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ThunderDragonCy

TA06 - First touring car build and first time racing

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I am going to build my first on road car. After building the RR-03RA (search on this forum for it if you have no idea what i am talking about) i got road-curious, and thought about playing with a rwd 1/10th car. I started mucking about with a bespoke design using my laydown transmission i designed for the TRF211, but after years of just blindly using the TA06 diff in buggies i finally had a look at the manual and realised tamiya had done the work for me! 3 gear standup mechanical rear gearbox with belt driven front end. Leave the belts off and voila! RWD toiring car. So i got this

Tamiya TA06 RWD Touring car build by CTE RC

There is a club that races both a Tamiya class for 27t Team Powers Iconic motors and a proper TC class 17.5 brushless blinky. Never raced before, but i have bought parts with an eye to having a go. 

The Toyota shell is getting sold as it looks fiddly as badword! Bought a Zoo Racing Hellcat body as i have never done a race blob shell, i thought it looked interesting and the blurb says it's very stable!

Wheels and tyres also going as the club use Sorex tyres so i will buy preglued race wheels. A smattering of hopups from my bit box and bought especially will be included, but broadly this will be a base build of the basic TA06 kit. 

Probably would have been easier to just get an M08, but that hadn't been released when i was planning, and where is the fun in that? 😉

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Holiday build, so doing a little hear and there. Started this morning with the rear transmission. 

Geared diff.

Tamiya TA06 RWD Touring car build by CTE RC

Built a couple of these now as i have one in my TRF211. Difference here is i am using the kit reinforced plastic gears instead of steel. Trawling through the rctech TA06 thread it seems the gears are fine but i might want the steel cross piece at some point. Starting with 3000 oil as that's what i have. As there aren't any rwd setups to copy it's all a bit suck it and see. 

Tamiya TA06 RWD Touring car build by CTE RC

Oil soaked on orings and gasket. Might need to buy some red ones as these feel pretty hard. 

Screwed it together. The M2 screws were particularly nasty. Couldn't get my allen driver into them but the kit supplied tool worked after a fashion. Assembled the gearbox with kit supplied bearings. Gear case in basic plastic feels pretty flexy and nasty after the carbon reinforced cases i am used to with the TRF buggies. 

Tamiya TA06 RWD Touring car build by CTE RC

All together. Used some stainless hex head bolts from the spares box. 50mm ones overhang the belt outdrive but as i am not using it that's ok! 

Fitted a 48dp 69t spur. More coarse than usual for TC, but I have a 34t pinion in the buggy spares and with this spur i get a final drive ratio around 4.5. Kind low for 17.5 usually, but i am informed this is the gearing most used at the track i hope to run at. 

As an aside - reasons why i don't understand Tamiya number 752: This transmission was released in the late noughties, Tamiya had this in production, and yet in around 2012 when it came to doing a mid motor 2wd TRF buggy, they did a unique, expensive and heavy aluminium 4 gear standup gearbox for the TRF201XM. And yet right here they had a lightweight 3 gear standup ready to go, with just a new layshaft and spur gear cover for a slipper clutch spur gear required. Bizarre. Would have been way more competitive. 

 

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Should be a fun build.  You might need to trim your A10 gearbox brace to not interfere with motor solder tabs, and you might find the bottom battery cover to be a little inconvenient, but it's a neat chassis with the battery and motor centralized.  Eliminating the belts and front diff should leave you with very little friction in the drivetrain.

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Also interested in this build 

I've got 3 ta06's 2 on the shelf and 1 ex club racer. 

I may  have a look at doing this myself, how about a one-way diff in the front to give front brakes? Or is that cheating 🤔

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Nice chassis, I had one in past with a Subaru R&D Sport body kit but never run it.

 

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7 hours ago, svenb said:

Also interested in this build 

I've got 3 ta06's 2 on the shelf and 1 ex club racer. 

I may  have a look at doing this myself, how about a one-way diff in the front to give front brakes? Or is that cheating 🤔

I have wondered about this, but to start with i won't as it defeats one of the objects of the build, namely trying to take advantage of the reduced weight and complexity of not running the 4wd drivetrain. To be honest if i can't get it running nicely i will probably just got 4wd so i can enjoy racing it. TA06 parts are very cheap on rcmart though, so who knows?

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11 hours ago, speedy_w_beans said:

Should be a fun build.  You might need to trim your A10 gearbox brace to not interfere with motor solder tabs, and you might find the bottom battery cover to be a little inconvenient, but it's a neat chassis with the battery and motor centralized.  Eliminating the belts and front diff should leave you with very little friction in the drivetrain.

Thanks. It will be marginal on the brushless motor for sure. I had a good read of your build too 

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Didnt realise you were planning on RWD, looking forward to seeing it run.

Got your zoo shell yet? I just painted a preopard. Its nice, but the poor mould finish shows in the lexan. Im not bothered considering its going to spend alot of time on its roof, just wondered if the other zoo bodies are the same.

What compound tyres are you using?

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28 minutes ago, graemevw said:

Didnt realise you were planning on RWD, looking forward to seeing it run.

Got your zoo shell yet? I just painted a preopard. Its nice, but the poor mould finish shows in the lexan. Im not bothered considering its going to spend alot of time on its roof, just wondered if the other zoo bodies are the same.

What compound tyres are you using?

I got it just before i left for holidays so it's stillin it's packet. Going to order paint whilst i am away. Haven't ordered wheels/tyres yet. I have some cheap rally blocks to put on to run it on my street and get the handling balance somewhere near where i want it before buying slicks. I suspect due to my planned rwd layout i will end up with stickier softer tyres on the rear. 

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The shop i got my zoo body from (im sure its the same you did) recommended rush 32's so thats what i bought. I guess there are many variables though so just have to make a choice and see where to go from there.

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40 minutes ago, graemevw said:

The shop i got my zoo body from (im sure its the same you did) recommended rush 32's so thats what i bought. I guess there are many variables though so just have to make a choice and see where to go from there.

The guy i FB messaged at Broxtowe said they sun sorex 28s or 32s depending on conditions so sounds like you are on the right track. 

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Raining this morning so another few steps. First, rear transmission to chassis

20190730_121143

The kit A parts seems to be made from a stiffer, harder plastic than the basic ABS parts. I don't think its rei forced, but it feels good and stiff. As a result i tapped all the holes because even this basic kit uses machine screws, not self tappers. I run the tap 2 or 3 turns to allow easy threading then leave some of the hole untapped so the screw bites and stays in. All the screws are JIS head, and there are a LOT of M3x8 countersink head so i am going to order a load of stainless hex drive head versions for replacing these when i get home. 

You might notice some blue bling? These are Yeah Racing 1D/XD inner blocks to give 4 deg toe in with the supplied plastic 1D rear block. I learnt this from @qatmix brilliant blog on TRF sudpension blocks over on thercracer.com. Have a read if you want to know more

https://www.thercracer.com/2017/01/tamiya-suspension-mount-ultimate.html?m=0

4 deg toe in is more than you would use in 4wd usually, but should hopefully make the rear end super planted wirh more traction. The kit supplied 1A/XA parts allow for 2.5 and 1.5 toe in so i have a few options.

Transmission installed 

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As mentioned above i will probably have to trim the left brace for solder tab clearance, but i will wait for motor installation before doing anything hasty. 

Onto the front

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This is kind of place holder as i picked up the Yeah Racing alloy steering kit from rcmart for about 3 dollars, but it hasn't arrived yet. I wasn't planning on this hop up apart from seeing the silly price when ordering something else, but i am glad now as these parts are basic ABS plastic and pretty flexy. Kit is supplied with 730 bearings for the arms, but 630 size bushings for the posts so that's another thing to order too. Turnbuckles seem nice, if a little tight. 

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1 hour ago, graemevw said:

Are you going to be able to get to that left turnbuckle once its built?

Good point. Just built as per manual, but i will flip that. 

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Suspension today. Finished the front bulkhead. Do diffs or belts, do this is just an empty shell to carry the feont suspension. The bracket on top is for the regular shock tower. All the plastics are the nice stiff reinforced type so they should work well

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I decided to go for the standard suspension because this is going to initally be rwd, and i want as much weight on the front axle as possible. The stock configuration of most TA06 variants is Inboard Front Suspension (IFS) which actuates the shocks mounted horizontally on top of the battery box, via rockers and turnbuckle shafts. It would be interesting to build, but i can't imagine getting the setup sorted would be that easy with the added complexity of a rocker peojgression rate on the shocks, and the weight is quite a long way back whicg i don't want. The final TA06-R abandoned the IFS and it died there, so there can't have been much in it. 

Onto the rear suspension, and another hopup/addition in the TA06 stabilizer set. I want to give myself as nany setup options as possible to get this running nicely, and adding these at the build stage is certainly easier than retrofitting! 

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With the arms installed it sits nicely. You have to be very careful with the grubs screws on the mounts to hold it in place without causing undue restriction if movement. It picks up on the shock mount holes on the opposite side of the supplied reversible arms. If you go to the later TRF arms you have to use the TRF418 stabilizer set to pick up off a different location. Starting with medium stiffness rear. 

All the spacers and rod ends are plastic. The most clear money saving so far along with the suspension blocks. The rear 1D solid block isn't even reinforced plastic, so i can see this getting an alloy upgrade soon. Although i don't have thrm with me i have plenty of the flourine coated steel suspension shaft ends at home from my TRF buggy spares, so thry need to be installed later too. Sone aluminium spacers for the arms would be good too, but i will leave the plastic ones for now.

Assembly of the rear uprights seems to be needlessly complex! 

20190731_113250

The uprights thrmselves are nice reinforced plastic, but the part on top isn't. It take a smqll grub screw and teo large screw to hold all this together where i can see a long grub screw, spacer and ball nut would do the same job. Any ideas why this is like this and whether i should ditch it? 

Got it all together. I used rubber sealed wheel bearings instead of the kit ones for longevity. Turnbuckles in the kit all round is a nice touch, and showd that even this basic TA06 kit is a cut above your TT02s

20190731_115632

 

 

 

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Smart move avoiding the IFS.  Tamiya did it well with the TA05/TB03/FF03, but the standard TA06 IFS rocker angles are not great (see the Exotek EX06 conversion and improved rocker mounts).  Keep the parts in case you ever want  to run a low-nose body shell like an NSX, but otherwise the standard damper setup is just fine.

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Onto the front end, which meant another trip to the back of the manual for the standard shock arrangement. Installed the arms are front anti roll bar. Went for soft at the front compared to medium rear, which should reduce understeer. It's all have waving until i run it, but i am leaning to towards setting it up with front end grip in mind. 

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One thing to not it that the fasteners for the anti roll bar don't appear to be in the kit or with the roll bar. There are plenty of spare M3 screws so it isn't a problem there, but i was happily using grub screws out of the kit screw bags unyil i realised i didn't have any more for the front c hubs. I had a couple in the spares tub i brought with me, but something to bear in mind if you are building one of these. 

Speaking of c hubs, here is another departure from the kit. 

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Caster will add front end grip and make the steering slightly less twitchy on turn in, both of which are good things here. Interestingly i noticed that both the TRF419 and TA07 use 4 deg caster c hubs as standard and the TB05 even uses the 6 degree version. Here they are installed and you can see the angle on them. 

20190802_154828

These are reinforced plastic and are noticeably stiffer than even the harder plastic something the kit parts are made from. The knuckles appear to be basic ABS and are quite flexy in comparison. I will stick with them for now but at least the reinforced version is only a few quid if i need them stiffer/stronger. 

I put the shock towers on but they feel very flexy. The reinforced plastic version was one of the super cheap parts i ordered from rc mart the other week. Clearly TA06 parts were on clearout as i got the alloy steering set, the reinforced J parts (towers plus some other parts) and lightweight idler shaft fir under 8 bucks! I only got them because they were so cheap, but i am glad i did now. 

Next was servo installation. I went straight for a hi torque servo saver to reduce slop in the steering. You need the longer of the two arm options

20190802_172745

Installing the servo turned into a right palava. There are spacers to put behind the servo mounts "as required" but it doesn't say why. I installed with no spacers and bolted everything up and the servo saver touched the side of the battery tray preventing movement of the servo. Took it all apart, loose assembled with the thicker spacers, looked ok, still touched when all tightened up. Gah! All apart again, added the small spacers and all clears. 

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The servo mounts themselves are fairly nasty flexy basic plastic. The posher kits used reinforced plastic versions, but 2 sprues of reinforced N parts for just two plastic bits will cost about £25! GPM used to make alloy ones but i can't find them anywhere. Anyone got any ideas on an alternative? Thry look like fairly regular ar servo stays to be honest, but i don't know for sure. Would be nice to get something i bit more solid in there. 

Thanks! 

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The aluminium servo stays for a RM01 fit nicely, I may have some of the reinforced parts in my spares pile, I'll check later. 

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Shocks! I am sticking with the CVA for now, but with some refinements: I bought a job lot of TRF parts a while bqck for my buggies, but these white TRF 3 hole pistons were included. Given how small the holes are i figured they must be for on road. The kit comes with the nice red o rings i put in all my CVA shocks. 

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Unlike the black pistons these fit tightly between the e clips with no need for shims, which is nice. I had a search on petitrc and Jimny Wright - one of the old TRF USA drivers - has an asphalt TA06 setup on there. 3 hole pistons with 40wt oil, which according to Core RC is the same as their 500cst oil, so in it goes. I am starting out with same weight oil all round. 

For springs i bought the 53163 tuning spring set. The kit springs feel way stiffer than even the stiffest of these, so i am going for the tunibg springs straight away. Jimmy's setup is yellow medium both ends, but as my car doesn't have a front diff or drive shafts, i went for soft red front. 

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They needed the middle thickness preload clip from the shock sprues to take up the slack. With the kit droop screw settings (droop screw sticking out 2mm front and rear) i had to compress the shocks a little to install them. 

Onto the final run in to what i can do whilst i am away. Bumper, body mounts, aerial boss and transponder bracket installed. Battery door fitted. Some spare rally blocks destined for my RS200 thrown on to see it on wheels. I need to buy some appropriate Sorex racing wheels and slicks when i get home. Looks great! 

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I popped a battery in and measured the ride height and its 10mm front and 11mm rear. Obviously there is about 300 grams of ESC and motor to add, and rally blocks are bigger than racing slicks, but given most race cars run at about 5mm and this didn't even compress off the droop screws, do i need to be looking at shortening the shocks straight off the bat? I could remove the preload clip and put an o ring inside and still have the springs running no preload? 

 

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@ThunderDragonCy, just a quick comment on plastics...

You can always tell what plastic resins are used for parts based on the resin code molded into the sprue or the major part (chassis, body) itself.

  • >ABS< -- Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, usually used on DT/DF/M/TT/CC/CW parts and some colored hard bodies except for bumpers and body posts.  Hard but brittle.
  • >PA< -- Polyamide (Nylon), usually used for bumpers and body posts.  Soft but impact-resistant.
  • >PA-GF< -- Polyamide (Nylon) with glass fiber reinforcement, usually used on DN/DB/FF/TA/TB/CR parts except for bumpers and body posts.  Harder and somewhat impact-resistant.
  • >PA-CF< -- Polyamide (Nylon) with carbon fiber reinforcement, usually used on R-spec/MS/TRF vehicles.  Even harder but can be brittle, especially C-hubs.
  • >PC< -- Polycarbonate, under the trade name Lexan, usually used for bodies and some cockpits/driver figures.  More impact-resistant than another >PC<, acrylic.
  • >PET< -- Polyethylene Terephthalate, sometimes used for cheap Lexan-like bodies.  Not as impact-resistant.
  • >POM< -- Polyoxymethylene (Acetal), under the trade name Delrin, sometimes used for shock pistons, servo savers, spur gears, etc.  Good for low-friction parts.
  • >PS< -- Polystyrene, used for many hard bodies in white.

I suspect many of the parts in your kit are >PA-GF<, with the bumper/body post parts being >PA< and the optional C-hubs >PA-CF<.  If you still have the sprues, look for the molded-in tabs with the resin codes.  The chassis tub should have a code molded in somewhere too.

Anyhow, from observing the resin codes for various parts in a kit, you can get some ideas about what sort of mechanical tradeoffs designers were making.  It's also good to know the material as it affects painting/finishing steps.

FWIW.

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I have a TA06 which I used in Belgian Tamiya Up to 2018 season. Now it is sitting on the shelf doing nothing. First I thought converting it to FF03, but that doesn’t look straightforward at all. So today I thought about the RWD possibility and came accros this topic so I’m 100% following and courious about your experience!

Not sure if I want it to be a classic RWD rallycar, or a fast prototype/gt kind of car.

What about weight balance, what would be best for RWD?

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42 minutes ago, HaCo81 said:

I have a TA06 which I used in Belgian Tamiya Up to 2018 season. Now it is sitting on the shelf doing nothing. First I thought converting it to FF03, but that doesn’t look straightforward at all. So today I thought about the RWD possibility and came accros this topic so I’m 100% following and courious about your experience!

Not sure if I want it to be a classic RWD rallycar, or a fast prototype/gt kind of car.

What about weight balance, what would be best for RWD?

At the moment i don't know what the balance will be naturally. I plan on running a shorty lipo so i can move it around to see what is best. I have a RWD rally car already, based on a modified TRF201 (search Project RR-03Ra and you will find it) but despite being rear motor it has a very front end grip handling balance which i haven't managed to move rearwards with setup (yet). I am hoping this will be a little more neutral to start with.

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