XV-02 Lancia Delta - Tamiya Rally Review - Alejo's Project Thread

[Busdriver 6209]

2 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

Body:

I was able to progress fairly fast during the week. The body has been painted and now I'm working on the stickers:

The Simoniz lettering is done using vinyl letters from the stationary store. I'll hunt for some smaller ones needed for the rest of the lettering, otherwise I'll resort printing the letters on paper and then sticking the paper with clear tape.

The print-tape technique will also be used for the other sponsor logos. The part I'm struggling with is to identify the following logos  (circled in blue):

I haven't been able to find better pictures that allow identification and I have no clue what they could be. If anyone can provide any pointers would be fantastic! 

 

For different size letters check out Becc flags for lots of different sizes. http://www.becc.co.uk/

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Thanks for the input @Andreas W  I am only now missing the yellow circular logo.

@Busdriver thanks for the info. BECC's product seems hard to get in Asia and I am out of budget anyway. Will probably have to go with the print/sticker route, which is gives fairly good results.

 

[Busdriver 6209]

3 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

Thanks for the input @Andreas W  I am only now missing the yellow circular logo.

@Busdriver thanks for the info. BECC's product seems hard to get in Asia and I am out of budget anyway. Will probably have to go with the print/sticker route, which is gives fairly good results.

 

Sorry didn’t realise you were in Asia!!! 

[Ziddan 947]

On 3/4/2022 at 6:50 AM, OoALEJOoO said:

The final project will be using the Sand Scorcher body, bought to provide the stickers for the Hilux, to create a TT-02 Blitzer Beetle. I'll recycle a TT-02D chassis kit to essentially make something akin to a TT-02T in 251mm wheelbase.

Lots of gold in this thread!

My first Tamiya was putting a Sand Scorcher body on a TT02B, have a thread about it, it looks a bit like a Blitzer, ive made up some 3d printable parts to shorten the wheelbase, increase ground clearance and mount the body on it, not sure if they will be useful for a TT02 as the shock towers and arms differ but might give some ideas at least

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with as what you have already shared is all top notch

[TurboRSR 356]

11 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

Thanks for the input @Andreas W  I am only now missing the yellow circular logo.

@Busdriver thanks for the info. BECC's product seems hard to get in Asia and I am out of budget anyway. Will probably have to go with the print/sticker route, which is gives fairly good results.

 

The circular logo is a Cibie "Racing Team" logo. 

[foz75 93]

Really enjoying this thread and am in awe of the quality of paintwork! The 240Z is brilliant, and as for that cockpit... 

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

10 hours ago, TurboRSR said:

The circular logo is a Cibie "Racing Team" logo. 

Thank you! All is set now, full steam ahead to complete the stickers 

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Sticker work is now complete. The straight-line livery looks quite good on the curvy 240Z 

Thanks again for all the help with the sponsors!

Time to paint the cockpit.

[foz75 93]

Looks brilliant! Any tips for masking straight lines on the inside of curvy shells? I have an XV-01 on the way and am planning a different body which would ideally need some masking...

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

8 hours ago, foz75 said:

Looks brilliant! Any tips for masking straight lines on the inside of curvy shells? I have an XV-01 on the way and am planning a different body which would ideally need some masking...

Marking the exterior of the shell (on top of the film) as a reference helps a lot. You can use a fine-tip marker or, if you expect a lot of trial and error, you can use thin masking tape to set the reference lines (this will allow to do/undo the references until they are good). Once the references are placed, you can follow them as you mask from the inside.

[Busdriver 6209]

58 minutes ago, OoALEJOoO said:

Marking the exterior of the shell (on top of the film) as a reference helps a lot. You can use a fine-tip marker or, if you expect a lot of trial and error, you can use thin masking tape to set the reference lines (this will allow to do/undo the references until they are good). Once the references are placed, you can follow them as you mask from the inside.

A great tip!!!

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Ended up adjusting some of the stickers (they actually are printed in paper and stuck with clear tape). They look good at arms length, and perfect at racing length .

Weather has been miserable, preventing any sort of spray work. I've managed to finish the cockpit tray painting after a few nights but haven't been able to spray-seal it. Without good weather, can't start on the helmets . I'm itching to finish this car and hit the road  

[foz75 93]

Printing the stickers and attaching them with tape... Any tips on the best type of paper and tape? I guess they will fade in the sun or after a long time? But easy to replace?

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

I use 97-brightness paper which is normally found on premium inkjet/laser paper types. As far as tape, regular transparent packing tape is best. The heavy-duty tapes are thicker and more difficult to follow the contour of the body but should also work if heated.

The oldest car I have using this method is around 1 year old, has seen mild use and so far is holding well. Indeed, replacing the stickers would be very easy if the need comes.

Since the paper is white, the hardest part are stickers that need to match the body color background. The Bridgestone Tires logos above were printed in white paper along with a red background that, after a few trial-and-error attempts, got mostly to match the body red. The white 300 were individually cut out of paper.

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Excellent weather over the past few days and the cockpit is now finished!

Peter Brock with co-pilot Lee Midgley.

 

 

[Aerobert 2138]

Awesome. You cockpit skills are fantastic!

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

TT-02Ra Chassis:

Rally cars are probably the most used and abused type of car of my collection. High-speed and risky maneuvers means accidents come along often. When building the chassis, durability was a top consideration.

The first kit I ever built was a Datsun 240Z on a 4WD TT-01E chassis. This car has seen it all, crashed and bashed from all angles. It once suffered a crash that severely dented the body front left corner, broke the upright, shock tower and wheel of the same corner. After some patching, this is it's current state:

Instead of getting a new shell to retire the aging original, I decided to do the Datsun justice by building a second rally car that matches its real-life counterpart in having a RWD setup.

Parts used:

• TT-02D Chassis Kit. Nothing really needed in particular from the drift chassis, this is what I had in hand.
• Aluminium front uprights (unbranded, bought from eBay).
• Turnbuckles on steering links and servo link.
• Aluminium front shock tower (Team Rafee Co).
• Mini-CVA shocks (did not use the kit provided mini-CVAs but could have worked just as well).
• Tamiya TT-02 chassis cover (22023)
• Wheels from the MF-01X Beetle rally
• TT-01E truck tires (51589) for a taller rubber look + DN-01 sponges (51448)
• High-Torque servo saver (3Racing)
• Rubber-sealed ball bearings
• 22T hard-coated pinion + stock 70T spur

Electronics:

• Stock silver-can motor + 3Racing heatsink
• JX 5508MG servo
• Tamiya TLBE-04S ESC + 30mm Raspberry Pi fan
• Slidelogy SDY-0104OR Gyro
• Flysky FS-GR3E Receiver

RWD Conversion:

The front tires were left to free-wheel by removing the  propeller shaft along with the front propeller cup. This left a hole in the front gearbox that needed to be plugged.

I used the bearing that normally would sit in this opening to build a plug. Started with using a damper spacer to build a little centralizer in the plastic bearing, then plugging the hole with a bolt + washers + locknut:

One of the consequences of converting a car designed to be 4WD into RWD is that it will tend to have too much power oversteer. To counter this, I decided to keep the front differential and soft-lock it with diff putty.

 

The rear drive-train was assembled stock per manual, with a bit of AWG on the differential.

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Rally Conversion:

Increasing ground clearance beyond the regular kit and toughness is the main objective. The following mods were used:

Front Suspension:

The front upright is the weakest point of my TT01 rally car and the TT02 seems to have a very similar layout. I've replaced plastic uprights for the TT01 rally car a total of 4 times (they always brake at the bottom post) and only when they were upgraded to aluminium did the problem disappear. For this TT02 build, I went with aluminium uprights straight away. Got an unbranded fancy red set from eBay.

If you use the stock plastic upright (gray piece below), you will also need to trim the steering stoppers to prevent premature steering-lock with the extended ground clearance.

The high ground clearance option was chosen as a base and further extended.  Also went with the added mod of trimming the upright post (see pic above) to prevent its bottom stubs from sticking downward. The result is quite flush with the lower arm.

One of the areas that always gets chewed-up in rally cars is the shock bottom connector. To protect them, a steel washer was placed between the screw head and the connector. In this case I used a ball-spacer, with the washer on the OD of the ball-spacer (so it's loose and not compressed by the screw). Alternatively, you can also use a step-screw.

I had a set of mini CVA's laying around and decided to use these instead of the kit's super-mini CVA's. Two small spacers were used inside the cylinder to reduce the downtravel and prevent the dogbones from binding in the cups. In retrospect, perhaps the super-mini CVA would have worked just as well by building them without spacer and with the long connector. Shocks were fitted to the aluminium shock tower for durability.

Rear Suspension:

The rear was a lot simpler than the front. Also built with the high ground clearance, ride height was increased by trimming the bump stops on part A11. To give the car a more stable rear, wide tread option was chosen at this end.

Similarly, the mini CVA's were built with two small spacers to limit downtravel, this gave the maximum ground clearance with the dogbones just clear from binding into the cups.

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Steering:

With the raised suspension, the steering links need to reach a bit further out. If you keep the stock links, the front wheels will get a bit of toe-out, which might make taming the RWD layout more difficult.

Two 3x18mm turnbuckles were used for the steering links (54247) and a single 3x23mm turnbuckle for the servo link (54248). Connectors used for the steering links are Tamiya 5mm (50875), which have downward facing cups that help preventing dirt accumulation. On the servo link, I used some open ball connectors I had spares. Setup-wise, the turnbuckles will allow putting the front of the car in a slight toe-in, which will make the RWD more steady. A low-cost high-torque (8.2 kg-cm) high-speed (0.07 sec/60deg) JX 5508MG digital servo was used coupled to a 3Racing high-torque servo-saver.

The servo specs are probably overrated but it does seem a tad faster than other servos I have rated at 0.12 sec/60deg. The speed should help with the gyro response. A good thing about gyros is that they can be tuned and disabled on-the-fly via the transmitter's 3rd channel. On high-grip asphalt the gyro can be disabled, on slipper surfaces it can be enabled for more controllable drifts. My transmitter does not have a fully analog 3rd channel, just an L/R switch instead, but this still allows good customization. The L position has the EPA value at zero (disabling the gyro), and the R position can tune the gyro via its EPA value. The gyro is located right below the bundle of cables. The central structure, where the propeller shaft normally goes, prevents placing the gyro right in the center so I had to place it a little bit shifted towards the right. It is very low on the chassis which is good.

Bumpers & Skid Plate:

From my experience in bashing rally cars, other than the front uprights, the part that takes the most beating is the body shell. Something that really helps is having foam bumpers that fit the body snuggly so that all impact force gets transmitted to the chassis as immediately as possible, thus minimizing body bend.

My old TT--01 Datsun rally car got really beat up in the nose area even though it did have a custom foam bumper that protected really well against crashes. However, rocks and steps coming head-on from underneath caused havoc on the Datsun's curved nose. The new TT02 rendition got its own set of custom foam bumper, but also a shiny custom aluminium skid plate. The front bumper was made using Tamiya urethane bumper sponge (53415) and the skid plate by cutting 1mm thick plate:

The rear layout got a custom-built light foam bumper (white) placed on top of the stock high-density bumper (grey):

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Chassis Cover:

Now that Tamiya offers the TT02 chassis cover as a stand-alone product (22023), I decided to give it a try.

Overall looks great and should prevent most of dust & rocks from getting into the tub.

The cover has a position to mount a standard switch which is very welcome since it allows on/off operation without removing the cover or body. However it really looks Tamiya didn't really think it through all that well (see update below)  It is really close to the motor and it will interfere with the heatsink. I had to use a very small one and still it bumps a bit. I debated whether to mount the switch further down the cover, but this would have meant positioning on a place much higher and therefore out of reach.

Luckily, the cover is low enough not to interfere with the cockpit. Except perhaps for very low bodies (e.g. the Nissan R390), I suspect cockpits could work with the cover.

The cover does have an odd bump on the left side, as if allowing to mount a vertical short battery. No clue what it is for. I don't think this cover would fit other chassis, like the XV-02 for instance.

UPDATE:

It turns out that if you use Tamiya's TT-02 heatsink it is possible to mount the switch without interference:

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

RWD TT-02(Ra) vs 4WD TT-01E(Ra) Performance:

Since officially Tamiya has never released a rally version of the TT-01E or TT-02, I am calling these unofficially "Ra" versions. Rally cars are a blast to drive, my favorite type of RC car. Part of that has to do with parks & sidewalks being the easiest environment to find where I live. Running through a park path simulating a rally stage, pulling hairpins and Scandinavian flicks never gets old. The TT-01E has been converted to rally and kept 4WD, and the new one on the TT-02 converted to rally and RWD. Both cars have the raised suspension mods and share several of the durability improvements discussed earlier on this thread.

Dust Covers:

TT-02Ra on the left, TT-01ERa on the right:

With no official cover available for the TT-01, the car has a home-made cover made from breathing cloth. It works great at keeping even fine dust out as well as allowing a moderate amount of air flow to the motor & electronics. The TEU-105BK ESC has a fan and a Torque-Tuned motor a large heatsink. I've never had problems with overheating. After a full pack, the motor heatsink is hot but you can tolerate touching it for a few seconds.

The TT-02 is using the recently released official Tamiya cover (22023). After a nice run at the local park, it does a good job in keeping larger debris from entering the tub but fine dust does get in. I also found the stock silver can hot enough to be impossible to touch at all. This could be because the heatsink is much smaller, but the cover switch makes it difficult to put a larger heatsink. Since fine dust does go in, I suspect there is some amount of airflow going from from the cover's front openings to the back. I would recommend either finding another way to mount the switch (perhaps facing sideways further to the front) or adding a fan to the motor heatsink.

Ground Clearance:

TT-02Ra ground clearance was measured at 21mm. This is using its TT truck tires:

TT01ERa ground clearance was measured at 17mm but this is with substantially worn rally block tires. To make an apples-to-apples comparison, I also measured it's ride height with the same TT truck tires at 19mm. This car does not have a front aluminium skid plate, resulting in a brutal banging of the body over the years.

Overall a 2mm ground clearance advantage favoring the the '02 over the '01.

Driving Performance:

4WD TT-01E(Ra):

The neutral basher 4WD characteristics we are all familiar with. The car has both differentials open. The raised ground clearance gives it more tendency to roll & exploit weight transfer Scandinavian flicks. It's easy to power-oversteer on slow corners, maintains short drifts fairly well, predictable handling on both grippy or loose surfaces.

RWD TT-02(Ra):

This car has the front differential locked (putty) which greatly keeps oversteer in check and helps taming its RWD configuration. This car has a mounted gyro which drastically affects it's behavior.

Gyro Disabled:

On reasonable grippy surfaces (reasonably clean concrete sidewalks) the car feels just as planted as the 4WD TT-01E. It's easy to power-oversteer on slow corners,  predictable handling, easy to controllably flick its tail. You do need a bit more skill to effectively introduce opposite lock to pull short drifts correctly compared to the TT-01E.

On loose surfaces it is very temperamental. Here you really need to be very conscious on the throttle. Granted the car is not using rally block tires but the TT truck tires which have a pattern less suited for loose gravel.

Gyro Enabled:

The gyro was set so to the maximum gain just so it does not chatter on a straight line, thus set to 40%. On grippy surfaces with this setting the car feels like it's on rails. Bumps, corners, small-medium weight transfer will hardly upset it. You really need to do an aggressive pendulum to make a Scandinavian flick. For novice drivers perhaps this is a plus but I found it too limiting. Not that I'm an expert driver but I do have some mileage! I much rather enjoyed keeping the gyro disabled.

On loose surfaces however, the gyro did an exceptional job at taming the car. In general the car behaved very similar on loose surface + gyro enabled as it did on grippy surface + gyro disabled. The gyro does make it a wonderful basher for gravel.

Final Thoughts:

Having already converted a TT-0E to RWD some time ago (although not for rally but for parking lot racing), I already knew what to expect. The RWD + locked front diff results in a well-balanced car that almost makes it feel as if the car was designed to be RWD. The same applied to the TT-02 RWD. Both the TT-01E and TT-02 make fantastic rally cars when converted and either 4WD or RWD would do well. Highly recommended. I would recommend a gyro for a RWD version if you plan to run it in dirt/gravel.

After the TT-02Ra's maiden park bashing, it became incredibly clear the necessity of the front skid plate. During a fast wide turn, the car hit a hard-to-see concrete edge head on. It was not enough to make it roll-over but it did make it jump some. The skid plate now has a nice scratch on it but the lexan body is still intact

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

Photo Shoot:

[OoALEJOoO 3127]

The Story So Far

After 5 months of steady building & running the cars, I'm enjoying the hobby quite a lot  It's been far more building than running, but as weather improves, hopefully the tables will be turned.

Three projects are still pending on the chain reaction:

• Paint the Blitzer Beetle body and match it to an old SRB chassis. I think I've found a way to reliably fit 12mm-hex buggy wheels at both front & rear of the SRB chassis.
• Transform my old M-06 Giulia into a rally car. This would feature a M-06(Ra) conversion with increased ground-clearance and potentially a new body. Adding the unused light-pods from the Datsun build will add to the rally feel. The build's performance will be compared against an M-05Ra car.
• Lower the suspension of my old Hilux High-Lift and effectively make it a Hilux Mid-Lift. The CR-01 Hiliux now fills the monster role and the old one can be made more scale-looking.

[Nikko85 3450]

They all look amazing, but that Tyco MF01x is still king!

[Busdriver 6209]

I’ll be interested to see how you adapt the SRB to hex wheels. I think any bearing to hex conversion if it works is like a 🦄