Shock shafts. It is like a cheating...

[skom25]

Hi,

Yesterday I started preparations to build shocks from DB-01. I knew that shafts are not perfect, but it seems that I forgot how they are in reality.

At beginning, photo. Looking from left:

• Front DB-01 CVA
• Rear DB-01 CVA
• Shaft from Aluminium DF-03/TT-02B shocks 
  • available as separated part

DB-01 parts are new, shaft on right is used.

If you zoom in photo, you will see:

• Surface on front shaft is very uneven. Not smooth at all.
• Rear shaft has black surface which will wear down quickly. It does not feel smooth.
• Shaft on right is absolutely smooth and shiny like glass.

Now the best (worst?) part. It seems that all parts were made the same. You can see that really sharp "step" above thread, slots for c-rings etc. They were definitely machined in the same way, but at the end, they decided to make them just worse.

Maybe there is a difference in material ( steel vs stainless steel maybe?), but come on... It is really like cheating, to degrade performance of CVA shocks in comparison to more expensive Hop Up version.

My first thought was "no worries, I will buy better shafts". Well, not this time.

Rear is around 47 mm. I can buy TRF 49.5 mm and use spacers to achieve more or less the same result. It is not perfect, but totally fine.

However, front shaft is 34 mm long. Stainless/ Titanium coated shafts which I found are 40.7 mm, so absolutely no chance to fit them.

Yes, it is like cheating for me. They were able to make parts better or just spent few cents more and use stainless steel, but decided to make parts worse to encourage you to buy Hop Ups.

 

[MadAnt]

39 minutes ago, skom25 said:

but decided to make parts worse to encourage you to buy Hop Ups.

 

[Gratuit]

Isn't it possible to polish them?

 

[skom25]

36 minutes ago, MadAnt said:

I totally agree with this. They need to make money, it is obvious.

I understand when some parts are plastic, but more durable/ adjustable aluminium version is available as Hop Up. I also understand that lower level models have more slope, plastic is softer/ less durable and are not so pretty as higher end cars.

I do not understand, when they use more or less the same process to make particular part and decide to make it much worse.

12 minutes ago, Gratuit said:

Isn't it possible to polish them?

 

It is, but they will not be even close to stainless shafts finish. You can make them shiny, but surface still will be uneven and less smooth.

[Verskis]

Of course they will not make the cheap parts intentionally rougher. Roughing up a perfectly smooth shaft would cost money.

Either they are made from the same stock material, and the more expensive part is just finished (maybe sanded and polished) much better, or maybe the better part is actually made from a thicker stock, then turned and polished to the same diameter as the cheaper part.

[skom25]

It is not about making them rough, I do not know the process. All of them are machined, not probably casted as cheapest shafts in CVAs.

It is about fact, thet they are able to do the same part better, but they choose to not do this.

This "funny" coating also costs money.

[guggles]

It is hard to tell the surface quality from the picture. I think that the black coating does seem to wear off quickly but the shocks should still be smooth. The black coating wear should not change the performance in my experiences. 

I would build the shocks and see how smooth they feel. I have had pretty good experiences with the stock Tamiya CVA shocks in the past. Are they as smooth as $100 hop up shocks? No, of course not, but they are still smooth enough and perform well IMO. 

[skom25]

My experience is bit different. Shafts will scratch really fast, even without coat.

[alvinlwh]

5 hours ago, skom25 said:

decided to make parts worse to encourage you to buy Hop Ups

The "Tamiya Way". 

[Saito2]

Back in the day, Tamiya didn't offer a ton of hop-ups and many of those they did were just parts from higher level models (i.e. the Grasshopper H.P. suspension set really was just a kit to adapt Hornet rear shocks. CVAs available for kits like the Lunch Box were already just standard production items on things like the Monster Beetle, etc.).

While its nice to have option parts available direct from Tamiya for specific parts or general parts for our cars, I think perhaps the fact they are available adds the risk of "good enough". I don't feel Tamiya skimped as much on the details back then. The CVA shock was their only performance shock before the Hicap so they all were good. I've seen quality slip a bit in the kit-supplied version over the years, whether it be poorly finished shafts, the inclusion of those stupid "nailhead" shock shafts or even lower shock caps with piston holes not concentric with the shock body in some cases.

Perhaps with higher levels of hop-ups available, Tamiya may get in some shock shaft materail that's now "good enough" or only finish said materials to a certain spec that's "good enough" because in their minds there's always a hop-up that's better if the customer wants it. I don't know if its really a deep ploy to drive sales of hop-ups because I don't how well the average consumer scrutinizes these parts like we do upon assembly. Rather, I feel the hop-ups may induce laziness or less attention to detail. Sometimes, as we've found with TD4/2 plastic diff nuts, "good enough" really isn't.

[sosidge]

This is perhaps one of my favourite nonsense posts on Tamiyaclub. Tamiya "deliberately" making parts "worse"!

News flash - cheaper parts have cheaper finishing. Of course Tamiya could use a higher grade material on the CVA shafts, of course they could use a higher grade finish. But it would cost more money, which would be reflected in the retail price. And people like to buy upgrades, so why put the best of everything in the box?

In the racing world, for a long time the Titanium Nitride coated shafts were the upgrade and Chrome shafts came in the box. Now, Chrome shafts are the upgrade and TiN come in the box! There is barely any difference between the various versions of shafts, there is so much else going on in a shock.

There are plenty of issues with CVA shocks. The smoothness of the shafts as they pass through the seals absolutely is not one of them!

[matisse]

5 hours ago, Gratuit said:

Isn't it possible to polish them?

 

Yup

[skom25]

16 minutes ago, sosidge said:

News flash - cheaper parts have cheaper finishing. Of course Tamiya could use a higher grade material on the CVA shafts, of course they could use a higher grade finish. But it would cost more money, which would be reflected in the retail price. And people like to buy upgrades, so why put the best of everything in the box?

Thank you Captain Obvious!

I can only add, that you will find the same "crappy" shafts in DT-02 kit for 80 Euros and TD2/4 which costs around 300-350 Euros.

Do you really think that it is ok? I can only remind you, that TD2 was "on sale" some time ago for more or less half of the price and they still earned money on each kit. It means, that they can do things better, but they do not want to.

16 minutes ago, sosidge said:

And people like to buy upgrades, so why put the best of everything in the box?

Have I mentioned anywhere that I expect best version of part in cheapest kit? No, I just wrote that shafts are bad, they can be better and there are no Hop Ups available to replace them. You can only buy set of aluminium shocks, which is different thing than four shafts.

[sosidge]

2 minutes ago, skom25 said:

Thank you Captain Obvious!

I can only add, they you will find the same "crappy" shafts in DT-02 kit for 80 Euros and TD2/4 which costs around 300-350 Euros.

Do you really think that it is ok? I can only remind you, that TD2 was "on sale" some time ago for more or less half of the price and they still earned money on each kit. It means, that they can do things better, but they do not want to.

Have I mentioned anywhere that I expect best version of part in cheapest kit? No, I just wrote that shafts are bad, they can be better and there are no Hop Ups available to replace them. You can only buy set of aluminium shocks, which is different thing than four shafts.

TD2 will be making a loss, Tamiya do not make a profit on sales at half the original retail, the retailers still need to have a margin to make it worth their while to sell the excess stock.  It's on discount because it was a bad release that nobody wanted, not because of the CVA shocks.

And I refer again to my previous answer - there is nothing wrong with the CVA shock shafts. So there is no need to seek out individual replacements. The CVA shocks have other issues, but smoothness of the shafts/seals is not one of them.

[Twinfan]

Maybe it's just me, but I don't expect a £100 kit to have high quality components.  The DB-01 is a low to mid range buggy so I would expect fit and finish to be a bit sloppy in places, things not to fit quite right, not-great piston shafts etc.

Obviously everything can be made to a higher spec if they wanted to, but then the price would go up and the accounting department will say you're spending too much on production and the marketing people will say less people will buy them if we increase the retail price.

If you want higher quality, as it seems you do in a lot of ways, then you need to look at the high end buggies - Egress, Avante etc for Tamiya vintage style or switch from Tamiya to the Kyosho Legendary series cars.

[sosidge]

7 minutes ago, Twinfan said:

If you want higher quality, as it seems you do in a lot of ways, then you need to look at the high end buggies - Egress, Avante etc for Tamiya vintage style or switch from Tamiya to the Kyosho Legendary series cars.

Tamiya has never been the best quality. Even at the peak of the TRF days, those cars were only a match for the best that was on the market. Mid-range and vintage Tamiya's have always been more about the interesting design than outright quality and performance. 

Best quality I've seen recently has been from Yokomo.

[Twinfan]

I never said Tamiya were the best, just that higher quality cars are available   

Yeah, I believe the Dogfighters are very good.  They do nothing for me though as I have no nostalgic link to them.

[Otis311]

What's frustrating is that in many cases CVA dampers are themselves a hop-up. That black coating is not durable at all and any silt that sticks to the shaft wears them down to bare metal in no time. Even with my on road only cars this happens. That bare metal is pretty soft itself and gets deeply scored. Some of this is can be helped by reducing the amount of oil that leaks down the shaft by using better o-rings and/or green slime. There will always be an oil film on the shaft though. The dull chrome finish on the front shaft you show is surprisingly smooth despite it's apparent texture but is still not great. I blame myself as well for not maintaining my cars as well as I should. In this case blowing off the shocks with a compressor regularly.

[Kowalski86]

4 hours ago, Saito2 said:

I don't know if its really a deep ploy to drive sales of hop-ups because I don't how well the average consumer scrutinizes these parts like we do upon assembly.

I've been pretty happy with my CVAs, I don't even use green slime/lithium grease on them. I just assemble them as the instructions say to.

if there's any "ploy" to get me to buy hop ups its giving us those silly pogo-shocks on lower end models.

[skom25]

38 minutes ago, Otis311 said:

That black coating is not durable at all and any silt that sticks to the shaft wears them down to bare metal in no time. Even with my on road only cars this happens. That bare metal is pretty soft itself and gets deeply scored.

This is exactly what I found when I used them. They are just bad and you can clearly see, that for a just a little bit more money, they can make them much better. That is all what I wanted to write here.

We are talking about 30/40 mm long shafts. It is not huge cost, to make user experience much better.

That is all from my side. It seems that I do not understand many things.

I just want to add something:

This is Arrma Senton 4x2.

https://www.arrma-rc.com/en/product/1-10-senton-boost-2wd-rtr-brushed-short-course-truck-battery-and-charger-included-green-black/ARA4103SV4T1.html

It costs around 200 Euros. It is RTR kit, so it means:

- Assembled car

- All required electronics

- Painted body

Why I mention it here?

Because I cannot stand, when people try to defend poor quality of Tamiya parts in every possible way. Tamiya is very expensive brand and you should expect at least something, which you can call quality. 

It seems that it is better to wait for next Re Release of 40 years old car, than expect just a bit more from current kits.

[Twinfan]

12 minutes ago, skom25 said:

This is exactly what I found when I used them. They are just bad and you can clearly see, that for a just a little bit more money, they can make them much better. That is all what I wanted to write here.

 

This is Arrma Senton 4x2.

https://www.arrma-rc.com/en/product/1-10-senton-boost-2wd-rtr-brushed-short-course-truck-battery-and-charger-included-green-black/ARA4103SV4T1.html

It costs around 200 Euros. It is RTR kit, so it means:

- Assembled car

- All required electronics

- Painted body

Yeah, but what are their shock shafts like?????

[OoALEJOoO]

3 hours ago, skom25 said:

This is Arrma Senton 4x2.

https://www.arrma-rc.com/en/product/1-10-senton-boost-2wd-rtr-brushed-short-course-truck-battery-and-charger-included-green-black/ARA4103SV4T1.html

It costs around 200 Euros.

You can't really tell the quality of their components unless you have one in your hands. I am not defending Tamiya by the way, just pointing out that a comparison has to be objective.

Different companies have different priorities and goals that affect how they spend their manufacturing budget towards a final product. It's possible that companies that make those mass-produced generic-looking cars (e.g. Arrma link above) put their budget on better materials and/or quality at the expense of real scale-looking bodies or true licenses. I think Tamiya puts a larger proportion of their budget into making sure their cars look great, a true motorized scale model and therefore perhaps less budget is left for materials, quality or process. This is a trade-off that works for me for what I intend the RC cars to do.

I buy Tamiya over other brands. Why? Because I think their ratios of cost, quality, scale-looks, goofiness, creativity, parts-supply, etc are great. Are they the best on each and every category? Probably not, but they sure pack a compelling product as a whole. Arrma or other generic trucks with tribal stickers that yell MOAR POWAH are not very attractive to my eyes on both the looks and hobby point of views, irrespective if they have adamantium shock shafts.

[Pylon80]

3 hours ago, matisse said:

Yup

Shocks built with any of these shafts will be totally fine... Especially for a basher.

In the racing world there's a lot of voodoo around reducing friction at all cost, like people buying 100$ Kashima coating shock bodies etc when everybody is aware that this isn't what makes you fast (unfortunately) and there's nothing wrong with the stock parts in the first place.

You can polish shafts by spinning them in a drill and pinching the shaft in a rag smeared with automotive cutting compound, or toothpaste or anything that will polish them. That's regular maintenance. I do it mainly because a suspension with no friction is easier to set up although it probably drives better to.

There. No need for conspiration theories about evil Tamiya sand blasting the parts to make them worse. You're the only one who noticed anyway.

[Kowalski86]

2 hours ago, skom25 said:

I just want to add something:

This is Arrma Senton 4x2.

https://www.arrma-rc.com/en/product/1-10-senton-boost-2wd-rtr-brushed-short-course-truck-battery-and-charger-included-green-black/ARA4103SV4T1.html

It costs around 200 Euros. It is RTR kit, so it means:

- Assembled car

- All required electronics

- Painted body

Why I mention it here?

Because I cannot stand, when people try to defend poor quality of Tamiya parts in every possible way. Tamiya is very expensive brand and you should expect at least something, which you can call quality. 

The Senton 4x2 Boost isn't a good example to go with here, Arrma build quality tends to be quite poor for a RTR on top of the "Boost" 4x2 simply being a 4x4 model with parts of it removed.

It's also a pig on brushed power (like most modern RCs), budget another $100 or so for a brushless setup to get it to scoot.

A better comparison would be the $170 Gorgon (which you can buy as a kit), vs a Blackfoot or a Lunchbox for similar costs.

2 hours ago, Twinfan said:

Yeah, but what are their shock shafts like?????

Funny you should ask, Arrma shocks are well known for leaking issues!

[skom25]

24 minutes ago, Pylon80 said:

There. No need for conspiration theories about evil Tamiya sand blasting the parts to make them worse. You're the only one who noticed anyway.

It was more about lack of finish, not something done on purpose.

I just wanted to say... Sorry! Sometimes I get too "excited" during discussion.