While Ready-To-Run (RTR) cars usually come with just about everything you need to run them, a racing kit will need a bunch of extra stuff to get it going, and that can add up!

Here’s a list of what I needed to get my Xray T4 touring car to run:

  • radio set (transmitter and receiver)
  • steering servo
  • electronic speed controller (ESC)
  • motor
  • LiPo pack
  • wheels and tyres set
  • fibre tape (to hold down the battery)
  • pinion gear (kit came with a spur gear, but no pinion!)
  • bearing oil
  • thread lock
  • battery connectors
  • battery charger
  • balance leads for my charger
  • LiPo safety bag
  • body shell (got it painted, but otherwise, paint and masking tape too)
  • extra body clips (kit came with 4, but I needed an extra one for the track lap counting transponder!)
  • tyre additive
  • double-sided tape (my receiver and ESC came with some, though)

In the case of a used car, you might have some of these included, so check first to see what’s included or not. That might be a hidden, but significant bonus to a used car! For example, some cars I found on eBay included wheels/tyres and a body shell (some painted, others unpainted), and some mentioned including “some spares”. A body shell is about £13-21 (not including paint), wheels/tyres set is £23-25, so that can be almost £50 of included stuff right there!

I’m deliberately skipping tools, since they don’t really go in the car, but I didn’t have proper Allen drivers, 7mm nut driver (for the wheels), 4mm turnbuckle wrench, cleaning brush, a soldering kit (to install the battery connectors, as well as hook up the speedo and motor), body hole reamer, etc…

You might already have most of these (or close enough) around the house, but for the Allen drivers, I found that even though what I had is a high quality bicycle toolkit, they were really easy to strip, and it’s much easier with the hardened tip drivers that I got soon after. Make sure they’re metric!

Someone at the club could help out with the soldering, so you could spare yourself having to get that (plus, soldering is definitely a skill, might want help on that if you haven’t done much of it).

Don’t be afraid to ask questions both at your club and at a hobby shop. For example, try to figure out if a particular item is required to run the car, or merely offers added convenience, so you can make your own choices.