Thunder Tiger Nitro Ducati 999.   READY-TO-RUN

So here we have the new TT nitro bike, which looks pretty awesome at first glance. With a Ready-to-Run nitro now on the market, hopefully the R/C motorcycle community will continue to expand. In the coming years I personally feel that our little hobby will blossom into something amazing, so start your engines guys and meet the new TTN.

The new Thunder Tiger Ducati Nitro bike was released early 2005, which is good considering Thunder Tiger wanted to release in early 2006 from my understanding. My Thunder Tiger Nitro Ducati has just arrived and even though I have not had a chance to run the bike yet, I'm going to post what information I can until a full description can be finished. My thoughts and findings will be added eventually as I have a chance to learn more about the bike.

Opening the box you will find the bike, the controller and a red box at the bottom, which should contain the manuals, small nitro fuel bottle, set of frame slider wires, little bag of tools, rotor start hex bar and a few other little things. There is a bike stand under the plastic part so don’t throw it away without double checking the box!

The bike looks really, really great and I love the exhaust! Now, the first thing that will need to be replaced are the plastic body mounts, which break very easily as I just found out. The body has rubber o-rings, which push onto the body posts and these seem to fall out simply by pushing on them. Note: Replace body posts, which can be ordered from CNR. The drill or rotor start is not included with the bike so you’ll need to find one at your local hobby or order the rotor start from internet-rc and they run roughly 45.00 dollars or so depending on the distributor.

This bike is a very different design from most of the current electric or nitro bikes, which I’ve seen or currently have in my collection. The exhaust is very noticeable and sticks right out at you. Now, until I can really run this thing I’m not able to state good or bad facts regarding the changes, but with my previous bike experience it will definitely help.

Another thing, which I’ve already noticed is that the chain is way tight and needs to be loosened up a bit, which can be done via the swing arm screw and wheel nut. There are so many little things, which you just don’t seem to notice right from the get-go so be careful about making any adjustments, because one adjustment can easily effect other adjustments or how the bike handles.

The TT also has a remote glow starter plug, which goes from the engine to the top of the bike. The only real problem I see with this is the fact that the bikes flood out easily due to the engines laying horizontal instead of vertical. Now, because of this you will need to loosen the glow plug often to release the fuel pressure. So as I see it you’ll need to remove the remote starter glow plug often or until the bike has been broken in. Now, even though the exhaust looks fantastic, it seems to have rather small holes for the exhaust to escape. This may hinder the performance of the engine, but we will look further into this as I’ve had a chance to work the bike in.

Now I’m not entirely sure how many CC’s the fuel tank is, but it does seem to be on the small side. Compared to the NF’s fuel tank, it is very small so we will see how long it can really run after the engine has been broken in. There are a few other things that I wanted to bring to your attention. Ok, first things first! I don’t understand why they didn’t use the universal hex rod for the engines rotor start? Included in the box is a roto start rod, but no drill is included so you’ll need to buy one. Second, the battery tray is rather small and the standard battery will not fit due to the swing arm being so low. I tried to make the stock battery pack fit, but the swing arm rests on the top of the case, which keeps the swing arm from completely using max travel. Third, I know the engineers wanted the owners to run the bike with the body on it, but you’ll need to make some minor body modifications to access the rotor start along with the glow plug.

I was expecting a large portion of the bike to be plastic, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. Since the majority of the bike is aluminum, why did they use plastic body mounts? I suppose they just wanted people to purchase the accessories and well, anything to make a buck I suppose. Its about time that someone abandon the rod & spring setup, which has been the primary method for controlling R/C Motorcycles in recent years. Nuova Faor just recently released a new steering support shock that now allows more precise control of the bike. Not to mention that the steering dampners can now be removed. Thunder Tiger decided to go in the same direction with their own steering shock consisting of a rod connected to a long shock sleeve. I have driven the NF using the new shock and the bike does handle incredibly well, so I would assume the same goes for the new TT.

Overall it’s a very nice design, minus a few minor modifications and purchases that must be done before you can even run the bike. I’ll be visiting my local hobby shop trying to find a better battery pack or something a little smaller that doesn’t block the swing arm. So until I’m able to fire it up and run the new Thunder Tiger Nitro I’ll leave you with this.. Looks good so far…

Below are several snapshots of the bike, so I hope this helps explain things a little better. Just click on the pictures for a larger image.

Click on Images for Full Size

General:

Overall, I’m very impressed with the general layout of the TT nitro. It

seems that Thunder Tiger put allot of effort into this new bike, which

definitely shows. It starts fairly easy, Idles without too much difficulty

and is pretty fast for a stocker .12 engine. The engine doesn’t seem to

have very many problems with re-guards to running, plus the exhaust does

grab your attention while under way. If the exhaust ports could be expanded

just a bit, then I’m sure there would be a noticeable power increase as

well. crazy Nut Racing just might come out with a custom exhaust, probably

in the future. The bike is very fast for the beginner and fast enough for

the expert near in my opinion, but there is always room for improvement.

Engine:

The Thunder Tiger .12 seems to have plenty of power and does make

the bike move. Originally, I tried to run the bike without making any

adjustments to the engine, however I had to lean the engine out just

a tad to get it going. The engine is set a little on the rich side, which

is fine for breaking the motor in, but just a tad too rich if you ask me?

This probably has something to due with the oil content in the fuel,

which will effect how the engine runs. The higher the oil content and

the tougher it will be to fire it up. I also must assume that most TT

nitro’s are already pre-configured to roughly the same specifications?

The engine was pretty tight for the first few tanks of fuel and eventually

started to loosen up a bit. Because the TT nitro does not come with a

starter motor you will need a high-powered drill. For this I used a black-

n-decker cordless that I purchased for 34 bucks. The drill was necessary

considering I don’t have one for my home either.

Before starting the bike I assumed the exhaust would hinder the bikes

performance because of the small exhaust ports. Now, it might be just

a tad small, but it really didn’t effect the bike that much and the bike

sounds wicked, loud and well, just cool!

Handling:

The handling is smooth and does feel different compared to the

SF501. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, but just a different feeling.

Now, the biggest problem I noticed was turning clearance, which is

decreased because of the battery tray mount.

The battery tray has two sets of screws on each side, which allows it to

be lowered down since the 2/3 cell battery pack combo will hit the

swing arm. Originally, I moved the tray all the way to the bottom,

but this would seriously kill the lean angle. My next step was to move

the tray up a notch and then bend the tray enough to make the

battery pack fit, which then caused another problem. With the tray

held in place by the two screws it would move downward if the bike

encountered any bumps, hence “it would drag”. I’m going to find

a fix for this and post my modifications. In general though the TT

handles pretty well, especially since I was skeptical about the new

setup.

The shock on the TT sucks and there is only way to adjust it. The

shock comes with 3 plastic spacers and only the larger spacer should

be used, because using the others will definitely cause the battery

tray to drag. Not to mention that it’s a royal pain to re-install the

spacers. Unfortunately, the stock shock needs to be replaced with an

adjustable. A better shock will also make the bike handle that much

better.

Tires:

I’m glad to see that Thunder Tiger decided to replace the stock tires for

full slicks. Many of you who owned the TT electric understand how bad those

tires are, not to mention the V shaped front tire. The slicks are fairly soft

and pre-glued to the wheels, plus a red sticker tape goes around the wheel

adding that extra moto-gp look.