me know via email, and I will list it on this website.

I apologise if you were expecting more comparisons, but I’ve checked more than 20 other websites too, all of them were more expensive, and you will find 1 to ~20 different businesses on Amazon and Ebay anyway. I picked the cheapest in the first line of this post, but it might change time to time, sometimes some of them might run out of stock, some might change business plan(price), whatever, but by checking only the above two sites u can always see which company offers it at what price, and the selection should always be quite broad. Honestly I don’t think you can find much cheaper other than the cheapest on the above two huge sites, but price might not be your priority. To support your local community and businesses, check the websites of hobby shops you know around you, or go and visit their stores.

CLICK HERE to go to Amazon. Price usually: $279.95-$359.99

CLICK HERE to go to eBay. Price usually: $289.99-$523.99

Ken Block Ford Fiesta gymkhana RC cars for sale , ,

How To Get The Upgrade Kit

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Ben Leave a comment

Well, first of all, what to get and what do I mean upgrade pack?

I mean what do you need to make your Ken Block RC car capable of 50+ Mph?!

You need to buy one more (6 cell) battery ( Traxxas Power Series for 1/16 cars, 7,2 Volt NiMH – TRX-2925), and a series connector (TRX-3063).

It doubles your voltage, so increases your speed. Important when you do this, you need to change to the bigger pinion (which is included in the original pack), otherwise you might fry your ESC, as others did it in 5 minutes…

If you get the parallel connector that will double your running time/mileage which won’t give you more speed, only run time. (Running time is said to be around 20 mins with the standard single pack..)

So where can you get it?

Get it from Traxxas from the ‘BuyTraxxas’ website. Just enter the part number into the search box, the number only: 2925 or 3063 , and you can buy them online right away. Click here to go to the ‘BuyTraxxas’ website.   (When I last checked it, the battery was out of stock, and was priced  $24.50 . Unbelievable, everyone wants the fastest Ken Block gymkhana car :)   )

To get it from Ebay.com put this in the search box on Ebay: “traxxas 3063″ or “traxxas 2925″. When I checked there were plenty of them for sale, and I really dont understand how, but they seem to be cheaper on Ebay than on the Traxxas website. Click here to check the battery on Ebay costing from $15.99 to $18.99 

Click here to buy from Amazon. Battery price around: $18 Series connector price around: $6.00

(Whatever parts u wanna buy for your RC model car, keep in mind it might be worth to check the prices on more than one website.)

What if you want a Lithium-Polimer pack, wich one? Well, I’ve found this in some youtube comments:

question: “Mike, which lipos did you get for the car. Just got my Fiesta yesterday and am keen to get some lipo action. Cheers, Matt”

answer: “Thunder Power 1350mAh 3s 11.V Pro Power 30C/60C burst – they fit and work great – seem to be very rugged for a soft pack – we use them in the 1/16 e revo and slash for bashing!”

I think there might be a few other solutions too, I dont know all the versions tho :(

Traxxas says that the car is fully LiPo compatible with low-voltage detection for 2s and 3s packs, and rated for 6-12 NiMH cells.

More from comments to this subject: “low voltage cutoff, is used to protect lipo battery voltage from dropping too low and damaging the pack. The mini VXL system has LVC for two cell and three cell lipos, but not four cell (which would be dual two cell packs running in series). Therefore, you must be cautious driving with the insane power of dual two cell lipos as the packs could be damaged… and the ESC gets hot during 4s driving. Check the Rally home page on the Traxxas site for ESC specs.”

Ken Block Ford Fiesta gymkhana RC cars for sale , , ,

Used Ken Block RC Car For Sale

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Ben Leave a comment

Hi There,

I haven’t seen many for sale in a used condition yet! I’ve seen some ads in forums or other guy’s websites, but most of them were sold very quickly, so the best thing you can do is just google ‘used Ken Block RC Car for sale’, and check all the results – not just on the first page, but until you get tired :) . I would check the first 150 results (=first 15 search result pages) at least if I really wanna find a used one, and do it once a week while my patience lasts :)

The biggest number of used Ken Block RC-s were on good old Ebay.com while I was doing my research (looking for a new one :) ). Usually they are under bidding, so prepare to do that if you want a used one. I think if you follow what I suggested in the previous paragraph, you’ll come across the Ebay results anyway..

If you really like Subarus as I do, you might struggle to resist the nice old Tamiya Ken Block Subarus…

Ken Block Ford Fiesta gymkhana RC cars for sale , ,

Ken Block RC Car vs. Full Size Car

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Ben Leave a comment

Hi,

I had an idea to compare the Traxxas Ken Block Gymkhana Fiesta 1/16 RC car with the real full size Gymkhana Block 2011 Fiesta. I think it’s most relevant for the acceleration capability of the cars.

Data I used:

  • weight of real car: 2425 pound = 1099.96 kg
  • top horsepower of real car: 650 Hp
  • weight of RC car: 964 g = 2,1252 pound = 0.964 kg
  • top horsepower of RC car out of the box: 0.48 Hp
  • top horsepower of RC car with the upgrade: 0.965 Hp

More about the upgrade pack in this post: “How To Get The Upgrade Kit?”

How did I calculate Hp for the model car? It uses the Velineon 380 Brushless Motor , which I found on the web can use max. burst 50 Ampers. So:

  • Power = Volt * Amper = 7.2 V * 50 A = 360 Watt = 0.36 KW = 0.48 Horsepower  (out of the box single battery delivers 7,2 Volt)
  • Power with upgrade (two battery in series) = 14.4 V * 50 A = 0.965 Hp.

Final calculations:

  • Real car: Horsepower/weight =  650Hp/2425 pounds = 0.27 Hp/pound (=0.591 Hp/Kg)
  • RC out of box: 0.48 Hp/2.1252 = 0.23 Hp/pound (=0.498 Hp/Kg)
  • RC upgraded: 0.965 Hp/2.1252 = 0.45 Hp/pound (=1.001 Hp/Kg)

Ken Block Ford Fiesta gymkhana RC cars for sale , ,

Ken Block model car review

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Ben Leave a comment

Ok, so this is not a real review by me of the Ken Block model car, that would be too biased. I know there are better RCs for this and that, but this is what I wanted, and others are just different ones. (Same reason I drive WRX as a real car.., I know there are better cars in many aspects, but I “need” it’s sound note. Get what ur heart says, and u ‘ll be happy.)

So this post is a “summary review” of all the reviews and comments I’ve found and read online about the Traxxas Block Gymkhana. This is what people are saying:

Positives:

  • very good out of the box acceleration
  • very good out of the box top speed (brushless heaven, 30+ Mph :) )
  • does donuts as crazy
  • provides heaps of fun
  • when u r bored with the things above, you can easily upgrade it to “All Out” 50+ Mph
  • sealed differentials and sealed electronics are good against dust, dirt and water (not a submarine, just ok on wet tarmac ;)   )
  • very durable
  • image and style of the latest Ken Block car, the Ford Fiesta Gymkhana car, a “true” Ken Block RC Car body
  • the manufacturer Traxxas has good customer service, and this model is based on an earlier model, so spare parts should be easy to get if needed (You can try to get spare parts here, or on the Traxxas.com website or on Ebay.com)

Negatives:

  • for some people it is not so easy to do long continuous drifts at the beginning, you need to practice and might need change the settings, experiment on different surfaces/tires, experiment with changing the weight distribution by placing small weights here and there on the car. To read more about this go to my How to Setup your Ken Block Gymkhana practice car for Better Handling page.

More in general (some people think these are negatives, but actually depending on viewpoint, can be positives as well):

  • it’s not an off road car
  • it’s an on road car, but not a proper tarmac touring car
  • it’s not a rear wheel drive proper drift car
  • it’s a gymkhana car

My opinion is not to expect it to be what it isn’t. Good old Ken also wouldn’t and couldn’t enter any off road, touring car, rally race with his gymkhana Fiesta. (I m not sure about drift races, there are many different regulations from race to race, but the ones I’ve been to so far, said that drift race is only for rear wheel drive cars…) 

Anyway, because I’ve seen all the Ken Block videos many times, and I’ve found out that there is a quite good RC car version of his new Ford Fiesta gymkhana practice rocket, my subconscious mind instantly decided that I’d like to have one of them.

I knew I’d like it even just looking at it on my shelf or desk, it ‘d motivate me in whatever I need to do, and I also saw myself doing better tricks with it than good old Ken, because I practice more haha.

What others feel:

  • “i would never get this short wheel-base pussy car, worth nothin”
  • “not good for off-road, isn’t it a rally car?”
  • “this car is a beast”
  • “just got mine today servos are really strong”
  • “just got mine today i love it”
  • “Driving this car is just a blast.”
  • “this is one mean little toy:)”

:)

Thanks for reading.

Ken Block Ford Fiesta gymkhana RC cars for sale , ,