Scale Technics XV02 - Colin Mcrae Legacy RS / Celica / Volvo242 Turbo Rallye

[technics 3162]

Start date 2023/10

Tamiya XV-02

 

Body - Team C Subaru Legacy RS 

Electrics - Tamiya Brushless system 12-21T 

 

Ambitions -

Capable box stock chassis for rough conditions

 

Recreate Colin Mcrae’s Subaru Legacy RS that was rolled in Finland’s 1,000 lakes rally / 1992 Sweden Rally. 

 

Try to realistically “weather” or damage rear half of the car, particularly the trunk that is swinging open and strapped down while still travelling 11/10ths. 

I aim to make both white and Rothmans/555 liveries along with other bodyset themes mentioned in the title.

 

Notes 

Where in contrast my TRF based builds are tarmac, cobblestone, dusty, light gravel, hard packed snow and ice patches. I think I’ve now chosen to commit and have chassis rig to withstand harsher conditions in rally - gravel, mud, snow, harsh chipped ice. 

Colin McRae, who participated in the 1992 WRC Round 9 1000 Lakes Rally from the SUBARU World Rally Team, finished in 8th place despite three major falls during the race. Colin McRae supported the early days of SUBARU's rallying activities and is nicknamed (McCrash) for his
aggressive drifting and the sheer number of crashes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[technics 3162]

Got passed the first few build steps. Plastic feels nice and stout. I hope Tamiya keeps on innovating with chassis design and improving plastics in them indefinitely into the future. Their body sets are always excellent. It’s always a pleasure to have nice hex hardware from the get go.

[technics 3162]

Leaped forward a bunch of steps in the build.

-Differentials 

-Complete center driveline

-Front Rear Arms ( one set mounted incorrectly in photo )

 

Tamiya TRF 64p instead of Tamiya Mod 0.6

I am happy to say I realized I can easily switch to and use 64p Spur / Pinion instead of Mod .06. I have dozens of chassis, pinions, spurs that use this setup. I have only a few 48p, and basically none in Mod .06 apart from basic kit pinion that comes with any Tamiya box.

So I approximately matched the overall diamter of the spurs and I put in a 100T 64p spur instead of the 70T mod 06 and it fit perfectly. I will figure out FDR and tune all that later. At least it´s very tweakable with what I have now!

 

 

The kit comes with two setups, technically three with front and rear drive ratios. You can setup the front to be overdriven, the rear or 50/50.  I opted for having the rear to be 3% overdriven which equals using one tooth more in the diff. 40T instead of 39T ( they include two 39T setups )

Since I do want to be lively on loose conditions.

I am a little concerned how tall the shock towers look compared to what I´m used to using very low slung TRF chassis. I wonder if any body fits on this chassis without being mounted comically sky high. Must be fine as this is very popular chassis. We´ll see.

The plastic is very nice to the touch and has a fine crunch when shaven clean with a knife. Glass reinforced. 

 

[skom25 1748]

45 minutes ago, technics said:

kit comes with two setups, technically three with front and rear drive ratios. You can setup the front to be overdriven, the rear or 50/50.  I opted for having the rear to be 3% overdriven which equals using one tooth more in the diff. 40T instead of 39T ( they include two 39T setups )

Sorry if it was explained hundred times before but I am really interested how it works.

I assume that it means rear will turn faster by 3%. What is the reason to do this? How car behaves when one axle has more speed?

[technics 3162]

@skom25 I am no expert by any means but like a Rear wheel drive car it will have a bit more willingness to oversteer, and have better turning into turns.

The opposite if the front had more wheel speed, it would result in more stability. Playing around with the 3 options you get is simple as you just swap out the identical diff positions or build two which would make it perfectly 50/50.

I wanted to try a rear biased one seeing how rally cars almost spend no time going completely straight

[technics 3162]

Lots of progress. Turnbuckles were the worst part. Always a pain but very satisfying to snap them into place. Great looking rig in my opinion. Onto dampers and finally electronics.

 

[ChrisRx718 4602]

Are the UJ's equal length front and rear? That was a bit annoying on the XV-01 as they were different.

With turnbuckles I agree that they slow you down, but on trick I've learned is to use a shock shaft plier to start them, makes them much easier to hold and the shaft pliers grip the threaded part very well without damaging them.

[technics 3162]

@ChrisRx718 Yes the XV-02 is majority symmetrical front to rear. Really a pleasure to build. Love it.

 

Put together the dampers, took my time and let the bubbles disappear. When all mounted in place the chassis feels super plush and smooth.

 

For steering the kit needs either a very low profile servo or a tall one, at first I put in a medium one and didn’t like how it sat no matter which way I shimmed either the arm/ turbuckle or the servo itself so I opted for very quick short servo I had.

 

I put in a spare untrimmed on road modified combo I have, turned down the power way down and piloted it around at home. Very neat. Maybe the combo stays and I control it all from the the radio. We’ll see. Have to see how it works with the light unit eventually. And cut the wires to be tidy and short.

 

From the looks of it so far the front damper tower is quiet high and made the lexan body sit not so scale in my opinion. Not really body to the wheels more body to the ground. Feels more like a Safari / deep snow feeling. Which I guess is good and fully functional… But I might just hate to see a e30 m3 be anywhere but on the ground tarmac spec!

 

I ordered the XV02/RS Carbon Fiber towers to see how low I can get the front area to be if at all with these dampers. I have spare TRF regular dampers I could use otherwise for the front to have things sit as desired if desired.

 

Before I managed to move forward I somehow put in the front diff backwards if that makes sense so it was locked mechanically, I opened up the front and flipped it, just took a few hex screws drop out the diff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Yoshimitsu 3478]

Be really interested to see the weathering/damage to the lexan body. Something I've wanted to try for a while but was never sure where to start. 

[technics 3162]

@Yoshimitsu Believe me I’m scared 😂 we’ll see if I have the guts to do it. 

[technics 3162]

Some goodies came in. Lexan, closest wheels available from the Tamiya lineup, damper towers to potentially have a say in front body ride height and turn key no nonsense brushless combo.

Loving the Legacy RS shell! Really good quality from the first impressions. Like all Team C I have experienced so far. I’ll have to source the lamp buckets and mirrors.

 

 

[technics 3162]

Inspiration 

[Honza 1092]

On 10/22/2023 at 9:58 PM, ChrisRx718 said:

Are the UJ's equal length front and rear? That was a bit annoying on the XV-01 as they were different.

Yes, XV-02 has redesigned rear hub that fits the same, shirter wheel axle as the front knuckle. It should work on XV-01 aswell. The front camber block also have some nice touches that can be used to improve XV-01

[technics 3162]

I changed the front towers to the carbon ones used on the XV-02RS. The product came with a shorter piston lengths and necessary updated hardware. Instead of rebuilding the front shocks I simply borrowed "normal" (  vintage, pre TRF419X ) length TRF touring car shocks that I am running on my WRC TRF417X which I actually have extended for that project with TRF201 pistons and springs. 
WRC417X TRF Damper Extension

You can´t run two rc cars anyway. Since this will be the wet / dirt car and the other a dry one It works out perfect. I lost some suspension travel with the change over, but it is still over 20mm of travel in the front with 10mm+ chassis to ground clearance at max compression left over.

This setup allows for a much more "normal"  wheel gap if you want a non safari ride height. I imagine it is less of a problem on modern day WRC Hatchbacks like the GR Yaris, Hyundai, Puma etc where everything is very tall and large. But with vintage slender type cars you have no choice but run the body very high on this chassis. And that´s before you even start mounting the body posts or magnets.

I have no intentions of jumping dunes with this rally car. I´ll get a trophy truck for that.  It feels much more scale now I am content. 

[bRIBEGuy 3345]

On 10/24/2023 at 10:08 AM, Yoshimitsu said:

Be really interested to see the weathering/damage to the lexan body. Something I've wanted to try for a while but was never sure where to start. 

 

On 10/24/2023 at 11:52 AM, technics said:

@Yoshimitsu Believe me I’m scared 😂 we’ll see if I have the guts to do it. 

If you make careful cuts, you should be able to fold/bend the lexan with the heat from a hot heatgun.  You may want to wear gloves though!

Any place you make a cut, mark with sharpie (or similar) first, and drill a hole at the end of the cut.  This will break the stress riser formed otherwise, and will help keep the body "crack" from growing.

This looks like an ambitious and awesome build.  I look forward to watching this one.

[TamiyaD 210]

What a cool project!! I love it!

[technics 3162]

Sourced, edited and made the main decals for the Legacy. Sizing is a best guess which I printed out on regular paper. Will cut out and apply to body like I did on my Lancia Stratos and make further adjustments and make note of ones I’m still to make. It will also help give context to masking and painting the livery on the body. 

[Yoshimitsu 3478]

Any updates? I need to see paint on shells.💪

[technics 3162]

@Yoshimitsu Thank you for your encouragement! No progress… life took over.. I also realized I’d love to have no “old” projects carry over into 2024. This one has not been cut out yet. So any little time I spend recently it’s on the Lancia Stratos and MK2 Golf to get those two out the door. I want a clean 2024! 😂😁👌

[technics 3162]

Installed and soldered up the the final ESC Motor combo. Reprogrammed the esc with the wifi module to enable reverse and add punch ( wonderful to use ). What a absolut beast. Very stout, incredible braking and acceleration. Four wheel hop over doorway transitions. Really looking forward to using this one outdoors. Whole line of XV rally builds coming up!

 

I am content on how the wiring turned out, maybe one of my cleanest! I have both 4+5mm bullet connector battaries from touring cars and buggies. I did not have any duo 4/5mm bullets so i soldered up a set of 4mm and used 5mm wideners, so I leave  the option open.

This is a really stealth looking chassis. Love a blacked out battery too. Rear  shock towers missing their dust jackets. Front dampers are from my TRF417XWRC.

[technics 3162]

Took my time trimming the body and initial stance setup. The wheels will need a healthy dose of offset. I’ve found axles I will try out from the CC-02 which look to have a generous amount of thread and might work with the xv02 dogbones. Having said that the kit will work plenty fine as is and with minimal offset this is going to be a pure functional kit like all good rally cars should be.

Magnets in the front to have an uninterrupted hood and bodyposts through the windows as it’ll be easiest and look plenty fine on a rear window.

I’ve started planning the Tamiya colour codes to use and plan the next steps. I will open up the roof vent, and dial in the decals.

 

[technics 3162]

The axles I’m eyeing as at full offset I’m already out of thread and it could use a few more millimetres at that point still.

 

[Pylon80 3320]

1 hour ago, technics said:

The axles I’m eyeing as at full offset I’m already out of thread and it could use a few more millimetres at that point still.

 

WR-02 universals are another option for wide axles. You would have to swap the swing shafts for 37mm ones I believe.

[technics 3162]

@Pylon80 Thank you for the tip! I will check my touring car spares stash how long it at all different to what’s on the xv.  Just wanted to save a bit by only getting the axles. Shops are waiting for a shipment of the bare axles around February so I’m not in a rush.

[technics 3162]

Quick n dirty mockup of most decals. Notes taken of errors to correct including scale and type.

Newly arrived low profile wheel nuts, and paint has been selected. I prefer paint with depth / interest so I will continue to go with metallics