Stanley the Land Rover (was "CC-02 hop-ups: essential, nice to have, pretty but pointless or a bad idea?")

[TurnipJF 7684]

Now that's the CC-02 has been out for a while, I am hoping that the community has reached some sort of consensus as to which hop-ups are essential, which hop-ups are nice to have have but you don't need them for a regular runner, which hop-ups are are simply bling with no meaningful effect on the car either way, and which hop-ups actively detract from the model in terms of performance or reliability.

The vehicle in question will be the short wheelbase Land Rover D90 version, so I would also value any hop-up recommendations specific to this wheelbase or bodyshell.

So what should I include in the build, what should I consider adding later, what might I add if I think it looks nice and what should I avoid?

[WillyChang 1737]

7 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

what should I include in the build

Bearings 

[TurnipJF 7684]

What? You mean to say that it doesn't come with them? 😂

 

Don't worry, a set of RCBearing.com's finest rubber sealed ones is already in the basket. 👍

[BuggyGuy 754]

Bearings are essential - sounds like your covered there though, I went for all steel hex head hardware on mine as well.

I've got a brushless setup in the CC02 (I'm not into crawling - just use it like a buggy/rally car). I would recommend the aluminium motor bridge #54971 and the aluminium spur gear mount #54970 if your going to run more than a silver can.

I've used CR01 prop shafts on mine as the CC02 specific prop hopup wasn't out when I got the kit - I would say these are essential as I've seen broken plastic props even with the kit motor, I don't know if the CC02 Hopup prop will fit on a SWB CC02 so worth checking that before buying (#54998)

I've got a reinforced rear driveshaft (GPM) the Tamiya equivalent is #54978 - I think you'd need to be putting some really serious power through the car to make this essential though. The front CVDs are worth having IMO - but not essential #54984.

Best hopup I did for handling was the spring kit #54992 and most importantly the low friction balls in the suspension links to replace the kit plastic balls - #54945

I have the aluminium steering mount, it looks cool but not essential, the stock plastics are good. Theres also a matching rear brace (#22002 and #22041).

I think the only other hopups I have fitted were the hopup steering rod #54929 - I though this was worth it as made the steering feel more presise at speed. 

I do have the shock upgrade kit #54991 - but the kit supplied dampers are fine, so these are pure bling! I also used Tamiya blue aluminium locknuts, blue aluminium ball studs, and some 5mm clamping wheel hexes from Yeah Racing - I'd put all this in the bling category too!

CC02 is a great chassis - the plastics are top notch and the kit is very strong/robust when complete

[Busdriver 4671]

If it has the same tyres as the CC01 version they defo need replacing. Get some nice steel landy beadlocks and some scale tyres

[Frog Jumper 3097]

13 minutes ago, BuggyGuy said:

Bearings are essential 

I would recommend the aluminium motor bridge #54971 and the aluminium spur gear mount #54970 if your going to run more than a silver can.

I've used CR01 prop shafts on mine as the CC02 specific prop hopup wasn't out when I got the kit - I would say these are essential as I've seen broken plastic props even with the kit motor, I don't know if the CC02 Hopup prop will fit on a SWB CC02 so worth checking that before buying (#54998)

I've got a reinforced rear driveshaft (GPM) the Tamiya equivalent is #54978 - I think you'd need to be putting some really serious power through the car to make this essential though. The front CVDs are worth having IMO - but not essential #54984.

Best hopup I did for handling was the spring kit #54992 and most importantly the low friction balls in the suspension links to replace the kit plastic balls - #54945

I think the only other hopups I have fitted were the hopup steering rod #54929 - I though this was worth it as made the steering feel more presise at speed. 

 

 

^^^ All this.

If you are handy, I would recommend the axle mounted servo mod (look around for my pix).  Its easy and gets rid of bump-steer without too much hassle.

And for the drive shafts, get the Tamiya Steel shafts (or 3rd party) as the plastic ones will twist out of shape.  The length you need depends on what wheelbase you set your CC02.

I also recommend stick on weights, brass hexes, and your favorite beadlocks/tires combo.  And the Yeah Racing skid plates.

Terry

 

 

[BuggyGuy 754]

1 minute ago, Frog Jumper said:

 

^^^ All this.

If you are handy, I would recommend the axle mounted servo mod (look around for my pix).  Its easy and gets rid of bump-steer without too much hassle.

And for the drive shafts, get the Tamiya Steel shafts (or 3rd party) as the plastic ones will twist out of shape.  The length you need depends on what wheelbase you set your CC02.

I also recommend stick on weights, brass hexes, and your favorite beadlocks/tires combo.  And the Yeah Racing skid plates.

Terry

 

 

That reminds me - I also have the Yeah Racing skid plates for the diffs and centre gear box, they are great and well worth it!

The centre plate need modification to fit a short wheel base CC02 though but the diff ones should be fine stock and they are more important than the middle one.

[Saito2 4787]

The first mod would be to just order the TRX4 Sport kit.  I'm kidding. If I ever sell my re-re Bruiser, it would be the CC02 that I would get.

[Frog Jumper 3097]

1 hour ago, Saito2 said:

The first mod would be to just order the TRX4 Sport kit.  I'm kidding. If I ever sell my re-re Bruiser, it would be the CC02 that I would get.

 

[Saito2 4787]

Interestingly, an "evangelical woman" at my work was hunting and secretly "casting prayers against" suspected witches to cut them off from their "evil power source". I'm sure I was on the list, as I listen to Led Zeppelin. 

[Juls1 1483]

For crawling/trail driving, I think the main things are electronics, I run a 16 turn 5 slot crawler motor on 11.1v with a hobbywing crawler esc. This gives idiotically slow speeds matched with a reasonable top speed (little over walking pace) the cc02 can be setup with crazy low gearing so 11.1v becomes viable. 

obviously tyres are critical, the car is crazy lightweight, so brass front steering knuckles and internal wheel weights are big improvements for traction and stability. 
 

front cv’s I think are a good idea if you increase the steering beyond stock, I’ve not broken the stock plastic driveshafts, as I bought the g500 and put the rover shell on, there was no cr01 driveshafts that fitted the short wheel base at the time. But if you drive in mud the stock plastic units can bind up a fair bit. 
 

shocks wise, the angle which the shocks sit at means there isn’t much benefit going metal shocks, the grey plastic seems to be stiffer than the usual black option so higher performance. I upgraded my stockers with front hi cap damper pistons, and some proper CVA shafts and swapped to a single blue double lip seal with a nylon guide. Stock units are now silky smooth. 

the bump steer is pretty annoying so a axle mount mod might be nice if scale looks are less important than performance. That being said you only really notice the bump steer on the work bench. 
 

 

[Blista 1435]

Just the usual bearings, tyres and a steel pinion.

I have found a couple of problems.  The springs can catch on the chassis so they need to be spaced a couple of mm out up top.  Also, when fitted with the Rock Block tyres, the springs also catch on the tyres, so bigger offset wheels or wider hexes are necessary.  That's probably why the new Bronco fitted with Rock Blocks has +6 offset wheels.

Motor, driveshafts, axle servo mount, etc might be needed depending on what you want to do but I find the kit to be just fine out of the box.  I was considering adding the steering rods and maybe the CVs.

I'm not willing to put a lot of money into the CC02.  I enjoy it for what it is instead of trying to make it into what other trucks already do much better.  I looked into all the fixes and performance upgrades and I think keeping the simple and fun aspect of the chassis is a better option.

[OoALEJOoO 1735]

Great to see some CC-02 interest. It is a great chassis. The amount of hop-ups would depend on the assigned duty. For a walk/jog pace trial car, you would need a 35-55T motor, which would greatly reduce the amount of stress on all the drive train. I've built two CC-02's so far, both of them as trial cars with reliability in mind. More details on my thread:

 

[TurnipJF 7684]

What is the general view regarding alloy 4-link sets? I know that the stock plastic 4-links on the rear of my CC-01 were terrible, and the vehicle was completely transformed when I swapped them out for a Junfac alloy setup.

Are there similar improvements to be had by doing the same on the CC-02, or are the stock plastic links fine once one has replaced the plastic pivot balls with metal ones?

[BuggyGuy 754]

15 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

What is the general view regarding alloy 4-link sets? I know that the stock plastic 4-links on the rear of my CC-01 were terrible, and the vehicle was completely transformed when I swapped them out for a Junfac alloy setup.

Are there similar improvements to be had by doing the same on the CC-02, or are the stock plastic links fine once one has replaced the plastic pivot balls with metal ones?

The stock plastic links are good, they are the newer Tamiya plastic and quite stiff - I would try the stock ones first as I was pleasantly surprised with the performance.

If your going to upgrade the links, I would recommend the Yeah Racing ones, but I wouldn't recommend the GPM ones (friends got them and they were quite poor quality).

[TurnipJF 7684]

Thanks for all the advice so far. 👍

Right, so I have added the metal pivot balls to my basket but I will try the stock links before considering swapping them out for metal ones. I quite like the look of the stock ones to be honest, as with a little bit of metallic weathering, they can look quite realistic.

How about the prop shafts? The official Tamiya hop-ups look very nice, with a price tag to match. I think I will go for aftermarket metal ones, as I suspect that even Chinese steel will be stronger than plastic, and if they break, it will have been a cheap experiment.

In order to order the right ones, I would need to know the measurements of the stock ones. I gather that in short wheel base configuration, the front and rear prop shafts are both the same length, which according to Tamiya is 75mm. Does anybody know if that is from pivot to pivot, from pin to pin, or overall, and is that when compacted or extended?

Alternatively, does anybody have a link to some affordable aftermarket prop shafts of the correct length?

Or could someone with a CC-02 perhaps please measure the overall length of their front propshaft at its shortest and longest points in the suspension's cycle?

[SupraChrgd82 1384]

Are you gonna crawl with it, Turnip?  If so, anything that will add weight down low will add to stability ( stainless husky links, weighted wheels and steering blocks, steel prop shafts).  

Though I don't have a CC02, I hear the gearing puts it at a rather brisk pace.  A small pinion and hight turn motor, maybe even a 1000-ish kV outrunner will add some low speed fidelity to the throttle.

I also hear bump-steer is a thing.  A servo-on-axle mount will add predictability to driving it.  

Regarding plastic pivot balls, I have found that they wear fast and get sloppy.  Several of us in my local group try to build following a plastic-metal-plastic-metal format as parts seem to wear slower and stay tight.  Metal-to-metal connections loosen quickly and plastic-to-plastic wears quickly.
 

[Frog Jumper 3097]

6 minutes ago, SupraChrgd82 said:

Though I don't have a CC02, I hear the gearing puts it at a rather brisk pace.  A small pinion and hight turn motor, maybe even a 1000-ish kV outrunner will add some low speed fidelity to the throttle.

With the lowest gearing, and my Team Brood 35t motor on 7.2 LiPo, my CC-02 is slightly faster than walking speed.  Easy jogging speed.

Its fast enough so that you don't have to wait for it to catch up with you if you walking to another crawl spot.

Terry

 

[BuggyGuy 754]

5 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

Thanks for all the advice so far. 👍

Right, so I have added the metal pivot balls to my basket but I will try the stock links before considering swapping them out for metal ones. I quite like the look of the stock ones to be honest, as with a little bit of metallic weathering, they can look quite realistic.

How about the prop shafts? The official Tamiya hop-ups look very nice, with a price tag to match. I think I will go for aftermarket metal ones, as I suspect that even Chinese steel will be stronger than plastic, and if they break, it will have been a cheap experiment.

In order to order the right ones, I would need to know the measurements of the stock ones. I gather that in short wheel base configuration, the front and rear prop shafts are both the same length, which according to Tamiya is 75mm. Does anybody know if that is from pivot to pivot, from pin to pin, or overall, and is that when compacted or extended?

Alternatively, does anybody have a link to some affordable aftermarket prop shafts of the correct length?

For props: Yeah Racing has you covered - quality is good and about half the price of Tamiya: https://www.yeahracing.com/yeah-racing-hd-stainless-steel-center-shaft-set-for-tamiya-cc02s-mercedes-benz-unimog-406-tacc-044-00119027

[TurnipJF 7684]

The project is pretty much complete. Thanks to everyone who provided input. This is how it turned out:

In the end, these are the hop-ups I decided on:

Steel pinion

Steel propshafts 

Steel suspension links

Alloy motor mount bridge

Alloy heatsink

Alloy wheel hexes

6mm offset wheels

Rubberier tyres

Sealed bearings

35t motor

Yeah Racing diff guards (still on their way)

I also swapped the electronics around compared to the manual's way of fitting them as it worked better for the servo cable routing, and attached the rear bulkhead with screws for rigidity rather than having it unclippable for rear battery access as I would always take the the shell off to access the battery anyway.

 

 

[Willy iine 12547]

Wow that looks awesome, @TurnipJF !!   Nice job.   I love the body color too.  Congrats~!

[Busdriver 4671]

14 hours ago, TurnipJF said:

The project is pretty much complete. Thanks to everyone who provided input. This is how it turned out:

In the end, these are the hop-ups I decided on:

Steel pinion

Steel propshafts 

Steel suspension links

Alloy motor mount bridge

Alloy heatsink

Alloy wheel hexes

6mm offset wheels

Rubberier tyres

Sealed bearings

35t motor

Yeah Racing diff guards (still on their way)

I also swapped the electronics around compared to the manual's way of fitting them as it worked better for the servo cable routing, and attached the rear bulkhead with screws for rigidity rather than having it clipped in. 

 

 

You need a wheely bar!!!!

[Mrowka 404]

On 8/3/2022 at 4:28 PM, Saito2 said:

Interestingly, an "evangelical woman" at my work was hunting and secretly "casting prayers against" suspected witches to cut them off from their "evil power source". I'm sure I was on the list, as I listen to Led Zeppelin. 

I have a cat that could use a tuneup. 

[Big Jon 555]

Turnip, where did you find those links? I used to buy ones that looked exactly like them from Hobbyking for 99¢ a pair, and they’re superb. I’ve got a few projects that I’d like to use them on.

[Nicadraus 4263]

@TurnipJF That's a nice build and definitely not pointless nor a bad idea. I'm a fan of hopped up builds and some customization too. Your CC-02 turned out great especially with those steel shafts and suspension links which are very useful than those of the stock plastic ones. The CVD are also essential especially when that chassis and suspension work their way in uneven terrain and crawling. I popped out my CC-01's dogbones twice during a trail on a rocky terrain and also broke the pins at one time. Changed them to CVDs and never had an issue since.

If I may, I'd like to suggest looking into KYX shocks. They're really great and price is very reasonable at $17-20 a pair. Works really great and very smooth damping/rebound too. They come in many sizes too from 80-120mm. I have a set installed in my CFX and I absolutely love them.