Monday, October 16, 2017

A hint at my FF-03

USGT has a interesting rule hole.  It's intentionally placed there, to encourage FWD cars.  They have zero weight limit on FWD cars. 

...So I bought a FF03

How light can this thing be?

It's so hard to read that.  


861 grams without wheels.


What about with the stock wheels on it?


971.2 grams with everything, the stock motor, and a cheap brushed ESC. 

In our next installment, we'll talk about the carbon reinforced parts.  

Thursday, October 5, 2017

Torque the ripper - TT02b gear destruction.

I got together with a buddy of mine this weekend, and the name of the game that day was "lets landscape his backyard".  Erm, we did laps, and laps, and laps of his back yard.  Many pounds of dirt were moved, grass or no grass. 

Suffice it to say, we had fun.  My car was doing some odd things.  We'll cover the electronics woes in a later article, but in this case, there was a clicking noise.  Sometimes.  Well my TT02b has eaten two, maybe three, diffs over the months I've owned it.  I figured I ate another diff.  I was already figuring I had not shimmed the diffs properly. 

Turns out, I was wrong.


There is something quite therapeutic about the after run cleaning.  The shocks are fine, the swingarms all drop smoothly.  Everything is fine.  ... Including the differentials.  Huh?  The diffs are fine?  ... what the?

Well... here's what was causing the clicking.


It seems my pinion moved on the motor shaft.  Then lodged itself in there.  Motor torque was enough to cause it to get pinned on the motor shaft, in spite of the loose setscrew.  What we're also seeing here, is just how tough the Tamiya fiber impregnated gears are.  There's nearly no wear on that spur gear, and that pinion is T O A S T. 

Well.. now i'm running a 25 tooth pinion.... and I swapped spurs because I had a few spares. 

If you look closely, on the right, you can see my friends "hey lets never have the shock towers get loose again" mod.  I've mentioned it before.  It turns out there's enough meat on the diff covers that you can through drill, and through bolt the shock towers.  I highly recommend doing this. 

Now... what will we break next?

The f104w transformed. A f104 pro?

The F104, and F104w are "related" cars.  And they can be converted.  the F104 front end is a lot more sophisticated than the sliding knuckles on the F104w.

I bought the wrong tires for my F104w, and the wrong body.  Between the two, I figured I was most of the way to converting the car over.

Well, here's the result:


Looks good doesn't it?  It's a f104 pro body and wing set.  I trimmed the "pro" refrences off, because i'm that sort of retentive.  


I am going to re-wire the guts of this thing.  The damping plate fouls a bit on the motor wires and battery wires.

For those who want to convert their F104w into a F104, here's what I needed:

F Parts: 42289 TRF102 / F104
Stainless Shaft: 58431 - 3x33.4mm F104
4mm Ball Connector: 44002 (Gold Color, 5pcs)
4mm Adjuster: 44002 - 6pcs
5mm Aluminum Ball Nut - Blue 10pcs
E-Clip 2.5 x 6 x 0.4 - 10pcs RM01 / F103 / FGX
Double Metal Shield Bearing 5 x 10 x 4 mm (2 pcs) - F104 Front Axle Bearing
M3x6 Flathead Screw (20pcs)
TurnBuckle 3x35mm(2pcs)
30mm m4 flathead screws.  (2pcs)

M4 nut (2pcs)


The conversion costs around $30.  To make the 3mm turnbuckles work with the 4mm adjusters, you need to drill them out quite a bit.

It looks a lot better.  It drives about the same.  I don't know if it was worth the effort.  But, it does mean that I can run in the local F1 r/c races.