wtcc5's Novafox

[wtcc5 5509]

Tamico posts the race video step by step. Here is the A-final three, where I made the stupid mistake, got saved/repaired by @ruebiracer and fought back to third place after being last:

 

[ruebiracer 1168]

Happy that I could fix the ballcup, next time I will be faster. 

[GermanTA03Guy 1372]

Great ! Yes here is what i meant. The slow weaving /swerving on the straight looks strange. Hard to see the slipperiness on Video. Must have been difficult if that is happening on the straight with a silver can. The corners even look less tricky .... by the way, despite having no Chance, i think the Monster beetle looked rather nicely planted and jumped surprisingly well, dont you think ?!. Reminds me of my first ever rc race with a blackfoot against some idunnowhat, losis, asso rc10t s ... low Stadium trucks anyway... i had no Chance. But i Was 5 or 6 yrs anyway  by the way, stupid question: how do you get a dyna blaster these days ??

[Tamiyastef 2509]

That Monster Beetle was epic!

Never thought I'd see a Monster Beetle blasting over a track like that 

[bsy2010 295]

12 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

@bsy2010: That is great! Is there a rulebook and/or class overview online?

Not yet, currently working on it. But we're keeping it very open, offering ToTu classes in 2WD and 4WD, plus 2WD and 4WD with brushless (13.5/10.5). And of course, you're not restricted to Tamiya tires anymore

[BuggyDad 5334]

On 5/1/2024 at 10:15 PM, GermanTA03Guy said:

 

 

Great racing pic. Issues or not, your Fox is just the coolest thing. 

Would be so much fun to have an event something like this in the UK. 

[Twinfan 1807]

34 minutes ago, BuggyDad said:

Would be so much fun to have an event something like this in the UK. 

It really would!  I'd love to take part in something similar.

[ruebiracer 1168]

22 hours ago, Tamiyastef said:

That Monster Beetle was epic!

Never thought I'd see a Monster Beetle blasting over a track like that 

I´m with @Tamiyastef! What Tobias Haag did with the Monster Beetle was epic! I have 3 Monster beetles, but never would have dared to drive one as he did. And that with that supercoo Banana Joe body! What a show to place tjis thing in the A-Final! and he did very few mistakes. It seemed, that the Monster beetle tires had a much better grip level than the Blitzer rears, which made him that competitive despite the bouncier suspension and higher C.O.G. . In the end ranking he placed 7th overall behind my Blitzer. That is a crazy race mode I never had before. I could beat him out of the B-final due to slightly better absolute results... But his show was marvellous and a miracle of driving. Absolutely loved it.

[wtcc5 5509]

"After the race is before the race!" @Quincy just mentioned recently. His and mine preparations for the next races are already in full motion.

For the Fox I have several ideas in my head of what I need/want to do. But before the new design process starts, let's do a stocktaking.

After the event on the workbench:

Looking better than expected from afar and the outside.

 

The closer look, then reveals damage and wear.

First the outdrives:

I don't know why or what happened to them, but both sides are beat up heavily. For me the reason of the performance loss on the third day. As I have no wear on my trucks outdrives with blades, I will replace these steel versions with the aluminum Hop-Up.

 

Then the chassis:

Only the right front mount broke, but I will need to beef it up.

 

Also on the right side, the lower bumper plate broke:

 

Again right side ... the rear arm gets stuck when turning up in this position:

 

So this was the bad news. The good news is: Everything else hold up well: For example the arm mounts and the front shock tower. I was afraid of these breaking...

 

I went on cleaning every part for the (partial) rebuild:

 

My ideas for improvement :

1. front suspension --> I will return to a kind of arm extension and will work on the damper mount location. I also think of using other hubs.

2. steering --> The inconsistent bump steer makes the driving hard to assess. This robs confidence and overall costs a lot of time on track. I will try to fit the BBX steering assembly in the little room in front of the servo.

3. rear damper position --> This caused a lot of trouble in Kinzigtal as I couldn't use the wheels I wanted and had the spring rubbing on the camber link.

4. rear hub --> Wheels with new offset meant that I had to use 3mm hex shims on each side to not touch the hubs camber link mount. I will try other hubs to solve this.

5. rear inner arm mounts --> Those felt like they got stuck with the fine dust and made this horrible creaking noise. I like the idea of the ball bearing suspension mounts of the Super Astute and will try to apply this design on my Fox.

6. motor-gearbox-position --> The actual position was chosen for performance on astro turf tracks. On low-grip it felt like a disadvantage accelerating out of every corner. At the moment I am thinking of a layout to move the motor-gearbox-unit on the lower rear chassis plate only, maybe having up to three positions to move the motor-gearbox-unit forward or rearward.

 

[ruebiracer 1168]

The outdrives look horrible Kevin, that is for sure the reason for the wandering on the straights with the bumps in there. I haven´t checked  and teared down my cars yet, but seems I have to have a look on the outdrives.

 

[BuggyDad 5334]

31 minutes ago, ruebiracer said:

The outdrives look horrible Kevin, that is for sure the reason for the wandering on the straights with the bumps in there. I haven´t checked  and teared down my cars yet, but seems I have to have a look on the outdrives.

 

That loos like a quite extraordinary amount of outdrive wear in one weekend? Are they an unusually soft material? 

[wtcc5 5509]

@BuggyDad & @ruebiracer: I never experienced that much wear. As this is the Hop-Up geardiff, it must have been bad quality. I am just surprised it happened with a 2wd on low grip with a weak motor and slipper clutch. Nearly everything that should prevent this wear on the outdrives…

[wtcc5 5509]

 Now that explains a lot… The car drove very well under that circumstances 

 

Rebuild the rear:

 

Up next are package tests for the changes I want to implement.

[Turbofrog 2]

Hi Kevin,

I really like the way the Fox looks and drives after your upgrades. I would like to change some stuff on my Frog to be better able to run it on a track. Can you give me some basic setup information from your Fox? I am especially interested in informations about ground clearance, caster, camber, toe, front/back weight distribution, and total weight.

Thanks!

Andy

[wtcc5 5509]

@Turbofrog: Thanks!

 I try to tell it from my mind as the car is still in parts. Ground clearance is usually between 20-30mm in the rear. It depends a bit on the jumps. If the rear hits the ground on the ramp under compression, I rise the ride height. In front I am usually a bit higher than in the rear. Caster in front works very nice between 20 and 30 degrees. The Fox had around 22 degrees last time out. Which is a bit more than it comes with. In the rear I have implemented 2 degrees of anti-squat like the Dyna Blaster has. Camber in the rear was 0-1 degree for Kinzigtals clay track and 3-4 degrees for astro turf. In front I usually use approximately 3 degrees. Toe in the rear is 3 degrees. In front zero with the car in ride height.

The latter two infos I don’t have. The car should be a bit light overall as I use small electronics and a shorty LiPo. Feel free to remind me as soon as I have the car assembled again 

[Turbofrog 2]

Thanks a lot! That is such a big help for me!

[kontemax 1734]

On 5/2/2024 at 11:24 PM, Tamiyastef said:

That Monster Beetle was epic!

Never thought I'd see a Monster Beetle blasting over a track like that 

Bud...

 

[wtcc5 5509]

I pushed a lot of hours into CAD recently. After the Kinzigtal race I had some issues to address and creativity took over from that moment, which caused me overthinking the whole concept (instead of just solving the problems  thanks brain). The result can be seen in the pictures...

 

The front and rear changed a lot. With the first view maybe the top deck or the front arm extensions and/or hubs will be very recognizable. For me these are the minor (simple) changes. In front the new steering rack is very good hidden and in the rear the environment around the gearbox changed drastically. 

 

Let's start with the rear, as it was the reason I did all that .

After the disassembly I found the high position of the motor unacceptable. Well, with the gearbox housing as it is, you can do nothing better right? I wished I could attach it angled, but found no Idea of how to do it properly on a flat surface. After a while playing with the housing, I thought: why not use the design/form of the housing to fasten it to the chassis? Especially the ribs around the outdrive were my target. I drew the gearbox and then sandwiched it between two carbon plates. With that "trick" I am now free to position the gearbox everywhere I want. I rotated it to have the motor low and overall moved it downward. The downside is, that the lower mounting points of the gearbox will need to be removed.

The gearbox plates are multifunctional. They attach to the rotated Avante bulkheads to the tub chassis and topdeck, then on the other side key into the lower rear chassis plate and the rear arm mounts, creating a strong unit. They will mount the camber links and the upper shock mounts. Another extension of them above the motor will hold the rear wing.

I returned to arm extensions to prevent a collision of the arm with the motor and to solve my lower shock mount problem from Kinzigtal. Another big problem has been the use of different wheels. Those touched the hub and I had to work with shims to find an intermediate solution. The new hubs are from Xtra Racing for the TA01. I already use them for the 4wd Stadium Truck based on the TopForce Evo. Another reason for these, is, that I can use DJC. A lot of bad track behavior came from binding cardans and then caused the outdrives to "wear" (getting destroyed). DJCs and blades should prevent binding and reduce wear. 

Here a overview of the custom part design only:

 

Overview of the front:

Good to see is how I placed the BBX steering inside the front cavity of the Fox chassis. The arms moved forward to increase the wheelbase to 273mm. New arm extensions on the outside (not inside like before) now sport the lower Awesomatix ball&cup which I will pair with the TRF201 steering arm. All pivot points and position of the damper was changed in that process. My front was just too stiff in Kinzigtal and lacked smoothness. Also all links are now longer and the steering links have the same length. This should make the car more superior to bumps and trustworthy regarding the behavior.

The front is a bit busy with everything has to fit into that narrow chassis. Another key part with the rear gearbox plates, are the front suspension mounts. Again multifunctional, these hold the arms, anti-roll-bar, shock tower, bumper and act as stiffener for the fragile front chassis together with the bumper plate.

The shock tower are keyed into the front suspension mounts and like that prevent the tower from moving. The tower plates have to be slid on and then get attached by one screw.

The now long topdeck is closed in front. The servo moves down for the new steering. This removes a weakness. I broke the front of the topdeck in Kinzigtal... Why is it longer? The extension will give the front tub more stiffness and shall prevent the chassis from breaking in the tougher carpet high grip conditions. It uses the front tub design to slip over some forms sticking out and can be attached with a screw in front.

 

The last picture gives a view on steering link and servo position:

[ThunderDragonCy 8116]

Incredible work! Bravo!

[Andreas W 2179]

That's some massive rework of the already Labour intensive Fox. Fingers crossed that it will work as intensioned in the next round. 

[BuggyDad 5334]

Wow! Look forward to hearing how it goes. On the gearbox casing, what angle have you rotated it back around the drive cups? Was this driven purely by the desire to bring the mass of the motor downwards? 

[wtcc5 5509]

Thank you, guys!

This time I put a lot of work into drawing the standard parts to make sure everything fits well into the limited space.

@BuggyDad: I placed the whole unit 5mm lower and then rotated the gearbox nine degrees. The center of the rotation was the differential as it limits how deep I can put the front part of the gear housing. The motor sits 10mm lower than before.

Yes, a low c.o.g. was my goal for the upcoming astro turf high grip tracks. This should increase the agility by a recognizeable amount. This design also allows me to place the gearbox were I want. I will make a design for low grip with the motor hanging out a further for increased traction.

[ruebiracer 1168]

First impression: Speechless Kevin!

Although your wishbones with extensions (again) will maybe bring some discussions about the Vintage regulations, this is not the theme here.

This is absolute awesome design work and out of the box thinking, how you redesigned this stunning custom Fox! It looks even more, highly professional designed and thought out! 10mm lower motor position, crazy cool with using the same gear box from BBX. Clamping/sanwiching between 2 standing plates is a genius idea! I´m also liking the lower servo and the now closed upper chassis stiffening plate in front. Can´t wait to see the design in reality soon.

All the best for the next Tamico cup races and hats off for that marvellous evolution,

Matthias

[wtcc5 5509]

@ruebiracer: Thank you! Regarding TOC: @Quincy will even attend the race in Potsdam (near Berlin). I haven't decided yet, but hope to have the car ready in July.

 

Right now some things happen simultaneously.

1. I am working out more details:

Especially the front extensions change a lot. One change was made to support the "soft" arm in stiffness, but recent changes happened regarding the length. The Tamiya 2wd Buggy front wheels come with different offset. I would like to stay in the 250mm width-window. The change of the wheels can increase the width by 10mm. Something I don't want, so more measuring and research needs to be done. I ordered a set of TRF201 wheels (24mm width) to see if these will fit within my parameters and/or have similarities with the 20mm wheels of the Fox.

 

Then I drew the parts for the low-grip-version. Here the gearbox moves 16mm rearwards. Suddenly all the shaft and turnbuckle angles look so much better:

I still have one collision with the rear arm extension...

 

2. OEM parts are ordered and arrive day for day. It is mostly simple hardware like turnbuckles, but also AE B4 spring sets to have enough freedom for the upcoming setups. Then I started to build the front suspension with the TRF201 hub and find it very elegant. Very hard to reduce weight and complexity any more with this design:

 

3. Before ordering the carbon plates, I want to make sure the design is flawless. At the moment the printer manufactures the custom suspension parts. Tomorrow it will make mock ups of the carbon plates to prove the gearbox section in particular.

[RichieRich 771]

Fantastic design work! So, I'm still stuck on the crazy outdrive wear. I mean that's a bananas amount for a weekend of racing. I'm guessing it was due to the diff?