wtcc5

@Honza: That’s the spirit

@Honza: Nice! Which project of yours is that?

Jupp very expensive… That is why I bought a full BBX right away. I thought I could use the steering too for my Fox project… but no.

Thanks for guiding me here! Your CAD skills and work is already impressive! Also the short time you made this model. - Your choice to go with the BBX gearbox is wise. - Is there a reason why you want to use a full-size LiPo battery? I as a fan of shorty LiPos, prefer these to have more space and freedom regarding placing the rest of the electronics. - The weight distribution up front is something preferred for 4wd cars. I could imagine it can hinder steering response, cornering and be very difficult handle and land jumps. A 2wd relies much more on weight distribution than 4wd buggies do. - Cutting carbon fiber by hand is a challenge. Worse is the carbon dust. Avoid unprotected breathing at all costs. It is the next asbestos. While you are designing most of your parts with CAD already, I would recommend testing the design by 3d printing it and if it proves then ask a manufacturer to mill it (like Fibre Lite). Really looking forward to your next steps and how it will look with the body. Great to see you take on such a challenge!

Thanks for the feedback guys! Really appreciate the kind words and critic. I am aware and prepared to get a lifetime ban from the TOC If that happens… it was worth it @Vigilante: I think the front arms are sensitive, too. I will test the car soon and will probably need to improve and/or protect the front suspension. Without having driven it so far, I would think that the inner mounting points of arm or chassis will give up before the outer ones do, but we will see. @BuggyDad: Glad, that I could „surprise“ you. Your embryonic buggy? Did I miss it? Where can I find infos of this build of yours?

@Aurigarius: Thanks I have my fun already and will have it on raceday, too. Regarding the serious competitors it is definitely not fair, but within the rules. The whole Cup is just about fun, not real racing, more for people who want to use their plastic Tamiya cars. All the chassis are so different in performance and nobody cared last time when the Bear Hawk lapped all other drivers in the 2wd class. I have fun building cars (more in the german way: Modellbau) and then making them fast. I understand your concern, but I think most TOC drivers are just there to drive their cars, meet & greet and have a nice weekend with all the other Tamiya nerds. Something you don’t have somewhere else (Tamiya Euro Cup is a completely other situation).

Yes! This time all sheets I ordered have a very good quality. I finished the livery today. Followed the original manual and painted the roof silver. Everything else was painted black to blend body and chassis. A lot of stickers are left, because the car has less surface What do you say:

Finally!

@ruebiracer: Glad we have the same thinking. I don’t have gold vinyl available at the moment. But I will try for sure! @Aurigarius: I agree with you for the most part. Saying it will be the end of the TOC is maybe a bit much…

Optimized it, used silver this time because a great area of the body is covered by silver stickers. Regarding the size, the plotter reached its limits. Mostly because the vinyl layer moves on the base layer… Again, I am not 100% convinced…

Thanks for the feedback! I used one of those hobby grade plotters.

@Collin: Thank you! Glad you like it! I tried something today, a detail I saw on the the Dyna Blaster gearbox. It looked very good on the display and cut. But I don’t know what to think seeing it on the car… Maybe it’s just the wrong color (better in white?)… Please leave your opinion:

Thanks for the nice comments! @ruebiracer: This Q.C.3 is used, but in a good condition. I have it for some time now. Initially I wanted to install it in my FF01 runner. I wish for LRP to produce new ones every day! Unfortunately they won’t. Some months ago, they told me, that technology changed and they cannot make new ones with the same specs. Regarding the body: I want to stay with the „half body“ design. All the non-wing decals will be put on the chassis, carbon plate and what is left of the cab. The cab without front and lower panels sits lower on the tub. This is what inspired me to do this quite radical design.

The titan screws arrived and were installed, I installed golden titanium hingepins and replaced the rear shock lower ballstuds (the standard 6mm balls jam on the cups) with TD2 bigbore ballstuds. While I am still waiting for the MCI decals, it was time for the electronics: It started chaotic. While tinkering where to place the receiver, I stumbled over a too short steering servo cable. This then started a row of swaps. In the end the Dyna Blaster servo went into the fox. The DB then got a brand new servo and the one that previously was in the Fox, went into the box. In the process I replaced the white servo saver plastic with black parts: Regarding the easiness of electronic accessibility, this car is a challenge. I had to remove the topdeck and rear shocktower and everything connected with it. Then this vast space tub opens up: More than enough space for the modern (small) electronics I want to use: The famous Q.C.3 esc was paired with a generously sized capacitor for extra punch The motor cables go through the battery bulk on top and then slip through an opening of the shocktower to the motor. Like this the cables are out of the way and more hidden. With the topdeck installed esc and capacitor are hidden and only a few cables are visible: The black servo saver suits the chassis much better: Recent status:

@DPR250R: For the upcoming Tamico race I will. For the first practice maybe not. I am confident that the carbon parts will be tough enough, so the bumper and 3d printed parts on the arms will be printed as spares before the race. Also anyone who wants to go on this adventure, too, can order the carbon parts from me.

The anti-roll-bar is real! Everything fit like I planned it : You can see that I installed the side bars again. Even though the racer in me likes to leave unnecessary parts off, I think it really suits the style, so these will stay! Detail pictures of the stabilizer: In this process I redesigned the bumper with flathead screws in front. With these I don't need the bulks underneath. I also changed the geometry at the rear to have more air for the servosaver and the angled steering links Now, I am awaiting the rest of the titan screws & hardware. Also a MCI order with Fox decals

So eh… I made this:

Continuing with more details: Implementing a front anti-roll-bar is on top of my list. After it makes the Dyna Blaster such a calm to drive car, I definitely want to use one on our club astro turf track, too. With the optimized front bumper design, I wasn't able to use a ballbearing mounted stabilizer and decided for a very simple slot design without fancy bar-guidance. It will also use the same two screws that already hold the front part of the bumper. A small challenge was how to locate the mounts for it on the front arms. The angle should be flat and everything unobtrusive low in the car. I drew small mounts for the underside of the arm, that will use the same screw that functions for the lower damper mount:

It is all about fun! Never forget that

So glad to see you put so much love in the FF01!

@Wheel_Nut: Thanks! No I didn’t, because it won’t race at ROAR sanctioned races in this configuration. Because I need to use the original arms in the Tamico Cup, it was not so easy with the extensions. At the moment it comes at 278mm width If you want it narrow, I recommend to use Boomerang arms like it was suggested on the first page of this thread.

Sorry for the long break... I continued with the rear arm extension plates: Then transmission installation: The front arm extension plate had a too small hole for the lower ballstud. This enabled me to exactly control the amount of slop. The original has a lot of play and I hated it. Now, I have just enough to make it move freely: All carbon added and chassis in one piece again: Now it was time to make it a wtcc special! With a closed deck in front I don't need another cover. I also always loved the style of the HotShot with its separated driver cabin. And as this is my race version of the fox, the body became this: I give you all some time to digest this new look, with presenting the new bumper design: It is short and narrow now and has a direct mount at the rear front arm: Also I made small changes on the spring retainers to have the perfect ride height in front: Current status:

@Honza: That is a great suggestion! I will keep that in mind.

I am back from the race. And with a biiiig smile! The car was awesome today. I made a beginners mistake in the first qualifying by having a lose screw in my active rear toe link. The first twelve laps were fine and fast. Then I lost the screw and the right rear tire had a free choice of toe for the next 16 laps... I couldn’t even go down the straight properly... I somehow managed to finish without damaging the car. Yeah, I checked the screws before, but not this one The second qualifyer then was a bit shaky on my side. The car was fine, but I was nervous to ruin that one and drove with a bit off rhythm especially in the fast chicane. It wasn’t too bad and put me top seed. In the third one then I finally was calm and concentrated securing the pole position. The first final was shaky again: "Don’t throw it away!" and more stupid thoughts went through my head. I nailed the start and could pull away. That was calming me down a bit. Seven minutes is a long time, so after some minutes it became a bit of torture to bring it home. I really didn’t want to ruin it with a stupid move. Luckily, I didn’t! I was a bit more calm before the second final. Psychologically, it all went the right direction with the inner voice counting down the last 5 seconds to receive the "tone". My index finger just went full throttle and I was instantly in the "flow". I enjoyed the laps, build a nice gap and started lapping everyone after several minutes. With the closest followers entangled in a fight (and losing time), I came up with two laps more. In the closing two laps, the whole field found themselves in between the same 5 meters of the circuit. I refrained from trying to overtake and just followed them through. That was a nice satisfying run. It also secured my overall win. The last final was the most enjoyable one. I could focus on myself. In pursuit for a 43 lap final, I tried hard to nail every corner, every lap. It all went according to plan until lap 38 were I rolled over the curbs and lost three seconds. The track became slower anyway, so I wouldn’t have made it. This run felt the best of all today. It is strange to summarize this day. I as a driver wasn’t up to my full potential until the second and third final, still the car made it so easy for me. It looks kind of slow, but carries a lot of speed through the corners, even off line. When I finally drove it the right way in the second final, it became the second fastest run of the event, only beaten by Daniel Wohlgemuth (several times German champion in different RC classes, ETS winner and two times runner up to become Pro Stock champion, all that data is from 2015, so I am sure he won even more) who was dominating the fastest class of this series: Stock. My car was competing against all kind of high end chassis in the market (A800R, X4'23 & X4'24, ARC, etc.). Today, it was at least on par regarding the mix of stability, middle corner speed, rotation, earliness of acceleration... I was wondering several times how I was possible to pull away so easily from the experienced guys behind, who also hit the line and used the same body/tires/motor. I didn’t expected it to be that way. I hoped for a podium and got so much more with my 6€ tub chassis. As you can see, I used my old body from spring 2022, being afraid to ruin my new body

One thing I haven't done so far, was to bring my car up to the mandated minimum weight of 1320g. For that I ordered brass and a lightweight body The latter shaves off approximately 20 grams and allows me to put these deeper in the car. My chassis is about 105g underweight for this series. Up to now, I used a shorty LiPo, placed it the most left possible in the tub and glued a small weight on the outside of the tub wall. That was enough to balance for the RCKleinserie. Now, I used this opportunity to optimize. In the first step, the LiPo mount lost some material to allow the battery to touch the spine of the tub. The weight on the outside was removed. The TT-02 tub has a kind of middle plank and a step towards the side. This step is 1mm. I ordered a brass sheet of this thickness and cut it to the shape of the tub. This allows to move 64g as close to the ground as possible: Unfortunately that wasn't enough and I had to add more weight inside the tub (next to the battery and in front of the servo): There is maybe a way to replace these weight in the tub. Then I made the new body. As I like the ZooRacing BWOAH! very much regarding performance and shape, I bought another one, this time as ultralight version. My first idea was to do some kind of JDM design with stickers, like the Japanese war flag, but thinking of this design lead me to think of the Toyota GTone 1998 LeMans livery. I am glad I tried this design. In hindsight I would change some white areas (smaller), but it still looks very nice: I am afraid to run it in the race Today then I went to Senden to practice a bit, mostly checking/adjusting the car to the weight and scrubbing in a set of new tires. The car likes the weight down low. I was on the same pace and the car was easy to handle. Lets see what tomorrow brings!