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ThunderDragonCy

Grasshopper (DT0)3 - Adventures in getting back into RC - Now with Proline truck shell

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6 minutes ago, gizard said:

I am wondering if this body would work well as a basher on my Tundra. Can you advise what the centre wheel arch to centre wheel arch distance is please?

This is the body, and all the sizes qnd specs are quoted. Wheelbase is said to be 273mm

https://www.prolineracing.com/bodies/2017-ford-f-150-raptor-clear-body-pro-mt.asp

There are plenty of shorter bodies in this width, but also some wider, longer onea. Proline quote width and wheelbase forvall of them.

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@Man1c M0nk3y I have just checked the steering clearance and it's possible the inner knobbles of the tyre might just clip the inboard edge of the front wheel arches, but it's not by much. I suspect it will be fine in practice, but I'll let you know once I have run it.

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Just gave it a quick run in the street. It did catch the tyre at full lock, but a little bit of fiddling with the end points and toe adjustment (it was massively toe out on one side somehow) and it's fine now. I might trim the arch away a little bit if it keeps catching on rough ground.

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40 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Just gave it a quick run in the street. It did catch the tyre at full lock, but a little bit of fiddling with the end points and toe adjustment (it was massively toe out on one side somehow) and it's fine now. I might trim the arch away a little bit if it keeps catching on rough ground.

Thanks for the added feedback. I never ran it. Just static playing around and if memory serves it was full lock and compression. 

Didn’t doubt it would be solvable. Thought I’d mention/ask anyway just in case you had any weird handling and it didn’t immediately come to mind. 

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Ran it properly today. I am SO happy with it! It looks just prefect tearing about in the park. Had to cut the trailing edge of the front wheelarches, just opened out the radius of the arch by about 5mm and tapered it in. 

2019-06-22_06-02-02

 

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Couple of little tweaks and nearly an hours' running in the park tonight

20190702_205057

20190702_205128

Cut up my old (and surplus) TRF211 Azarashi shell to fit with some velcro on the sides of the tub as a chassis cover. Worked perfectly with no grass at all inside the chassis despite it being fresh cut, rooster tails of grass cuttings. Second thing was installing the wing mount and sticking two layers of soft foam using double sided tape. I cut the foam up from a padded box one of my lipos came in. This touches the load bed underside and i have to push the shell down and compress it to get the rear body pins in. Worked really well to stabilse the body and stop rattling. 

Was fun driving tonight, but it was pretty big on the power slides! The grass was a little damp, but i think it's time for new rear tyres. 

Last little thing - turned thetiming down to zero in the esc. The motor had been getting really hot previously, but it was good tonight and the truck was still plenty fast! 

Also did a thing

 

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@ThunderDragonCy I absolutely love your Raptor shell it's class ! I am starting to look for a replacement to my Stadium Thunder shell that is not too keen on the track abuse (mostly my bad driving and setup experiments). This might just fit the bill !

Do you know the height and width of the Schumacher Stagger Rib ? It seems to fit nicely on the Stadium/Blitzer/Aqroshot narrow front rims which is not the case of most 2.2 Truck tires which as often too wide for that rim and 1/10 rear 4wd Buggy that would be the width have an outer diam that is way too small. So is the Stagger Rib that holly unicorn ?

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5 hours ago, Balgaroth said:

@ThunderDragonCy I absolutely love your Raptor shell it's class ! I am starting to look for a replacement to my Stadium Thunder shell that is not too keen on the track abuse (mostly my bad driving and setup experiments). This might just fit the bill !

Do you know the height and width of the Schumacher Stagger Rib ? It seems to fit nicely on the Stadium/Blitzer/Aqroshot narrow front rims which is not the case of most 2.2 Truck tires which as often too wide for that rim and 1/10 rear 4wd Buggy that would be the width have an outer diam that is way too small. So is the Stagger Rib that holly unicorn ?

Thanks! You will have more options with you blitzer as it has a much shorter wheelbase than my dt03. It is a dual cab shell which gives 273mm wheekbase vs 289 for the chassis. There is loads of choice from proline and j concepts of 1/10 scale monster truck shells which are narrow enough to fit between the wheels on our chassis. Just check the wheelbase when you are browsing. 

As for the tyres, they are that unicorn. They work great, and i don2even glue them on the rims. With the foam inserts they are spot on. 

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On 3/30/2017 at 10:07 PM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Might have been a little rash about the kit tyres being garbage......

Giving the kit rib fronts a go on gravel. Might have been a bit rash about these tyres - they're ace on the loose surface

Popped down to the local gravel car park to run a couple of packs through the grasshopper. Having seen most of the serious 2wd guys seem to use some variation on rib fronts I stuck the Racing Fighter deep rib fronts onto some spare front wheels and gave them a go after running my mini pins for a few minutes. On loose surface these tyres are really impressive. More bite than the mini pins to the point where the whole balance got pretty oversteer. More tyre testing to be done. Think I need some deeper tread rears to balance out these fronts.

Looks like you are on the moon in that picture.

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Seems a very very interesting topic regarding DT03 mods, will take time to go through it.
Thanks a lot for all the information here and like how you tried all these different bodies ;)

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Seems a few people have been using this thread as a resource for their own DT03 builds, which is awesome! It's exactly what i wanted when i started it. However, it's quite long and invloved and i have ended up answering the same question multiple times recently - namely What are the worthwhile first hopups? So, i thought i would post here for posterity. 

Minimum hop ups to make the DT03 useable and fun

Bearings throughout.

Steel pinion. Tamiya do both 17t and 19t. Kit aluminum pinion is 17t. If you are using truck wheels stick with 17t almost regardless of motor used. 17t gearing is 9.33 which is pretty tall wirh big wheels. If running buggy wheels if you are running brushless, anything down to 10.5/4000kv ish get the 19t for 8.2 gearing. 

If you have bought the Racing Fighter, unless you run in sand the front tyres are junk. They don't work on any surface other than soft sand. The Neo Fighter fronts are ok for hard surfaces. Personally i would ditch them for Schumacher cut stagger slim in yellow compound or Proline Prism 3 compound for any kind of offroad running. Rears are fine for offroad until they wear out, then get something appropriate for the surface. I like Schumacher Mini Spike yellow for grass/astro, and Proline Wedge are great too.

For truck wheels (aqroshot or fitting blitzer wheels to a buggy once you have the mad bull steering knuckles), Schumacher stagger rib truck fronts and mini spike or Vee2 rears. Apparently Proline Dirt Hawgs are great too, but i haven't tried them. Don't forget to buy foams for the Schumacher tyres, all except the slim 2wd cut staggers which don't need foams. 

Suspension - the kit cvas are great, but the rear springs are way too soft. I got the DF03 spring set 53927 and use the medium gold rear springs. Kit fronts are generally fine. I don't know if the DT02/3 spring set blue hard springs are stiff enough or any good at all. Sorry. If you don't want the full spring set, get Core Rc CR188 2.6 springs. They fit straight on. 

On the dampers, if you to tune some more just buy 50601 and 9805917 rods, some 2mm e clips and red o rings and fit the 1 hole pistons off your kit parts trees. 

Kimbrough medium servo saver or Tamiya 51000 high torque servo saver. 

All of that will make your DT03 super fun to drive. Anything after that is window dressing, but it's fun 😉

 

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Thanks for all your advice. This thread was one of the reasons I went for a Racing Fighter. 

Planning my next project which is a a Kamtec Baja Bug shell for a truggy makeover. 

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This just popped up as reminder. 4 years ago and my first new rc and on the start of the puzzling, modifications and adventure.

Note there's already early attempts at 3D printed parts with my Grassopper/Hornet style bumper, which never survived more than one hit! My first hop up tyres with schumacher mini pins. They were ace, but wore out fast. That really was a handsome shell. I miss my funky GH2 shells. 

 

FB_IMG_1616228700304.jpg

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I learned a lot from you and this build, I got into it a little later than you and this was inspirational and educational! 

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8 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

This just popped up as reminder. 4 years ago and my first new rc and on the start of the puzzling, modifications and adventure.

Note there's already early attempts at 3D printed parts with my Grassopper/Hornet style bumper, which never survived more than one hit! My first hop up tyres with schumacher mini pins. They were ace, but wore out fast. That really was a handsome shell. I miss my funky GH2 shells. 

 

FB_IMG_1616228700304.jpg

Haha I bought a GH2 shell on your recommendation. Still sits in a box. As for the dt-03 it now does too as it has gone through 2 chassis and 1 gearbox, not to mention how many stub axles. So I have a dt-02 sandviper awaiting build 

 

To be fair though it is / was the best handling 2wd chassis in my inventory, so I wonder what the dt-02 will be like if I get around to building it!

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@gizardThe GH2 shell might sit easier on the DT02 actually. Sorry to hear you broke tge 03 so much. Were you jumping a lot? It never seened to jump that well at the track (and i am rubbish at it so i don't like doing it). Mine is still on all original chassis qnd gearbox. Only replaced the rear arms because they were sloppy. 

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29 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

@gizardThe GH2 shell might sit easier on the DT02 actually. Sorry to hear you broke tge 03 so much. Were you jumping a lot? It never seened to jump that well at the track (and i am rubbish at it so i don't like doing it). Mine is still on all original chassis qnd gearbox. Only replaced the rear arms because they were sloppy. 

To be fair I don't think 'I' have actually broken it - more my sons. combination of sometimes 3s battery (although I always turn down the EPA 15-30% depending on who is using it. did have aluminium arms all over it which makes it heavier - cartwheels don't do it any favours - that is what probably did the stub axles repeatedly and the gearbox casing once. but parts are relatively available though (obvious current issues aside). I seem to have trouble remembering which bit's i have changed from standard - ie the GF-01 long axles etc. to cope with the wider hexes. I should perhaps try and keep the DT-02 fairly standard - and as you say the GH2 shell should fit better. - I think some of the reason the car handles / rides so well comes from the longer wheelbase - I believe flipping the front arms on the DT-02 is doable. 

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Just found this tread after finishing my stock (plus bearings) DT-03. Loads of great info on possible improvements over the coming months! Thanks for this great resource Thunder as it will help those of us returning to the hobby after many decades away! Off to see if my battery is charged yet to start tuning on that understeer! 

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2 hours ago, Misterp180 said:

Just found this tread after finishing my stock (plus bearings) DT-03. Loads of great info on possible improvements over the coming months! Thanks for this great resource Thunder as it will help those of us returning to the hobby after many decades away! Off to see if my battery is charged yet to start tuning on that understeer! 

Happy to help. It's exactly what I wanted for this. Welcome!

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On 6/16/2020 at 8:49 AM, ThunderDragonCy said:

Tamiya 51000 high torque servo saver. 

Hi @ThunderDragonCy! I've just come across this thread, it's fantastic! Really appreciate all the advice shared on my build thread, but have really enjoyed reading your development journey and set up tips here too. I'm very tempted by the Aqroshot wheels and tyres you mention, the Mad Bull ones I've fitted make the buggy fantastic fun, but the tyres aren't great. They're brill for drifty action on grass, but not much else!

Question about the above mentioned servo saver - I bought one for my build, but couldn't work out how to fit it so that it would match the set up of the kit servo saver. I wasn't sure which of the bits to use from the kit, or orientation to mount. Do you have any photos or guidance here please? Thanks!

 

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@B.RAD Not sure i have a picture, but i don't remember it being tricky. Maybe installed the ball screws on the inboard side because there isn't a stepped arm option in 51000 like the kit item. Just play around until something fits. 

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First time driving this in over a year at the Tamiya Junkies track day on Saturday. 

FB_IMG_1622620323714

Only change was brand new Dart yellow rear tyres, and handling wise it was really good and fun. However, it did confirm what i have suspected for a while and that is that it's overpowered. It was pulling wheelies on full throttle down the back straight, which i hate. It's got one the "blue bottle" 3450kv 10.5 brushless motors off ebay on a 10bl120. There's no riming or punch on the esc and it's still too much really. When you're not charging about open spaces, power just isn't what you need. It's odd because it seemed to suit the 3300kv speed passion 13.5it used to run, which in theory isn't much change. I turned the throttle down to 90% on the Tx and it was pretty much spot on. I have the speed passion in my rally car so i am going to put that back in and see. Hopefully that will get it back to a sweet spot, but it's such a fun truck. I / the truck still can't jump for toffee, but everywhere else on the track it was great. 

FB_IMG_1622620317323

 

 

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Spent a bit of tinkering time yesterday doing some motor chess with the soldering iron. RR-03Ra is now running a Torque Tuned through its tamiya ESC, and the DT03 got its Speed Passion 13.5. Both cars seem much happier with less punchy motors. The 10.5 blue bottle is on ebay if anyone wants a fast motor. 

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