I love this chassis. And I love the added details you have added to yours. I, too, am annoyed with red back-up lights. I don't know why they do that. (Maybe it is Communism.) But I have discovered an elegantly simple hack that fixes that. The 3-in-1 receiver has pins for tail light and brake light. The brake light pin actually carries forward through the cable. The culprit is in the two wire Futaba connector at the back. It is a non-standard wiring configuration. The positive ground is the side pin receptacle. The back-up light negative is the center pin receptacle. And the brake light negative is the empty side. So you simply unplug the Futaba connector that goes to the red lights. You are going to change the plug that goes to the red lights, not the plug that goes to the chassis! You leave the side pin receptacle alone. And you move the center pin receptacle to the empty side. Then you plug the Futaba connector back in exactly as it was before. The positive ground remains as it was on one side. And the brake light is now accessed on the other side. It is a good brake light: it come on with the lights and gets brighter with the brakes... Elegantly simple!... You're welcome...
Me too, I love these FCX cars. Hahahah! I have been to China and I think their car tail lights are on when they are going forward but maybe I haven't looked close enough, ahahahah! Holy crap, can you send me a diagram? I want to do this and make a bloody video of it! I'm going to try this when I get home! Amproengineering@gmail.com
@@AMPROEngineering I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures. It's simple if you find the right Futaba connector. It is the only one with only two wires coming out of it. Just move the center wire to the empty side, and plug it right back in. I have a second chassis that I have not done yet. Let me know if you have problems, and I will try to document that one with pictures. I don't know why someone hasn't done this already. I guess we will have to call it the Lilla Gubben Hack...
@@R3DLiNCOLN-13 Hi Robert. I am sorry that I never videoed it. But it is simpler than soldering! (Ampro should make the video!) Do you know what a Futaba connector looks like? It is the standard connector that plugs most servos into receivers. But not with FMS. They use those tiny PH connectors at the receiver board. I am not talking about at the receiver board. Look at the back of the vehicle body. You will see two large traditional Futaba connections. These control the back orange lights and red lights. All of these connectors have three wires except one. The one connector with only two wires is the one you want. Mark it first so you can plug it back in exactly as it was (being black with all black wires makes it easy to plug it back in either way, but you will want to plug it in exactly as it was before). Now, unplug it. And notice that one wire is in the CENTER and one wire is at an edge. The other edge is left empty. You want to move the CENTER pin wire from the center to the empty hole at the edge. You do this by prying up the little plastic cogs that lock the pins in place. When you have pried up the cogs you can pull the wire and pin out the top of the plug. And you can slide it into the vacant hole on the edge. It will lock in place when you have pushed it in far enough. Plug the two halves of that Futaba connector back together exactly as they were plugged in before. The edge pin you left in place is the positive for the red lights. The other edge to where you moved the center pin is the negative that connects the red lights to the brake and running light function. (The center location connected that pin to the back-up light function, and red back-up lights are more annoying than turn signals to me!) So now you have orange turn signals! And red lights that come on when you brake and come on with the front lights... just like a real car... which is the objective...
@@lillagubben2815 awesome thank you for the write up 🙏 👏 I plan on doing this very soon. This past weekend I painted the tail light And sharpied the front signals in.
said it once ( i’m lying i say it all the time lol ) and i’ll say it again……. this is the best damn youtube channel for RC that i have been able to find in my 10 years of searching. thank you for all that you do for this hobby we really appreciate it Al
It is a good looking little truck and you made it much better looking! It was nice seeing the whole crew out running it around and it did very well out there! Nice run down of the whole truck as well!
Wheel change was accidentally appropiate; in 1992, the FJ80 was available with those same 8 spoke wheels that came on the 4 runner. I loved the Light mods, gonna do those to my own LC80, please post follow up vids!!
I see many other test video for this FMS fcx18 , and this show is relay the best .. you test the rc car like the real car with honest review , not sponsor review ..keep going and never give up please !
All the FCX Cars are great. The best think I did was get the FCX24 Blazer, the body for the Smasher and monster truck wheels and tires. This way my son car use the Blazer as a trail truck and change the body and wheels and have a monster truck! Two cars in one!
@@AMPROEngineering yeah I jumped the gun and got the first iteration of this platform in the power wagon. I love it, but when the blazer came out I was a bit gutted and now that this has come out I want this even more! How many rc cars is too many! The battery alone makes it worth getting. Will it fit in the 24th scale?
7:14 Thanks for the useful steering servo test. Every other channel owner turns the transmitter wheel lock to lock so fast (like 5 times in 1 second) you can't tell if it is actually proportional, nor how precise it is. They also place a super high value on servo speed, but fail to understand how that is unnecessary for a slow crawler. Fast servo response is critical for planes, fast boats and helicopters but not crawlers.
Great video bud im actually in the process of painting the headlights and buckets i was happy u did the same thing to it those lights need some tlc so they look more scale nice job on the stripes they look great i got the yellow/sand colored one i love it a ton one of my favorite minis so far besides my trx4ms i have the defender and i have both high trails i got the blue chevy first and just yesterday i picked up the brown ford f150 ranger gonna take it out for some film sessions 👍 nice job on your fcx18 man looks awesome
Really liked what you did with the lenses and leds. Also the strips. Would have liked to see how you changed the color in the rear. Love your work and videos. I’m finally building a new body for my TF2 and I’ll be using your 3D rear tail lights off Shapeways. Also bought the Xtra Cab a while back. The rear lenses look different. But they kept the hole. Don’t understand it!! 🤔🤔
Thank you! At the rear I just used a silver sharpie for the reverse and an acrylic orange for the turn signal. I don't think anyone will ever understand.
22:51 That RC4WD Hilux CAN do well anywhere outside as long as you scale the environment to the truck. When it fails to conquer your lawn that's cut to 3", that's on you. You see people griping that their 1/18 FMS whatever car can't climb over a 1/1 cinder block or 5" tall tree roots, so they call it junk.
Well, the TF2 mini out of the box is hardly capable. At $169, is overpriced by $119, the stock motor is awful, the replacement it comes with is awful, the replacement motor/gearbox they make is great but the body falls off, the remote is terrible and it is still a micro crawler. All that said, I am the only person on earth actively making parts for it.
@@AMPROEngineering You're right, you jogged my memory on the TF2 reviews. It was terrible and underpowered but good on you for seeing a niche and providing parts.
Got mine today. 1st run looks promising. However mine came in a white box. Bit of shame as I was planning to use the box to store the car on the shelf when not in use. What I did like, mine came with blacked links and steering rod. Bit strange these differences on new car. Doesn’t matter, enjoy!
I'm picking one of these up this week. Awesome that you did light mods. I was thinking that the lenses were amber, but it's just the LED. I plan on swapping out the ambers for white. Can you tell me, are the rack lights amber LED or amber lenses? I'd like to switch out those as well, or, if I can figure out the transmitter/receiver, have one set amber and one white.
@@AMPROEngineering Picked up a yellow yesterday. What fun! I dug into the lights. Interesting. The headlight and light bar LEDs are all very yellow in temp, but not actual amber like the turn signal LEDs. I ended up clipping the turn signal LEDs in the front and disconnecting the LEDs in the rear because I think it is pretty dumb. I used bright white LEDs in their place and wired them up to the headlight circuit for each side. What a difference! Leaving the stock LEDs made for a cool fog light/headlight look, but I need to reverse their location next time I have the shell off (what a pain. I'll be buying magnetic mounts). At some point I might tackle the rack lights. The stock LEDs are just too yellow. Regarding the tail light lenses. Did you just paint the exterior? I'd love to have actual white light when reverse comes on.
I allways love the mods and upgrades you make to your cars! Thanks for sharing that with us. 👍 I wander what type of pens/ink did you used for the lights... :)
1:38 Does the total length (of the body) accord with the length of the original? You'd have to measure the FMS body sans the rear tire because 1/1 LC80s don't have rear mounted spares. I rarely go off their wheelbase dimensions because it is arbitrary and exaggerated to fit their exaggerated tire sizes. FMS just upscales or downscales the body they create in order to make it fit their basic (preexisting) chassis setup. With the FCX18 LC80, the wheelbase matters even less as it is now a Monster Truck and the body and the drivetrain are totally divorced from each other.
yes wheelbase is a tough one to determine as often times the wheel arches are cut out larger (the blazer does that) and that brings the axles closer together thereby skewing the ability to divide the wheelbases. No idea on the body VS the 1:1 but ill need to try and look.
I’ve just bought the same model and for some reason I have to bind the receiver every time I turn on the truck? Any suggestions would be much appreciated
That is very strange. I have had these take up to 5 seconds to connect to the radio but I am sure you are waiting way longer. I would reach out to FMS. They have great customer support.
I added them to the AMPro my mini factory (link in description) for home print. If you do not have a home printer, email me at amproengineering@gmail.com
I love this chassis. And I love the added details you have added to yours. I, too, am annoyed with red back-up lights. I don't know why they do that. (Maybe it is Communism.) But I have discovered an elegantly simple hack that fixes that. The 3-in-1 receiver has pins for tail light and brake light. The brake light pin actually carries forward through the cable. The culprit is in the two wire Futaba connector at the back. It is a non-standard wiring configuration. The positive ground is the side pin receptacle. The back-up light negative is the center pin receptacle. And the brake light negative is the empty side. So you simply unplug the Futaba connector that goes to the red lights. You are going to change the plug that goes to the red lights, not the plug that goes to the chassis! You leave the side pin receptacle alone. And you move the center pin receptacle to the empty side. Then you plug the Futaba connector back in exactly as it was before. The positive ground remains as it was on one side. And the brake light is now accessed on the other side. It is a good brake light: it come on with the lights and gets brighter with the brakes... Elegantly simple!... You're welcome...
Me too, I love these FCX cars. Hahahah! I have been to China and I think their car tail lights are on when they are going forward but maybe I haven't looked close enough, ahahahah! Holy crap, can you send me a diagram? I want to do this and make a bloody video of it! I'm going to try this when I get home! Amproengineering@gmail.com
@@AMPROEngineering I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures. It's simple if you find the right Futaba connector. It is the only one with only two wires coming out of it. Just move the center wire to the empty side, and plug it right back in. I have a second chassis that I have not done yet. Let me know if you have problems, and I will try to document that one with pictures. I don't know why someone hasn't done this already. I guess we will have to call it the Lilla Gubben Hack...
@@lillagubben2815do you have a video? How does one de pin these connectors and move them?
@@R3DLiNCOLN-13 Hi Robert. I am sorry that I never videoed it. But it is simpler than soldering! (Ampro should make the video!) Do you know what a Futaba connector looks like? It is the standard connector that plugs most servos into receivers. But not with FMS. They use those tiny PH connectors at the receiver board. I am not talking about at the receiver board. Look at the back of the vehicle body. You will see two large traditional Futaba connections. These control the back orange lights and red lights. All of these connectors have three wires except one. The one connector with only two wires is the one you want. Mark it first so you can plug it back in exactly as it was (being black with all black wires makes it easy to plug it back in either way, but you will want to plug it in exactly as it was before). Now, unplug it. And notice that one wire is in the CENTER and one wire is at an edge. The other edge is left empty. You want to move the CENTER pin wire from the center to the empty hole at the edge. You do this by prying up the little plastic cogs that lock the pins in place. When you have pried up the cogs you can pull the wire and pin out the top of the plug. And you can slide it into the vacant hole on the edge. It will lock in place when you have pushed it in far enough. Plug the two halves of that Futaba connector back together exactly as they were plugged in before. The edge pin you left in place is the positive for the red lights. The other edge to where you moved the center pin is the negative that connects the red lights to the brake and running light function. (The center location connected that pin to the back-up light function, and red back-up lights are more annoying than turn signals to me!) So now you have orange turn signals! And red lights that come on when you brake and come on with the front lights... just like a real car... which is the objective...
@@lillagubben2815 awesome thank you for the write up 🙏 👏 I plan on doing this very soon. This past weekend I painted the tail light And sharpied the front signals in.
said it once ( i’m lying i say it all the time lol ) and i’ll say it again……. this is the best damn youtube channel for RC that i have been able to find in my 10 years of searching. thank you for all that you do for this hobby we really appreciate it Al
Well you are too kind! It is my pleasure.
It is a good looking little truck and you made it much better looking! It was nice seeing the whole crew out running it around and it did very well out there! Nice run down of the whole truck as well!
I am so happy my kids can run the cars while I film. My daughter just took the remote and spent a good 20 min with it. This is a great truck.
Wheel change was accidentally appropiate; in 1992, the FJ80 was available with those same 8 spoke wheels that came on the 4 runner. I loved the Light mods, gonna do those to my own LC80, please post follow up vids!!
I have seen some like that. I know they are less common but they have more style. Will do!
Yes I saw that. I had noticed that when I was researching! I love these wheels.
The model after modification became very wonderful. I love the blue color..
Me too! Gave a nice little change!
I see many other test video for this FMS fcx18 , and this show is relay the best .. you test the rc car like the real car with honest review , not sponsor review ..keep going and never give up please !
Well thank you. I try and go one step further with the reviews.
I got the gray one and I love it the details are just Outstanding, love the stripes you did On yours looks great, As always appreciate you sharing
Thank you so much!
Very tempted by this one.. Thanks for your review 👍🏻
All the FCX Cars are great. The best think I did was get the FCX24 Blazer, the body for the Smasher and monster truck wheels and tires. This way my son car use the Blazer as a trail truck and change the body and wheels and have a monster truck! Two cars in one!
@@AMPROEngineering yeah I jumped the gun and got the first iteration of this platform in the power wagon. I love it, but when the blazer came out I was a bit gutted and now that this has come out I want this even more! How many rc cars is too many! The battery alone makes it worth getting. Will it fit in the 24th scale?
Very smooth crawler, great low end
Yeah that gearbox is a gem
7:14 Thanks for the useful steering servo test. Every other channel owner turns the transmitter wheel lock to lock so fast (like 5 times in 1 second) you can't tell if it is actually proportional, nor how precise it is. They also place a super high value on servo speed, but fail to understand how that is unnecessary for a slow crawler. Fast servo response is critical for planes, fast boats and helicopters but not crawlers.
These servo's are like silk. They do a great job selecting the correct ones.
Nice touch ups! Portal delete might look cool too
I think that would help. To me, it sits too high and I do not like the wheel offset.
Great video bud im actually in the process of painting the headlights and buckets i was happy u did the same thing to it those lights need some tlc so they look more scale nice job on the stripes they look great i got the yellow/sand colored one i love it a ton one of my favorite minis so far besides my trx4ms i have the defender and i have both high trails i got the blue chevy first and just yesterday i picked up the brown ford f150 ranger gonna take it out for some film sessions 👍 nice job on your fcx18 man looks awesome
Well thank you so much for your kind words. I think yours is going to come out awesome!
@@AMPROEngineering thanks very much i appreciate it and your welcome 👍
What are you two using for painting the lights? Anything specific? And how are the stripes made ? Stickers or masking off and painting?
Really liked what you did with the lenses and leds. Also the strips. Would have liked to see how you changed the color in the rear. Love your work and videos. I’m finally building a new body for my TF2 and I’ll be using your 3D rear tail lights off Shapeways. Also bought the Xtra Cab a while back. The rear lenses look different. But they kept the hole. Don’t understand it!! 🤔🤔
Thank you! At the rear I just used a silver sharpie for the reverse and an acrylic orange for the turn signal. I don't think anyone will ever understand.
It looks awsome qt The end on The rocks🎉
The truck runs really well!
i love it this blue yota nice
Yes me too!
22:51 That RC4WD Hilux CAN do well anywhere outside as long as you scale the environment to the truck. When it fails to conquer your lawn that's cut to 3", that's on you. You see people griping that their 1/18 FMS whatever car can't climb over a 1/1 cinder block or 5" tall tree roots, so they call it junk.
Well, the TF2 mini out of the box is hardly capable. At $169, is overpriced by $119, the stock motor is awful, the replacement it comes with is awful, the replacement motor/gearbox they make is great but the body falls off, the remote is terrible and it is still a micro crawler. All that said, I am the only person on earth actively making parts for it.
@@AMPROEngineering You're right, you jogged my memory on the TF2 reviews. It was terrible and underpowered but good on you for seeing a niche and providing parts.
Got mine today. 1st run looks promising. However mine came in a white box. Bit of shame as I was planning to use the box to store the car on the shelf when not in use. What I did like, mine came with blacked links and steering rod. Bit strange these differences on new car. Doesn’t matter, enjoy!
Huh? Really? I have never seen anything but these foam boxes. So weird that it is so different!
@@AMPROEngineering sorry. It’s foam. Just a white one instead of the nicer looking gray 🤗
I don’t think you bought the same one. There’s older versions out there. Price point is a huge difference as well.
@@Texas.Cruisers what makes you think you know better what I bought, paid and have in front of me..? It’s the same. Weird respons…
@@franktl3423The newer ones have metal link rods, the older one had plastic which is black in color.
Very beautiful FMS😉👌💪
Thank you!
I'm picking one of these up this week. Awesome that you did light mods. I was thinking that the lenses were amber, but it's just the LED. I plan on swapping out the ambers for white. Can you tell me, are the rack lights amber LED or amber lenses? I'd like to switch out those as well, or, if I can figure out the transmitter/receiver, have one set amber and one white.
The rack is all LED also. the yellow is all the lenses on those.
@@AMPROEngineering Picked up a yellow yesterday. What fun!
I dug into the lights. Interesting. The headlight and light bar LEDs are all very yellow in temp, but not actual amber like the turn signal LEDs. I ended up clipping the turn signal LEDs in the front and disconnecting the LEDs in the rear because I think it is pretty dumb. I used bright white LEDs in their place and wired them up to the headlight circuit for each side. What a difference! Leaving the stock LEDs made for a cool fog light/headlight look, but I need to reverse their location next time I have the shell off (what a pain. I'll be buying magnetic mounts). At some point I might tackle the rack lights. The stock LEDs are just too yellow.
Regarding the tail light lenses. Did you just paint the exterior? I'd love to have actual white light when reverse comes on.
If you want an even longer run time and more punch Urgenex makes a 35c 1800mah battery for fms
Holy cow! Its going to run for days!
I allways love the mods and upgrades you make to your cars! Thanks for sharing that with us. 👍
I wander what type of pens/ink did you used for the lights... :)
My pleasure! I used an acrylic orange paint pen. They work "ok", I would get an enamel pen.
@@AMPROEngineering thank you! :)
Nice! I have a blue version as well. Do you have a link to the graphics? Of is it a one off?
Oh I painted these on. To me it always seems faster when the body has covers, haha!
1:38 Does the total length (of the body) accord with the length of the original? You'd have to measure the FMS body sans the rear tire because 1/1 LC80s don't have rear mounted spares. I rarely go off their wheelbase dimensions because it is arbitrary and exaggerated to fit their exaggerated tire sizes. FMS just upscales or downscales the body they create in order to make it fit their basic (preexisting) chassis setup. With the FCX18 LC80, the wheelbase matters even less as it is now a Monster Truck and the body and the drivetrain are totally divorced from each other.
yes wheelbase is a tough one to determine as often times the wheel arches are cut out larger (the blazer does that) and that brings the axles closer together thereby skewing the ability to divide the wheelbases. No idea on the body VS the 1:1 but ill need to try and look.
hi. do you have a picture how you mounted those signal lights in front? 🙂
Yes, I cover that in this video. I show how to drill the corner marker and move everything.
what brand paint pens do you use? really like the headlight mod you did
Oh the chrome pen is amazing. it is this one amzn.to/49fggo0
Is that the same brand you used for the headlight orange?
@@AMPROEngineering
I’ve just bought the same model and for some reason I have to bind the receiver every time I turn on the truck? Any suggestions would be much appreciated
That is very strange. I have had these take up to 5 seconds to connect to the radio but I am sure you are waiting way longer. I would reach out to FMS. They have great customer support.
The unit seems really loud. Do you also hear the high pitch noise?
The camera is picking that up. It isnt weirdly loud or anything.
What RC model is that yellow pickup at the end of the video? Thanks.
That is a trailfinder 2 mini. I have a video coming on it soon!
Neat
It's a neat car.
@@AMPROEngineering neat video presentation too. Subbed.
What year would you say this model represents, early to mid 90's?
I think 90-97?
👍👍👍
Thank you!
Mine came with black links instead of the silver and I'm not sure why.
Really? Weird.
At least they gave me metal links but it's still confusing as to why I got different ones. I ended up painting them bronze with liquid chromium.
@@KyleKick909 I myself got one with black links too. Got the blue and silver rig.
Where can I find those wheels?
I added them to the AMPro my mini factory (link in description) for home print. If you do not have a home printer, email me at amproengineering@gmail.com
Can we buy the wheels colored?
What rims are they?
These are AMPro designed wheels. There is a link to MyMiniFactory for a home print.
Blue wheels let it down massively 🤢
Sure glad it's my car then.
My fcx24 will smoke ya brother.
I love my FCX24's too!