Guide for Customizing Your RC Car
One of the greatest parts of the RC car hobby doesn’t have anything to do with getting your car to its max speed, handling difficult terrain, or pulling off cool stunts. It’s simply making the car your own.
In fact, for many hobbyists, the customization aspect of the hobby is what takes up most of their time and funding because of how engaging it is, and it’s always great to see the final results that set your car apart from everything else on the market.
However, if you’re new to the hobby, you need a little guidance to help get you on the right track. Here are some tips and tricks to get you started with customizing your RC car.
1. Go Beyond the Decals
Some body kits you buy are going to come with a variety of decals. These add the small details of the car such as mirrors, headlights, and other things that aren’t cost-effective to actually put on an RC car, but you still want them for cosmetic purposes.
A lot of first-timers get a kit, paint the body up, and put on the decals before calling it a day.
That’s perfectly fine, and it doesn’t affect the way the car will perform, but you also have the opportunity to go above and beyond for a truly unique look.
Some basic options would be to add racing stripes and other common minor details to the painting phase. These can be achieved easily by laying out tape in various patterns like stencils, and then painting in the exposed areas, but they also add a unique visual flair.
You can also opt for more complex paint schemes such as tye-dye, chromatic effects, gradients, and more to really go beyond a simple matte or gloss finish, and the skill level required isn’t too much at all.
2. Consider Body Alterations
One of the cool parts of customizing an RC car’s body is that you can do without anywhere near the amount of money and skill as you’d need to properly alter a real automobile body.
If you want to add spoilers, racks for decoration, or even for functional purposes, and other details, there are both commercial and DIY methods for doing so. Better yet, they often don’t require much work to properly install them.
This can add a touch of flair and uniqueness even if you’re using a common body kit product.
3. Leverage Simple Tech for Big Effects
Earlier, we talked about decals and how they’re meant to create the illusion of your RC car having all the little features of a real car. Things such as headlights, turn signals, and more.
Well, a great customization option is to make minor alterations to the body to let you actually implement simple versions of those.
With LED lights and a crash course in wiring LED technology, you can add light bars to the bottom of your RC car, install “headlights” where they should be, and more. This requires some soldering and minor electrical knowledge, but it’s nothing too difficult. If you can build an RC car from scratch, you can figure it out without too much trouble.
A great part of this is that most RC car bodies, especially the high-end options meant for performance cars, are plastic. So, they can be properly cut to fit these features with basic tools and little effort.
4. Switch to a High-Output Li-Po
The vast majority of RC cars are electric, and they run on rechargeable battery systems. One easy way to boost your car’s performance is to upgrade that battery to a high-output Li-Po battery.
With a higher capacity and a great energy output, this upgrade can push your car into overdrive with minimal effort. In the majority of cases, making the switch is as easy as unplugging the old one and swapping in the upgraded model.
Just make sure you understand what connection options your car has, or you might be signing up for a complex rewiring project to add the appropriate connections.
5. Go Brushless
If you’re into power tools, you already know the difference between brushed and brushless motors, and you get the same benefits here as you do by upgrading to a brushless drill or anything else.
If you don’t, it’s simple.
Brushless motors last longer because they don’t rely on wound copper brushes that wear out, and they are capable of moving at much higher speeds.
With an RC car, this is a huge performance upgrade, and it pairs well with a battery upgrade that can feed that brushless motor more power.
6. Switch to a High-Torque Servo
Once you’ve made sure the body of your car is exactly as you want it, upgraded the motor, and beefed up your battery, one of the best upgrades you can make is to upgrade to a high-torque servo.
The servo controls how precise your steering is. If you bought a car that was assembled by the manufacturer, they likely used a servo that gave you decent control, but that’s not as precise as it can be.
A high-torque servo dedicates tons of power to your turning systems. This means that, when you move the control, the car reacts a lot faster.
In fact, it can react so quickly that you might have to take some time to get used to it if you’ve been driving your car with standard servos for a while. However, it’s extremely worth it, and on a competitive circuit, it’s absolutely essential.
7. Consider Building Your Own RC Body
We talked about customizing an existing body from a kit, and that’s certainly how most people should do it, but if you’re up for a challenge, you can also consider building your own RC body to make your car 100% unique.
There are multiple ways to do this. You can make the body out of styrene, 3D print it from commercial files or make your own in a modeling program, or you can create templates and cut the parts out of aluminum sheet metal.
Regardless, this is the most difficult way to get a custom look, but it’s also a fun journey.
Get a Custom RC Car Body from Delta Plastik USA
If you’re looking to build a new RC car or customize an existing one, Delta Plastik USA has you covered. We offer a vast selection of options, including accessories, decals, Monster Truck Bodies, 1/5th RC Bodies, 1/7 Scale Bodies, Traxxas Slash Bodies, Arrma Vendetta 1/8, 1/8th GT 325mm Bodies, 1/10th Bodies, Speed Run Bodies, 1/8 GT2 360mm Bodies, 1/8 On-Road Bodies, 1/8 Vintage Bodies, 1/8 Off-Road, Thunder Truck Bodies, and many more. All of our products are available at competitive prices and are proudly made right here in the USA. If you have any questions, email us today!