The main attraction to the Hyper 10SC is that I can have an RTR nitro SC for 330 bucks. The Slayer will be kissing six hundred(closer to 800 if I decide to throw a four stroke in it!!), and the SC8s are five.
There's negatives to all three. The SC8, as mentioned, is fucking expensive. Five hundred bucks, and it's not exactly a difficult vehicle to make. All AE did was throw a cage, truck body, Short Course wheels and mud flaps on the RC8 and call it a day. I could quite literally buy a used RC8, install those parts, and get an SC8 for about the price of the Hyper 10, and that's likely what I'll end up doing.
The Slayer...well...It's Traxxas. The engine isn't going to be the best in the world. The 2.5, 2.5R and 3.3 engines have weak rods that like to fail if you follow the instructions during break-in and EZStart blows. So I'd likely rip that out and trade it on another engine. It's another lazy one, all TRX did was take a revo, throw Short Course wheels/tires/shell/control arms/pushrods/driveshafts on and call it a day. BUT This is the ONLY vehicle here I can have reverse in, because thanks to that laziness the Revo's reverse-capable gaerbox just drops right in.
The Ofna doesn't have any of those flaws. It's a well built, well priced, reasonably sized machine with a reliable engine in it. It would serve me well for many years spinning donnuts in the yard and chasing possums away. HOWEVER, it shares a problem that my CEN has. NOBODY STOCKS OFNA PARTS! :sidyhbjthkdotbgrysdhkry;kshnj CEN, Kyosho, Ofna, Hot Bodies, they all have this same flaw, nobody can locally source parts for them, and that is VERY annoying. CEN and Hot Bodies, at least, let you order direct with an easy to use interface, but Kyosho's site is a nightmare to surf and Ofna's is cryptic at best. So while the Ofna may empirically be the best of the three, I'm more or less on my own if I crash the thing, and replacing normal wear parts...yeah.
Oh, and what are your thoughts on slipping a four stroke in?
I've always wanted to, and OS made a couple of car-specific four strokes. One, for smallblock apps, is the FS26SC-X, and for big block cars an FS40 got similarly converted. OS put a car carb, new cam(The car variants would rev to 22K and 20K, respectively), and a car-specific crank that facilitated a pull starter in the aircraft equivalent, then just chucked it onto market. I've always wanted to, and I've seen youtube vids of the FS26SC slinging a Tamiya onroad around a track pretty handily(They had a three speed on it, sounded neat), I've seen numerous videos of an RC10GT with the same engine embarrassing both it's driver and everything else there, and I've seen FS40SCs(As well as a couple of Saito 52s that were home converted) slinging 1/8 buggies, truggies and MTs around like ragdolls. Even saw a Revo with an FS26 in it, was pretty cool.