This thing has probably been reviewed 100's of times, but, here goes. Mine is completely stock, aside from the rubber shielded bearings I installed during the build, and has the brushed motor and HobbyWing 1060 esc it came with. First thought, it absolutely sucks in even really low grass. It barely moves in any grass. It does better on asphalt and concrete, but, it's extremely slow brushed, even on 2S. It does slide a little, but not much. Now, on to gravel and loose dirt. With the stock shocks, it's extremely bouncy, and the steering is extremely slow, even with a cheap 15KG all metal servo (I first ran it with a stock all plastic Arrma gorgon servo), so it's a bit hard to control. The more I run it, the more I find that it needs. First thing I noticed, there is a lot of play at the wheel hexes, that even spacers or washers didn't really fix, so, I tried some extremely small O-Rings I had in a screw kit I bought, and they seemed to help quite a bit. Oil filled adjustable shocks will also definitely help. Even a cheap Chinese brushless system would probably help with the speed problem. For the steering, I had to put washers under the part that goes over the driveshaft, or it rubbed bad. It didn't seem to have as much slop as others have said there's does though. IMHO, even a Redcat Lightning set up for rally use is a better car, even brushed. Maybe I'm just missing something with the Tamiya, but, even brushed, every lightning I ran in grass had no issues with it, unless the grass was a bit high, and didn't have near as many overall issues. The Tamiya wouldn't even move an inch in fresh cut grass. Eventually I plan on building another Redcat Lightning, so I can run them side by side and compare them better (I'm gonna convert a Volcano I picked up to a rally car, using a Porsche 911 Turbo body). It's an ok starter car for beginners to learn with, or if you are just looking for something cheap to build, but, don't expect much out of it.
