M06 steering advice.

[Scouser 83]

Hi all, I am in the process of reducing as much slop as possible from the M06 and have got to the steering. I am thinking that aluminum upgrade might be a good idea but there are quite a few to choose from. GPM, Jazrider, Yeah Racing, 3 Racing and of course Tamiya own. 

What are the opinions about the best option? Is there one that stands out as the best or are they all about the same?

Thanks in advance for any help. 

[nbTMM 433]

Not having any experience with the M06, but having experience with aluminium steering upgrades in other cars, I'd say the Tamiya one will be a cut above the rest for one reason: the bearings will be better quality. If the ball bearings have slop, it partially defeats the purpose of upgrading to ball bearing steering. It might be cheaper to buy one of the other brands and replace the bearings with better quality ones if they are garbage, but often they are pressed in tightly to the aluminium part and may take significant effort to extract.

Other than bearings, they are probably all functionally the same. At least that is what I've found with parts for other cars. They copy the attachment points from the Tamiya part, then make their own geometry for the rest of the part (to avoid copyright), which bears no impact on functionality as aluminium parts are rigid.

Having bought aluminium parts from 4 of those manufacturers I'd rank them (in order of most preferred to least)
1. Tamiya
2. GPM
3. Yeah racing
4. Jazrider

GPM and Jazrider are the same company it would seem, however GPM seems to be their premium brand.

[Scouser 83]

Awesome, thank you so much for your reply. I will pick up the Tamiya set. 

[TurnipJF 9192]

I can recommend the Yeah Racing set. It is significantly cheaper than the Tamiya one, yet functionally identical, and even anodised in the same shade of blue as Tamiya parts so that it matches any Tamiya hop-ups you might fit. The bearings supplied seem free of slop, and are easily removed should you want to replace them with better ones.

[TurnipJF 9192]

As fitted to my M-06:

 

[Juggular 4964]

If you want the joy of installing brand new parts, after market parts would make sense. 

If you want good driving, it might not be what you are looking for. (Not that aluminum parts make much difference- so it's okay either way)  I'm more of a mechanical tinkerer, so I like new parts myself.  

To play devil's advocate; servos get stronger and faster. So are radios.  Both are more precise than ever before.  This means every little twitch of your fingers gets transferred directly to the tires.  You would want the car to steer good.  But not necessarily twitch 10 times as it cuts into a corner.  Some play can absorb tiny twitches and smooth them out.  If you have 0.5 degree slop, that's fine---Out of 360 degrees, you have 720 increments.  The finer twitches get absorbed and smoothed out.  But you probably don't want to control down to 0.1 degrees.  That will give you 3600 increments.  Making the steering very sensitive and choppy.  You want to feel the road, but you don't want cars without any suspension, so to speak...

  

Cary Grant would constantly move the steering wheels in old movies, even on a straight line.  That's too much play.  Modern cars can have very sensitive steering if they wanted to.  But they don't.  Because too sensitive a steering will drive people crazy, parts wear out faster, and cars would lose traction easily.  That's why they leave some play.  

I used teflon grease and 850 bearings. That's just me.  We are doing this for fun, and you should do what's enjoyable for you.  If you need to order 850 bearings anyway, and if steering kit comes with bearings and a turn buckle to adjust the length easily, why not?  I'm merely saying if you are expecting performance change, it won't be there much.  I still get aftermarket parts regardless of performance.  

I did not like how the motor was enclosed.  So I installed heatsink, because motors lose magnetism when exposed to heat.  The hotter it runs, the weaker and slower it will get.  It's only a silver can.  It doesn't even get hot. And I've got dozens of spares!  So this is me just wanting some cool machined parts.  

Neodymium magnets are the reason why brushless motors are so strong.  But heat does permanent damage to them.  For those who are running a brushless hot, heatsink might be a good idea.  (I don't speak German, but you only need visual)