BloodClod

I enjoyed following your build and the parts you designed and printed really took the project to another level. Please post more updates when you have any.

Glad to see another convert. The TD2 is an underappreciated car and your paint job just gives it the attention it deserves.

Car still looks stunning! Would love to do a project like this but I can't bring myself to pay for the cage and body parts. You really did a great job. I totally agree with the CVA voodoo comment. It's spot on. Sometimes you get lucky and find something that just works. Although I must confess I don't think I'll ever get comfortable with putting 1000cst oil in 1/10 buggy shocks... It just seems so wrong. 😂

One of the things that struck me about this car was the limited steering angle that it has. I suspect it has to do with the designers having to design the knuckle around the wide wheel needed used in the front. Here's an experiment to get a little more physical steering angle from the car. The geometry is unchanged but the clearances have been adjusted so it can get more rotation. It is also beefed up since it's a 3d printed part. Car is looking kinda toy-like with the thick blue parts but I think it's kinda cool in a funky way. Lol Will do some testing when I get to the track again.

I remodeled the body today to move the cab further forward based on some measurements of the hotshot. I though the previous version had quite a hotrod type feel but this version looks a bit more balanced. Here's the car with the new body and cab on compared to the older lid with a much longer "nose". Car's been a blast to drive but the rear gearbox is experiencing major cracks. I've repaired them while I wait for new ones but I'm surprised the plastics are so brittle. This kit sat as a new build since it was purchased probably 4-5 years ago which imo hasn't really been that long for it to crack so easily.

That's some pretty nifty 3d modeling there for that front shock tower! Getting the dimensions right must have taken some time? Very curious if that new reinforced tower will stand up to abuse. Looking at the pics reminds me of how the top force anchored the tower with those 2 screws... Not one of the strongest setups...

When I ran my top force I had decent luck with a frp front tower. The shock towers (front and rear!) on that car just put a lot of strain on their mounting points. The tower on this car is mounted with 3 screws. The 2 roll bar screws are doing double duty and also mount into the gearbox. This chassis really pulled off a decent design with as few parts as possible. Lol. You've got me intrigued about your tower though... Any pics to share?

Thanks! This sounds like a good idea and I'll look into the parts in my next order. Just realized there are a number of cool options for this car but when I loaded then into my cart they totaled more than the kit itself. Lol.

Good eye! When I was prepping the car for it's first run I noticed how incredibly flexible the front tower was. Although that would probably be great for durability, I can't imagine it doing any favors for handling and tuning (what little tuning the cva shocks can allow anyways). So out came the calipers and fortunately the measurements were much easier to take. The new tower is identical in shock location but is thicker for strength and the molded 'pockets' have also been removed for rigidity. It's also printed from PLA+ which is stiffer than the stock plastic. The tower still allows the roll bar to be mounted although using a simplified design. In this prototype I also didn't bother to design the cutout for the stock body mount. The tower on my car was actually a quick print at only 50% infill to test the fit but it's actually gone through 3-4 days at the track without issue. I think the low design of the tower on this car helps a lot here. Really tempted with the Xtra Speed aluminum option but since this is a budget build I might just stick with this for the moment.

I'm not sure if it's a common problem on these shocks but I've had the front shock end pull off more than once... And was always fortunate to find the ejected spring and retainer... Until today. In a lively dogfight with a TLR it happened again and while I found the spring the retainer was gone. 😭 Decided to try to fix this issue and printed new shockends and retainers. These are harder than the stock plastics, so they should 'hold' better but hopefully they don't break.

Thank you. That TD4 with the Hotshot body is a favourite of mine too! Thanks for the comment about the battery box! The thing is it's designed to look like a battery box... but the 2 'sidepods' actually house electronics. lol! The compartments were made to fit the ESC I wanted to use so the wires are tucked neatly inside the body, and the side pods can be reprinted bigger or smaller in the future if needed. I tried to keep the location close to where the standard battery would be so that I still had the option of using the stock lexan body.

This is a build in progress but maybe I can also share a bit of how it got here... It started with a chat at the track with a buddy about possibly working on parallel hotshot projects for the track. However, after some thought I decided to use a thundershot styled chassis as a base instead. The reasons for these include: - I had an unused Fire Dragon chassis in storage - this platform didn't seem to have as many cool chassis mods as the hotshot did... I thought it could use some 'love' - I liked the idea of the 'closed' diffs in this car for a little bit of added tuning - I always thought the ground clearance of the hotshot was a little bit of a performance limiting factor which didn't carry over to this chassis - my memories of running the thundershot were always very positive The work started with measuring out the mounting locations for the front and rear gearboxes... Maybe it's just me, but it can be really difficult to get all the measurements accurate and it's frustrating when they are off! One of the benefits of 3D printing is the ability to do quick prints of the parts to test fit my measurements. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, it took a few tries to get all the holes properly lined und be sure my dimensions were on point. It was only after this the chassis design could properly begin. The parts were measured... mocked up in Fusion360... printed and tested...

Here's my Fire Dragon project prototype. The body takes some cues from the OG hotshot and is entirely 3d printed, and the chassis is inspired by wtcc5's amazing work, also a custom wing mount and a sturdier printed front tower to replace the flexy stock one. It's just a fun basher to hit the local dirt track with but I've been impressed with the handling so far. Old plastics in the rear gearbox cracked though - but I think that's part and parcel of running Tamiya. Will continue to refine and tweak the design but any thundershot/dragon tips would be welcome!

Nice! Stock TD4 driveshafts?

That looks really good! Very clean work that gives the car a bit of class.