DT02-03 Hops Ups, are they worthwhile?

[OzFrog84]

Hi,

Anyone with experience hopping up their DT 03, bearing in mind that it uses the same transaxle as the DT02?

Specifically, my new DT 03 takes turns really nicely. Would I lose some of that smoothness if I were to fit a ball diff?

Are the universal shafts any good? I am really impressed with the quality, feel and tuff look of the plastic coated original dogbones and the universals have dogbones at one end anyway. I have seen pictures of the universal shafts and they look a bit thin and puny. I have universals on my frog and they are a step up from the hex drives they replaced but are nothing special. I reckon you may as well have doggies at both ends.

I can seen the point of the Turnbuckles, so that you can set the camber for changes in ride height. And the stock steering is a pain to adjust as the sockets are really tight on the balls (as you want them to be) and really hard to get of the flex plastic C spindles.

I found the Torque Tuned motor and out of the box 17Tgearing terribly slow, keeping in mind I have only every driven a 30 year old Frog. Fitting a Sports Tuned ($15.00AUD from Banzai delivered) and the spare 19T from my Frog had me grinning from ear to ear. I bought a brand new Team Associated RTR radio set from E Bay for AUD $28. I am using the old JR servo from my Frog mech. Speed control to steer it. I just need to buy a battery for it so my son and I can run both cars at the same time. He thinks the DT03 is his Frog, and I suppose it is.

What batteries and motors are everyone using? I won't buy anything overboard expensive. Whatever I can run with the supplied tble02 including brushless. I like to stick to Tamiya products too.

[GregM]

The only truly necessary hop-up are ball bearings, CVA oil dampers and steel pinions (mod 0.8/32dp, 17T and 19T) if you don't have them already. Heck, the car will even be fine with the friction dampers if set up correctly, which means using only a thin light coating of grease for the rubber tubes in the friction dampers. Of course real oil dampers provide better dampening. The kit supplied alloy pinion wears fast on powerful motors and rip your spur gear in the process.

Tires: There are lots of 2.2" 2WD buggy tires available from many manufacturers, and tires make the biggest change in driving behaviour.
Ball diff: Not worth the hassle, keep the gear diff and fill it with Tamiya AW-grease for more stiffness if you like. There's no slipper clutch available.

Driveshafts: The plastic ones are beefy and can take a beating. The metal ones wear fast at the diff outdrives and axle cups. The universal driveshafts should preferrably be used with hardened diff outdrives.

Turnbuckles: Very useful for quick changing of the steering link lengths which helps adjusting the steering responsiveness! But for camber, well once you've got the camber done with the stock length setting, there's really no need for further setup.

Upper arms: The upper plastic arms aren't the nicest looking, but they are beefy and very sturdy in crashes. Adjustable camber links are more likely to pop off which can be annoying.

Motor heat sink set: There's a very useful DT-02/DT-03 heat sink set by Tamiya which is great for closed can brushed motors (silvercan, Sport Tuned) as well as brushless motors.

Alloy front c-hubs and rear hubs: You can use them when the stock plastic items break, but you don't need them in advance.

Alloy hex hubs (grub screw type): Great for frequent wheel changes at the rear!

Stabilizer bars: Do not care for them.

The DT-02/DT-03 will be great with Brushless motors from 2500 kv up to 3500 kV. More kV will make the car hard to control.

[OzFrog84]

The kit came with the CVAs and I have some bearings on order from Banzai. Much cheaper to buy than in the shops here. But they only sell the low spec Japanese domestic market kits and freight is a deal killer on large items. I am not planning on running it much until I fit the bearings, ideally I would have built it with bearings from the start like I did with my Frog 30 years ago but did the full build in one go when I had the time last Thursday. I have seen the sink sets you mention. I assume the motor mount is needed to space the motor out enough from the gearbox to get the heat sink on?

[GregM]

Exactly.

[waterbok]

Very usefull for the DT02s - 405007 Carson DT-02 Aluminium Front Damper Support

And the DT03 alloy servo mount just looks so BLING!

[Percymon]

I think I have most of the hop-ups on mine, including some TRF shocks !

I wouldn't be in any great rush to swap out kit items during the initial build - some of the hop ups are more bling than function.

metal servo mount might possibly give greater seurity of the servo , but marginal

ditto the alloy rear chassis brace plate under the gearbox - I doubt it does much at all and you barely see it either

anti-wear grease or some thick diff oil in the gear diff means you can tune the diff effect a little, but if yu like it as is then leave alone

turnbuckle kit offers you more adjustment if you want to play around with camber settings

carbon shock tower items are bolt on, and offer more range of angle on the shocks - may be some benefit if you are racing at club level.

motor - the tble-02 can handle sensored brushless motors down to 10.5T, you need a sensor cable as one isn't included with the esc/kit.

driveshafts, the kit ones are chunky (a bit ugly ?) but work surprisingly well, and no point swapping them out until you need to.

The biggest improvements pobably come from just changing the tyres - the Tamiya ones ae generic design, so you can always find somethign better for the conditions you regularly use the buggy in

[alfagta]

hi, i agree with all comments above ,

i have had the UJ shafts on and found they gathered more grass than the kit plastic items so i switched back to the plastic shafts , the UJ's might be better on dirt, clay or astro turf though ,,

i recommend some 5mm ball nuts for the shock mounts as the step screws are a poor fit , even a bit of shrink wrap on the step screws helps reduce the slop a touch , its odd that tamiya didnt include the ball nuts as the shocks have ball socket ends .

i am using a 13.5 t BL motor and have fitted bearings , i also spaced the servo downward by 3mm to get the servo saver as low as possible to minimize bump steer and fitted a steel pinion,

i have ordered the hop ups but i think they are just bling for the most part , but, i will post up any note worthy improvements, if any.,

[OzFrog84]

Would you go with the standard sized wheels or bigger? I can't find any 62/25 front wheels for bearings only for 4wd.

[Percymon]

The 62/25 wheels were designed for the DF-03 / DB-01 series cars which are all 4WD.

GPM Racing have just released their alloy hop up parts for the DT-03, more bling (skid plates, alloy arms, suspension towers etc) http://www.asiatees.com/article?First-Look-at-GPM%27s-Tamiya-DT-03-Performance-Upgrades&id=1009

[alfagta]

i think the kit size is perfect for my uses on grass track ,i just added some mini pin fronts for dry grass and spike fronts for wet grass for a bit more 'on power' steering than the rib kit tyres , but the choice is yours,

have fun

[BigSteve]

i think the kit size is perfect for my uses on grass track ,i just added some mini pin fronts for dry grass and spike fronts for wet grass for a bit more 'on power' steering than the rib kit tyres , but the choice is yours,

have fun

Do you have part numbers for the front pin and spike tyres. I'm looking to change the standard rib tyres.

[alfagta]

i get them from schumacher , http://www.racing-cars.com/sp/category/New_Cars_and_Parts/subcategory/Cougar_KF/templateid/12/searchbox7/1-10_Buggy_Off_Road_Tyres.html , i am using blue compound but i dont race so went for the longer wearing compound ,

[OzFrog84]

What is a part number for the 5mm ball nuts and how to they attach? Ie: do they have self tappers or do you have to drill the arms for metal threads to go through? I think they are included with the carbon fibre damper stays, might be easier to get these.

[OzFrog84]

Oh yes, the GPM parts come in green. I was just thinking last night the car needs a sump guard, so much plastic underneath.

[alfagta]

What is a part number for the 5mm ball nuts and how to they attach? Ie: do they have self tappers or do you have to drill the arms for metal threads to go through? I think they are included with the carbon fibre damper stays, might be easier to get these.

they do indeed come with the hop up stays , ball nuts can be any of the 5mm short type such as 53869 for a bit of bling , my fav's are 58097 but the are never in stock anywhere when i want some , they are brass and last for eons , i use brass ball studs on the rear lower arms but you can use ball nuts with m3x12 grub/set screws which can be had from ebay for very little cost ,

removing slop and fine tuning is nice as is adding some choice hop ups if you really want to push a model ,'and your ability', to drive it as quickly as you can around some sort of track , but if you are a basher it can all be a waste of time ,

i am finding that with very small adjustments and shimming with a pack of m3 shims on the hinge pins (leave a tiny amount of slop) the little dt03 is amazing fun, i totally forget i am driving a £60 kit

a small tip, if you find you are grip rolling , remove the 3x6 spacers , parts X3 in the CVA damper manual , they are there for a reason , to stop the drive line getting bound up , however i have found that the binding doesn't happen to any noticeable level and close inspection after several runs shows no wear or damage at all as a result of the spacers being removed , the motor doesnt get any hotter but the buggy corners far better and allows more aggressive corner entry on high grip surfaces (if that matters to you !)

have fun

[SteveU30]

Just had an email from Asiatees with all the hop ups that GPM have released for this chassis, hardly looks like a Tamiya anymore!

http://www.asiatees.com/article?GPM-Racing-Aluminum-Upgrades-For-DT-03&id=1272

http://youtu.be/E3YOTi8shKE

[GregM]

Cool to see all these anodizing finishes, which sets the DT-03 above the usual blue anodized colours. LOL at those useless alloy arms. Not sure about the usefulness of alloy steering knuckles, I find the regular nylon ones to be tough enough for the job.

In my eyes, the really useful alloy parts would be:

- alloy front c-hubs

- alloy rear hubs

Which have been already once released with the DT-02.

Not sure about the alloy shock towers. If the stock plastic items are tough enough (e.g. tougher than their DT-02 counterparts), then there's hardly a need for an alloy replacement other than looks. However, it's good that the DT-03 upper damper mounts come in a separate mold than the front and rear bulkheads (had been a single combined part on the DT-02). I have no idea if the alloy servo mount brings true advantages over the plastic servo mount. Remember the alloy parts are usually heavier than their plastic counterparts.

Thanks for posting the video!