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Why do you need to glue the sides?
It seals the edges of the resin and prevents the layers from delaminating in an impact. The plates are made by gluing layers of either glass fibre or carbon fibre cloth together, when it sets the resin gluing everything together prevents the sheets of cloth from moving, which gives it the stiffness and strength. If these layers separate you lose the strength and stiffness and you end up buying a new chassis.

It is also good practice to sand down the sharp edges as well, prevents the chassis digging in to the ground when it leans as well as reducing the likelyhood of the resin chipping off.

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Looking very nice indeed :) One question though (might be a little off-topic)... I have a few cars with chassis plate systems as well... Why do you need to glue the sides? :P :P

This was just covered a few posts up on this very page... :P:)

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This was just covered a few posts up on this very page... <_<:)

Eh.... oh... Oops :unsure::lol: It seems like I still can't read then - back to primary school!

PS: I assume this applies to FRP plates as well as carbon plates?

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Wow what a nice kit to assemble, usual Tamiya quality :unsure: really like the use of the hex hed scews throughout the build and everything just fits together so nicely.

Really happy I bought this one :lol: Hows everyone else's going? Any ideas on paint schemes?

x2 Taman :)

I took mine for a spin on the weekend with a SuperStock RZ motor, good grief it is fast!!! Slippery at low speeds but corners like it is on rails when those wings are working at top speed, man it is fun.

I am thinking of doing a Diet Coke or Coke Zero livery on mine <_<

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x2 Taman :)

I took mine for a spin on the weekend with a SuperStock RZ motor, good grief it is fast!!! Slippery at low speeds but corners like it is on rails when those wings are working at top speed, man it is fun.

I am thinking of doing a Diet Coke or Coke Zero livery on mine <_<

Wow driven it already :unsure: Good to hear it handles nicely. D-Drive sports has done his in Toro Rosso colours, looks really nice. Will be good to see yours when its painted :lol:

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x2 Taman :)

I took mine for a spin on the weekend with a SuperStock RZ motor, good grief it is fast!!! Slippery at low speeds but corners like it is on rails when those wings are working at top speed, man it is fun.

I am thinking of doing a Diet Coke or Coke Zero livery on mine <_<

If I remember right from how my Gr.C car drove, it was also slippery at low speeds, pretty scale I think :unsure: Speaking of which, is there someone who could compare the handling of the F102, Gr.C and/or F103 with the F104? I'd love to know what the difference in handling is!

And how's the diff? Does it have good adjustability?

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If I remember right from how my Gr.C car drove, it was also slippery at low speeds, pretty scale I think :) Speaking of which, is there someone who could compare the handling of the F102, Gr.C and/or F103 with the F104? I'd love to know what the difference in handling is!

And how's the diff? Does it have good adjustability?

Depends on what you mean by good adjustability I suppose :) This is my first runner of these chassis types so I am a total noob when it comes to setup and running it, it has these spring/cone washers for putting tension on the ball diff and there only seems to be a very small amount of adjustment, that's comparing to the ball diffs on a TA05 (which is all I really have to compare it to)

I didn't buy it to race or anything, just to blast around the large flat concrete area at the park, which it is really fun for, I want to get another so I can race around with my son :lol:

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I thought you'd enjoy some pics of my build. Excuse the "poor man's" electronics :)

3678991844_e1498e7098_o.jpg

3679862885_f068ecb22a_o.jpg

3681112676_07abe574e5_o.jpg

3683938314_9fbe2ddb5d_o.jpg

IMG_2146.jpg

IMG_2147.jpg

The red and black stock decals didn't look so hot on the "orange" body - but I needed something on there - it just looked too plain. Does anyone know of way to make their own decals? I tried using those avery ink jet clear stickers, but they really aren't "clear." My inital thought was to do the McLaren MP4-21 Test car livery with all the Mercedes Benz decals, hence the orange body, but there are no 1:10 scale decals out there - so I thought I would be able to make them on my own with those avery ink jet stickers - I was wrong. Any suggestions?

Also, not to beat a dead horse, but any suggestions on a source for slick tires? Or even grooved rubber? I'm just a casual enthusiast - no racing here and just want to mess with the car on my local asphalt roads.

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My inital thought was to do the McLaren MP4-21 Test car livery with all the Mercedes Benz decals, hence the orange body, but there are no 1:10 scale decals out there
Have a look here, plenty of stickers available as well as Tamiyas own.
Also, not to beat a dead horse, but any suggestions on a source for slick tires? Or even grooved rubber? I'm just a casual enthusiast - no racing here and just want to mess with the car on my local asphalt roads.

If you want to run rubber tyres, Tamiyas own tyres are

Tamiya 53349 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type A (F)

Tamiya 53350 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type A ®

Tamiya 53374 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type B (F)

Tamiya 53375 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type B ®

Cheaper alternatives are the Cross fronts and rears, and TRG fronts and rears

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I thought you'd enjoy some pics of my build. Excuse the "poor man's" electronics :)

3678991844_e1498e7098_o.jpg

The red and black stock decals didn't look so hot on the "orange" body - but I needed something on there - it just looked too plain. Does anyone know of way to make their own decals? I tried using those avery ink jet clear stickers, but they really aren't "clear." My inital thought was to do the McLaren MP4-21 Test car livery with all the Mercedes Benz decals, hence the orange body, but there are no 1:10 scale decals out there - so I thought I would be able to make them on my own with those avery ink jet stickers - I was wrong. Any suggestions?

Also, not to beat a dead horse, but any suggestions on a source for slick tires? Or even grooved rubber? I'm just a casual enthusiast - no racing here and just want to mess with the car on my local asphalt roads.

Nice build pics B) Was the body a pain to cut out? Mines sitting in front of me and I'm just trying to get the motivation to cut it out, looks like alot of work lol. Like your choice of colour looks good.

:D

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Have a look here, plenty of stickers available as well as Tamiyas own.

If you want to run rubber tyres, Tamiyas own tyres are

Tamiya 53349 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type A (F)

Tamiya 53350 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type A ®

Tamiya 53374 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type B (F)

Tamiya 53375 F-1 Reinforced Slick Type B ®

Cheaper alternatives are the Cross fronts and rears, and TRG fronts and rears

Thanks for the info and the links! That's exactly what I was looking for!

Nice build pics :) Was the body a pain to cut out? Mines sitting in front of me and I'm just trying to get the motivation to cut it out, looks like alot of work lol. Like your choice of colour looks good.

B)

While the body looks pretty complex, it was probably the easiest body I ever worked on, believe it or not. I've done literally dozens of lexan bodies from the TA05-IFS 2007 Raybrig NSX, several TA03 bodies, and a handful of TL and TT bodies. What made all of those bodies more difficult were the wheel wells. On the F104, all the lines are pretty much straight if you look at it carefully. I only used a simple curved pair of lexan scissors on the F104 - and that was it! On other projects I've needed to do heavy duty scoring, bending, circle cutters, and a dremel to clean up all the edges, etc.

Lining up the pontoons was a piece of cake - Tamiya's molds are always precision fit. There was no need to fudge anything...cut right on the lines and the pieces fit like a glove.

Good luck!

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Nice build pics :D Was the body a pain to cut out? Mines sitting in front of me and I'm just trying to get the motivation to cut it out, looks like alot of work lol. Like your choice of colour looks good.

B)

Yeah, I avoided it for a couple of days and then when I cut it out I thought it wasn't that bad, just kinda looks complex.

I still haven't painted mine :)

The red and black stock decals didn't look so hot on the "orange" body - but I needed something on there - it just looked too plain. Does anyone know of way to make their own decals? I tried using those avery ink jet clear stickers, but they really aren't "clear." My inital thought was to do the McLaren MP4-21 Test car livery with all the Mercedes Benz decals, hence the orange body, but there are no 1:10 scale decals out there - so I thought I would be able to make them on my own with those avery ink jet stickers - I was wrong. Any suggestions?

Also, not to beat a dead horse, but any suggestions on a source for slick tires? Or even grooved rubber? I'm just a casual enthusiast - no racing here and just want to mess with the car on my local asphalt roads.

Looks cool, at first I thought it was red... As for making your own decals I have used the Clear Matt Finish Avery lables for laser printers and they have turned out reasonably well, here is a golf I made decals for, I am going to use the same label sheets on my F104 but not sure how well they will go on more curved surfaces, I can post Avery product number later when I get home if you like

05.jpg

http://www.tamiyaclub.com/showroom_model.a...0&sid=22418

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Anyone else got one painted yet?

Taman, how are you going? I have painters block, I can't decide,

I kind of want to do something unique but don't know if I want to invest the time, I think maybe just go boxart and be done with it, but then I think a sheet of decals from Jason and I could do Ferrari,

dunno, I need some inspiration :D

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Anyone else got one painted yet?

Taman, how are you going? I have painters block, I can't decide,

I kind of want to do something unique but don't know if I want to invest the time, I think maybe just go boxart and be done with it, but then I think a sheet of decals from Jason and I could do Ferrari,

dunno, I need some inspiration :P

Want Unique? Make a Brawn GP one - it sure will be eye-catching and have better looking wings than this years rules allow to :D

Want to do something non-box art and eye-catching, but not too much effort? This site was mentioned before and has loads of stickers available for F1 type cars - should work fine :)

And if you don't know anything - just box art or just a nice and deep green colour.

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Anyone else got one painted yet?

Taman, how are you going? I have painters block, I can't decide,

I kind of want to do something unique but don't know if I want to invest the time, I think maybe just go boxart and be done with it, but then I think a sheet of decals from Jason and I could do Ferrari,

dunno, I need some inspiration :D

I havent cut mine out yet :P I just need to get started to get the inspiration lol :)

I'm thinking of McLaren, I'd love to do the ING Renault but I dont think my painting skills ar that good.

I saw one painted in Lucky Strike colours, looked great. Decals were from D-Drive sports

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.... I'd love to do the ING Renault but I dont think my painting skills ar that good....

Ahhh, I am sure your skills are up for it :lol:, it is a really good looking car, I like the 2008 livery:

INGR2801.jpg

INGR2802.jpg

INGR2803.jpg

INGR2805.jpg

You've got me real keen on doing it now Taman :D

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Go on Do it :D I think its a great looking colour scheme. I'm thinking maybe the RedBull car if I dont do the Renault. D-Drive sports has decals for both so that part wont be an issue.

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Go on Do it <_< I think its a great looking colour scheme. I'm thinking maybe the RedBull car if I dont do the Renault. D-Drive sports has decals for both so that part wont be an issue.

Cool, I just checked out the decals on D-Drive, will order a set in a few weeks when the wallet recovers, it has been heavily traumatised lately B)

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Hi,

I've just finished my F104. I painted it black ready for some JPS decals - going for some kind of futurised Lotus :)

I do have a technical question. When I first ran it, the motor and gears sounded nice and smooth. Now the whole thing sounds more like a sewing machine. Looking at the spur gear as it runs, I can see it wobbling. The rest of the bits on the rear axle are dead straight, it's just the spur gear. I've reassembled it, made sure everything's secure, but I can't stop the spur from having a bit of left-right travel. Any ideas? It runs okay, but sounds rubbish! :huh:

img3721y.th.jpg

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The spur gear is supposed to wobble from side to side a little bit due to the diff design. If there was no play the diff balls wouldn't be able to be held under pressure from the washers.

Check the motor hasn't moved, the 0.4 module gear teeth means the slightest movement will put the gear mesh out - hitting something can stop the car but the motor moves forwards slightly in the mount, upsetting the mesh. The small gear tooth size also means any wear or any dirt in the gears will make them noisy.

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Thanks for the advice. Repositioned the motor and brushed the gears and it was sounding better. Went for a razz and it's sounding rough again. Ah well, so long as it works I'm not going to worry about the "acoustics" :)

The F104 is so different to my other cars, (Lunch Box, TT-01D Silvia, Unimog crawler and two Sand Vipers). It's so responsive! Need to take some time to set it up though. Currently it drifts off slightly to one side depending on how much it's accelerating, (can trim it to be okay at constant speed OR under acceleration, but not both - could it be the diff is too tight, in an attempt to fix the wobbly spur gear?). Then it likes to spin out if I brake hard. In-between it's ace! :)

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Looks sweet in black razu! :)

Yeah, mine spur does the same thing, I see terry already gave you a premium explanation. :)

I have a question though, whats the deal with the Formula Tuned Motor Tamiya lists as the hopup, it looks like a 32 Turn motor?

54176.jpg

Formula-Tuned Motor (32T)

Item No: 54176

This Formula-Tuned Motor has an optimum power output characteristics for use with direct drive 2WD chassis machines such as F103 and F104 chassis. The black motor case and end-bell as well as the silver brush holders provide this motor with a sharp look. The brushes (Item 53581 Racing Motor Brush Set/Standard Type) can be replaced to maintain motor performance. Tamiya Grand Prix Official Motor. Recommended gear ratio: 3.70-3.75

Well, I guess I answered my own question. Looking at the manual the gear ratio for the silver can is 4.16, so I guess the 32 Turn motor having more torque allows the gearing to be much higher.

So to revamp the question: Is that a normal setup for these F1 type cars?

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Well that was straightforward, I thought I'd be messing about all night.

I put the chassis on an A4 sheet of 2mm graph paper, aligned the front suspension arms with a solid line and looked at the outer edges of the wheels. I then proceeded to twiddle the adjusters so that each wheel was toed in by one and a half squares from back to front. Scratched the adjusters quite badly, but it's not an ornament, so who cares?

Took it for a test run on the road and only needed one "doodle" of trim on the transmitter. Quality! Much more stable in a straight line, as one would expect.

Learning to love the vocal gears. If it's shouting at me it means it's going fast :P

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Looks absolutely stunning so far - I'm so jealous! Great work on the body too!

If you don't use the tyre decals, any chance I can buy them off you?

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