Kol__ 3377 Posted December 30, 2021 Hi guys, Like a few of us I picked up a Neo Fighter from Amazon a month or so back as the price of £73, including torque tuned motor, CVA shocks and TBLE-04S ESC, was a quite unbelievable bargain. Whilst the Neo Fighter is a cool looking buggy, I prefer the Racing Fighter and hadn't noticed that it was only a tenner or so more on Amazon. Since receiving the buggy, I have sold the body shell and stickers to a forum member (top bloke and Neo Fighter enthusiast) and bought a Racing Fighter XB pre-finished body and the body rear mount posts. After that exchange of parts, all in I'm back at the price of the Amazon Racing Fighter. So, in reality I now have a Racing Fighter with the white wheels and tyres from the Neo Fighter. The Neo has wider front wheels at 24mm, as opposed to the Racing at 19mm. The wider fronts allow for a few more options of 2.2" tyres and my first mod is a set of Schumacher full spike tyres. Comparing Schumacher fronts to original kit supplied Tamiya rears below, not a perfect match visually by any means, so a new set of rears is on the cards. We'll see how this change of tyres effects the handling, although won't have a stock comparison unless I run the stock set up first. I've since purchased a set of the rear Schumacher full spikes, but they are not quite wide enough for the 35mm rears imo, so they're going back. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted December 30, 2021 Keen to see where you take it! I reckon some spikes in soft compound on the front are up there with bearings etc as must do mods from the off. It is quite an advantage to be able to get round corners. On the back I'm getting on well with the kit tyres now. I've tried Schumacher yellow mini spikes and they are better but I've kind of decided that for my purposes it doesn't much matter. Pretty cool what turnbuckles have done too. I might go threaded bar and amazon ball ends for Upper arms for my lad's one, which is currently rocking the dream combination of chitty chitty bang bang camber angles and a 4300kv motor. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted December 31, 2021 Cheers @BuggyDad, yeah got the bearings in on this build too. The turnbuckles, do they replace the upper plastic arms from the kit? Assume you need two per corner? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted December 31, 2021 Next step in the build... dyeing the kit wheels... Bought a chip pan, as it comes with basket which makes the process much easier. Things like regularly checking the colour are far simpler, plus all parts are lifted out at the same time, so no parts are left in the dye longer whilst others are pulled out to be checked etc. £10 from Wilko. Simmer, simmer... I left them in for 1hr 10mins total... Result - slightly darker than the orange of the body, but I'm happy with how they turned out, and the process is very straight forward and simple enough. We'll see how well the dye holds up with everyday use and bashing. I think I'll see some white poking through in the odd nick and scratch as time goes by. I've now also gone with the Tamiya 53059 rear tyres. They're a very good off road buggy tyre in my limited experience and match the Schumacher full spike fronts quite well. Plus I had a spare set from a recent purchase! The 53059's are stock rear fitment for the Madcap, Saint Dragon and Bear Hawk which to my knowledge all have a 57mm diameter rear wheel. They are also stock both front and rear on the Manta Ray I believe. Oddly they are also stock for the Holiday Buggy, which has 60mm diameter rear wheels, the same size as the Neo/Racing Fighter here - they are a real struggle to fit onto the larger 60mm rims!!! 4 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Superluminal 3750 Posted December 31, 2021 Those wheels came out really well! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted December 31, 2021 3 minutes ago, Superluminal said: Those wheels came out really well! Thanks SL. It was Sunshine Orange for anyone who wants a similar colour... 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alvinlwh 5895 Posted December 31, 2021 3 hours ago, Kol__ said: Cheers @BuggyDad, yeah got the bearings in on this build too. The turnbuckles, do they replace the upper plastic arms from the kit? Assume you need two per corner? 53828 will sort you out. One per corner. Got some pictures here. Give me a shout if you need more. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted December 31, 2021 Yeah turnbuckles are a great addition for me. I reckon that kind of handling finessing is required if you go for a livelier motor, otherwise it can be all over the place. I might struggle to evidence exactly what achieved what but my car is now very driveable and controlled on a 10.5t motor, with either pinion, and the day I set camber and toe showed significant differences. The day I fitted sway bars didn't. It might even have taken me backwards. At some stage I'll try removing them again. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted January 1, 2022 Thanks @alvinlwh and @BuggyDad, once I've run it for a while that will be one of the mods I'll go for then Parts were organised for the build... Tested electronics... Chassis and front end together... Gearbox built... Wheels mounted early and put away for the night... Next evening, CVA shocks built... Electronics in, have since tidied them a little. And done... Couple of Tamiya stickers added to the pre-finished shell... Some niggles - *The upgraded CVA rear shock springs are really not up to the task. When the suspension is pushed down by hand it simply sits there, bottomed out and doesn't rise back up. Thanks to @BuggyDad for the input, I have moved the spacer on the rear shocks to under the bottom spring mount and also added to spacers to the top of the shock, above the spring. These two changes have increased pre-load and seem to have helped a bit. Thoughts are that the o-rings are also causing a bit of friction on the shaft and that this will ease over time. I'll be looking to fit some stiffer springs. *The front wheels need spacers to achieve a snugger fit on the axle. I have simply added a suitably sized washer each side in the past to resolve the issue on other cars, so will look to do the same again here. Other than that I simply look forward to getting out to run the buggy, the weather is just so crap at the mo! 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alvinlwh 5895 Posted January 1, 2022 16 minutes ago, Kol__ said: *The upgraded CVA rear shock springs are really not up to the task. When the suspension is pushed down by hand it simply sits there, bottomed out and doesn't rise back up. Thanks to @BuggyDad for the input, I have moved the spacer on the rear shocks to under the rear mount and also added to spacers to the top. These two changes have increased pre-load and seem to have helped a bit. Thoughts are that the o-rings are also causing a bit if Fri on the shaft and that this will ease over time. I'll be looking to fit some stiffer springs. Try the original friction shocks springs. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted January 1, 2022 22 minutes ago, Kol__ said: Thanks @alvinlwh and @BuggyDad, once I've run it for a while that will be one of the mods I'll go for then Parts were organised for the build... Tested electronics... Chassis and front end together... Gearbox built... Wheels mounted early and put away for the night... Next evening, CVA shocks built... Electronics in, have since tidied them a little. And done... Couple of Tamiya stickers added to the pre-finished shell... Some niggles - *The upgraded CVA rear shock springs are really not up to the task. When the suspension is pushed down by hand it simply sits there, bottomed out and doesn't rise back up. Thanks to @BuggyDad for the input, I have moved the spacer on the rear shocks to under the rear mount and also added to spacers to the top. These two changes have increased pre-load and seem to have helped a bit. Thoughts are that the o-rings are also causing a bit if Fri on the shaft and that this will ease over time. I'll be looking to fit some stiffer springs. *The front wheels need spacers to achieve a snugger fit on the axle. I have simply added a suitably sized washer each side in the past to resolve the issue on other cars, so will look to do the same again here. Other than that I simply look forward to getting out to run the buggy, the weather is just so crap at the mo! On the stock front axles/wheels I think there's only a small amount of play to take up although it an feel like a lot. Perhaps just 1x 0.3mm shim/washer. Maybe room for a second but certainly don't fit so many as to create any bearing preload. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted January 1, 2022 Looks great by the way! The wheel dye looks like a really nice finish. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Goudar 526 Posted January 1, 2022 Really great one, I like the orange vibes. I may try to dye in a futur project, rims look pretty close to the shell color. Nice job. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted January 1, 2022 11 hours ago, alvinlwh said: Try the original friction shocks springs. You got any spare then @alvinlwh? The kit only comes with the CVA set up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
alvinlwh 5895 Posted January 1, 2022 20 minutes ago, Kol__ said: You got any spare then @alvinlwh? The kit only comes with the CVA set up. No I don't as they are used in my CVAs, but try BSP, they have various springs options. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted January 8, 2022 To update, I have tweaked the rear shocks again. Image below shows the standard shock on the right and on the left is the tweaked shock, as advised by @BuggyDad, which increased the preload and worked far better. However, to really solve the issue a slightly stiffer spring is needed imo. Being 2wd, the rear of the buggy is were all the weight is and it's actually quite weighty back there, more so than any vintage 2wd buggy I own. I picked up some springs from eBay, no idea what they are from, took a punt on a shabby looking collection of shocks parts for a few quid. These black springs are the only parts I'll be able to put to use at the moment. In the photo below, the springs on the left had side, you can see the black spring is a slightly tighter wind and a couple of mm longer. Fitted to the shock on the right, with the large shock collar, the shock itself is slightly longer than the stock set up, but a similar length to the previous stock springs set up that increased the preload. With this set up the shocks have a bit more tension/preload and when dropping the rear on the desk from about 6-8inches perform better with regard to compression and in particular rebound. A test drive will tell the whole story though. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted January 8, 2022 That does look like an improvement. My cheap Fastrax black springs look very similar. There seems a pretty clear consensus that a higher spring rate is required in the rear. Eye to eye length at full extension should not be affected by any of these changes though? Or are the shocks in the pics only extended as far as the coils push them? Oil in mine is filled enough that it alone would extend them fully when off the car, I think. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted January 9, 2022 1 hour ago, BuggyDad said: That does look like an improvement. My cheap Fastrax black springs look very similar. There seems a pretty clear consensus that a higher spring rate is required in the rear. Eye to eye length at full extension should not be affected by any of these changes though? Or are the shocks in the pics only extended as far as the coils push them? Oil in mine is filled enough that it alone would extend them fully when off the car, I think. Cheers @BuggyDad Yeah the stock springs rattle around a bit with the shocks with no collars at full extension (I think the stock set up is actually to include the large collar - I've missed that off in my post above, doh). I'd been squeezing them to check for preload tension feel/difference between the two prior to taking those photos, so they've each only extended as far as the spring has pushed them. I could be wrong here, but I don't believe the oil would extend the shock on its own, as it's for damping control. The spring is what returns the shock to extension again after compression and the speed of both this rebound and compression movement can be damped/controlled to perform at various speeds by the changing the oil weight/viscosity and the piston configuration (not that the latter is an option on the 'fixed to the rod end pistons' you get in this kit - which I was a little disappointed to find, even if the price for the kit was a steal). The shocks are full of oil, as per the manual, unless they've leaked already, which I hope they frickin' haven't! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BuggyDad 4477 Posted January 9, 2022 The effect is slight but as you compress the shock (even without a coil) you do add a little pressure into the system and so it tends to push back out. I think it's only because you add the volume of the shock shaft into the chamber with the oil, so it's not much. Doubt it'd affect ride height materially. It's more I wondered whether there might be some other issue. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted January 22, 2022 Minor update, picked up a set of metal hexes to replace the rear plastic ones on this and another car. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted April 7, 2022 I've had a plan for a while to do something with the shocks and I finally got around to doing it. As with the wheels I picked up some of the sunshine orange Rit dye and this time a set of the white TT02-B Dual Ridge shock bodies. Also picked up a smaller chip frying basket with a tighter weave due to the smaller parts on the shock parts trees. Take this... Chuck it in here for 65mins... And this is the result... I was able to get a better match with the body this time around. Got the springs powder coated and rebuilt. Went with 400 weight oil in the front and 700 in the rears. These are also the slightly stiffer TT02-B rear springs. Fitted to the buggy... I may pop a set of black top caps and black bottom fixings to the shocks to play a bit more with the balance of orange and black. 8 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Re-Bugged 10155 Posted April 7, 2022 Very nice indeed 👍🏻 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Goudar 526 Posted April 9, 2022 Nice one, that orange vibes ! I love it. Dyed did on the shocks works really well, it seems pretty close. I got a project on that one with another body shell, you confirm that I need to add this one to my collection ! 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kol__ 3377 Posted April 9, 2022 Cheers lads. Yep it certainly is very orange @Goudar! I'll keep an eye out for your DT-03 build 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SlideWRX 785 Posted April 11, 2022 Looks beautiful! although... the steering uprights stick out now... 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
