Tamiya Nitrage

Imagine if you will that there is a man working at the epicentre of decision making in the R&D department of Tamiya HQ who makes all things Tamiya be overly complicated, not too hard to imagine when you think about it. This solitary man must have taken his one and only sick day in 31 years when the TNX was released because it had a simple layout that was easy to work on, it was roomy and basic, yet still effective; he soon found out about it the next day and was not a happy bunny at all, so vowed there and then to make the next model even more convoluted than before, and that model he was working on turned out to be the Nitrage!

Dressing down

The Nitrage of course is billed as Tamiya’s stab at creating a truggy, a 1:8 scale racing machine conjured from years of know how and the historical background that all Tamiya models have instilled into them, so it’s no surprise to see it being ever so slightly different to the norm, especially when the R&D man is back to full health. Coming as an RTR kit it is covered by a pre-sprayed body shell complete with stickers, leaving just one job left and that is to remove a marked section from the windscreen for ventilation. Then there’s a double split rear wing replicated from WRC cars, a chance for R&D man to make a change as the wing is attached by catch pins underneath the wing so that the top part can be clean and flush for a more stylish appearance. Subtle, but the start of some differences to be found on a truggy.

The wheels and tyres are straight from the TNX, having two holes in the wheels for adjustment of the PBS suspension which the Nitrage doesn’t have, with a flat headed oval spike tread on the tyres not too dissimilar with the HPI DirtBonz, while whipping a wheel off sees there are 14mm aluminium hexes making them spin.

The big surprises are under the shell, removing this reveals a huge shock for a truggy… a centre gearbox! It’s almost on par with unknowingly pulling a transvestite, and then finding out. So not so much a step back in amazement here but more a leap of horror. With some rubber gloves on and a disgusted look on my face, I touched the pre-op truggy. This is R&D man’s way of showing how he thinks outside the box, because there is in fact a centre differential in there, but before the drive gets to that point it will pass by a 13t metal pinion meshed to a plastic 47t spur, along a shaft to a metal 27t counter gear that yields to a slipper clutch before finally reaching the plastic 45t diff gear, which to me just over complicates things to an unnecessary extreme. Not to mention the fact it pushes the category of a truggy to its limits before you even consider the two-speed upgrade you can get for the gearbox that will push its top speed up from 37mph to 50mph. On the plus side, everything that spins inside spins on ball bearings.

The big surprises are under the shell, removing this reveals a huge shock for a truggy… a centre gearbox! It’s almost on par with unknowingly pulling a transvestite, and then finding out. So not so much a step back in amazement here but more a leap of horror. With some rubber gloves on and a disgusted look on my face, I touched the pre-op truggy. This is R&D man’s way of showing how he thinks outside the box, because there is in fact a centre differential in there, but before the drive gets to that point it will pass by a 13t metal pinion meshed to a plastic 47t spur, along a shaft to a metal 27t counter gear that yields to a slipper clutch before finally reaching the plastic 45t diff gear, which to me just over complicates things to an unnecessary extreme. Not to mention the fact it pushes the category of a truggy to its limits before you even consider the two-speed upgrade you can get for the gearbox that will push its top speed up from 37mph to 50mph. On the plus side, everything that spins inside spins on ball bearings.

The engine, again, straight from the TNX so it’s the FR-32FX 5.2cc (.32ci) and shaft started by a Tamiya Handy Starter that has the red button not on the top like everyone else, but at the back for some strange reason and it drinks from a 150cc fuel tank. Back to the engine though and it has a big cooling head in black for excellent heat dissipation, a large diameter slide carb, a lightweight piston and a 14mm crank which together can get itself up to 33,000rpm. The two-stage foam air filter allowing a flow of clean air inside looked like it wasn’t secured on, it is but instead of a zip tie on the neck, there’s a rubber ring that grips onto the carb and although that doesn’t inspire confidence, it is on there quite well.