XV-01 Very Slow Build

[Andreas W 2510]

1 hour ago, Grumpy pants said:

Is it worth using Green Slime to help seal diffs? 

I used the 1Up equivalent on my old gaskets and they are all good. I had the gearboxes up a while after I rebuilt it and they were still nice and dry on the outside. I love it when things just work out.

[Andreas W 2510]

1 hour ago, Grumpy pants said:

Is it worth using Green Slime to help seal diffs? 

I used the 1Up equivalent on my old gaskets and they are all good. I had the gearboxes up a while after I rebuilt it and they were still nice and dry on the outside. I love it when things just work out.

[chris.alex 1340]

3 hours ago, skom25 said:

I am curious about Tamiya oils. All TRF cars have oil diffs. How it is possible, that you can buy only 2k, 3k, 5k, 30k, 100k etc oils? Where is e.g 10k, 20k?

30k seems to be discontinued. The big difference between 5k and 100k surprises surprises me too. I've asked that before in the forum, but didn't get an answer. I bought medium viscosity silicone diff oils from another manufacturer instead. 

[skom25 2179]

Yeah, I found that 30k is not available 

I ordered 5k and we will see. Maybe will find oils from different brand.

[skom25 2179]

It is more than year, when I started to build XV-01 for the first time.

After not too many packs, I decided to rebuild car. There are few reasons:

1. Diffs leaked A LOT. It did not make sense to run it and risk damage. Many parts were covered in oil too.

2. I have quite a lot of Hop Ups, which require to disassembly car to install them.

3. I found few weak spots, which I wanted to improve.

XV-01 is quite complicated. When I rebuilt TT-02, I just put everything to box and then washed. XV-01 has so many individual parts, bearings and shims, that I just stripped it and left "modules" assembled. Then I disassembly them, wash and assembly to not loose anything.

Current progress:

Upgrades?

1XJ suspension mounts. Separated Blocks are not available. I have not seen them for a while and have no idea if they will appear again. I also used teflon spacers and resin suspension balls ( had them before already)

Aluminium steering set. Stock parts are good, carbon reinforced which I had even better. However, aluminium parts are so nice, that I just wanted to have them.

Tamiya Hex screws. Stainless Steel screws are good, but Tamiya are awesome. I will use blue screws in non critical places.

Now I will work on front uprights. I just need to wait for bearings. I decided to buy bearings with rubber seals, because it is really hard to get them out of hubs. I just want to install them and forget till next winter break. Bearings on rear are easily accesible, so I will leave standard with metal shields.

I really like XV-01, but as I expected, maintenance is like nightmare. There are few things, when you want just to ask: Tamiya, why?!

[skom25 2179]

Front uprights installed. I used aluminium screws as angle limiters.

Unfortunately, I had to use "standard" rod ends on steering bridge. Hard ones are much bigger and they touched each other. There was no binding, but I am afraid that some dirt could block it. I used 8 mm hex connectors as in any other place in car. I thought about ball nut, but it does not make too much sense, because it is not possible to tighten it when car is assembled.

Now it is time for dirty job: diffs and gears. Everything is covered in oil, so it will be rather long process...

 

[skom25 2179]

I like Focus body, but it is bit boring. I did few mistakes with decals, but I also wanted to have something "normal" for my TT-02.

In that case, I decided to buy Subaru Impreza from Killerbody for XV-01 and use Focus on TT-02.

There are few things which could be better. In fact, main and only issue is related to stickers which are not fully applied on edges. I will need to work on this using warm air. Rest is absolutely great.

[Chris.B 240]

1 hour ago, skom25 said:

I like Focus body, but it is bit boring. I did few mistakes with decals, but I also wanted to have something "normal" for my TT-02.

In that case, I decided to buy Subaru Impreza from Killerbody for XV-01 and use Focus on TT-02.

 

Like that!

Some of the Killerbody shells are really great. I have the Denso Kobelco which is amazing. Problem is: It is so nice that I don't want to use it except on the shelf. 

[skom25 2179]

46 minutes ago, Chris.B said:

Like that!

Some of the Killerbody shells are really great. I have the Denso Kobelco which is amazing. Problem is: It is so nice that I don't want to use it except on the shelf. 

I rather do not do stupid things with my "nice" cars, so I am not too much worried. I have to admit, that for a long time I thought that car body does not matter. It is just a shell. However, when I installed Focus body, it was really nice to see that small car running. I think with that nice Subaru, which probably is my favourite WRC car ( equally with Lancer 8/9), it will be even better.

[skom25 2179]

8 hours ago, skom25 said:

I like Focus body, but it is bit boring. I did few mistakes with decals, but I also wanted to have something "normal" for my TT-02.

In that case, I decided to buy Subaru Impreza from Killerbody for XV-01 and use Focus on TT-02.

There are few things which could be better. In fact, main and only issue is related to stickers which are not fully applied on edges. I will need to work on this using warm air. Rest is absolutely great.

You can forget about this post. After few hours, I had more time to check body. Unfortunately, I found more and more issues. Many stickers were not applied correctly, without possibility to fix. I was not sure, how they will "respond" to hot air and if I will be able to fix something or will just damage them.

In that case, I decided to return body.

[Andreas W 2510]

That's a shame, but I understand what you mean. My red Lancia has painted windows and the window surroundings are not cut out. Around the edges if the windows there are air bubble, as the massive transparent stickers covering the window surfaces are not adapting to the profile for the surroundings. I did not care,  as I wanted to run and that was what it was bought for.

 

If you want to make one of your Focus bodies more exciting RC-Decals in the UK has plenty to choose from - and they are precut. My personal favorite on that generation Focus is the BP livery. 

[skom25 2179]

1 minute ago, Andreas W said:

My red Lancia has painted windows and the window surroundings are not cut out. Around the edges if the windows there are air bubble, as the massive transparent stickers covering the window surfaces are not adapting to the profile for the surroundings. I did not care,  as I wanted to run and that was what it was bought for.

Same here and if it would be only issue, it would not be a problem. Unfortunately, there were stickers which after one run, would be dirty and never stick again.

I also bought is as runner, but I am more than sure, that after a while it would be totally ugly 

[Andreas W 2510]

That's the advantage of choosing a non race livery body . That said I would not have paid the full price for it. But it was on a clearout and I did not have the motivation to do the full body job at that time. 

 

Take a look at this. How nice is it with precut window surroundings!

 

https://www.rcdecals.co.uk/product-page/1-10-decal-rally-set-ford-focus-rs-wrc-2003-bp

[skom25 2179]

6 minutes ago, Andreas W said:

That's the advantage of choosing a non race livery body 

I considered to just remove WRC stickers and leave body as a civil car, but at the end decided to return it and do not care.

I really wanted to buy Lancer from Killerbody, but:

a) it is not available now

b) it does not have marked Body Posts positions

Second point is straight way to disaster in my case  

Thank you for decals! I am looking for something similar in my area.

[Pylon80 3693]

I'm curious to know if the KB Subaru is the normal "Tamiya" width, or if it's closer to a 200mm body like they did on their Delta. Not a huge deal, but you have to be ready to also buy either HPI wheels in +6 offset (still a bit narrow but acceptable) or go with long axles (TG10 if you are ok with dog bones or WR01 if you want universals). Either way, there's an extra cost there.

My KB Delta came with flawless stickers, sorry to read what happened with the Subaru.

[skom25 2179]

2 hours ago, Pylon80 said:

My KB Delta came with flawless stickers

Maybe in future I will order Impreza from different shop and see if the quality will be the same. Now I do not want to freeze so much money. 

Width: yes, I read that Delta is really wide. Impreza is more or less the same as Tamiya bodies.

[skom25 2179]

I did some progress:

- Diffs done. Front 30k, rear 5k. I used good amount of Green Slime to seal diff.

- Sway Bars installed

- Rear universals instead of Dog Bones

I found issue if you use aluminium diff covers. Bearing is very, very loose on that part. On plastic kit parts, bearings sit tight.

In that case, whole diff moves a bit and it can happen, that it will start to rub against gearbox. I saw some scratches when I disassembled car and had the same issue during assembly.

It is not huge issue, because when everything is tightened, it should not happen too often. It is good to just push diff to right side from time to time, to move diff bit inward.

Probably it is also fine to use shims to limit diff movement, but I do not have any and do not see any available.

BTW: Issue is not related to poor quality bearings. It is the same with Tamiya and sealed bought separately.

[Andreas W 2510]

This is gonna be an upgrade with the diff oils. And the rear universals are smooth. On the XV-01 nr 2 I am actually downgrading it to dogbones, as I want to have the wide TG-10 axles like I have on the old one. 

 

You can look forward to a car that is going faster out of corners now without spinning loose on the inner front wheel. 

[skom25 2179]

2 hours ago, Andreas W said:

This is gonna be an upgrade with the diff oils

Previously I had oil too, but 5k on front and 900 on rear. At least I had it at beginning, because it leaked really fast

Now it is time to mount Sway Bars. I will try to do this as in XV-02.

[Andreas W 2510]

Hehe. I know you started out with oil in the diffs. What I meant to say was that with 30k in the front you will have a more predictable car. My XV-01 nr 2 was built with the supplied fluids. Mine did donuts in both directions from standstill and would slide with little provocation on wet tarmac. That was on a Silvercan with 2S shorty. My first XV-01 is less wild now if, as long as I don't provoce it. It works pretty good for my kind of use,  which I assume is pretty close to how you are using yours. 

[skom25 2179]

1 hour ago, skom25 said:

I will try to do this as in XV-02.

I can already say, that it will not be possible.

Sway bars are just too long. To do this as in XV-02, sway bars need to but cut. I do not want to do this, because it is not "reversible" change.

[skom25 2179]

Some progress done:

0.4 mm 10 mm shims added to rear diff. I do not know why, but it had side to side play and when was pressed to left side, diff cover started to rub against gearbox. Shims solved issue. There is still minimal play, so bearings are not tight. Probably it is caused by aluminium diff cover and I already mentioned it here:

On 11/10/2024 at 4:46 PM, skom25 said:

I found issue if you use aluminium diff covers. Bearing is very, very loose on that part. On plastic kit parts, bearings sit tight.

In that case, whole diff moves a bit and it can happen, that it will start to rub against gearbox. I saw some scratches when I disassembled car and had the same issue during assembly.

It is not huge issue, because when everything is tightened, it should not happen too often. It is good to just push diff to right side from time to time, to move diff bit inward.

Probably it is also fine to use shims to limit diff movement, but I do not have any and do not see any available.

BTW: Issue is not related to poor quality bearings. It is the same with Tamiya and sealed bought separately.

Finally I installed servo. It should be 10 minutes work, but at the end I spent around 3 hours... Why?

I bought SRT CH6012 servo. It is really nice, but for some reason spline is really tight. I was not able to use TRF horn, because I could not press it on spline. I was bit angry, but I had plastic horn which came with servo. It was fine, but position was not perfect. There was not enough room to use ball connector from chassis side, so I had to mount connector from servo side. That was not perfect, because angle of link was too big. I went to shop and bought another plastic horn, this time from DF Models, which was much better, because it was curved and it was possible to use nut from chassis side. Guess what? I was not able to put in on spline...

At the end, I bought really expensive SRT aluminium horn... installation was not easy, fit was very tight and I even heated up horn so it expanded a bit and installation was much easier. 

It is really annoying, that there are issues with 50- 60 Euros servo... At least it feels really nice. Really smooth, quiet and fast. At 6V 0.07s from side to side.

Before you ask: I checked horns on different servos and fit was perfect. All servos are 25T.

To mount servo to chassis, I used TRF416 mounts. They seem to be almost identical like RM-01, which are on official list of Hop Ups. I believe TB-03 mounts will fit without issues too.

I also prepared TRF shocks. Sets are not available, so I built them scratch.

[Pylon80 3693]

Looking sharp! We've discussed it before I believe, but it's a shame you can't get Power HD servos where you live 😕 But you got it looking and performing right in the end it seems, so you're all good there.

Just curious: are the black springs going to the front or to the rear?

Also I just recently started to play with anti roll bars; at the front they drastically reduce steering, which is as per the setup theory but still surprised me. For me the front roll bars are useful in very high grip situations when the rear tends to come loose - something I only encounter with foam tires when they just swept the basketball courts (then it grips like sand paper). I still have to experiment with much softer springs in conjunction with these front roll bar before giving up on them for my regular rubber tires/dusty track conditions. Anyways, let us know how yours drive.

[skom25 2179]

Just now, Pylon80 said:

Looking sharp! We've discussed it before I believe, but it's a shame you can't get Power HD servos where you live 😕 But you got it looking and performing right in the end it seems, so you're all good there.

Just curious: are the black springs going to the front or to the rear?

Also I just recently started to play with anti roll bars; at the front they drastically reduce steering, which is as per the setup theory but still surprised me. For me the front roll bars are useful in very high grip situations when the rear tends to come loose - something I only encounter with foam tires when they just swept the basketball courts (then it grips like sand paper). I still have to experiment with much softer springs in conjunction with these front roll bar before giving up on them for my regular rubber tires/dusty track conditions. Anyways, let us know how yours drive.

Gold on front, black on rear. I think it is good setup.

[skom25 2179]

Two general shots:

On rear from chassis side, I replaced closed adjusters with open. Summarizing, I used Ball Nuts only in two places: rear uprights and shock mounts on towers. On rest places I used Hard Hex and open reinforced adjusters. There is only one exception. On steering bridge I used Hard Hex connectors but closed adjusters, because open touched each other.

I am happy with result. I think it starts to feel like "poor" TRF.