Thunders TD4 Mod Log - Hotshot cage/body fitted for added awesome

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Bought this lovely Super Avante from @Busdriver

Tonnes more hop ups than expected. Thank you Sir! 

Slipper 

Universals front and rear

Alloy servo mount

Metal diff nuts

Feels great. Looking forward to getting into this and understanding it a bit better in all its tamiyaness. 

First point of order is running gear. Swiped the Sport Tuned and cheap esc out of my FF03. Had a 26t 48dp pinion in the bit box which gives a 7.9 FDR. Got a shorty up front, esc effectively holding it in behind and Rx bracing opposite the servo. Undoing screws and hinging up the shocks to access the battery is mad as a box of frogs!

Second point of order is shell. Despite the lovely paint job on the supplied Super Avante shell, it's really not for me. Which is saying something given my penchant for shells that everyone else thinks are gopping! I have my Grasshopper 2/Mad Bull shell I originally grafted onto my DT03 going spare. Using touring car bumper body mounts, 15mm grub screws, and spare holes in the tub, I got some posts installed

More to follow..... 

 

 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Here it is with the GH2 shell on. 

I think it looks pretty nice! It was trimmed very narrow at the front already to slot between the dt03 front tower, but to fit this the only other mods were a new front body post hole drilling, and trimmed a little on the sides to avoid the rockers. 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

The flouro wheels don't match anywhere near as well as it looks in that photo, so those will be going along with the stock tyres. Really fancied some JC Racing Optima Mid 2.2 wheels, but they only do white yellow and silver. Guarantee the yellow won't match, and white and silver don't really work. I don't like their Egress wheels. They're a bit fussy. Not sure. 

Driving it in the street, seems nice and planted and easy to handle. Drivetrain seems a little noisy, but it glides for ages off power so it's very free. Need to try it with a fully charged battery. Didn't really accelerate that fast, but it's a very old Sport Tuned of indetermant origin (it came in the TA04S I bought last winter), so maybe it's that. I have 23t and 21t pinions to try, but realistically this needs something a bit spicier. I have the Reedy Rage stock racing motor I took out of the Ultra Hornet (for being too slow!) which also won't be the solution, but might be worth a try. 

Also going look at designing some body post mounts that would allow the old Thundershot / Hornet style 3 post mounting to work. Would open up lots of cool old bodies for people to use. 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Anyone got any spare/used/cut versions of the bumper body mounts from the tb evo5 b parts used on loads of touring cars? 

The pair I have used are earmarrked for the TB03 bitsa build I have on, but I have plenty of spare body post extenders, so if I could get some of these, even cut quite short, I would be keen to buy them. Rather than buying this whole parts tree and wasting all the other bits. 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Found the wheels I used to run on my Thunder Dragon. They are pretty battered and have very worn Mini Darts glued to the rears, but was good to see how black wheels look. 

 

Definitely better than the kit wheels, but a bit dull. Looking for something more interesting. I mounted up the driver. Very important. 

 

Couple of mechanical things. Running with the brushed motor it was really noisy and rough sounding. I pulled apart the drivetrain cover and found the slipper clutch as was tightened right down which seemed to make the spur wobble off axis. I undid it, gave everything a check and reset fairly loose. I gave everything a very light greasing as well. With the main cover back and spur cover off and gave it some power and it seemed to settle itself straight. Found the nut catching on the tub, so had to tighten it a couple of turns. Everything is so tightly packed! Never had this on my TRF201 or TRF211 which is the same slipper, but can't see anything wrong with the assembly. 

Was better, but still noisy, and quite slow. 

I decided to pull the esc and motor out. I installed the spare Speed Passion 10.5 and 10bl120 esc I used to run in my TRF211. Again, tight! I took thd fan off the top, installed the esc at the back of the battery tray, and stuck the fan on the crossbar. The wire feed through the hole. It's probably best for some photos now. 

 

This works better because the battery plugs are directly on the power leads too. Saves some space. All went in easily enough though, and I can imagine regular brushless motor tabs would be really tricky. 

Finally, none of my spare alloy wheels hexes work. When you tighten the wheel nut down hard they stiffen up on the bearings. The kit plastic hexes work fine. Anyone else have this issue? Don't really want to buy Tamiya alloy hexes. They aren't good value. 

 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Additional: Ran it with the brushless and 26t pinion. Very smooth, very fast! Promising. I think that old Sport Tuned is for the bin I suspect. 

[ChrisRx718 4703]

24 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Additional: Ran it with the brushless and 26t pinion. Very smooth, very fast! Promising. I think that old Sport Tuned is for the bin I suspect. 

If it's a black can Sport Tuned it makes sense to put it in a shelfer... or I may be alone in doing that  I'd have it off you if it were going like a birdie.

I'm sure I have some of those body posts you're after in my spares box if you're still needing them. 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

13 minutes ago, ChrisRx718 said:

If it's a black can Sport Tuned it makes sense to put it in a shelfer... or I may be alone in doing that  I'd have it off you if it were going like a birdie.

I'm sure I have some of those body posts you're after in my spares box if you're still needing them. 

Yes it's a black can. Would be happy to swap you for some body posts. 

[BuggyDad 6022]

On 3/22/2023 at 7:38 PM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Here it is with the GH2 shell on. 

I think it looks pretty nice! It was trimmed very narrow at the front already to slot between the dt03 front tower, but to fit this the only other mods were a new front body post hole drilling, and trimmed a little on the sides to avoid the rockers. 

 

If you make those jaunty body posts a bit longer (and maybe wobblier) your grasshopper could have real working antennae. 😉

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

16 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Finally, none of my spare alloy wheels hexes work. When you tighten the wheel nut down hard they stiffen up on the bearings. The kit plastic hexes work fine. Anyone else have this issue? Don't really want to buy Tamiya alloy hexes. They aren't good value. 

Seems that name brand hexes are the only way to go. Found Tamiya ones cheap-ish on Plaza Japan. Which obviously leads to "make the most of the postage-itis". Got the aluminium adjustable rear suspension block and some white DF03 wheels coming. Going to see about dying them orange. 

[BuggyGuy 1142]

Best thing I've done to my TD4 which might be worth a look is to use the rear arms from the DB01/2 (also found on the TRF2*1, TRF5*), this lets you swap the rear hubs for the carbon reinforced XV01 items (or the TRF aluminium ones if you can find them) which solves the biggest weakness I've found on the TD2/4: the rear hubs break quite easily where the outer hinge pin passes though.

Only major downside to the above is that you need to used shorter rear driveshafts (Tamiya DB01 or Kyosho)

I posted about it here in the Astute thread, but I've done the same thing to a TD4 now as well: https://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/99791-td-2-new-astute/&do=findComment&comment=941995

[matisse 1681]

6 hours ago, BuggyGuy said:

Best thing I've done to my TD4 which might be worth a look is to use the rear arms from the DB01/2 (also found on the TRF2*1, TRF5*), this lets you swap the rear hubs for the carbon reinforced XV01 items (or the TRF aluminium ones if you can find them) which solves the biggest weakness I've found on the TD2/4: the rear hubs break quite easily where the outer hinge pin passes though.

Only major downside to the above is that you need to used shorter rear driveshafts (Tamiya DB01 or Kyosho)

I posted about it here in the Astute thread, but I've done the same thing to a TD4 now as well: https://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?/topic/99791-td-2-new-astute/&do=findComment&comment=941995

There is a whole thread for mods for the TD series, add these into there so we can keep them all in one place for easy reference!  
 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

@BuggyGuy @matisse Thanks fellas. I will read that thread.

I saw your rear arm conversion @BuggyGuy. I will see how I fair. I don't race so it will only get occasional track day outings. I have a chunky 3d printed upright which uses the standard 70mm driveshafts (and narrows the rear track 6mm so it would work on race wheels) from that 2wd buggy design project I had on earlier in the year. As this has universals already and I don't care about track width I might modify them for the 73mm shafts and get some next time I need some parts printing.

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

@matisse Looks like I need to check diff shimming and think about moving the steering servo. Cheers!

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

First proper run at the park

This is a really lovely buggy. 10.5 brushless is a bit fast for my liking these days, but you can't argue with 35 mins run time on a 5100 shorty. Maybe I'll gear it down a little, but then it would accelerate even faster! 

Out of the box handling is easy on grass, and the kit tyres are great with some foam inserts in. I know people are a bit sniffy about them (me included) but for grass running on 4wd they are bob on. 

I managed to grip roll a few times, so I can see why you might want the sway bars on high grip. That said, my heavy old plastic shell won't be helping there. I'll put up with it for how rad it looks though! 

Spare orange rear wheels looked good. Stronger orange front and rear will look ace. Better order some dye.... 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Seems not all wheel hexes are equal. My learned colleagues on here tell me that Tamiya or other name brand hexes work great, where my cheap spares clamped the bearings and wouldn't let the wheels spin. Cheapest I found even with shipping was Plaza Japan, so I got a couple of other bits whilst I was at it 

My first Tamiya wheels, which I am going to attempt to rit dye orange. The tamiya hexes, adjustable rear block and the xv02 6 deg Caster front uprights. 

As mentioned above, it's lovely to drive, but I like to have a play with things. I am a bit obsessed with adding Caster to cars. I do it wherever possible as it just seems to make them nicer to drive for me. Maybe how I drive? Dunno. Suits me though. 

Rear block comes with all the instructions specific to the buggy. 

I decided to try a couple of things. I went for the N4 pill to reduce the toe in from 3 deg to 2.5deg and also drop the rear pin slightly to get some anti squat. Be interesting to see how that feels. 

Looks pretty.... 

Spotted the car came with the TD2 bumper fitted. I think previous owner broke the TD4 one. Works fine, but there were a couple of screws missing so I popped them back in

Whilst installing the Caster blocks, one of the rocker posts dropped off. Must have been working loose. Had to pull the top cover off to access the screw to fix it back on (9 screws to remove!). First time I had been inside the front. 

Diff was lovely and smooth, but a little loose in the housing. Added 0.3mm shims either side to take out that side to side movement. Otherwise lovely, so buttoned it back up. 

Final thing I wanted to try was the linkage delete mod on the steering that I think @matisse did. Look up the TD2 / 4 build tips thread on that forum. I got the 3x18 hex posts from accu, for only a few quid, to fix the servo in. Re-routed the wires and moved the Rx. With the large servo saver it made installing the battery impossible. I put the short one on with the little 2mm screw shaft ball. Not sure if that will be strong enough, but I could trim it to allow battery install. 

I couldn't find the recommended 65mm long turnbuckle, but got some Schumacher 71mm easily enough. I just installed the connectors off the kit steering links with 50mm between them. I have the other 71mm turnbuckle of the pair, so if anyone fancies doing this mod drop me a PM you can have it for £3.50. 

Also note I flipped the lower rocker mount to the other side to give clearance for the turnbuckle. I suppose you could trim it, but I want the option of putting the steering back. 

And the wheel hexes

 

Looking forward to giving it a spin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

Ran on the grass. Took great great grandad as well! 

Bit hard to say whether it made anything better, but it certainly wasn't worse! Don't know whether it was the little bit of anti squat or just getting used to it, but this thing fires out of turns on full throttle. Steering worked fine, apart from needing to reverse the servo. Grip rolled a couple of times, but all told, very nice! At the moment I can't think of anything else I would want to change. 

[Jonathon Gillham 4698]

I'm intrigued by the wheel hexes. I have YR when I buy them as hopups, and Tamiya when they come with the kit. I notice no difference (other than price)- are you able to enlighten me?

Otherwise, brilliant thread as usual Cy

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

36 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

I'm intrigued by the wheel hexes. I have YR when I buy them as hopups, and Tamiya when they come with the kit. I notice no difference (other than price)- are you able to enlighten me?

Otherwise, brilliant thread as usual Cy

Apparently the Yeah Racing ones are another set that work fine. I have some no name cheapy ones I got for my touring cars and they don't work. Seems on those the slot for the drive pin is deeper so when you tighten the wheel nuts it can slide further on the axle and squash the bearings. When I looked around for yeah racing ones they weren't readily available in the UK, and other name brand stuff like Xray and Axon was even more expensive than the Tamiya set. 

[BuggyGuy 1142]

On 4/4/2023 at 8:10 AM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Apparently the Yeah Racing ones are another set that work fine. I have some no name cheapy ones I got for my touring cars and they don't work. Seems on those the slot for the drive pin is deeper so when you tighten the wheel nuts it can slide further on the axle and squash the bearings. When I looked around for yeah racing ones they weren't readily available in the UK, and other name brand stuff like Xray and Axon was even more expensive than the Tamiya set. 

Good UK stockists for Yeah Racing if you need there stuff are speedrc.co.uk and MWM Warbirds (now known as rochesterrc.uk). I think Zen Racing (East Sussex) are also a UK stockists.

[toyolien 5933]

@ThunderDragonCy Quick couple of questions: Now that you've moved the servo to the other side of the chassis, and you can fit a shorty at the front of the chassis:

a) can you still fit the driver figure in?

b) what holds the lipo down to prevent it from moving around?

c) do you still need to lift the dampers up to get the lipo out?

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

2 hours ago, toyolien said:

@ThunderDragonCy Quick couple of questions: Now that you've moved the servo to the other side of the chassis, and you can fit a shorty at the front of the chassis:

a) can you still fit the driver figure in?

b) what holds the lipo down to prevent it from moving around?

c) do you still need to lift the dampers up to get the lipo out?

A) You could on the roll hoop mount but it makes the battery harder to install, and it's already quite tricky. I took the driver and screwed it to the roof of the cockpit of the shell, but I have that option. 

b) Nothing holds it down as such, but it's jammed in tight against the servo and Rx side to side, and I have a piece of foam stuck to the ESC which jams the shorty between the ESC and the front of the battery tray.

c) Yes. I can't see any way of longitudinal battery install that avoids this. The damper frame also prevents the battery from ejecting even though it doesn't physically touch it in normal use. Only way to avoid damper moving would be the lateral shorty install using either TD2 battery doors or the TD4 closure plate mod. 

[toyolien 5933]

@ThunderDragonCy Thanks for detailed response. That helps a lot. Despite it's issues I still really like the TD4. I think I'm gonna get one and see what I can do with it.👍

[ThunderDragonCy 8430]

2 hours ago, toyolien said:

@ThunderDragonCy Thanks for detailed response. That helps a lot. Despite it's issues I still really like the TD4. I think I'm gonna get one and see what I can do with it.👍

I do too. Seems to be a lovely thing, especially with the few choice durability/driveability hop ups @Busdriver did before I got it.

[toyolien 5933]

36 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

I do too. Seems to be a lovely thing, especially with the few choice durability/driveability hop ups @Busdriver did before I got it.

Trigger pulled. Build thread coming soon👍