A survey of car weights.

The following cars are mostly not mine, but for "the record" here are the weights of a few cars.

This is a TRF201, if the stickers didn't say anything.  1635g

This is a TC7.1.  1424g, so it's a bit under weight for VTA.

This is a TT02b MS, with a smattering of upgrade parts.  1568g.  It's got a 13.5 motor in it, and some big pinion.

This is a "heavy" DT02.  Full size servo, battery, etc.  17.5 brushless.  1614g

Here's my cars.... in their proper storage location.  

The F104, is 1106g.  So just barely legal.  I don't have weights on most of the cars up there.

This is my USGT car.  21.5, etc...  FWD so it's got no lower weight limit.  1240g RTR.  That's 110g lighter than the 4wd cars.

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.