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Alexei

TT-02 RWD conversion

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after some surfing on the net, i noticed some conversion kits for the Tamiya TT-02 that converts it to rear wheel drive. i have never had an RWD, so i am a littel curious about RWD RC cars. i got my eyes on a conversion kit by Yeah Racing (this one) but i dont know how well it works, and if i need other stuff. saw stuff like a gyro on some RWD drift cars around the net, but im not sure what the gyro is doing.

so my questions is:

1) anyone here tried the Yeah Racing conversion, and does it work?

2) do i need other stuff than the conversion kit?

3) what is the gyro for? sounds like something for a helicopter or some kind of stabilisator.

4) is the regular TT-02 chassis fine for this conversion or would it be better with a upgraded chassis like a Type-S?

5) would it work only with drift? i mean, i could see myself putting some regular grip wheels and drive around too when not drifting. 

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I'm not a drift guy, so take it with a grain of salt.  

You don't need any conversion kit to make TT02 into a RWD.  Just take out the center shaft.  

1) That Yeah racing kit looks like it maximizes the steering angle. 

3) Generally, a gyro in the receiver gives a yawing motion feedback (to borrow an airplane lingo).  For example, you turn the steering 50% to the starboard.  Your TT02's steering angle is 30 degrees to the right.  So 50% should translate to 15 degree turn in real life.  But your TT02 is on gravel.  You meant the car to turn right 15 degrees, but it only turned 10 degrees.  Does the car know this? 

Only if it has a gyro.  Then the gyro knows that the car didn't turn enough.  15 degree steering only generated 10 degrees of actual turn.  It must give 7.5 degrees of more steering, to achieve 5 more degrees.  That's what gyro does.  If you don't like how it corrects too much, you can minimize it.  If it hardly makes any difference, you can increase the gyro's corrective action. (I don't have one, so I couldn't tell you how to use it)  There are non-receiver gyros, that you fit between receiver and servo, for like $25.  

All this talk of gyro made me hungry... (though a Greek guy told me it's pronounced as "yeero.") 

 ht6ZjCm.jpg

 

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For rwd drifting you will need that maximum steering angle, if you go looking at any specific rwd kits like from MST for example you will see that they all have mega steering angles

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As has been said, that kit has been produced for the drifting world.  The entire chassis will be set up to give wide drift angles on low-grip surfaces.  It's not really intended for regular driving on high-grip surfaces.  In theory it will work, but the chassis has probably been designed with the camber and caster angles typically used by drift cars and not on tarmac racers, so it probably won't perform too well on a high grip surface.  You could probably tune out the high steering angles for regular driving if you wanted to.

So, to add to the answers above:

1) I've not tried that conversion but some people did in the drift scene.  Drifting has moved on and a current chassis (like the MST RMX 2.0 S, a fab entry-level drift chassis) will probably be better if drifting is what you want to do

2) I don't know.  You'd have to read the contents list and find out.  It appears to have everything you need but sometimes you can be surprised by an "also required" that only comes up in the instructions after you've opened the box...

3) @Juggular's explanation is great.  It helps correct your steering input on low-grip surfaces.  Essential for RWD drifting unless you have Jedi reflexes.  Considered cheating in many other forms of RC competition.  Might make an RWD rally car more enjoyable to drive if you're not competing

4) Not sure what parts are replaced, so it's possible the Type S will have parts that are replaced in the conversion kit.  I'd start with a base kit and see if anything else was necessary after that

5) As I said above, you could tune out the high steering angles and you might be able to set the geometry up for normal driving, but that's not really what it's for.  I expect it would be hard to drive on a high-grip surface.  Assuming there's enough adjustability to set it up for high grip, the setup would probably be so different you wouldn't want to (or be able to) drift with it.  There are better RWD options for high grip smooth surface driving.

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If you use rubber tyres, making it rwd will just make it very difficult to control. With rubber tyres, as soon as the rear breaks traction the car will swap ends, faster than a steering gyro and lots of steering lock are able to react to. With the hard plastic drift tyres, things happen a lot slower so a gyro can sense the car rotating and start steering the wheels into the slide to prevent the car spinning all the way around. Money is better spent on a dedicated RWD drift chassis if that is what you want to do, instead of modding the TT-02 imo.

If you want to give your TT-02 more drift happy on rubber tyres without converting it to RWD and making it almost impossible to control, try stiffening the rear diff by adding AW grease, and adding stiffer rear springs and softer front springs.

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13 hours ago, Juggular said:

I'm not a drift guy, so take it with a grain of salt.  

You don't need any conversion kit to make TT02 into a RWD.  Just take out the center shaft.  

1) That Yeah racing kit looks like it maximizes the steering angle. 

3) Generally, a gyro in the receiver gives a yawing motion feedback (to borrow an airplane lingo).  For example, you turn the steering 50% to the starboard.  Your TT02's steering angle is 30 degrees to the right.  So 50% should translate to 15 degree turn in real life.  But your TT02 is on gravel.  You meant the car to turn right 15 degrees, but it only turned 10 degrees.  Does the car know this? 

Only if it has a gyro.  Then the gyro knows that the car didn't turn enough.  15 degree steering only generated 10 degrees of actual turn.  It must give 7.5 degrees of more steering, to achieve 5 more degrees.  That's what gyro does.  If you don't like how it corrects too much, you can minimize it.  If it hardly makes any difference, you can increase the gyro's corrective action. (I don't have one, so I couldn't tell you how to use it)  There are non-receiver gyros, that you fit between receiver and servo, for like $25.  

All this talk of gyro made me hungry... (though a Greek guy told me it's pronounced as "yeero.") 

 ht6ZjCm.jpg

 

i dont really know anything about gyros, especially when i comes to RC cars. but i got i little better idea now.

10 hours ago, mtbkym01 said:

For rwd drifting you will need that maximum steering angle, if you go looking at any specific rwd kits like from MST for example you will see that they all have mega steering angles

well i thought of this TT-02 conversion because Tamiya is easy to get in my hobbyshop, and the TT-02 is cheap. i dont think they have MST there, and im not familiar with MST either.  

6 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

As has been said, that kit has been produced for the drifting world.  The entire chassis will be set up to give wide drift angles on low-grip surfaces.  It's not really intended for regular driving on high-grip surfaces.  In theory it will work, but the chassis has probably been designed with the camber and caster angles typically used by drift cars and not on tarmac racers, so it probably won't perform too well on a high grip surface.  You could probably tune out the high steering angles for regular driving if you wanted to.

So, to add to the answers above:

1) I've not tried that conversion but some people did in the drift scene.  Drifting has moved on and a current chassis (like the MST RMX 2.0 S, a fab entry-level drift chassis) will probably be better if drifting is what you want to do

2) I don't know.  You'd have to read the contents list and find out.  It appears to have everything you need but sometimes you can be surprised by an "also required" that only comes up in the instructions after you've opened the box...

3) @Juggular's explanation is great.  It helps correct your steering input on low-grip surfaces.  Essential for RWD drifting unless you have Jedi reflexes.  Considered cheating in many other forms of RC competition.  Might make an RWD rally car more enjoyable to drive if you're not competing

4) Not sure what parts are replaced, so it's possible the Type S will have parts that are replaced in the conversion kit.  I'd start with a base kit and see if anything else was necessary after that

5) As I said above, you could tune out the high steering angles and you might be able to set the geometry up for normal driving, but that's not really what it's for.  I expect it would be hard to drive on a high-grip surface.  Assuming there's enough adjustability to set it up for high grip, the setup would probably be so different you wouldn't want to (or be able to) drift with it.  There are better RWD options for high grip smooth surface driving.

yes, the general idea is i would use it for drifting. but is it really only gonna work as a indoor car? i have to think about that, as i cant see myself driving indoor exclusively. i dont have really have any indoor places. another reason i got my eyes on the TT-02 for this, is the bathtub style chassis, to keep out dirt and small stones. 

 

4 hours ago, nbTMM said:

If you use rubber tyres, making it rwd will just make it very difficult to control. With rubber tyres, as soon as the rear breaks traction the car will swap ends, faster than a steering gyro and lots of steering lock are able to react to. With the hard plastic drift tyres, things happen a lot slower so a gyro can sense the car rotating and start steering the wheels into the slide to prevent the car spinning all the way around. Money is better spent on a dedicated RWD drift chassis if that is what you want to do, instead of modding the TT-02 imo.

If you want to give your TT-02 more drift happy on rubber tyres without converting it to RWD and making it almost impossible to control, try stiffening the rear diff by adding AW grease, and adding stiffer rear springs and softer front springs.

some 10 years ago, a friends cheap RC car broke a differential. so i made it RWD and it i remember it drive like crap. completely unable to control it, and it was just a stock RC car. no tuning at all. so i think there is much more to it than just removing the drive shaft.

its no big deal if the conversion wont work for grip at all, the main goal is a drift car.

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If you didn't buy anything yet, how about Konghead drift?  (I'm kidding, but it kinda looks fun)

 

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i havent bought anything yet, i want check out a few things first. look fun, but im not really going to make a drift monster truck  ^_^. but honestly i am little interested the Tamiya highlift Tundra, but that cost way more than im willing to pay right now.

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If drifting is what you want to do then pop over to your local drift club and find out what everybody else is running.  My nearest drift clubs are almost exclusively RWD now but I hear in some places CS has had a bit of a renaissance (CS is 4wd but with the rear wheels turning faster than the front to promote oversteer.  It's a different driving style to RWD drift).

While I love an underdog and it's fun to mod something into something else, I think drifting could be frustrating if you start with the wrong car.  If you go with the recommended car you'll get setup help from other people who run it, and they'll be able to advise on what hop-ups are worth buying before you spend the money.  If you get an oddball like an RWD TT02 you might find their setup tips don't help much.

The drift club will also be able to advise on what power combo to start with and what gyro to use.  They may also have a control tyre.

IME drifting is all about setup, if your setup is wrong your car will be very hard to drive, and if you're new to making setup adjustments, the advice of the people around you will be worth more than the most expensive chassis kit you can buy.

If you just want to go drifting on your own on tarmac car parks then that's fine, a standard TT02 with plastic tyres will do that, after all that's how we all started drifting over a decade ago, but it's moved on a long way and doing donuts in a car park gets boring quite quickly in my experience.  I'm far from the most social individual in the world but I'd definitely recommend finding a club for the advice, the cool track layout, and the banter.  Oh, and sharing a takeaway pizza on a Friday night while you watch your new mates do tandems and trains and admire all the cool paint jobs and interior details and scale-realistic engine bays.

In short - my advice would be to find out what you want to do then buy the chassis that works for it, rather than finding a chassis that is available locally and then try modifying it to make it do what you want.

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9 hours ago, Mad Ax said:

If drifting is what you want to do then pop over to your local drift club and find out what everybody else is running.  My nearest drift clubs are almost exclusively RWD now but I hear in some places CS has had a bit of a renaissance (CS is 4wd but with the rear wheels turning faster than the front to promote oversteer.  It's a different driving style to RWD drift).

While I love an underdog and it's fun to mod something into something else, I think drifting could be frustrating if you start with the wrong car.  If you go with the recommended car you'll get setup help from other people who run it, and they'll be able to advise on what hop-ups are worth buying before you spend the money.  If you get an oddball like an RWD TT02 you might find their setup tips don't help much.

The drift club will also be able to advise on what power combo to start with and what gyro to use.  They may also have a control tyre.

IME drifting is all about setup, if your setup is wrong your car will be very hard to drive, and if you're new to making setup adjustments, the advice of the people around you will be worth more than the most expensive chassis kit you can buy.

If you just want to go drifting on your own on tarmac car parks then that's fine, a standard TT02 with plastic tyres will do that, after all that's how we all started drifting over a decade ago, but it's moved on a long way and doing donuts in a car park gets boring quite quickly in my experience.  I'm far from the most social individual in the world but I'd definitely recommend finding a club for the advice, the cool track layout, and the banter.  Oh, and sharing a takeaway pizza on a Friday night while you watch your new mates do tandems and trains and admire all the cool paint jobs and interior details and scale-realistic engine bays.

In short - my advice would be to find out what you want to do then buy the chassis that works for it, rather than finding a chassis that is available locally and then try modifying it to make it do what you want.

im not sure what RC clubs there is here, and if it is close enough to me. i did find a RC shop within driving distance, they also have drift track. i have planned to go there in the weekend. im not completely new to drifting, but i have never been great at it. i had a TT-01D, and still have my Yokomo MR4-TC SD Drift Package. but i am very new to the RC RWD drifting, so i will go to a club and check it out if there is one not too far away. im not much social myself, but i think driving alone gets a bit boring quickly.

here is photo of my Yokomo drifter, the photo is from 2007, but it still looks like that today (except worn tires).

MR4-TC.jpg

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An RC shop with a drift track sounds good.  They might run regular social events.  There a a few shops in the UK that have drift tracks but they are a few hours from me.  The closest drift club to me is about 80 minutes drive, so I don't go as often as I'd like, but it's worth the journey to be able to train with others around the track :)

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As mentioned before, the TT02 RWD kit will not be great. You're better off getting a basic MST RMX2.0 or Yokomo YD2. Both have great performance out of the box and are very affordable.

The gyro on a RWD drift car actually mimics the self-steering a real car does. It's not really a helper, but more to make it look realistic. There's more advanced gyro's now too that have extra adjustabilities that let you delay the self-centering of the steering servo to make the feeling even more realistic.

I see you are from Denmark. I'm not sure if it would be very close to where you live, but check out RCboss.com and their rc drift track Cookies Driftlounge. It's one of the best tracks and shops in Europe (maybe even Worldwide) and the staff is very knowledgable. They have been in the game for a long time and all compete at world championship level too. You can get all the good stuff there :)

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went to the shop with the track yesterday where i unexpectedly got to try a Yokomo YD2 and a MST drift car. i could drive both, not perfect at all, but some practice should get things going. they also recommended something else than the TT-02 RWD conversion for drifting. and with the price of the TT-02 + RWD conversion, it would end around same price for the Yokomo YD2 (not inlucluding electronics) anyway.

i think the Yokomo YD2 sounds like the better alternative, and will look more into that.

6 hours ago, Tizer said:

As mentioned before, the TT02 RWD kit will not be great. You're better off getting a basic MST RMX2.0 or Yokomo YD2. Both have great performance out of the box and are very affordable.

The gyro on a RWD drift car actually mimics the self-steering a real car does. It's not really a helper, but more to make it look realistic. There's more advanced gyro's now too that have extra adjustabilities that let you delay the self-centering of the steering servo to make the feeling even more realistic.

I see you are from Denmark. I'm not sure if it would be very close to where you live, but check out RCboss.com and their rc drift track Cookies Driftlounge. It's one of the best tracks and shops in Europe (maybe even Worldwide) and the staff is very knowledgable. They have been in the game for a long time and all compete at world championship level too. You can get all the good stuff there :)

yes, it is RCboss/Cookies Driftlounge i went to. they are relatively close, and just 1-2km away there is a school i went to some years ago B)

 

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9 hours ago, Alexei said:

yes, it is RCboss/Cookies Driftlounge i went to. they are relatively close, and just 1-2km away there is a school i went to some years ago B)

 

Ohh I envy you for that haha! I've been meaning to go there since they opened a few years ago. They are all good friends of mine who I see a couple of times a year, but I haven't found anyone willing to travel with me there to make it affordable. They were maybe planning to do a big event this month, but it fell through unfortunately. I'll get there some day!

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Wow, that is awesome!  Drifting takes a bit of practice but once you've nailed it you'll have great fun.

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