Increased Ground Clearance

[richb]

Right, I've got my TD up and running again. Fully ball raced, new gearbox casing on the back and a new Transmitter. Quite surprised at the difference the ball race made TBH.

I have more or less decided which route i am going to take with an ESC and new motors, and seen a nice shell that kontemax had on his 'Trial Dagger', so my next avenue is more ground clearance. I have seen some uprated shocks that are available which will obviously give better damping but i feel it needs to sit higher.

What can be done, and do any mods have an effect on the drive shafts by increasing the angle between gearbox and hub?

[Corpse Thrower]

Right, I've got my TD up and running again. Fully ball raced, new gearbox casing on the back and a new Transmitter. Quite surprised at the difference the ball race made TBH.

I have more or less decided which route i am going to take with an ESC and new motors, and seen a nice shell that kontemax had on his 'Trial Dagger', so my next avenue is more ground clearance. I have seen some uprated shocks that are available which will obviously give better damping but i feel it needs to sit higher.

What can be done, and do any mods have an effect on the drive shafts by increasing the angle between gearbox and hub?

You'll have problems with the dogbones binding if you increase the suspension travel. I modified re release Frog shocks on my blackfoot xtreme and the "cloddenator" in my showroom....these don't get run, but full locking the steering I can tell that they'll pop out. Some sort of uni joint is needed for the wheels that steer.

[Mad Ax]

Universal Joints are available for the Twin Detonator. You can find examples on RCmart.com under the Wild Dagger parts list.

70mm shocks are a direct replacement and will give a tiny bit more ground clearance (I think the standard shocks are about 65mm). I put some 70mm alloy shocks on my Blackfoot Extreme the other day and it sits marginally higher.

RCmart also list alloy uprights that allow you to fit 4-inch (100mm) shocks in a variety of positions.

I've got some alloy uprights and 100mm alloy shocks on order - I will post photos once it's done so the difference can be seen.

[TWINSET]

I got some alu shock towers that'll allow you to fit 4" shocks to a Twin Det/Wild Dagger, need a bit of creativity to fit 'em, but no rocket science

(Pics by Biggus)

[richb]

Thanks for the pcis Twinset. I could probably get some made fairly cheap. The dimensions etc are obviously pretty easy to sort out. I have also had a look on ebay and found these for 15.00

[BiggusDitchus]

Thanks for the pcis Twinset. I could probably get some made fairly cheap. The dimensions etc are obviously pretty easy to sort out. I have also had a look on ebay and found these for 15.00

What Twinset is saying is he has those for sale... The pics he posted are on my truck with emaxx shocks (travel limited in shock slightly), have to say it vastly improves the Twin Det, it handles bumps better it jumps better, much better all round really.

[TWINSET]

What Twinset is saying is he has those for sale...

Yeah, that's what I meant - I had many sets made, but Biggus doesn't want them all

Those other ones pictured make your gearboxes melt anyway

Bad, bad towers

But they do come with little brass screw spacers...

[richb]

I think i was the nice shiny blue colour that attracted me to them! The same seller also has a few other bits and pieces to match. Front and rear bottom and top arms, C Hubs etc. so would pretty good with it all on

So you're a bit bit of dab hand with a CNC machine then.

What sort of money you asking for a pair of towers? and what else could you make for the TD?

[TWINSET]

So you're a bit bit of dab hand with a CNC machine then.

What sort of money you asking for a pair of towers? and what else could you make for the TD?

No chap, but I know a man that is

I think I designed those ones, or it might have been Rich, I dunno.

Pricewise, 10.00 posted?

[Mad Ax]

Incidentally Twinset (twincidentally..?) do you have all these wares you peddle on a web page somewhere..? I didn't know you made TD shock towers, I would have bought a set if I'd known!

What's wrong with the blue towers, and why do they make gearboxes melt..? I've got a set on order, and if you can give me a good reason why I don't want to use them on my Blackfoot Extreme, I'll buy a set of yours instead and use the blue ones for my top-secret custom project...

[TWINSET]

What's wrong with the blue towers, and why do they make gearboxes melt

Nothing's wrong with them, I lied

There's no website for my bits, they only really get made every now and then, or when enough people ask for the same stuff.

A lot of it's in my showroom though, or in the TCphotos bit too.

Click the Jeep pic in my sig above for showroom

[richb]

Incidentally Twinset (twincidentally..?) do you have all these wares you peddle on a web page somewhere..? I didn't know you made TD shock towers, I would have bought a set if I'd known!

What's wrong with the blue towers, and why do they make gearboxes melt..? I've got a set on order, and if you can give me a good reason why I don't want to use them on my Blackfoot Extreme, I'll buy a set of yours instead and use the blue ones for my top-secret custom project...

You'll have to let us know what they are like when you get them

[Mad Ax]

You'll have to let us know what they are like when you get them

I will keep you informed Hopefully will arrive early next week

[Mad Ax]

Ax's Stupidly Long-Winded And Hideously Over-Detailed And Procrastinated Review of GPM's Blue Shock Towers

(I will put this (or something approximating to it) in my showroom once I've gotten off my lazy backside and taken some photos. Shame I missed the Reviews competition )

The GPM shock towers (blue ones above) and blue Yeah Racing 4" shocks arrived over the weekend, very fast delivery from Messrs Dinball! Fitting was fairly straightforward (as you'd expect) and almost everything you need is included.

A pair of countersunk screws are supplied for the shock tower upper mounts - these go into the standard shock mounts, however they are a machined thread, not a self-tapping thread - and are slightly longer than the standard self-tapping screw. As a result they're quite difficult to screw in unless you widen the hole out slightly - I used a long self-tapping screw first to make it slightly easier. I suppose I could also have used a tap (I think it's an M3 thread).

The lower mounts go into the upper arm mounts, so they are provided with bushings to allow the suspension to move. These go on straightforward but again are machined threads, not self-tapping - so I worry about how strong the threads may be. Using long self-tapping screws might be stronger. Perhaps they are designed primarily for aluminium upper arms..?

The fit is great, everything lines up perfectly and the finish on the shock towers is very good.

I chose Yeah Racing 4" shocks from RCMart as they're cheap, come with 2 sets of springs (hard and soft) and all the mounting hardware. I used soft (25) oil as my truck is used predominantly off-road, combined with hard springs. With some more fine-tuning I may put the softer springs up front, as my Blackfoot Extreme doesn't have the front motor and gearbox, so is rear-heavy.

Again these shocks come with almost all the hardware you'll need to fit them - I say almost, because the bolts for the upper mount are machined threads again, but come with no nuts. There is no thread in the GPM shock tower to attach to, therefore you need 4 nuts to fix each corner. This is OK because most Tamiya kits are full of M3 flanged nuts which are perfect for this job. I had to resort to the Nuts drawer in Ax's Big Box Of Spare Bits to get the shocks mounted.

Here is where you'll notice a potential problem with your GPM shock towers. Because they're about 2mm thick, you will need to space out the shock mount on the lower arm in order to keep the shocks mounted directly upright. Because Yeah Racing shock top mounts (when mounted with supplied hardware) don't twist front-to-back very easily, not spacing the lower mount pulls on the shock leg and bends it. This will cause excessive friction and accelerated wear.

Fortunately, the Spacers drawer in Ax's Big Box Of Spare Bits turned up a handful of plastic washers as used in the standard TXT. These are still slightly too small, but will do nicely until I can get some bigger washers in there. Also the supplied screws (machined thread again) aren't quite long enough, so longer machined screws are required.

With 4" shocks you can tune the suspension to give much more ground clearance - however, with the suspension always on full extension you will get handling issues as the wheels will always tend to leave the ground. Because I use my truck for going fast rather than going over obstacles, I tuned my truck with a little bit of sag (when loaded with a battery). This way, as the truck rises, the suspension will extend to keep the wheels on the ground for longer, and will extend more than the standard shocks would allow.

My first test-drive was a quick one - up and down the garden a few times, over long grass, a bag of compost, a tree stump, and a small concrete curb. It is far more stable than it ever was - the oil shocks do a great job of keeping the wheels on the ground over the bumps, and absorb the impacts on fast jumps and landings. I managed a few big jumps by ramming into the small concrete curb on my garden and it flew straight and true into the air, landing nicely on all four wheels.

In a word - although there are a few things to bear in mind when fitting the shock towers, I can't really fault them. And my gearboxes didn't melt once!

(Although I reckon Twinsets ones look better - all this blue is just so chavvy, dahling!)

[kontemax]

Hi,

please have a look at my Trial Dagger second step

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=11072007022432

I've increased the ground clearance of my car. Trial Dagger isn't finished but I'm quiet satisfied.

Carbon Dagger mounts 110 millimeters dampers and the ground clearance is drastically increased to 70 millimeters in the middle of the chassis, between the two gearboxes. And believe me isn't bad.

The Trial Dagger yet has (poor it!) the original 65 millimeters dampers but with my chassis the ground clearance in the middle of the car is 80 millimeters!

I suppese that, when will mount the 105/110 mm shocks it will arrive at 100 mm, I think enough to made some crawling.

Cheers

Max

[kontemax]

I don't like these kind of shock towers you use because they yes increase the ground clearance and enhance suspension performance but probably the bottom of the car doesn't touch the ground after big jumps. I think this stresses the shock tower and the gearbox mount and at the end the car bumps cause the shocks arrive at their shorter lenght.

I studied a completly different geometry that increases the ground clearance, allows the damper to work more progressive and the gearbox bottom touching the ground when the damper are almost fully compressed. They have extra 3/5 millimeters to compress when the bottom touches the ground. This avoids the car bumping after high jumps.

Let me know what you think about.

Pict will be done if you need them.

Max

[richb]

But surely you are in danger of cracking the gearbox casing if you let it hit the ground after a big jump. I would have thought that adding an alloy shock tower to the set up only adds strength and stiffness.

If you are limited to a stock chassis, what other options are available?

[Mad Ax]

Max, I saw the pics of the trial dagger in your showroom and I'm very impressed - looks like it will really push the envelope of what we thought could be done with a Wild Dagger setup. That said, it goes far beyond what I want to do with my Blackfoot Extreme; my truck is for bashing around, doing jumps and having fun, not for climbing rocks. I fitted oil shocks for better handling rather than to climb over big obstacles.

The taller shock towers allow extra suspension movement - this means the car can sink lower before the shock bottoms out. However, like you say, if the shocks bottom out completely on a jump this will put extra strain on the suspension components and could make something break. However this is no different to the standard car, with the added bonus that I can now tune the compression on the springs.

My truck will be set up for speed and jumps, so my springs will be set quite firm, so that the shocks can never fully compress from any jumps I attempt.

If I was attempting to climb up a bumpy hill, I would loosen the springs off to allow greater articulation, but I would have to remember not to attempt any big jumps.

It's all down to compromise. If your chassis doesn't bottom out the shocks but grounds out the chassis, then the force of the impact is being absorbed by the belly of the car. This may be OK if the belly of the car is strong enough to take this kind of impact, but it doesn't really solve the problem of bottoming out - it just moves it elsewhere

Top job on the trial dagger and keep us posted

[richb]

have you got any pics of the chavvy blue towers yet Mad Ax?

[kontemax]

Hi Mad Ax,

the bottoming is a off road problem always.

I know Trial Dagger is an extreme solution, just for one purpose. In fact probably will choose shock absorbers bottoming to gearbox bottoming cause the low speed of a crawler. It's better have it high so don't really care if the gearbox doesn't touch the ground. If it had rigid axles the gearbox would never touch the ground on plane surface so where's the problem?

Regarding your purpose about the Blackfoot I suggest to have a look at my Carbon Dagger, my previous Wild Dagger work:

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...11371&id=24

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...11372&id=24

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...12382&id=24

Carbon Dagger is made for bashing and Jumps, very high jumps, and the suspension set up is totally different from future Trial Dagger. As you can see my dampers aren't so vertical. This allows high ride height (70 mm) and long suspension travel (75 mm). When the bottom touches the ground the wheels still can leave the gront of about 5 mm. I put a 3/4 millimeters rubber tube in the damper shaft to avoid excessive bumping for the shocks but they aren't really needed. About the problem you spoke, transfering the bottoming from the shocks to the gearboxes, I can say that an angled damper became stiffer during the compression, it is progressive and not linear as a vertical damper. It became harder touch the ground and you need a very high jump.

For this reason the Trial Dagger will have vertical dampers. They will be soft during all their compression to aborb the shape of the rocks. This is possible due the low speed. Don't care is the gearboxes will not touch the ground, it's better have an high car. If the gearbox touch the rocks the wheels probably will spin. No more climbings.

Here some picts about what I'm saying.

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...=11072007143646

Hope I helped you.

Max

[Mad Ax]

A very informative post Max, thanks!

I will have pics of my chav-tastic blue towers and shocks soon - I even made up some aluminium spacers for the shock bottoms (and used longer screws) to attach them to the bottom arms.

I don't know when I'll get a chance to bash it next, haven't been out with it for a long time and am snowed under with work and things - but will give my reviews on performance ASAP

[RichieRich]

I use the carbon fiber shock towers from Xtreme R/C Racing and E-maxx shocks. It adds more ground clearance than the stock shocks. These same parts will fit the wild dagger.

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.asp?cid=17967

[richb]

Look good. Not a bad price either. However without going into the order process i cant easily find out how much shipping would cost

[RichieRich]

Look good. Not a bad price either. However without going into the order process i cant easily find out how much shipping would cost

Shoot them an e-mail and ask. They were very responsive when I ordered. I assume you're in the UK. My guess is that shipping would be about $10 if they send it in a padded envelope like they did mine and use the cheapest shipping option.

[richb]

Shoot them an e-mail and ask. They were very responsive when I ordered. I assume you're in the UK. My guess is that shipping would be about $10 if they send it in a padded envelope like they did mine and use the cheapest shipping option.

Yeah, Im in UK. Might give them a yell. Thanks RR

Rich