Track Test – Losi Ten-T

Ok, to start this it appears I may have told a blatant lie…I said in the online review posted in early January (CLICK HERE) that we would give the Losi Ten-T a sound thrashing as soon as the snow cleared. However, in my defence, when snow melts it leaves an awful lot of water, turning everywhere into a quagmire (Giggedy) and the Ten-T ain’t no boat. Thankfully though, it dried up enough to give the Ten-T a good seeing to in what is a natural habitat for something aimed at maximum fun, the local park.

Before we started, we needed to run the truck’s engine in. The Ten-T has a R.O.S.S. On-board starting system that spins the engine over and heats the glow plug via the LiPo pack that is also used to power the radio system. Now we had a slight issue here, caused by the very cold weather and a tight engine. Basically, the engine kept pinching and stalling the starting motor when the button was pressed on the transmitter to fire the Ten-T’s engine up, dropping the voltage in the pack and sending the Spektrum 2.4GHz radio into failsafe mode, i.e. switching it off. This was easily resolved though, we simply recharged the LiPo pack then warmed the engine with a hairdryer before trying again, the heat causing the engine parts to expand slightly and letting the Ten-T spin over and fire into life.

After running a couple of tanks of fuel through the truck, we ran the engine in for a further few tanks driving the truck at slow to mid throttle, even then we could tell it was going to be proper fast and have loads of low end rip, lovely work. After this, we leaned the engine 1/6 of a turn; the powerplant now started first time ‘on the button’ and more horse was being released.

The first thing that strikes you is how much bottom end the big block engine has. Don’t forget, this is the normal size engine found in 1:8 cars which carry far more weight than the Ten-T’s 1:10 proportions. If traction is there, it rips away and has top end that could be described as damn fast. And we could probably lean the engine out further too as it beds in, unleashing more…

So the Ten-T has power and speed but it also adds a load of sure-footed handling into the mix too. The suspension feels very heavily damped on the bench but get the truck going at speed off-road and all this makes sense; bump absorption and jumping performance is great. Where as most 1:8 nitro off-road trucks feel a bit slow in their responses, the Ten-T feels razor sharp, almost like 1:10 electric car. The high quality servos are bound to be part of this, often underspecced in nitro RTR trucks, these are well up to the job.

There is no current racing class for 1:10 4wd trucks, and this is a good thing as the Ten-T has been bred for fun, and it really excels. It is fast, handles well and very convenient with it’s on-board starting it doesn’t get any simpler. Plus it’s strong too, we are ace at breaking stuff and the Ten-T suffered no failures and nothing came undone, proving that the truck has been assembled well at the factory too.

But there is more, and on this part we have failed a bit…we are planning to go in depth on the on-board telemetry here. This feeds data back to the transmitter display in real-time. But we were too busy hooning around the park with the Ten-T to take much notice, the one time I did look at the transmitter to see what was being fed back, the Ten-T clubbed a tree as I had taken my eye of it. We can tell you though that even with it’s still reasonably tight engine that hasn’t been leaned out fully we hit a peak of 38mph, and there is plenty more to come. Joe is going to run the Ten-T as one of his Staff Rides so check back each month on what he has bolted on and done with the truck. He will explain more about the telemetry too…

Basically the Losi Ten-T rocks. If you are in the market for something fun and easy to use with a good dose of strength and speed to hack about over the park or BMX track with, you really won’t go far wrong with one of these puppies. Sure, there are plenty of 1:10 nitro trucks out there but give the competition a glimpse of your Ten-T and they will probably wee their pants a little and run away. The Ten-T is the fido’s testicles, pure and simple…

To check out more on the Losi Ten-T visit UK distributor Horizon Hobby UK’s website by CLICKING HERE

See more images from our testing in our rcracer.com gallery by CLICKING HERE

You can also read the full Thrash Test review which will be in the April 2010 issue of Racer magazine.