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alvinlwh

TA-02 prebuild questions

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So my entry for the budget rally build off had arrived. Before getting started with it, there are some questions to sort out first. 

Hop ups - it will not be hopped out to an inch of its life sprit of the <£200 budget of the challenge. I already have:

Bearings (obviously) - £13.99

Speed gear set - £9.17

16, 18, 21 & 24T pinions - £15.97 (price for all) 

That brings me to about £170. A JX 15kg servo (£10ish) and a receiver (another £10ish) will round it off with little left for hop ups. 

So question, is there any essential hop up that I should be getting? 

Gearing - kit comes with 21T/74T. According to the gearing chart though, I should be using 24T/66T for a silver can? Is that right? 

Ride height - @TurnipJF mentioned briefly that it is possible to adjust ride height, can I have more information in that please? I will be using rally block tyres, a straight swap so hopefully that will not be considered a cost item.

Thanks! 

EDIT:

Body - Just a standard TT sized body? 

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Thrust bearing for Boomerang fits. Only about £9. Saves fiddling with the little balls!!!

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9 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

Thrust bearing for Boomerang fits. Only about £9. Saves fiddling with the little balls!!!

Is that 53136? I wondered about that and had it sitting in my PJ wishlist. Do I need one or two packs of that? 

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I’m at work so can’t check. You only need one as only the rear differential is a ball one. I’ll check the number when I get home. I have one on order.

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I've just looked at my TA02 rally car, and there is probably an additional 5mm of ride height available on the front if I add longer shock eyes.  The standard dogbones still seem to turn fine with the greater angle.  It looks to me like there's even more movement in the arms but for some reason they're not moving, I don't have time to pull the car apart to see why, there might be a tab somewhere restricting the height.

It looks to me like I should have more compression also, maybe my shock bodies are too long (I built mine from parts).  Basically, take care when you build the shocks and potentially trial-build them dry in various different configurations to figure out what gives you the most available ride height and compression.  When setting up the springs, remember you'll want some static sag when the car is fully laden, otherwise the suspension won't be doing much.

A hack for the TA02T was to install Manta Ray shock towers (or Top Force / Evo if you want to look posh) with a CVA buggy shock set to get a bigger range of suspension movement and a bigger shock volume, but I doubt you need all that movement on rally block tyres.  There's no point in the wheel going much higher than the skid plate.  Plus you need to come up with an all-new body mount solution and might have to run the body high to clear the towers.

IIRC most TA02 kits come with a ball diff for the rear and an open diff for the front.  The ball diffs are fairly strong, should be fine under a silver can, and gives you the option of tightening up the back end for traction.  Alternatively, you can put the ball diff up front for a slightly tighter front end and add putty to the gear diff for a harder diff setting in the back.  They're interchangeable (note the drive cups are different for ball diff and gear diff).  There's even a one-way option for the front end so you can have 4wd acceleration and 2wd braking for sliding into corners.  I can't remember if it's possible to install it backwards for RWD drifty acceleration and more solid 4-wheel braking, but you probably don't want that on a low-grip rally track anyway.

If you're hitting a lot of bumps, the motor mount is a known weak point.  They can crack on landing, causing the pinion to de-mesh.  There are various hop up options available.

Body-wise, if you want to stick with standard TA02 components, then a normal touring-size body will do.  L & L Models have a range of rally-inspired bodies.  You can mix-and-match with TA01 parts to get a variety of wheelbases if you want to run a shorter body, although options are very limited these days (L & L are reproing the old Corolla body, but I'm not sure if you can get that wheelbase with a TA01/02 hybrid).

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14 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

Part number
53136 yes.

Perfect! Now if only PJ/JP will restart normal airmail services and I can place an order. 

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18 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

Ordered mine off EBay. 

Yeah... The difference is £9+ vs £2+... Maybe if I can gather a large enough basket, I will do a EMS checkout. 

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27 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

I will do a EMS checkout

Wow! They want £29 for EMS (£23 for DHL) on a £36 order! I am getting it shipped to Singapore instead for £8.

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16 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Wow! They want £29 for EMS (£23 for DHL) on a £36 order! I am getting it shipped to Singapore instead for £8.

I don’t have the option of family and friends in faraway places so £9 is cheap!!!

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46 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

I don’t have the option of family and friends in faraway places so £9 is cheap!!!

Normally I will be the same. Just that I have a trip in a month's time so make full use of that plane ticket. This upcoming journey will probably be the last in a very long time, so I am buying up as much as possible. 

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29 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Normally I will be the same. Just that I have a trip in a month's time so make full use of that plane ticket. This upcoming journey will probably be the last in a very long time, so I am buying up as much as possible. 

Hope your taking your oldest clothes with you then throwing them away to make more space!!! What happens if you get stopped by customs with all this contraband in your luggage 😟

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3 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

A hack for the TA02T was to install Manta Ray shock towers (or Top Force / Evo if you want to look posh) with a CVA buggy shock set to get a bigger range of suspension movement and a bigger shock volume, but I doubt you need all that movement on rally block tyres.  There's no point in the wheel going much higher than the skid plate.  Plus you need to come up with an all-new body mount solution and might have to run the body high to clear the towers.

I quite like the sound of this!! Id always wondered about using those shock towers and also how was any additional damper travel dealt with on the TA01/2 chassis based trucks like the Prerunner etc?

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22 minutes ago, Busdriver said:

Hope your taking your oldest clothes with you then throwing them away to make more space!!! What happens if you get stopped by customs with all this contraband in your luggage 😟

Believe it or not, that is the plan especially for the kids clothes. They will grow out of their summer clothes by the time next summer comes, so there is no point in bringing any back.

None of these are contraband in the legal sense, are you meaning the tax man? ;) I will just say it never is a problem for us. (This was from over 4 years ago, now we need a mini bus to get home from the airport)

UfHeTrT.jpg

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5 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

That brings me to about £170. A JX 15kg servo (£10ish) and a receiver (another £10ish) will round it off with little left for hop ups. 

Body - Just a standard TT sized body? 

Do you have a standard TT sized body lying around? I can't buy one for the £ 10 you have left to stay within the £ 200 budget :)

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5 minutes ago, Superluminal said:

how was any additional damper travel dealt with on the TA01/2 chassis based trucks like the Prerunner etc?

I can't remember if the shock assembly instructions are different on the TA02T chassis to the TA02 touring cars, but I'd guess they are exactly the same.  The extra ride height on the trucks comes from the taller tyres, but travel is still limited by the short touring-style shocks (possibly they come with softer shock oil or specify different pistons in the manual to make them softer for off-roading).

The TA02T trucks really are limited in suspension movement for what they are, and that's why the Manta Ray shock tower mod was a popular one.  Originally, TLT shocks were the perfect donor because they were the right size, nicely soft, and looked more scale than CVAs.  Those trucks were never really that great anyway, they required a very sympathetic driving style, but the Manta Ray / TLT conversion made mine behave a lot better when I was driving it like a crawler back in the day (I still say it's the truck that got me into scale crawling, as I never drove it like it was a trophy truck).

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9 minutes ago, Tamiyastef said:

Do you have a standard TT sized body lying around? I can't buy one for the £ 10 you have left to stay within the £ 200 budget :)

Yes! I actually do! 😁But the TT sized body question is actually more for putting a runner/thrasher body on it so I can keep the original for the shelf. 

O3DjIfS.jpg

If a TT body works, I can maybe even put my very thrashed TT-01(Ra) body on for rallying. 

GpR94x3.jpg

And that will not add to the total! 😁

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2 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

And that will not add to the total! 😁

Nice one! I have to spend the rest of my budget on rallyblock tires as I've never had any of these before, so no leftovers lying around and no budget left for hop ups.

I must say i was quite impressed with the performance of the TA03F on his tarmac tires (little bit of tread on them, no slicks) on the off road terrain last weekend. Had more fun driving this in it's stock form than I thought possible. Made me wonder how much I really need to spend on hop ups for other builds also...   

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1 minute ago, Tamiyastef said:

Nice one! I have to spend the rest of my budget on rallyblock tires as I've never had any of these before, so no leftovers lying around and no budget left for hop ups.

Now that you mentioned it... If I swapped the tyres/wheels with my TT-01(Ra), is that cheating...? 😁

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11 minutes ago, Tamiyastef said:

Nope, not in my book 😇

In that case, the cost for my pinions should be reduced by 3/4 since I will only be using one in the car at once, leaving me with an extra £10 to play around with. :D

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4 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

I've just looked at my TA02 rally car, and there is probably an additional 5mm of ride height available on the front if I add longer shock eyes.  The standard dogbones still seem to turn fine with the greater angle.  It looks to me like there's even more movement in the arms but for some reason they're not moving, I don't have time to pull the car apart to see why, there might be a tab somewhere restricting the height.

It looks to me like I should have more compression also, maybe my shock bodies are too long (I built mine from parts).  Basically, take care when you build the shocks and potentially trial-build them dry in various different configurations to figure out what gives you the most available ride height and compression.  When setting up the springs, remember you'll want some static sag when the car is fully laden, otherwise the suspension won't be doing much.

Thanks mate. I heard something about bump stops restricting movement but will not want to be cutting anything off, at least not right from the beginning. 

Can you explain more about static sag? What you mean by that?

As for swapping parts, towers, etc...that will add to the build cost and defeats the purpose of the budge build challenge. Something to keep in mind though for future mods though.

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6 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Gearing - kit comes with 21T/74T. According to the gearing chart though, I should be using 24T/66T for a silver can? Is that right? 

Can anyone help with this?

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