Driving the Tamiya Wolf WR1, or is it a F104 now?

Getting pictures while driving, is hard.  But what I do have, are some stories.  And at least one pretty picture:

I ordered a bunch of parts to let me do some tuining on the F104w.  Only a few of them fit.  Here's what I can can say about parts for the F104w:  They're difficult to interpret, and hard to find.  The F103 spring kit fits.

The most useful information, is that the Tamiya Mini CVD's will fit in place of the stock support spring, and do provide some damping for the back end of the car.

So, onto the driving experience.  After completing the build, I was quite disapointed in how it was to drive the F104w.  It was fast, but any braking input caused it to spin, and acceleration was a exercise in patiance.  It has enough power to make driving on pavement a moderately scary experience.

Then again, it is a F1 car.



I didn't remember things being so touchy with my Bolink 91 sport.

Following the directions in the manual for setting up on a loose surface, things really didn't get much better.  In my order of hop-up parts, I also ordered some of tamiya's modern F1 tires.  They're a bit smaller in diamter, and much smaller in width.  They also have much rounder carcasses.

After putting the modern tires on the car, the cars behavior was much more predictable.  At the same time I also loosened up the ball diff a lot.  I keep getting stuck in the mindset that ball diffs should never slip, and should be setup very stiffly.  That's just not the case for pan cars.

The F104w also came with me to the track this weekend.  On CRC black carpet, and some STX tire sauce, the car was much, much better to drive around.  Left and right turning were mostly equal, it didn't spin on acceleration or braking, and it just wanted to go fast.

There was some axle hopping when in long corners though.  I think the foam inserts for the "classic" rear tires aren't stiff enough, and there may be some chassis tuning to do to help settle that down.  Or, I can just convert it to a F104 "normal" car, instead of a F104w.  That's, not as big of a deal as it might sound.

Cutting out the body wasn't as hard as the Wolf WR1.  The job took a couple hours, between decals, waiting for layers of paint to dry, and discovering everything that makes a F104w.. a W.

To convert from a "w" to a normal car, you need the F104 front suspension, "modern" f1 body, and a set of tires.

I also picked up another WR1 body.  Because I did the last one in metallic black.  And it's supposed to be painted in a special edition dark blue.  

 There will be pictures later, but I can't say I'm pleased with how tamiya handled the Wolf WR1 paint, and body.

Back to the subject at hand though.  The F104w is much happier on carpet.  Figuring out how to make it a good pavement car is still going to be a lot of work.  I've been told that switching to better tires makes a world of difference, so that's next up.

Till next time...