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Tizer

Tizer's TB Evo 3 Surikarn build

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It's been a long time since I've posted a build thread on any forum. I do love to document my builds though and I think this seems like a great one to pick that back up with.

Before I explain the build, let me tell the story of how I ended up with these cars.

The first one is a funny story. A few years ago I spotted someone selling a complete joblot of cars on a local auction website. It caught my eye because it included a bodyshell I build years ago when I first started RC drifting; a pearl orange Nissan R34 Z-tune body that I've since sold to a friend. Turns out that friend sold it on together with one of his Surikarns to a guy not really interested in RC's and it changed hands a couple times after. I got lucky because the guy I bought it from didn't really know what he had so I ended up with a bargain of a deal. Plus I got my old Nissan body back B)

After inspecting the Surikarn chassis it turns out it wasn't 100% complete and also not in the best condition. One of the previous owners hacked up the upper and lower deck, probably to gain some extra flex. This sucks because the Surikarn originally actually came with a thicker chassis plate (3mm vs. 2.5mm) than the 'normal' TB evo 3 to stiffen it up; An upgrade now completely ruined.

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It sat on the shelf for a long time until late last year when I decided I finally wanted to tackle the restoration of the Surikarn and pulled it apart. I was looking at buying a bag of brand new aluminium parts for it, but the auction went crazy and ended up more expensive than a perfect condition complete car I saw in another auction that ended a couple of times without any bids whatsoever... So I just bought the other car! That's how I got the second one.

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I was still looking for a new bottom deck for the first car and bought a Square 3mm upgrade bottom deck. A day later I spotted an ever better upgrade, a complete K's Model Racing Factory carbon conversion for the TB Evo 3! So now I have two sets of upgraded carbon :D

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The plan is to use the best parts of both cars together with the K's conversion to build, in my opinion, the ultimate TB Evo 3 :) 

Since the second car came with TRF418 suspension, I'll swap over the suspension parts from the old car onto the new one and maybe use whatever's left to build myself a TB Evo 3 Surikarn runner. Or maybe the TRF418 suspension can go on one of my TRF414's and I can sell the second Surikarn. We'll see.

Now for some more pretty pictures of the car and parts:

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I started of by cleaning up the old car in my ultrasonic cleaner. Most of the plastic bits came out really nice. 

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Fun fact..

Did you know K's Model Racing Factory / Kai used to be (just like Tech Racing) designing and/or manufacturing some of the more special Tamiya prototypes or limited edition models? This is why I'm so excited about finding this rare K's Factory conversion kit. ;)

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Great looking chassis, I have one and it's one of my favourites the red parts really make it. 

I think it's the only touring car to come with titanium screws as standard. 

 

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13 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

This is just lovely. What's the story behind the red parts? Why did tamiya go away from blue for this car? 

Thanks! Tamiya did it as a limited edition release to celebrate Surikarn Chaidajsuriya's victory in the 2002 IFMAR World Championship and a year later his victory in the TITC. I think they just did it to make it more special. The regular TBevo3 wasn't blue anyway either, but grey. The TRF414M and some later option/upgrade parts for the TBevo3 were the first Tamiya chassis to get the signature TRF blue.

They also did the whole range of TRF tools (and toolbox) in red. I have the TRF setup board in red to go with this car, but I'd love to have the toolset as well someday.

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I love the red, very unique! 

I picked up a very lightly used EVOIII for all of $60. Rear diff was blown, otherwise it was nearly mint. Rebuilt the diff with M05 ball diff parts and it's like new again. Still a great car! No fancy red though, it is indeed all gray. 

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Are both the Square & Ks Model plates 3mm?

T retailed both the EvoIII 2.5mm & 3mm chassis plates as SparePart or HopupOption.

Just a headsup that T also made 2 different plastic bumper mounts to suit the 2 chassis thicknesses :wacko: but they only retailed thinner one as SparePart.

Have only seen the thicker bumper part in Surikarn kit.

If you intermix a thicker chassis onto a normal car you'll get a dangerous ridge exposing the leading edge of chassis plate. (& vice versa, although don't know anybody who's put thinner plate onto a surikarn.)

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18 hours ago, WillyChang said:

Are both the Square & Ks Model plates 3mm?

T retailed both the EvoIII 2.5mm & 3mm chassis plates as SparePart or HopupOption.

Just a headsup that T also made 2 different plastic bumper mounts to suit the 2 chassis thicknesses :wacko: but they only retailed thinner one as SparePart.

Have only seen the thicker bumper part in Surikarn kit.

If you intermix a thicker chassis onto a normal car you'll get a dangerous ridge exposing the leading edge of chassis plate. (& vice versa, although don't know anybody who's put thinner plate onto a surikarn.)

Good to know! I have a spare TRF414 bumper mount. I wonder is that's different too. Would be nice to 3D print spare bumpermounts for the Surikarn then. 

The Square deck is 3mm, the K's I haven't checked yet. It will not be a runner anyway, or maybe only carefully. 

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I started assembling the chassis yesterday with the new K's chassis set. There's a lot of parts included in the K's conversion with some options to add extra stiffners to the chassis as well as a TRF414 transponder holder. The transponderholder I have, but the stiffners I need to find a sollution for because I would like to add them.

Before screwing all the parts to the chassis I layed them all out so you guys can have a good look :)

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I will update with pictures of the build car soon. It won't be finished yet though, as I want to add a few more upgrades and little bits to make it look more pretty. I think this car deserves to get electrics installed as well for the full look.

 

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Spend a few hours here and there in the evenings last week to start assembling the new Kai chassis. 

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There's a few things to figure out.

First of all if I want to keep some of the clearly used parts, or make it look like it's brand new. I always like the 'patina' or racing history character of used chassis', but since I'm adding so many new parts I'm not sure. For now I'll keep them on the car.

Second is if I will replace the screws. It's super cool that Tamiya released this kit with titanium screws as standard, but with this conversion I had to swap some out with different sizes and there's also a couple that are almost stripped. I'm thinking of maybe adding gold plated screws? My old red/black Yokomo DRB looked amazing with the gold screws.

Last there's the dampers.. Originally the Surikarn came with the grey fluorine coated TRF dampers, but the car I bought in Japan came with the more modern ribbed TRF dampers in all red (not sure if they are original Tamiya or maybe re-anodized?) I like originality, but I also like custom parts and the red looks pretty good. What to do?

Overall it's already starting to look pretty darn good B)B)

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What do you guys think so far?

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I think your right about the dampers being re anodized, the red trf damper set hop up has grey anodizing on the threaded section. Either the damper parts have been replaced with 49313 and 49314 or they've had the blue stripped off and done in red. 

Looking smart anyway 👍

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As the cilinders are red too, I think they are re-anodized. At least the cilinders are anyway. I do have some red spring retainers I could add to it :)

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On 5/10/2019 at 1:32 PM, OldSchoolRC1 said:

I love the red, very unique! 

I picked up a very lightly used EVOIII for all of $60. Rear diff was blown, otherwise it was nearly mint. Rebuilt the diff with M05 ball diff parts and it's like new again. Still a great car! No fancy red though, it is indeed all gray. 

Out of interest, what M05 parts did you use to repair the diff? 

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I used Tamiya 54194.   The rear diff had no internals when I received it for whatever reason. Just the outdrives and the gear. IIRC I used the balls, thrust washer, long screw, spring and capture nut - basically the guts that hold it together.   

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Quick update on this car. I've finally made a descision and went for the all-red dampers. It's less original to the car, but it just looks better. 

I took the dampers apart and gave them a wash in the ultrasonic. I reassembled them with only a bit of oil as I won't be driving the car anyway. I still need to dig up my red spring retainers for this chassis :) 

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The one thing I still really want to fix is the front bumper. Unfortunately both of my donor chassis have a scratched up bumper and a normal TBevo3 bumper is slightly different. I had a TRF414 bumper brand new, but that's ones different too 

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Recently while I was ordering some other really rare TB evo bits (you'll see those later I'm sure) I also got some wheels I figured would be perfect for the Surikarn. They are a limited edition set of dish wheels in black. Not sure what's so special about them as they are just black, but it's a cool detail :) 

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All put together it now looks like this. Still needs electronics, not sure which ones yet, and maybe some extra red bits and rear bodyposts.

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Good news! I aquired electronics for this chassis :D

I managed to find a very nice condition Peak Vantage Surikarn Edition motor and also a Tamiya/KoPropo TRF2002 ESC. I think that combination will look killer on the TB Evo 3. I will post some pictures soon. The motor is installed, but the ESC is still on it's way from Japan and will probably be delivered in the coming few weeks along with some nicer rims. I got the carbon fibre reinforced Tamiya dish wheels, which will match a little better in colour I think.

I think I'm closing in on the end of my TB Evo 3 build. Maybe a few parts left to do such as HEROS carbon fibre stabilizer holders and getting some RC926 red aluminium front and rear hubs. Any other suggestions maybe? :)

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Nice, almost forgotten about this build! 

I'm a bit jealous of the trf2002 esc😕

Is it new? 

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If memory serves, 10-15yrs ago have seen threaded alloy shock bodies and parts like caps in a rainbow of colours being sold by some 3rd party - I think it was Tech Racing or Square. These bits looked identical to TRF shock parts, always wondered if they escaped from same factory ;) 

Never did get around to buying any of them NIP to compare with genuine TRF, although some of my cars that arrived preloved do bear coloured bits that I've never found in TRF catalogue. (Then again TRF might make some special bits for Japan sake that never got exported, who knows)

Reanodising TRF shocks IMHO is not a great idea if you have to burn off the original colour then polish it hard to restore the cratered surface - won't you lose some material & accuracy? 

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2 hours ago, WillyChang said:

 

Reanodising TRF shocks IMHO is not a great idea if you have to burn off the original colour then polish it hard to restore the cratered surface - won't you lose some material & accuracy? 

I remove anodising with oven cleaner. 

Leaves the surface nice and smooth 👍

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Re-anodising always messes with the tolerances a bit unfortunately. Luckilly this chassis will just sit on the shelf, or if it ever gets run I can easily swap the shocks. I just want to build it to look like a display piece that an old shop might've had to promote all the exotic upgrades.

It's very possible that it might have been Tech or Square with the shockbodies. I've seen multiple before too.

@svenb

The TRF2002 is not new, it's been used. But I found it very cheap and it looks to be in good condition. I also got myself the KO/TRF Volac, a KO VFS-2, a KO VFS-2000 and a Keyence Flash recently to finally get some nice period correct electronics for my touringcars.

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Time for another update before this topic completely dissappears into the archives :D 

I spent a little bit of time figuring out the electronics for the chassis. I got a KO servo and 302F carbonfibre print receiver from a friend to use for this build. I have the Surikarn motor in it and a TRF2002 ESC. Now I just need to solder everything in place.
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I also replaced the ltd. black wheels with the even nicer carbonfibre reinforced Tamiya dish wheels
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When searching for other things I came across my red TRF damper parts NIP,  so I opened the packages and installed the red spring retainers and top mounts
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And here's the TRF2002 looking nice in the chassis
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Lastly I scored an original manual from Japan to complete the car a little bit more. Now I just need a box.
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