HPI NISSAN GTR 1991 TAISAN Livery

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HPI NISSAN GTR 1991 TAISAN Livery

Postby Cosmic Bilby » Sat Dec 01, 2012 4:59 am

HPI NISSAN GTR #2 TAISAN 1991 #8532

By Rob Wessling

Photos by Christine Wessling.


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Greetings fellow HRW devotees!!!

I've been wanting to do a review on a HPI brand GTR Nissan for awhile now, these cars came out a couple of years ago and don't seem to have been on the mainstream slotting radar, I thought I'd share my findings on what is a most interesting release....

First a little background on the HPI company and the prototype itself.

HPI is a well known brand name with anyone that has dabbled in R/C circles. HPI has manufactured a variety of R/C cars, ranging from off road stadium trucks to on-road racers. HPI makes both electric and nitro powered models, they have quite a huge range, including many varieties of clear lexan bodies.

I am led to believe that in recent times HPI have also dabbled in DieCast models, from what I have seen of their slotting efforts, I'd say this information would be pretty close to the mark, but more on that a bit later....


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The prototype of the model I am reviewing today is pretty well known to many of you, the Nissan GTR R32, or "Godzilla" to many Aussies that followed Group A racing in the '90's. Group A was an International touring car class that superseded our homegrown Group C class, for better or worse, this was the new class of racing Aussies followed until the V8 Supercar formula came into being.

The Nissan GTR raced against vehicles such as the Ford Sierra, BMW M3, Jaguar XJS, and local Aussie VK/VL V8 Commodores. In Oz at least the Nissan GTR was all conquering, an awesome performer by any yardstick....

Currently there aren't a great many 1/32 models that can be used to make up a field of Group A racers, SCX and now Ninco do a Ford Sierra, FLY and AutoArt do the beautiful little M3 BMW, it would be great to have more marques in scale form, perhaps one day we will get lucky eh?


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I fear the HPI Nissan GTR is something of an anomaly in our hobby. Initially offered in street guise with a range of three colours, a further three releases offered enthusiasts the Taisan, Calsonic and Zexel livery. There was also another release of a later model street "spec" GTR in several more factory colours. Many of us were quite excited about these developments from HPI, then nothing....

....Nothing more was forthcoming, the models already produced appeared on Internet dealers (UK based) for bargain basement prices (and still are if you know where to look). All a bit of a mystery to many of us, myself included.

I know my first impressions of the HPI Nissan weren't exactly favourable. I bought a silver street livery version as soon as they hit the shops, as soon as it arrived at home I had it out of its case and on the track. Wow, what a looker, and fast, 2.4 seconds on our home layout, then I had a big shunt, and the magnet popped out unbeknown to me. It all ended in grief when the motor overheated and warped the chassis, I put the model away.

Sometime later I ended up buying a number of GTR's with the various racing liveries, having learnt from my initial encounter, I was keen to have another crack at this interesting model, and this is what I discovered.....


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....My initial reaction upon taking the HPI Nissan GTR out of its display case was one of admiration, what a beautifully presented model! Classy livery, good tampo, a myriad of detail features such as rubber mirrors (nice for racing!), colour coded lock nuts on the wheels, awesome twin pipes exiting under the left hand door, twin fuel filler caps recessed into the boot lid, sponsors decals on the dashboard (all it needed was a scale TV camera strapped to the roll cage to complete the effect), excellent grille and bonnet details, and a really well represented interior, mate this car is gorgeous! On closer inspection I did notice a few minor dust particles in the clearcoat, I must emphasize minor here, unless you have the model at the right angle under a fluro light, you really aren't going to notice this.


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I also was aware of the weight of the model in my hand, it felt like it had some "substance", my scales later revealed a weight of 89 grams for this model, despite its size, its no lightweight.


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All in all I consider the HPI Nissan GTR a very good rendition of the protoype, it a nice model, although the FLY BMW M3 I used in some of the photos appeared to dwarf it a bit in scale, I feel this may be more of an issue for FLY as the Bimmer 3 series of that era could in no way be considered a sizable vehicle (and no, I refuse to enter into any further scale discussion on this matter :P ).

Another item of interest I came across during the initial inspection were the front tyres, they weren't rubber, they are a molded plastic material, someone at HPI was on the ball, factory "capped" tyres to reduce drag, quite a nice touch from a new player to our hobby, I'd witnessed enough, I wanted to see how the Taisan GTR fared in comparison to my earlier HPI Nissan (minus the big off!).


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As expected, the Taisan Nissan from HPI once again demonstrated its out of the box prowess on our small Scalextric Sport layout with stock magnet in place, turning in a best lap of 2.4 seconds and lapping consistently around this number. The chassis displayed a nice on-track action, not being mega stuck down as some magnet cars can be, grip from the stock rubber was also quite good, quite impressive! Not so impressive was the fact this model was a little noisy, with a bit of rattling happening underneath, being wary I decided end the session and start tuning....

A quick check revealed the HPI Nissan develops 220 Grams Net downforce with the stock magnet in the rear pocket and the short can FC motor the car is equipped with turns the rear wheels at 10800RPM which is quite reasonable in the scheme of things as far as "stock" motors are concerned. I felt like I had something to work with here, all I needed to do was address a few concerns that I had uncovered during the initial inspection of the chassis.


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OK, from the photos you will see the HPI chassis is pretty much your ordinary sidewinder configuration style plastic chassis. Gearing is 11/36, which when combined with a 20.6 tyre diameter gives you 19.77MM per REV. This is great gearing for shorter home tracks (I like between 19.5-20MMPR on our home layout if I'm setting gearing up), however it may be a bit short for longer club tracks, I suspect really long straights will have this motor gearing combo undergeared for some straights out there. Its not an issue really, I'm sure the gearing will be good for the vast majority of layouts.


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Rear bearings are plastic, fortunately the ones on my chassis were a nice fit with both the axle and the chassis clips, all good so far! The plastic wheels on all four corners were also very skillfully molded, nice and round and trued up a treat (and yes I AM saving the worst till last!)....

Oh heck I'll get it out of the way now!


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OK, firstly the magnet pocket/assembly, wow whoever designed this really needs a bit of education on how much abuse these cars cop over a lifetime! the magnet is held in a plastic pocket that can be moved to either magnet location in the chassis. It is clipped onto a pair of small pegs on the chassis, although the molding is precise, it is in no way secure and pops out from the chassis with great ease (refer photo). With this tune I used a bead of CA glue to bond the magnet holder to the chassis, and finally ran a bead of hot glue along the front edge of the motor and rear of the magnet holder to ensure this sucker wouldn't be going anywhere as it did on my first HPI Nissan....


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That problem fixed I moved forward along the chassis and removed the front axle assembly. I quickly discovered what was making the majority of the noise during initial testing. The front axle bearings were rattling around in the chassis clips! Axle to bearing fit was good, it was obvious by the plastic cover (refer photo) over the front axle that HPI were trying to create a form of floating axle. I just didn't go for this (and never have on with other brands of models either), the issue was remedied quickly with a suitable set of brass bushings being carefully glued into the chassis clips, problem solved!!!


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Finally I checked out the guide assembly, it didn't seem too bad of an effort really, a surprise for me was the discovery the assembly was actually sprung (refer photo). My personal preference is to avoid sprung guides, I feel simplicity is the key to reliability, so I went about setting the standard guide up minus the spring. I actually substituted a small rubber O Ring for the spring, have been wanting to try this for awhile now, and was quietly impressed with the stock guide after I'd finished with it.

With everything sorted, I did my usual truing/check gluing routine, mounted a set of PGT XPG #20104 tyres on the rear and trued them to 20.6mm (HPI use the Ninco rally style wheel rib, I use PGT #20104 tyres on Scaley V8 Supercars and the L34 Torana as well). I decided to ditch HPI plastic front tyres and make my own capped rubber using the HPI rears although in hindsight it would've been easier to true up (and thin down, they are wider) some Ninco rally rubber as the HPI rears didn't lend themselves to truing that well....

....The HPI motor came up a treat after water dipping, with a reading of 11600RPM at the rear wheels, the motor was re-installed, everything looked spot on, time to take the GTR for a lap or three to see how it shaped up!

I'm pleased to report the HPI NISSAN GTR was an absolute joy to punt around our layout :), best lap was a low 2.1, and it seemed to keep about that pace lap after lap, what a nice model .


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Grip was superb, very surefooted, running it reminded me of a nicely tuned Scalextric V8 Supercar, although the HPI motor had a lot more punch off the corner apex (possibly to do with the gearing as well). The GTR was also a lot quieter after the front end fix, not whisper quiet but getting there, I was very happy with the result.

In summary, I believe the HPI NISSAN GTR is well worth a look if you are interested in these cars and the Group A/JTC era of racing. They can still be had for quite reasonable prices if you hunt around, detail is first class, they are a very well presented model overall. Yes, the chassis needs a little attention, but it is nothing major in the scheme of things, a few minutes work and you will have a model that runs as good as it looks...

....The real problem that you will face though will be actually finding another Group A era model that will stay with it on the race track :)


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Thanks Guys!!!

Rob.
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Cosmic Bilby
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Re: HPI NISSAN GTR 1991 TAISAN Livery

Postby Cosmic Bilby » Sun Dec 02, 2012 3:30 am

...HPI have actually released an R/C version of the Calsonic livery, wow R/C technology has come a long way!!!
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Cosmic Bilby
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Posts: 565
Joined: Fri Sep 28, 2012 12:58 am
Location: Queensland Australia


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