FF01-LA EVO

[ThunderDragonCy]

Although i haven't run the car yet, i did also have the first iteration of the M05 transmission made as well. I happened to have the gear shafts leftover from a brief TL01 ownership so i tried putting it together.

Gears inserted and motor plate installed. This is first area for revision. It has a boss on it to hold the end of the short gear shaft, but also slots into the middle of the gearcase. This meant a bit of bending and twisting of the plate to get it in, but that would be impossible with a metal motor plate, so that needs a rethink. That said, once installed the gears mesh nicely.

After a few false starts and trial fits i got it together with an old FF01 ball diff in there. The M05 gear diff gear i got with the rest of the internals is too wide. It's 21mm vs 20mm for the FF01. Slightly concerned that this won't allow an m05 ball diff to be installed despite designing for the requisite 1510 bearings. Can someone with an m05 let me know how wide the gear diff is please? I suspect this will need changing.

Still, it's a decent first look. Need to get some 1510 bearings. I can push some 1050 bearings into them and run the ff01 diff for now.

[Honza]

The gearbox looks great! Do you think it would be possible to move the spur a bit lower? It might reduce motor movement necessary to adjust gears. It would also move the counter gear a bit higher, further from the motor, so you could add a wall to fully enclose the gearbox.

On 4/19/2024 at 5:34 PM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Can someone with an m05 let me know how wide the gear diff isplease? I suspect this will need changing.

 

I don't have an M-05 ball diff (I built mine using FF-03 outdrives and Sakura diff gear), but its gear is about the half the width of the stock diff gear. So it's not necessary to modify it, however, keeping the transmission compatible with either TA02 or M-05 gear diff will allow you to use other diff options, like R-evo differential case.

On 4/19/2024 at 5:34 PM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Still, it's a decent first look. Need to get some 1510 bearings. I can push some 1050 bearings into them and run the ff01 diff for now.

M-05 solves this by using plastic bushings that fit 1150 bearings, in the case that gear diff is used. It's part of uprights tree (51393, 51425, 9000815), so it's quite cheap readily available option.

 

[ThunderDragonCy]

@Honza Thanks! Good idea on the gear positions. I will see if that is possible.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Spent some time trying to work out front end this morning. I designed it to have 6mm ride height and 8mm ground clearance at full droop like it was on the test car with the tub. I think with a bit of slop in all the pivots it was a little low, and i didn't put enough preload on the springs. Today i went for 10mm at droop (same as rear) and measured the pivot distances. I ended up re-installing the shocks on their separate tower mount, and winding out the +2mm eyelets two full turns from fully tight on the rod threads. With decent preload i got the car sitting right so i thought i would give it a quick run in the street.

It initially ran ok, but the new esc immediately started playing up. I accidentally bought one from china instead of a uk vendor and it looks like it's a crap knock off. I tested it with different rx and battery indoors qnd it's definitely crap. Irritating.

However, the car seemed good. Was a bit slidy at the back, but these are old tyres and cold tarmac. I had to dial down the dual rate to less than 50% to get the steering about right. I need to do some maths on the levers i design for the steering to get that nearer 70%. 

Ordered a carson dragster esc and then some track time i think. 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Due to a lot of oversteer when i ran this and needing loads of preload on the tamiya yellow front springs, changed the front shocks. 550wt oil and the hard white springs. Just making a note here.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Day off, so track running. Actually warm and sunny. First time in uk for (checks calendar) 187 years.

Really struggled initially, and the new carson esc was playing up too, doing weird throttle and brake behaviour. Also flipped the 306 and broke my 3d printed body mounts. Luckily the TA01 spare mounts were in my bag and i could fit the Alfa 155DTM shell from my regular FF01 i brought. Quite a different balance with the Alfa shell. More planted and more understeer. In fact, given how hard it was to drive with oversteer in the street on cold tarmac, the warm dry race track was quite the opposite. Changed front springs back to yellows, which helped.

Raised front ride height because it was bouncing and catching.

Raised rear ride height even more to give it some rake and try and get some rotation. Helped a little, but still felt a bit inconsistent and snatchy. Also had different steering angle left to right. Seems the steering link turnbuckle i used is too long and i couldn't centre it up without loads of subtrim. After more ESC woes i parked it.

Ran my FF01 racecar (was lovely) and a buggy, then tried to troubleshoot this. I plugged FF01-LA EVO into the Rx on my Alfa that had run flawlessly. Immediately seemed better. Decided to swap the Rx and run EVO again and it was waaaaaay better. So despite what is said on Teh Internetz, Hobbyking Rx are not flysky compatible. The Carson ESC still isn't brilliant. The Schumacher branded 1060 in the Alfa is still way smoother and better on brakes and off throttle transitions, but the car ran!

Now i could get into it a little. I wound on a bit of front camber and that seemed to help. I put some stiffer blue springs from the 53163 rally set on the rear (was running the red softs) and that helped again. Its still a bit snatchy and inconsistent, but i ran some trouble free laps. Annoying thing is that it's not as nice or easy to drive as the tub chassis test car. Need to sort the steering and put softer oil back in the front shocks for next run. If i can't get it somewhere near next time i will change the chassis configuration and put the battery behind the electronics just like the Tamiya carbon chassis setup. I have the holes in the deck. Just needs to swap the steering arm and turnbuckle. 

Here's my two FF01s. Standard-ish racecar in foreground

 

[Absolem44]

Bonjour, félicitations pour ce boulot fourni.

 

[Absolem44]

I am on an ff01 project, a person in France had it for me for a pittance, with a lot of missing parts and broken parts for the present parts. I went for a replacement of the Shapeways designer motor cell by AMPRO 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Took a chance to run at the track today. No photos as it was only half an hour, but definitely improved. I measured the ride height of my regular FF01 racecar and it was way higher than the EVO. I either got my measurements off the LA test car wrong or did something wrong in the CAD. The racecar with no battery was nearly 7mm front and more rear. And still had decent droop. The EVO was 5mm front (also no battery) and barely 2mm droop, even with the +2mm eyelets installed on the dampers and lots of spring preload. I tried a couple of things and ended up using the cheap basic ball connectors out of a hotshot kit as eyelets which was +4mm over a short eyelet. The +6mm eyelets from the CVA parts tree were too much. This allowed me to keep the 53440 yellow front springs, but with only a couple of turns of preload and plenty of droop. Ride height at the rear seemed ok so I left it. 

Ran it at the track. Way better! Much better front grip, less grounding out and bouncing, to the point where the rear was sliding around quite a lot until the tyres warmed a little. Got a few good laps in, but the car was still a little inconsistent. It was obviously rolling quite a lot but wasn't grip rolling, but the rear was sometimes three wheeling through tight corners. I dropped the front ride height a touch using preload and the front roll was better, but the balance was even more edgy. Decided to try adding length to the rear dampers too in search of droop, given I had had to lengthen the fronts so much. I put the spare +2mm eyelets on and it was definitely better. The wheels stayed on the ground at least! I wound on a bit more rear camber as the outside rear wheel was seeming very "stood" when I could see it on the exit of a tight corner. A little better again. 

Not perfect, but it was windy and not especially warm and very used tyres. 

I do wonder if by going to the long arm suspension I have raised the roll centres a bit much. The top rear camber links definitely aren't as steeply angled down as the stock car. Maybe I need some stiffer front springs to control the roll a bit better from the front? Don't know, but it's definitely better now. 

Next time I think I need to try the other battery layout, which would mimic the regular FF01. 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Bit of tinkering this afternoon. Re-arranged the car to run the more rearward lateral battery location

It's a little offset awat from the motor to try and balance the weight up a little. I just checked against my regular FF01 and the battery here is about 15mm further forward. 

I couldn't find the matching 3d printed steering arm for the rehilar location so a stock FF01 set has gone back in for now. Bit hard to see, but somewhere along the line i think i must have moved the inboard steering pivot positions because i needed the steering arms to be about 5mm shorter to make this work

Also, after all the muckibg about with suspension height i rear back up this thread and realised it was mostly running fine with 55mm shocks on the stock tower, so i put that back on.

Installed with the extended shocks from the carbon tower the ride height was over 11mm! I put regular short eyelets back on. I think i got the carbon tower wrong.

[ThunderDragonCy]

Holy thread resurrection! Haven't touched this since I re-arranged the layout in the last post, but I never actually set the car up. I am quite taken with Racing By Post and I have a car park at work, so thought I would get this running again so I could have a go

Steering needed alot of setting up, but after a considerable amount of fiddling with trims, turnbuckles and things it got it sorted. Next step was to give it a run in the street. 

It had no rear grip at all on the Rush32 tyres, and reading back through the thread I keep saying it doesn't feel stable at the rear. I changed the rear toe to 2deg from 1.5 and had another go. Still terrible! Bear in mind it's quire cold here in the uk today so tyres weren't getting warm, but the car was still bad.

Got it on my flat surface and hot my ride height and camber measuring tool out. Rear ride height was really high (over 10mm) and had no droop as a result. Unwound preload right out until it was down to 6.5mm.

Also found rear camber was all over the place so reset it to 1.5deg.

At the front the ride height was around 7mm (which is about right for street running for me and for the bumpy track I occasionally use), but again with almost no droop. I couldn't fit any alternative eyelets so I unscrewed the regular short eyelets on the shock two whole turns. Reset springs and ride height and went for a quick drive. Definitely better. Some rear grip, but  still a still a tendency to spin out. 

Came back in and unscrewed the rear shock eyelets 1.5 turns and took all preload off. With the soft red 53163 rally springs this was better again, but still not great. 

Decided to try different tyres and whipped the Ride cut slicks off my other FF01. This was better. Was dark and colder now but it actually drove pretty nice, to the point where I could turn the steering up a bit. 

Also, as I sold my TB03R I thought I would fit the mondeo shell. Like it a lot!

So, got something like a driveable car. Hopefully I will get a dry day at work to run it one lunchtime.

 

[ThunderDragonCy]

Gave it a quick run at lunch in the street in slightly warmer temps. Much better. Very planted which is a good place to start. If its planted and solid at the rear then I cam dial in rotation on my terms rather than juggling whatever the car is giving me. Good progress.