When I first got into the hobby I thought the RC10DS was the coolest kit out there. Those gold BBS wheels, the Pro-Line Speed Hawg tires (the car used to come with actual Pro-Line tires right in the box), the choice of the Mustang Trans Am body or the Mercedes DTM shell (as well as the Nascar Truck series F150 body that was available on the Nitro DS), that aluminum chassis with the short shocks; it was just such a cool looking car I knew I wanted one from the first time I saw it. I was never able to get my hands on an original but I did snag one at a discount when Horizon put them on sale for $249 during their spat with Team Associated over pricing, giving me the opportunity to see what I had been missing out on all these years.
In addition to the kit itself I also purchased a bearing kit from Team Fast Eddy bearings, NOS fiberglass lowered shock towers from Bolink, a set of NOS MIP CVD’s, a half-height servo, a Hobbywing 10BL120 ESC, a 4600kv 4-pole brushless motor and a Radiolink receiver to bind to my RC8X transmitter. I also purchased a set of SAE hex drivers and SAE nut drivers to complete the kit. I chose to use 1UP RC’s 2-part ball diff grease kit to lube the diff balls and diff rings and used CowRC’s Udder Butter on the shock O-rings and on the composite transmission gears.
Throughout the build if I found something that tripped me up or I felt was noteworthy I would write myself a message on a sticky note and apply it to that step so i could return to it later and share it with you all. I’ve found this is a great way to take special note before building a kit if you do your research on common problems; doing this will help you learn from others mistakes, creating a better. more enjoyable building experience. On to the notes! Apologies in advance; since the manual has a glossy finish, getting proper photos without a glare was nearly impossible with my current camera setup.
Page 5, Step 3: In this step my kit was missing the two ball studs that the sway bar links attach to. I had hoped they were in another bag later in the kit but in the end there were just missing altogether.
Page 6 Step 6: In this step pay close attention to the orientation of the turnbuckles as they are not marked for left-and-right-hand thread. I used a thin, white paint pen to put a line on the right-hand thread of each turnbuckle to ensure they were all installed on the car in the same orientation. Doing this will make future chassis adjustments much easier. If this is how things were back in the mid-90’s when this kit was originally released I can understand not including a marking notch on the turnbuckle for authenticity’s sake but I feel that Team Associated could have notched the turnbuckles without it being a detriment to the vintage vibe.
Page 7 Step 8: In this step my kit was missing (2) of part #6271, ball studs again not packaged in Bag A along with the rest of the parts and hardware. In the end these parts were missing from the kit entirely. Luckily I had installed titanium ball studs on my original SC10 so I had a few spares in my Team Associated parts box that i could use to complete my kit.
Page 8 Step 10: In this step the instructions have you suing white ball cups specifically. There were no white cups included in Bag F (the bag identified for this step) and my kit did not have any white cups in any bag. Luckily the correct number of ball cups were included despite them all being black. This isn’t a big deal, just be aware since the manual calls for white cups specifically.
Page 9 Step 2: When installing your own servo horn, as one is not included, that most alloy servo horns are threaded for M3x0.5 and not 4-40, which is what this kit uses for its ball studs. In this case you have two options: one, buy a specific servo horn for an SAE Team Associated car beforehand and use that, or 2, use one of the plastic servo horns that your servo comes with. I chose to use the plastic horn that my servo came packaged with as it was the correct length and allowed me to continue to the next step without having to wait for another part to arrive. My servo is a 13kg unit and should do just fine with the plastic horn installed.
Page 10 Step 2: Pay close attention to the placement of the sway bar ball stud. In step 2 teh manual shows the stud in the middle hole but in future steps it is in the inner hole. The correct position is the inner hole on the rear arm.
Page 15 Step 3: When assembling the Stealth gearbox, make sure to install the top shaft pin for the slipper hub prior to installing the aluminum motor plate. I missed the pin on my first try and had to disassemble the gearbox to install the pin as my large fingers could not insert the pin with the motor plate installed. The manual doesn’t make mention of the order this needs to be done in, however it is much easier to install the pin first and slide the motor plate into place after. The neck of the slipper hub slides into the motor plate and reached the top shaft pin just fine and is an effective, if not unorthodox, solution.
I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoy building Team Associated kits. My DR10 and RC10B7 went together without a single hiccup and were a joy to build. This kit was a frustrating challenge. It seems to me that there are too many mistakes in the manual to have been written by human but rather it feels as though it was designed by AI. TA’s manuals are usually extremely well thought out and include text where necessary but this manual felt like an afterthought. I found myself going online to view PDF scans of the original manual just to get through certain portions of the build. Combined with the copious amount of missing hardware and I feel like this was more fur coat and less trousers. I cannot speak to other RC10 Classic kits and their quality but this one was certainly not up to par. Will this prevent me from ever buying another TA kit? No, absolutely not. Do I think TA can do better? Emphatically yes. I hope these build tips help you with your build and if you have any questions please feel free to drop a comment; we’ll be more than happy to help!