Well, it's that time again. TA07s are a thing, and I'm building one.

USGT is the "faster" version of VTA.  The cars are ~10% lighter, they have 20% more power, they have belted tires with sticky compounds, and 2 door modern bodies. 

My friend has a VTA car built, on a TC7.1.  It's a lovely car, does all it should, and being a belt drive goes like it should.  He's heard about my FWD FF03 project, and wants something to run USGT too. 

I swear i'm not a Tamiya guy, but here we are: 



His is a TA07r, so we're going to be able to get a good comparison between the two setups. 

I'm a painfully cheap hobbiest, cruising ebay I found this $30 wonder.

That's a classic Novak 17.5 motor.  What I didn't know, is it's pre-roar rules, so the motor has a permanent sensor cable.  I didn't know they ever did that....  

And it came with the ESC I was looking for.  A Hobbywing Justock ESC. 

I can't resist opening boxes.  I should know already what's in a Tamiya box.  

Exactly as expected.

While we're on the subject of Tamiya.  The TT02b broke it's front shock tower.  My TT02b MS came with a fiberglass one, but they're not really well designed, so tend to break off at the lower shock mount hole.  

I ordered some carbon fiber from a chinese retailer, and the local hackerspace has a tracer mill.  It's setup for a 3:1 scaling, so I made my template 3x normal size.  

I need to check that those upper tower reinforcements won't interfere with shocks.  If they do.. I'll need to make relief cuts.

I hope to have that made soon.  But, as usual, chinese shipping is the limitation.