Pylon80

Everybody has their own method with the ball diffs. I like to think of them as having a limited range of adjustment, as I don't like how they get notchy when tight. I adjust mine such that when I flick the right wheel between my fingers, it spins about one turn and a half. Nothing scientific here, only a way to achieve consistency, so that the car always drives the same. Then I can add or remove 1/8 of a turn. If the track is very high grip you would go tighter: this enables you to get on the throttle earlier without diffing out on the inside wheel. Conversely, if the track is slippery you would set it looser to get every bit of traction through the corners while coasting or using very minimal throttle. As usual there's no definite answer but there's a sweet spot. Using the method above will help you achieve the same starting point every time so you can experiment.

The manual has a chart that shows the range of pinion you can use with both the 104 and 93 spurs. From memory the 93 can only go up to 29t. For a 25.5 motor I'm afraid you'll have to use a Kimbrough spur with the adapter.

New in box, I was thinking 30usd plus shipping?

If history repeats itself, we should have the Jaguar, then the Mazda coming. Well, it should have been this year and did not happen :| I am getting worried!

Nice to see videos of your cars. Looks like about 20sec for laps 2 to 4 for both the DT and TT, they are about the same pace, which is remarkable! I bet the DT is more fun and more rewarding to drive, being RWD?

Glad the new motor is working ok! Don't worry, they are actually easy to drive and a hoot as long as the track has at least semi-decent grip. I find them much more accurate than a touring car for the same money. Obviously you can't mash the throttle mid corner without spinning out, but that is easy to get used to. The Kimbrough gears can be made to fit, but you will need the Tamiya F104 Spur Gear Adapter 54215. When using this you lose the bearing and instead just run the spur directly over that spacer and onto the shaft. It works correctly. Note that Tamiya gears are 0.4mm module aka '0.4mod' (metric) but it just so happens that it is so close to 1/64" aka '64p' (imperial) that parts are completely interchangeable. So a Tamiya pinion would still fit with the Kimbrough gear. Are you running in sensor-ed mode? The 'hesitation' you describe sounds like what happens when a sensor cable is disconnected or omitted.

I certainly will! Still a project, but we are seriously considering coming back. After 3 years in Arizona - don't laugh - I miss the rain! I have actually built my rally car so as to be reasonably waterproof. Still waiting for that rainy day here! I absolutely love 1:27 scale but my car is a GLA which would only enter the open class at most clubs... And that's way above my driving skills 😅

I miss that track! I hope to move back there next year 🤞 I rotate tires every time I run my cars, to help the tires last longer 👍

The front toe-out seems a bit extreme on the M-05, perhaps it is the angle of the picture? I like 0 to 1deg toe-out on mine; on the picture it looks like 5+deg?

@Mad Ax very inspiring and always a pleasure reading you. Thank you sir. @simalarion and so many others: I am with you on the difficulty of being into a time consuming personal hobby and then going through the life changing event of becoming a father. I made the very common mistake of buying RC parts for cars I don't have the freedom or ability to run, 3 years ago. But I have learnt. One of the most popular thread on our beloved forum, "the postman brought me", makes me kind of sad and I try not to read it. All too often I see people acquiring stuff they simply can't possibly enjoy other than by filling up their parts bin or storage shelves. Even if one was keeping busy full time, 40h a week, with his RC cars, there is still no way they would make use of the mass of really nice 'junk' people are buying. Clearly, some folks are making the mistake I once made and buying things when they would rather be building or driving. Meanwhile, RC retailers are rubbing their hands. I have other hobbies and I remember being so terrified when we had our first child. I thought I would never fly 1:1 planes again. Well that was not true. I won't ramble about 1:1 flying on an RC car forum but my point is that I have found a tremendous amount of peace and enjoyment in RC. RC was everything to me back when I was a kid. I moved on to 1:1 stuff late, I was almost 30years old then. But I keep coming back to RC as I find it is something that can give me joy in small installments without the stress of an accident and with relatively small expenses. It is a very personal activity and I have to limit it to the times when my family is asleep to enjoy building anything. Needless to say painting bodies is by far the hardest part to manage. Back when we didn't have kids i could cut, sand, mask and spray a body in one Saturday afternoon. Not anymore. But I find it surprisingly fun to do one small thing a day. Each car project is a little adventure of its own and it stays with me throughout the day as I mull over how I am going to build this and that. I enjoy custom modifications and have been turning every car I built so far into a 1 year long project where I enjoy deep diving into details. A couple of months back I got to meet in person with one of our members. A very friendly person to say the least and we had a great time running our M chassis' together. I remember my wife saying at dinner "Quick! You have to meet your friend tonight! Hurry up, I will clean everything and put the kids to sleep." That day I realized a few things, one of them was that I was being my only limitation in the hobby. There was nothing but me, preventing me from running my cars. I have since then made it a point to run every car I own once a week, on a rotation. Last week was my RWD Porsche and this week will actually be an indoor car, GLA v2 1:27 scale speed monster. I will setup a foam track inside the kids play area just for that one night. Next week will be my rally car, off-road. And so on.

This is how I would do it. I would take care to round off the edge of the diffuser to avoid stress risers that could still cause the T-bar to break.

Lots of detail and part numbers 👍 That's a gold mine for me, as this will be my next build. I want to keep mine purposely barebones, for the 1990's feel, but at the same time I do have the RM-01 sprue with the friction dampers and your idea of fitting side dampers is intriguing. Regarding the paint I do not like PS-12 which has these giant, closer to 1:1 scale, metallic flakes of silver in it. The last body I painted was a 911 RSR and I too swapped the PS-12 for PS-63. Darker yes, but more realistic. Yours looks great.

That's a nice looking car. I see the shock collar could still be unscrewed to lower the car even more, is that on purpose?

Even if I did, I would probably deep dive into custom mods and details until I turn a straightforward build into a 1 year full time project 😐

I am sure I could build that kit, including the body in less than a year.