DanMcBoost

Mine are older HPI units from back in the day. Currently they have these: https://www.hpiracing.com/en/part/116537

Stripped the electronics, some older sealed bearings and pulled the tires from the old runner. Time to clean and prep for the trial run.

After searching for authentic rosette washers, I had a shop make these up. If anyone wants them he said $10 a pair. They did not think that bubble look was necessary, this the slightly different shape. The other day I started as much as I could with the front end. Opened up the FRP front damper stay. Put them together Swapped the carbon hollow shafts. I am shocked at the weight difference, nice. Today, the front gearbox finally showed and I tossed it together. Titanium turnbuckles came in too. Electronics (brushed for now) next to see how the wide fronts compare. I have 8 more wides but only 6 narrow so I would love to run the wides if it helps.

I am thinking about lifting the runner chassis a bit to increase ground clearance. Anyone have a link to some length options? Fixed: Replaced the lower shock ends with longer ones and replaced the stock oil with the heaviest from the medium kit. That is better for road use. Adjusted the camber after as well. I noticed that the old tires, were truly shot. I tossed on one of the new pair of wide rears. I did not screw them together yet, as I need to paint them. Also swapped i the old runners gears and motor (forgot to install the carbon hollow shafts (will do next time)). On the older runners motor mount, both mounts were cracked, but I already had an aluminum hop up one to swap in. Spent time putting together the front as much as I could TAO3 parts fit well. I also installed the aluminum hubs. While on the front, I had an epiphany, if I go wide in the front can I reverse the offset and tuck them into the chassis further. Boy, that is close. Time to open up the tamiya wheel spacers (I ended up putting one on the back). And three on the front to clear the inside. Any rubbing should self clearance.

More progress on the runner as well as prepping the FRP (with red gearboxes) for the re released opel ta02. I did pull the rear end apart today to start the tub ---> runner swap. I had to machine out the ID of the old school GPM rear hub uprights as they were scraping the dog bones. Before: After: Yes, those are the old tires and wheels. I am still waiting on some rear hardware but I improvised (FRP rear shock tower to upper control arm hardware that is on the way). When I started collecting parts back in the day, I bought the stainless steel lower control arms hardware (with C clips), after that I ended up grabbing the cross lower arms (that are on my shelf queen) and they also came with stainless steel hardware. I was so happy to have a, what is now rare, stainless steel set up for the runner. I noticed the rear hubs had a lot of play in and out (around 5mm), so I went back out to the garage and made a couple of metal spacers that went between the outside cups and the bearings inside the hub uprights. Now there is just 1mm of play. I am in a hold mode for the front as the black gearboxes are on a very slow boat from china. I think I want to get shocks that are a bit longer to get it off the ground a bit more for outside runs. I tossed on a few more black parts on the "MK3" chassis.

Thanks. So rare I wont use them on the runner :O

Then I moved onto using those red gearboxes for the future MK3 (using the re re TA02) since it will come the same anyway. Installed the new J parts: Threw the red gearboxes on Next time I will get the blue on the runner and start removing all needed items from the old tub chassis.

Well as I expected it was hot and humid this morning and afternoon. First I completed the blue parts swap on the shelf queen (still needs a bath):

Laid out the parts I received the other day and today. If its too hot or raining tomorrow I will get to work on these. Yay J parts! The body posts and brackets Bearings and other aluminum parts

I ordered new front and rear gear cases for the runner as well as a bunch of new aluminum for the shelf queen. Although after looking a bit more I decided to grab the black cases for the runner like I have on the shelf queen. So I'll just keep the red cases for the the future (they were cheap). All of the black and grey aluminum will go on the shelf queen (as I mentioned the blue shelf queen stuff will get moved to the runner). I am waiting on a slow boat (from Hong Kong even though some of stuff showed up very quickly) for the front black gear box and then i can commence working on it.

The "runner" is on the left. The MK3 supra body will go on the ReRe TA02 and I will call that the "MK3". The mostly done, previous started carbon chassis will be called the "shelf queen". A few more parts came in, so I worked on the runner chassis getting that together after a washing. I am still waiting for a few more hop up parts to come in then I will move the front and rear gearboxes from the original TA02W chassis over. I am also waiting for a few more parts to finish the collection for the MK3 FRP chassis plates. The front and rear FRP suspension and rear sway bar will go on the original gearboxes on the runner chassis below. I also ordered a bunch of other black aluminum parts to go on the shelf queen chassis, removing the blue aluminum parts, which will go on the runner. The parts for each chassis with them. The parts so far (a couple from before too).

My goals are now to finish up the garage (shelf) queen chassis completely with the new Castrol mk4 supra body as OEM + as possible. The FRP plates I have left over (from the carbon plate hop up) I am compiling the parts needed to complete that chassis so I can swap the original tub chassis to it. I also picked up a FRP chassis upgrade from Han's on the facebook group. I will hold onto that one to then install on the new TA02 opel chassis and fit that with my MK3 supra ABC body and match my mk3 supra as close as possible. Below is the current status of the FRP left over plates parts collection and build start. I think I will put the vintage tamiya sticker on the bottom of one of the FRP chassis.

Thanks a ton for that list!! Posts as epic as this one gets me too excited about driving them again.

My first kit was a Christmas present from my parents when it came out, a Marui Big Bear. I then saved up for a Coors Melling Ford Thunderbird and drove that for street use and ended up racing it a bit for fun. I then picked up a RC10, modded it a bunch and raced that a lot. Once I was driving, RC cars collected dust. Somehow I heard about the Tamiya Tom's Supra from 2000 and since I was a serious Toyota guy, I ordered it and when It came it I swapped in the novak speed controller and the motor out of my RC10. She was a blast but only busted it out every once in a while. A video a buddy took and I edited of it back in 2005 In 2005 I was spending a lot of time at my Mom's. My father passed away years ago and I was the only child to care for her (brain cancer). I needed something to do when she was napping and I ended up going a bit nuts buying every TA02/TA01/TA03 (and more) parts I could find online here and in Japan. I do love rare items and a few highlights are the carbon front and rear cross shock towers with sway bars match up nicely with the hop-up carbon chassis. I also picked up cross beefy control arms and TRF shocks. I know I have some repetitive items, but I was grabbing anything I could since I wanted a beater and garage queen (to display in my real garage). While this photo was not of the last progress, it is all I had taken near the end. My mother passed and this and all the extra parts went back into boxes and this project was done. Fast forward to now. I have a family and two great kids. My daughter and My son love (RC) cars. Two weekends ago I went back to my mom's house (I own it and rent it, but the attic is still my storage space) to get a few real car parts out of the attic. I dragged my kids up there and while they did NOT want to go up to an attic, they were both going nuts with the stuff up there. My 5YO son refers to it as the attic toy store, haha. So I figured with spring on the way, their love of RC cars, it was time to bring these home and finish the serious chassis and mod up the stockish chassis. The stockish chassis in the video. Still ran great and even the batteries were good once charged. Although I did hit a rock in the road which tossed it into the curb and now one of the steering posts (built into the tub) has a crack and is a bit too unpredictable. The chassis project, yes dusty. The bodies for them: The old body and one I am going to sell (wont fit the W chassis) I did clean them! I grabbed this back in the day since I really was close to picking up a GS for a daily. I gave it to my son once we got home and he loves it. Daddy's attic toy store: I grabbed these while there (to sell with a large die cast listing I am doing for a "not PC friendly" buddy): I'll update as progress happens to either. I have my eye on a couple of usedTA02s, but now that tamiya is re-releasing #47461 Opel Calibra V6 (and I can find it for ~$170) who knows.

PMed