Jon61

I noticed that and managed to get the Arocs at that price which is lower than the £130+ I've ever seen it before anywhere. Not long afterwards (but not immediately) it was showing as Out of Stock. They also had the BWE showing at an amazing £115 but already Out of Stock. I've noticed before that Asda (and another store, I think it was Tesco but might have been Argos) sometimes show very good prices for items that are Out of Stock, but when they are back in stock the price reverts to a more normal level. So although I have no way of knowing, I suspect when their online stock goes down to the last 2 or 3 items, their system automatically cuts the price significantly - simply so that they can then justify showing a very attractive price all the time it is OOS, without having to sell any more at that price (I don't think you can reserve one at that price while it's OOS). If this is true (and not just me being cynical), it's possible to get a very good deal but you have to be browsing at just the right time.

I hadn't seen the Modoro mod before - I've just had a quick look at it. Wow - 4 motors just for the drive, plus another for gearshift and a servo for steering! Add in two rechargeable battery packs (although I think he does say that one is optional) and the SBricks and I can see that it's not a cheap mod! It's good of the author to make the instructions available free though as he's clearly put a lot of work into it. The mod looks interesting in that from a quick look, it seems he's rearranged the drivetrain so that even though the L motors are in front of the gearbox, they still drive the wheels through the gearbox. But I'm not clear if the F-N-R function has gone - the gearstick is still there but I can't see that it does anything? And although it was a bit 'clunky' in the official model, the paddle-shift gearchange was for me one of the interesting features that I think has also gone in this mod (to allow remote control of the gears). As I said above, I think compromises like this are necessary - you lose other things in order to gain the motorisation. I wonder if Modoro got the servo steering to work any better than I did - he may have different gearing to my attempt, but unless I've missed something, if you gear it down to make it more powerful, you'd lose some of the steering lock (given that the servo motor only ever moves +/- 90 degrees). Another thing I found surprising when I tried putting motors in the Porsche was that, even though it's such a large model, there's still not a lot of room to tuck everything away neatly once you start adding motors (especially 6!), remote receiver and battery(/ies). I removed the fake engine to hide the PF battery pack I was using, but I still ended up with the PF IR remotes very awkwardly placed behind the seats - it looks as if this mod also ends up with the battery packs clearly on display (and the SBricks in the footwell?). That's why in the end I reluctantly decided that - for me - it was better to leave the model closer to the original with its interesting features, rather than with the motors etc. But I know that's not everyone's aim which is why I phrased my post above the way I did. I found the body removal mod in a Youtube video - the first of 2 from Hispabrick magazine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSuGya3HByU&t=843s The second one which talks about the error in the gear sequence is also worth a look: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu6f6lBkMXY . They are also mentioned in the 4th post on page 1 of this thread from June last year. Have fun!

Hi Michael I am also new to this forum, but I thought I would comment on your post. I haven't tried the mod you refer to, but I did play around with a set of motors (from the 42030 set) to try to motorize the Porsche after I'd built it. You might want to bear in mind before you spend a lot of money that it's not straightforward to motorize this set while retaining the other interesting features of the standard model i.e. the gearbox and the 'fake' engine. The model is heavy and with a lot of friction in both the 4-speed gearbox and the F-N-R gears even when they're working well. So if you connect a motor (even XL) before the gearbox (so that you can see the effect of the gears on the speed of the wheels), it can be difficult for the motor to overcome the weight and friction, and actually drive the car along the ground. It's also hard to do this while retaining the fake engine in the model. Similarly, the weight is quite a lot for e.g. a servo motor to overcome to operate the steering, especially while stationary (not helped by the wide tyres). And another point - the white clutch gear in the standard model is placed to protect the gears when pushing the model along the ground - if you motorise the model instead (so the workings are being driven from a different end of the transmission, you might want to consider whether you need a clutch in a different place to provide a similar protection. There are compromises, like connecting a motor (or more than one) somewhere else in the drivetrain (but therefore losing the effect of gears on roadspeed), or simplifying/removing the gearbox etc. Alternatively, you can make a motorised 'display' model - i.e. with the wheels raised off the ground so the motors don't have to overcome the weight while driving the wheels and the steering. (That was the best result I could easily achieve with the motors and parts at my disposal.) But it's worth considering what you want to achieve, and whether you are going to get it for the money you spend. PS The mod to be able to easily remove the bodywork is definitely worth doing in any event, and only needs very few extra parts. Even without adding any motors it instantly makes the model much more interesting.

I was given my first ever Technic kit (42056 Porsche) for Christmas - I've not played with Lego since I was a kid which was way before Technic was invented. I really enjoyed building and tinkering with 42056, so as a second set I got 42030, particularly for the PF components. For my first post here, therefore, I thought I'd offer this very simple mod for the 42030 B model. It addresses what Sariel in his review called the 'Gear That Does Nothing™': I know it was meant to represent something on the real vehicle (an air filer perhaps?), but it did seem a bit odd. So it now does something - it opens the hood. The simple changes only use parts leftover from building the B model: 1-3: Under the hood, the yellow angled connector #5 is exchanged for a black angled connector #6, then extended below with a 2L pin, connector #1, DBG 3L pin/axle and a black 2L round pin connector. 4-5: the blue 2L axle pin holding the gear is exchanged for a 3L axle and (after inserting the axle through the existing black 2L lftarm, not shown in this picture) one of the leftover black 9L bent (7-3) liftarms is added as shown. This is the end result, shown after turning the gear to open the hood - fortuitously the notch in the #3 panel is just at the right place to latch the hood open : And, if I can successfully link to a video here, this is the mod in action (I hope this works):