Silver can budget rally build off

[Cuiken 221]

Me and a mate have decided on a winter project to pull together a budget (or relatively budget) rally build-off. Few rules:

 

1. As far below £200 total build as possible.

2. Has to run a silver can brushed motor (as Tamiya intended). ~5000kv brushless are great fun an all but this is an attempt to keep things a bit more scale. Also, racing is more fun when the cars aren't close to hitting the 'scale speed of sound barrier'. Best racing I ever had was when me an a bunch of colleagues raced those old Nikko 1/14th scale rally cars int he work car park after hours. You actually have to be able to drive.

3. No Gyro.

4. Proper 1/10th scale so Tamiya sort of size (not Traxxas Rally).

5. Brand new build or second hand bargain, whatever works.

6. Probably a bit unfair but you can raid your own parts bin. That's certianly where I'm planning to find my motor and ESC.

 

Feel free to join in with this or throw in your thoughts. My initial thinking is:

 

1. Second hand XV01 if I can find one.  Not particularly original but it's such a great chassis. Might be tricky to come in on budget is all.

2. One of the higher spec TT02 chassis (Type S or even Type SR). Looking at the SR, it's so hopped up it's half way to being an XV02. Just needs a ferw mods for ride height.

3. Which touring chassis could be most succesfully rallied? TA02 (or any other TA for that matter)?

4. Do any buggies fit under a 1/10th rally shell?

 

These will be raced and crashed so something for which parts are still available is pretty key.

 

Keen to hear thoughts.

[Ziddan 655]

45 minutes ago, Cuiken said:

Do any buggies fit under a 1/10th rally shell?

Depends on your definition of "fit".

Every TT02 can be a buggy with longer suspension arms and differently designed uprights, thats the B version.

Here my TT02B with shorter 3d printed suspension arms, im using regular TT02 cvd axles so the width is spot on, would fit any TT02 Rally body if i printed a version of the arms that does not change the wheelbase to suit a scorcher shell.

Its still using the buggy uprights as i saw no good reason to change their design when i already had perfectly good parts.

[BuggyGuy 753]

I have one of these and they are cheap and great for the price: https://www.dms-racing.com/models/models---all-types---off-road/off-road-models-all-wheel-drive/lc-racing-emb-1h-1-14th-scale-4wd-mini-buggy-unassembled-kit-with-servo-detail

Could make a good rally car, but they are 205mm wide at stock though so a body could be tricky, the wheelbase can be increased by swapping to the truggy chassis plate. They do cheap versions as well as the above, and WLToys do a clone.

There's a rally version of the above with an on road body, but even though it's 1/14th scale it's actually wider than the buggy or any 1/10th rally car (though pretty much same chassis as above): https://www.dms-racing.com/models/models---all-types---on-road/on-road-models-4-wheel-drive/lc-racing---emb-wrch---1-14th-scale-brushless-4wd-ready-to-run-rally-car-lipo-version-detail

They do a proper 1/10th rally as well, but ive not tried that one: https://www.dms-racing.com/models/models---all-types---on-road/on-road-models-4-wheel-drive/lc-racing-ptg-2-1-10th-4wd-assembled-rally-car-rolling-chassis-no-body-detail

For any of the LC Racing stuff it's worth shopping around, as they have lots of versions of their kits (RTR/ARTR/Unassembled) and there's a massive variation in price as well across the web

[Cuiken 221]

Thanks for these suggestions.

I actually have the LC Racing PTG-2 rally car (built it up from the kit). It is absolutely epic but definitely not a budget. build . An extended buggy is an interestig idea but I suspect that'll be pushing towards the top end of the budget. Might try shopping for a used one.

Any thoughts on repurposed Tamiya TC chassis (TA or eve TB)?

Cheers.

 

[GermanTA03Guy 754]

Ta03f with added long dampers is my suggestion.... 

[Cuiken 221]

1 hour ago, GermanTA03Guy said:

Ta03f with added long dampers is my suggestion.... 

Spoken like a true TA03Guy  

Yeah, I really like the look of these. I'm a sucker for belt drive cars.

I reckon a lot of this will come down to which options come up second hand over the next couple of months. I'd be very happy with a clean TA03 though.

[Mad Ax 6390]

I like @GermanTA03Guy's suggestion of the TA03F.  The FS version is often cheaper because until recently there were very limited body options.  However L&L Models now sell a repop of the old Corolla WRC body, which was what came standard over the TA03FS.  It's got a tub chassis to keep out the dust, and front motor for nicer handling on the slippy stuff.  It's belt drive, but the belt is reasonably well protected if you keep the plastic tub, so it's not as bad as running a modern tourer on gravel.  Parts support is limited but there are probably 3D printed parts for many of the fragile areas now.  If you can find a good used chassis for not much cash, this is probably the winner.

The perennial rally favourite was the TB01, if you can find one.  They came in a rally version which had longer travel shocks and a plastic dust cover.  Again it's a plastic tub to keep the dirt out, but this time it's a shaft drive so you don't have to worry about grit in your drivetrain.  I'm not sure you'll find one in budget now.

What you may well find for peanuts is a TA01 or TA02, and these make great rally cars.  Again they have a tub chassis, they're solid and dependable and there's plenty of parts still around.  Wheelbases are interesting as TA01/02 parts are interchangeable, and the TA02T baja truck chassis comes with a mix of 01 and 02 parts to make the weird length for the truck bodies, so be careful what you're buying if you don't want to have to buy more parts later to get a standard wheelbase.

The wildcard choice for me would be the TL01.  There was a time you could pick these up for next to nothing, but last time I looked prices were on the up (like £70 for a roller instead of £40).  That was some time ago so they could be more expensive now.  Ignore the TL01-RA version - it's just a TL with buggy wheels on it.  The chassis is an odd one but it works fine with a silvercan.

With all of these cars, the trick will be adding longer shocks and maximising ground clearance without upsetting steering geometry.  I'd want to set it up soft, but not so soft it bottoms out over the bumps.  You'd want plenty of static sag to keep the wheels on the ground when the weight comes up.

Two years ago I did pretty much what you're doing, and I built this rallycross car from a TA02.  Unfortunately my garden track was too bumpy for 1.9 wheels and I never got around to running it much anywhere else, but it's real good fun in the gravel and dirt.

https://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=135950

[alvinlwh 3179]

Already done that with a 10+ years old TT-01 "hacked" to rally specs. That's the original TT-01, not the current e version. Run it on a brutal football field that had melted a few motors (including a silver can) and blown a few ESCs. Finally now using a 45T motor, it seems like less is more as it had gone through a few 40 minutes run without blowing up any electronics but it did destroy a wheel. 

[Juls1 1483]

TA02 while a popular rally car is pretty horrible handling by todays standards. A TL01LA (not RA) with longer shocks (CVA short, gf01 or cc01) dampers is a excellent rally car but might be getting expensive. the TT02 is actually a excellent handling car and can be tweaked for rally. Obviously a second hand xv01 Would be optimum. 

[GermanTA03Guy 754]

Ta03f with frp doubledeck, gear diffs, torque splitter (17t front,  15t rear, one way - makes powerslides and handbrake turns a treat ) and custom undertray in action. Here with the original dampers, but longer springs. 

Btw, 16t sensorless carson brushless setup, 2500-2800kv or so. 

[Cuiken 221]

Great suggestions, thanks. Definitely intrigued by the TA03.

I've often toyed with trying a 'one way' pulley on my XV01.

To be clear, you overdriving the rear so the front generally freewheels unless the rear wheels lose traction? I'd always thoiught about it as a means to get FWD steering by overdriving the front wheels on my XV01 (never actually got round to it though).

Upon further research, wish I could stretch to a TB05:

 

 

[GermanTA03Guy 754]

8 minutes ago, Cuiken said:

 

To be clear, you overdriving the rear so the front generally freewheels unless the rear wheels lose traction? 

 

Exactly. But it still feels 4wd, the front wheels are definetely doing their work as well under acceleration. So its not rwd, Just rear biased 4wd. And the Brake only triggers the rear wheels obviously due to the one way. Absurd drift angles can be caught with power. A treat. 

That tb05 vid looks gorgeous too.

[Cuiken 221]

Any thoughts on the TA04? Just to cast the net a bit wider?

[ThunderDragonCy 6369]

The thing you need to be careful of using a tb04, or tb05 or tt02s/Sr or anything using long arms is that you run into problems with the arms hitting whatever droop stop has been moulded into the tub and c hub on the front arm cross brace. It requires filing and cutting to get good ride height. I recently had to do thus on my FF03 rally conversion. 

If you are looking for relatively cheap and decent ground clearance then TT01E, TT02 stock or TA02 or TL01 would all be good shouts. They all have shorter arm suspension, so are easy to get good ride height. Contrary to @Juls1 experience, whilst I found the TA02 frustrating to get set up on track, with the stock CVA mini shocks rebuilt to longer stroke and evened out front to rear (I think the rears ended up shorter than fronts using o rings to get the ride height even) I found it to be a delightful little rally car. Very short geared though, so slow with a silver can. The TT01E and TL01 still have speed tuned gear sets available and with a silver can on loose you want the tallest (lowest FDR) gear you can get. 

[GermanTA03Guy 754]

2 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

with a silver can on loose you want the tallest (lowest FDR) gear you can get. 

True Stuff... ta03 goes down to 4.76 fdr  dunno if the silver can will be able to do that though... 

[Juhunio 5748]

On 8/16/2022 at 3:39 PM, Cuiken said:

Great suggestions, thanks. Definitely intrigued by the TA03.

I've often toyed with trying a 'one way' pulley on my XV01.

To be clear, you overdriving the rear so the front generally freewheels unless the rear wheels lose traction? I'd always thoiught about it as a means to get FWD steering by overdriving the front wheels on my XV01 (never actually got round to it though).

Upon further research, wish I could stretch to a TB05:

 

 

That Datsun 240Z rally shell looks soooo good in motion 👌

[qatmix 648]

The XV01 is basically the best option. There seems to be quite a few about atm as the XV02 is out.

 

A TT02 in rally spec is good fun. It’s cheap with lots of option parts.

 

The TB01 is a tank. Spares are hard to find, but it’s difficult to break anything on it.

 

I started by rallying thd TA01, as much as I like that chassis, the ones above are all better nowadays.

 

I’d really recommend the XV01 though 

[Pylon80 330]

I went the TT-02 route and it's great, but even keeping the upgrades to the absolute minimum you will always end up spending more than for an XV-01. That is even more true now that the XV-02 came out and the XV-01's are considerably cheaper than a year ago or so.

[BuggyGuy 753]

Just a thought, but what about an M-Chassis car or one of the derivatives. There are a few rally services versions, common second hand, and parts are cheap(ish)

[alvinlwh 3179]

51 minutes ago, BuggyGuy said:

Just a thought, but what about an M-Chassis car or one of the derivatives. There are a few rally services versions, common second hand, and parts are cheap(ish)

I have the M-05Ra and it is a rather poor rally car. At best it can be described as a "rough roader". Any true off road and it will get stuck. I was so disappointed with its off road performance that I dropped its hubs and just use it as a road car instead. 

Not sure about the MF-01X though, it may do better with 4WD.

[TurnipJF 7683]

19 hours ago, Cuiken said:

3. Which touring chassis could be most succesfully rallied? TA02 (or any other TA for that matter)?

The venerable TL-01 makes a good rally chassis. The enclosed chassis design is less prone to collecting debris than a conventional tub and is easy to muck-proof, the motor sticks out the side so is easy to keep cool even with the chassis fully sealed against dirt ingress, the suspension travel is good out of the box with no trimming required, the kick-up front bumper from the TL-01B buggy is a direct fit, spares availability is good as it shares many parts with newer models, the shock towers are vulnerable if left stock but are very easy to brace, and they are usually very cheap 2nd hand.

[Cuiken 221]

Excellent stuff. Having found the price of a used TA03F to be astronomical  I am going to spend some time researching the TL01  

Cheers.

[Cuiken 221]

Okay, I may have a chassis. Comes with silver can and HW1060 ESC, TX/RX and a slightly tatty body. Has a few nice hop ups and a box of parts too. I'm not prepared to reveal yet 🙂

It's right on the budget limit though. So, making the rules up as I go along, I'm going to sell the TX/RX (and salvage an RX from another car) and recoup the sale price from the budget. This should give me breathing space for a couple of replacement parts if needed.

It's also a high miler so will require a full rebuild (that's what winter evenings are for right?).

Biggest problem on the car is the shocks they are definietly suited to TC stuff rather than Rally. I gather there are a few parts in the spares bin that comes with the car but I suspect it's going to get a bit bodgy if I'm to stay in budget 🙂 

[Juls1 1483]

If you go down the tl01 route, make sure the car has the propellor shaft, preferably steel or aluminium. The carbon ones crack and bind up quite quickly becoming useless. This part of the TL01 is up there with some of the rarest tamiya parts money can buy these days. Mostly every other part of the car is still available new. If you get a car with the stock prop shaft it’s 100% reliable so will never need replacing. 
 

I mention this as I regularly see tl01’s on eBay where the seller doesn’t show pictures of the prop shaft side and won’t respond when asked about it.   Meaning it’s missing. Although you might be able to diy something that could be more trouble than it’s worth.  
 

the main reason these things are rare because people buy the carbon shaft, throw away or lose the steel one only for the carbon one to stuff up and then the car has no shaft. 
 

if you can find a TL01LA would be best but regular tl01 will be easier to get parts and be cheaper and will still work fine. You can buy a long arm kit for Wr02 from yeah racing that will work on TL01 (minus the shock towers)  should you feel the need, I think it’s not quite as good as the genuine kit though.

good luck with the search. 

[Tamiyastef 935]

I like this idea as in my absence (family holiday) a package was delivered! It contains a TA03F fitted with a (non Tamiya I think) Citroën rally body. So this would be ideal for this budget build. Can't remember if it came with esc fitted or not, will have to check while unpacking. 😁

Also no idea about suspension (ground clearance, amount of travel) and tires. If both have to be upgraded this will blow the budget...

Picture below is from the seller. More will follow as I get home.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Tamiyastef
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