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Superluminal

TA02 Racing Special + TA02SW + TA02W + TA02 Rally

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The body shell I will be using will be my favourite rally car - the 1997 Toyota Celica GT4 which has been looking for a home for a while. I originally bought this used at the beginning of lockdown 1 on the TL01 chassis as a restoration project. It had been painted in mettalic blue and following many hours of time, many gallons of Revell and Tamiya paint remover and many pats of elbow grease ive removed as much as I can. Theres still blue flecks ingrained in the plastic that I cannot shift and the continual rubbing and solvent abuse has clouded / crazed it in places and made it slightly brittle. It was also quite badly cracked along some of the body mould lines, wheel arches and bumpers. Realising I was not going to make this perfect I found another nib kit in the end which is residing in the future build pile and means that this one can be put to use without worrying about it anymore.

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1 hour ago, Superluminal said:

The body shell I will be using will be my favourite rally car - the 1997 Toyota Celica GT4 which has been looking for a home for a while. I originally bought this used at the beginning of lockdown 1 on the TL01 chassis as a restoration project. It had been painted in mettalic blue and following many hours of time, many gallons of Revell and Tamiya paint remover and many pats of elbow grease ive removed as much as I can. Theres still blue flecks ingrained in the plastic that I cannot shift and the continual rubbing and solvent abuse has clouded / crazed it in places and made it slightly brittle. It was also quite badly cracked along some of the body mould lines, wheel arches and bumpers. Realising I was not going to make this perfect I found another nib kit in the end which is residing in the future build pile and means that this one can be put to use without worrying about it anymore.

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It looks brand new on the picture. Amazing you could remove the paint this way.

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7 hours ago, Pylon80 said:

It looks brand new on the picture. Amazing you could remove the paint this way.

It looks ok from about a foot away. The problem will be is that I will be painting it white so any of the original residual paint will be very visible, on a darker new pqint would probably be fine. Its very difgicult to get it out  from any recessed details as you have to apply quite a bit of pressure.

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All around the bottom and on the mould line seams are these very tiny splits. Im hoping the shoe goo and mesh will stop these widening.

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It worked, but I would never do it again. Too remove the paint would take around an hour of applying the paint remover to a piece of kitchen roll then rubbing, just to remove an area about the size of a two pound coin. It was ok on the larger flat body surfaces but anything with any moulded details was a nightmare as you had to dab it in with a paint brush, rub off, repeat and repeat. I did this over several months and even now still spot tinges of blue that I will try and get off.

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Good Job. I understand white, but Maybe consider painting the celica Red or Black cos of that ? If its not a race livery that might Look great as well ? 

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30 minutes ago, GermanTA03Guy said:

Good Job. I understand white, but Maybe consider painting the celica Red or Black cos of that ? If its not a race livery that might Look great as well ? 

Thank you! Im going to risk going with the white and castrol livery. Because the previous owner painted it blue i have the left over stickers plus an MCI set (which arent particularly great) so hopefully there is enough going on with the green and red swirls to cover the worst of it.

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Step 1 as usual on all these previous builds has been the rear ball diff.....but nooooooo not this time. Ive said every time that i dont like building ball diffs as i never know when they are adjusted properly so im going gear diffs throughout. The spares box contains Evo diff parts, TA03 lightweight ones etc but nope, theres something quite nice and simple about the gear diffs. Nothing more than a quick blob of antiwear grease. I know people say the ball diff can act as a slipper to reduce drivetrain shock but its not going to be running a powerful motor and plenty of other chassis types inc' the TL01 have gear diffs throughout. Fingers crossed.

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I've had the same problem and used De-solvit graffiti remover. Work really well but the paint was quite fresh. Only negative was the shell started to go a bit brittle, it was the chemical or the rubbing, I think the former.

I'd carry on and remove every speck if possible, white paint behind will show it up like a boil on ya nose!

 

 

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1 minute ago, Superluminal said:

Step 1 as usual on all these previous builds has been the rear ball diff.....but nooooooo not this time. Ive said every time that i dont like building ball diffs as i never know when they are adjusted properly so im going gear diffs throughout. The spares box contains Evo diff parts, TA03 lightweight ones etc but nope, theres something quite nice and simple about the gear diffs. Nothing more than a quick blob of antiwear grease. I know people say the ball diff can act as a slipper to reduce drivetrain shock but its not going to be running a powerful motor and plenty of other chassis types inc' the TL01 have gear diffs throughout. Fingers crossed.

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I like ball diffs but then everybody has "DIFF"erent ideas 

 

 

 

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Loving this build thread. I actually took my second hand TA02 out for it's first proper run yesterday. It's not 'silver can rally' class as it came with a 4000kv Max10 combo. I may switch it over to a sport tuned brushed but just wanted to give it a whirl.

Have to say, what a great chassis! You can get loads of suspension travel out of it and(with thicker oil) it runs really nice and plush. Fairly neutral handling and slid around beautifully on a wet IKEA carpark. Hard to believe the chassis is from the early '90s!

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Not made too much progress on this since last weekend as have been ill.

Where it was left was gear boxes asembled with the gears in.

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The Fastrax motor mount isnt actually too bad considering its a budget part. Unusually compered to the Tamiya part or other after market ones the mounting posts are machined into it.

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24T steel pinion and Torque Tuned motor.

spacer.png One thing of note is that the monting posts are different lengths - only slightly about 0.5mm but this is the same on the Tamiya part. Not sure why this is a "thing" as the posts dont need to bottom out in the holes in the gear box as the main mount body sits tight against the plastic.

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I drilled through the gear box cover mounting holes and strengthend these with a longer screw and nyloc nut.

The rest of the plastic parts and steering arms to go on the chassis plates.

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These are fitted to the steering posts. Like on my other TA02SW build I had to use a smaller screw in the bottom of the steering post then a smaller one in the top with a spacer as I dont have any long CSK screws with a full thread on them.

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For the two pieces that mount the gearboxes to the chassis there were a couple of splits and one of the holes had been threaded. I drilled these out with a 3mm drill bit and have used m3x45 and m3x50 screws and nuts to bolt them through.

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Will see how these hold up otherwise will need some new J-Parts.

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Servo is a Savox digital thing. No idea what the digital part means but ive had a few of these and they all seem a bit twitchy on the servo  tester set up i have.

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The alloy servo posts are mainly bling I think as the plastic ones i have on other kits have never bent or deformed if installed correctly. But its nice they are silver.

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Arms to fit next and to experiment with some drive shaft parts.

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For the fronts a I had plenty of spare bits I could make work but for the rears i dindnt seem to have the right combination of dogbones or drive shafts. In the end the ones I found were about a mm too long on the threaded side which when i shimmed it to the hex side against the pin meant the dog bone looked like it was going to fall out. So i had a cunning plan! Take the o-ring out of the diff cup and fit it to the back of the drive shaft. It might fall to bits on its first run but actually feels like it all fits together fine. The o-ring doesnt rub on the bearing and when tightening up the wheel nuts feels fine and runs freely with almost no play and also keeps the dog bone in. Time will tell - if the o-ring gets chewed up then i will need some other form of spacers as anything new now will probably blow the budget.

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One other slightly tedious thing im finding is that fixing the ball studs into the uprights, steering arms and c-hubs is that they start screwing in fine and then keep turning and turning. More cracks - you cant see them at first in the darker plastics until you start titghening up the screws. Ive tried brushing in superglue into the crack which seems to have held ok for now and then put the studs back in. My parts box is also out of internally threaded ball studs so i cant drill these out and run screw through them. Will run it and see what happens. Occupational hazard of reassembling someone elses second hand chassis unfortunately.

 

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Last few bits now before electronics. I have left the dampers till last as still not sure about them. This being a runner involves one of my least favourite activities - gluing the tyres onto the rim. I use a small dob of superglue with a brush applicator but know that every time I do this the wheels are now scrap if i ever need to remove the tyre. Ive tried the soaking in nail polish remover / acetone, warm or boiling water but they have all degraded the wheel to the point of being unusable by the time the tyre comes off. These arent an expensive set and the rubber is quite hard and the blocks on the tyre should mean they last a longish time if kept to loose surfaces and not run on tarmac or concrete.

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For the dampers and settup for oil weights, springs etc I tried googling but didnt find much on TA02 based runners. I recall many years ago there was a rally scene in Europe somewhere and they had a great website full of downloads about turning touring cars into rally cars. But i cant find it now. The only other info I had was the left over packaging from the original low-friction dampers (pink ones) that just said to use the longer eyelet but as these dont have internal spacers I can only think they have a different piston and body length to the CVA mini.

Anyway lacking other inspiration I was flicking through the 1997 Tamiya catalogue and noticed this;

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The 58129 Celica and 58176 Repsol Cossie TA02 rally cars seemed to use a different damper arrangement and a smaller TA01 front bumper. I downloaded the manual and it seems they were fitted with the short adjustor and no internal spacers (just a o-ring)

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It also looks like it uses a longer spring but i cannot find any part numbers for the individual components, just the parts bag number - 9415005. Any one know anything more about these?

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With not a lot else to go on my current thinking is - standard CVA mini damper bodies and pistons, no spacers just the o-ring, standard short adjustor, blue medium oil, one hole pistons. Rather than use a load of spacers on the shorter springs what im thinking is maybe some buggy springs might work? Ive got left over DT02 springs (middle row) which came on the pogosticks and are very soft but when compressed slightly might be ok. Im guessing if they fit the beneficial setup will be increased ride height, more spring travel without over compressing and compacting the spring before full travel is reached and slower damping from the thicker oil. This should also provide more sag when standing.

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Dampers built, no spacer, o-ring, one hole piston and medium blue oil.

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Fitted the closest springs i could find to match the unsprung length without needing any collars but ended up needing the thinnest one to take up the slack. Finished dampers were just slightly over 60mm eye to eye centres.

And crikey!! This thing has some serious ground clearance! I know the standard TA02 has quite a bit even when built with the two spacers inside the dampers but this is awesome! It will probably be completely undrivable but we will see.

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Its just under 25mm clearance. It doesnt have a battery or other electrics yet so they will add a bit of ballast.

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The disadvantage is that the pistons fully compress before the chassis bottoms out - not really ideal!!!! I think slightly softer springs that sag a bit more would probably be beneficial. Might experiment with some of the others ive got, even if they are slightly shorter.

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I'll have a look if I've any rally spec springs but think what I have is a bit shorter

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Last bit of the chassis, electronics - those tiny pipes that magic sparks travel down (or backwards and forwards as some sorcerers claim) Im old enough now to realise that I will never grasp the basics concepts or theories of how any of this stuff works or really what any of the colours and numbers mean so this isnt going to be anything too complex. In my world; wires = bad. More wires = more bad. So with this its a basic brushed motor, a nimh battery and a speed controller. In this case a new TBLE-04S that came in the Calibra kit. Ive never seen one of these before in the flesh (plastic) but am surprised at how compact it is compared to the older 02S. Hopefully it works ok, theres nothing too taxing about the stuff im using or the gear ratios that should burn it out. Although im recently reading here about servos causing power issues?

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It comes with a lot of paperwork!

Also, the battery appears to have a plastic nubbin thing on the end that interferes with the battery retainer clip. I thought these were the same shape and size as old school nicad batteries??

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It fits with a squeeze but I had to bend the posts on the prongs slightly. This is looking like its going to snap at some point so I might make something up in styrene sheet that fits better.

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Battery is charging now, when thats done will connect up, bind reciever and calibrate the esc. Looks like exactly the same way the 02S functions.

 

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Hmmmmmm....

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Well too late now its already built. And it does say "may", not "100% will".....so,

Brmmm brmmmm brmmmmmmmm

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Now to try and tidy up the cables a bit, was a bit easier on the tub as you could just tuck them down the sides, cant do that here.

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Was expecting the dog bones to make a right old racket with this much droop but they are surprisingly smooth. Much better than on my TT01 and TT02 runners which bind quite badly when lifted up out of alignment.

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2 hours ago, svenb said:

I'll have a look if I've any rally spec springs but think what I have is a bit shorter

Sorry mate no longer have the longer springs🙄

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No worries! Now with a bit of added weight these ones dont feel too bad. Could do with a bit softer up front as it there is a definite weight bias at the rear.

I wanted to ask you something too, you got any pics of your fleet with FRP/carbon chassis all wired up - im struggling to come up with something inspiring that isnt just a load of cable ties to the top deck.

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yeah, no probs I'll send a couple over. tried to copy the manual with them but it's not easy or very pretty

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