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ThunderDragonCy

FF03 4GR with Peugeot 306 Maxi shell - Custom 4 Gear Transmission Rally Car

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Love the work you've done so far with the 4-gear (I even boxed up the last bits send to you from Shapeways haha :lol:) and it's making me want to build another FF03. So much fun to drive!

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8 hours ago, Tizer said:

Love the work you've done so far with the 4-gear (I even boxed up the last bits send to you from Shapeways haha :lol:) and it's making me want to build another FF03. So much fun to drive!

Thanks. I am loving driving it. I'm just trying to set up getting the motor plate and braces made and I'll be putting a version on my store. I've updated the design to allow for slightly larger spur gears so people running brushed motors can get something around 5.5FDR. At the moment it's limited to 4.5 or lower.

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Fickle old me, i haven't driven my FF03 for a few weeks whilst i have been sorting out my new TB03. I have picked up a couple of things though. Firstly, tyres. I bought Sorex32s on the recommendation of the shop local to the track, but they overheated really fast when i was last there. Chatting to some club guys they think they are too soft for FWD. Probably fine for the 4wd, but i need something harder, so i got the BRCA control Sweep 34 fwd, on spoked rims with treaded tyres. They look a little like the Rides i have, but they are belted and designed for sustained racing. Bolted them on for the first time today.

Other thing i was suffering from a little was skipping of the front wheels on hard acceleration. Another suggestion was taller gearing, so i got on trusty RW Racing and got a 62t spur and 39t pinion. 2 teeth different to before on each, so no motor position adjustment required. Gives 4.13 FDR vs 4.5 before. 

Gave it a quick run this evening, and the tyres seem good once they warmed up and there was much less axle tramp and skipping under power so hopefully it won't get the motor too hot over a 5 min heat. 

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Ran at the track again last night, and the FF03 is properly dialed now I think. 

20200716_192918

The Sweep 34 treaded frontie tyres are great. Grippy and consistent, and the only thing I needed to do for the track compared to street running was hook up the rear sway bar again. Then it was sweet, and would run for minutes at a time, nice and neat, very little crashing! As I am only just beginning to dial in my TB03, I think the FF03 is still the quickest car around the track for me, and the higher gearing and new tyres worked a treat at calming down the front end bounce/skip under acceleration. It still does it a little bit, but not enough to be an issue. Lovely!

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15 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Weighed for the weights thread, but thought i would drop it on here. Why couldn't it just be 1 gram lighter?!! 

20200718_175427

 

Take a cable tie off...

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Bit of setup chat after checking things out yesterday. I have had an issue with the car pulling to the right under acceleration despite it rolling straight off throttle. I spotted some chat on rctech about tweak in a chassis (locked in twist due to impact and the bolted joints moving slightly), and an easy way to check. You get the car on a flat surface, with battery in, set the ride heights checking both sides of the car are even, then lift it slowly in the centre of the bumper and see if one wheels leaves the ground before the other. This is very much the case! The right wheel lifting much earlier than the left, by several mm. After thinking it through i realised i needed the left side to fully extend the shock sooner to match the right. Here the joy of IFS comes in, because all i had to do was shorten the pushrod by screwing in the turnbuckle. It took about 5 x 1/4 turns to sort it, but it is now pretty much even. 

At the rear it was much less so, but still a little bit. I solved that by unscrewing the eyelet on the right rear shock one turn and then resetting the preload/ride height. 

Haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but given the big difference at the front i am expecting an improvement. 

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It only blummin worked! Gave it a quick run out in the street before tea and it tracks straight as an arrow under hard full throttle accelerations. Brilliant! Also was running on the Ride tyres for the first time in a while and they suit the care so well. Might try leaving the Ride on the rear and the Sweep on the front for the track. Getting the rears to heat up and grip nicely is always an issue with FWD, but I easily overheated the Rides on the front when running the other week. Maybe a combo is the answer?

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58 minutes ago, wtcc5 said:

What are your settings and Motorpower?

Our Frontie class runs to same rules as touring cars so we can run together. It's 17.5 Blinky. I run a Justock XR10 60a ESC, Surpass Rocket V3S Motor at 42 deg timing. Rest of the setup is here:

 

FF03 G4R SETUP CTE RC.jpg

Please note I am in no way a top sticksman, and I am still learning a lot about racing. This might not be all that fast, but it's easy and fun to drive, which is more than enough for me.

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For us "normal" people a good setup is much more important than for the pros, because we cannot compensate. I just want to look for your overheated front tires.

Things you can try:

- Front oil up to 500cst

- Camber up to -1.5° to -2.0°

- I see no droop setting. This is one of the very powerful adjustments. Try 2mm over rideheight front and 2.5mm rear. Than on track change symmetrically with 1/8 to 1/4 of a turn. You want the car to lean under load, but not too much. Finding the sweet spot, you must (read in Yodas voice).

- Rideheight: Other than middle motor chassis or 4wd cars, the weight is in front of the front axle, so the lever under load (braking and accelerating) is more extreme, so you don't want the rear higher than the front. This will just unsettle the car more easy. Try to have the same 5.5mm front and rear. In 1:1 Trackdays we even have the front higher than the rear to reduce the load transfer effect.

- The box stock plastic arms and hubs are very soft and tweak a lot under load. Get the hard suspension parts or even go for the TRF420 suspension parts. These are strong and will make the car more predictable and scrubbing less speed. Right now, I would assume that you have positive camber under load in front, not using the full patch of the tire to generate grip.

 

- Do you use DJC in front?

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12 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

For us "normal" people a good setup is much more important than for the pros, because we cannot compensate. I just want to look for your overheated front tires.

Things you can try:

- Front oil up to 500cst

- Camber up to -1.5° to -2.0°

- I see no droop setting. This is one of the very powerful adjustments. Try 2mm over rideheight front and 2.5mm rear. Than on track change symmetrically with 1/8 to 1/4 of a turn. You want the car to lean under load, but not too much. Finding the sweet spot, you must (read in Yodas voice).

- Rideheight: Other than middle motor chassis or 4wd cars, the weight is in front of the front axle, so the lever under load (braking and accelerating) is more extreme, so you don't want the rear higher than the front. This will just unsettle the car more easy. Try to have the same 5.5mm front and rear. In 1:1 Trackdays we even have the front higher than the rear to reduce the load transfer effect.

- The box stock plastic arms and hubs are very soft and tweak a lot under load. Get the hard suspension parts or even go for the TRF420 suspension parts. These are strong and will make the car more predictable and scrubbing less speed. Right now, I would assume that you have positive camber under load in front, not using the full patch of the tire to generate grip.

 

- Do you use DJC in front?

Thanksfor the suggestions. I really appreciate your experience there. 

To be clear, i haven't had overheating front issues with the Sweep34 tyres, only on the Ride, and our class allows open tyre choice so i can mix and match. The slight issue i have had is uneven heating (front warm up in use way faster than the rear obviously!) and trying to manage that, hence wondering about running softer rears. I don't (and don't want to) use tyre heaters and ev3n additive is a bit of a faff. Tried using it again the other week and just caused trouble. Like i say, i am out for good handling fun, not the last 3 10ths. 

To go through your specifics:

- I switched to 400 front recently and i like that it improves turn in. 

- Interesting on camber. I will play with that, but i have found keeping the camber minimal helps keep tyre wear even. 

- I don't run droop screws. I tried using them but it just kept getting into trouble with not getting them even and getting it wrong, sometimes screws would move through vibration. One of the experienced club guys just told me he doesn't bother any more (he also goes very fast in TT01E Iconic class cars, which he prefers now for lack of setup faff) and suggested i just concentrate on ride height and some other settings. I have to say i have been much happier and tje car more consistent when i have forgotten about droop. I know its powerful, but i just don't want the bother. 

- I am not using the kit arms at all. If you see the notes (and further up the thread) i am running the TA07 medium arms, flipped front and spaced forward to minimise front overhang, and flipped rear to run the rear shocks inboard. They are MUCH better thqn the kit arms. 

- I have universals, at the front, but i have ordered DCJ. Unfortunately they are taking a very long time to arrive from Japan. 

Interesting on ride height. I'll even them up and see how that goes. I need to keep the rear at that height for the bumps, so I'll raise the front.

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Running at the track again. Warm, grippy conditions. Car was great. Was quite oversteery, so i ran today without the rwar sway bar which gave a nice balance, and i ran long, consistent runs. It really is lovely to drive.

20200724_170211

 

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Upgrade! Delivery from Shapeways. 

20200725_103719

This is my bearing anti roll bar kit for IFS suspension. The kit mount stripped a clamp mount a few weeks ago, and i didn't want to buy an entire K parts tree for one bit. Plus, i could never get that balance of free movement versus retention on the basic clamp parts.

20200725_105544

The collars in the centre are loosely fitted to the bar and 840 bearings push on. Then you push it through the slots in the housing and push the bearing in. Then you centre the bar and use the grub screws on the collars to clamp it in place. 

All fitted! 

20200725_110359

It all fits pretty well and it's completely free moving. 

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Very nice!

I wonder why you don’t choose the black color for your 3D print parts...

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7 minutes ago, wtcc5 said:

Very nice!

I wonder why you don’t choose the black color for your 3D print parts...

Because for these small parts it more than doubles the price. Can't see the point, and I am less precious about how things look than most. 

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Hop ups! Fresh from Plaza Japan

20200728_202608

Cannot quite belive how many more shock hole options the carbon tower has. 4 more outside the three that match the kit! 

Annoyingly i didn't have any stainless m3x16 cap head screws to mount ball nuts, so i had to use the JIS screws supplied, but otherwise all good, and very trick! 

20200728_204057

DCJs will hace to wait for another day. I had a quick look at the instructions, and it involves shaving bits of upright off, and 3mm thick bearings and finding my AW grease. Not the work of a minute, and frankly i want to spend some time with my wife! 

 

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Very swish. I’ve purchased the 3Racing rear tower for mine (building one from the parts you sold me) currently waiting on those crucial last parts from Plaza Japan myself!

What FDR did you run when just thrashing it around the street? I think I’m settled on a 10.5T brushless setup for power, but getting mixed information online as to which FDR to aim for with the stock spur.

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1 hour ago, SupraChrgd82 said:

I'm dumb.  What is a "blinky"?

Blinky is a stock mode esc is supposed to blink in that mode (Non- timing stock class for motors) so every one racing is on the same level where driving skills will prevail.

refers to spec zero esc timing. esc typically has a blinking LED to indicate it is in the spec no boost mode. Racing rules for ROAR.

 

4 speed Trani Awesome!

heck i forget when to turn left never mind trying for me to change gears on the fly.

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@ACCEL Thanks! I think you have got slightly confused about the transmission though. I don't have to change gear like in a full size car. The 4 gear refers to the number of gear wheels between the motor and output inside the gearcase. The kit transmission is 3 gear - so that's a counter gear on the end of the spur gear inout shaft, an idler gear in the middle and the diff gear. On this i add a fourth gear - a second idler gear between the first idler and the diff. What this does is reverse the motor rotation direction relative to the diff and wheels. You have to put the mounting plate on the opposite side of the car and flip the motor so everything still goes forward when you want it to, but the advantage here is that by reversing the motor direction relative to the wheels, the torque reaction to the motor pushes the car into the ground, theoretically giving more traction. It was a fun project, and it works great, but given I centred the motor left to right and massively lowered the centre of gravity of the whole transmission too, its difficult to know what made the biggest difference, but it does drive nicely! 

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Up before the family, so decided to do the DCJs over coffee. First thing is stanley knife to the knuckles

20200729_071246

Despite the long wait shipping from Japan, i am so glad i bought the whole DCJ kit. The only option from uk stock was buying all the individual parts, but i doubt i would have got full structions telling me to do this step, or that i needed special slim 5x10x3 bearings for the inboard side to make it all fit. It's all here in the kit. RC bearings appear to do the 5x10x3 bearings though, and with a seal on one side, so at least replacements aren't tied to Tamiya. 

They actually went together really easily as they use circlips to hold the pins, rather than threadlocked grub screws like on universals i have built before. 

Here is why you need to remove material though. At full compression the large collar needs extra clearance to the inner skirt of the knuckle. It's easy enough to do with a sharp knife

20200729_073608

I also found the kit JIS M3x8 screws in the bottom of the knuckles. I replaced with stainless M3x10. The extra length doesn't interfere with the driveshaft, but it's good to have extra tgread engagement on this part. It's notorious dor stripping and/or loosening in use. I find the key is only tappibg the first 2-3 turns of thread to get the screw going then self tappibg it into the rest of the hole. 

Will give it a run later. Keen to see if this stops the skipping/chatter under power in turns. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Up before the family, so decided to do the DCJs over coffee. First thing is stanley knife to the knuckles

20200729_071246

Despite the long wait shipping from Japan, i am so glad i bought the whole DCJ kit. The only option from uk stock was buying all the individual parts, but i doubt i would have got full structions telling me to do this step, or that i needed special slim 5x10x3 bearings for the inboard side to make it all fit. It's all here in the kit. RC bearings appear to do the 5x10x3 bearings though, and with a seal on one side, so at least replacements aren't tied to Tamiya. 

They actually went together really easily as they use circlips to hold the pins, rather than threadlocked grub screws like on universals i have built before. 

Here is why you need to remove material though. At full compression the large collar needs extra clearance to the inner skirt of the knuckle. It's easy enough to do with a sharp knife

20200729_073608

I also found the kit JIS M3x8 screws in the bottom of the knuckles. I replaced with stainless M3x10. The extra length doesn't interfere with the driveshaft, but it's good to have extra tgread engagement on this part. It's notorious dor stripping and/or loosening in use. I find the key is only tappibg the first 2-3 turns of thread to get the screw going then self tappibg it into the rest of the hole. 

Will give it a run later. Keen to see if this stops the skipping/chatter under power in turns. 

 

 

Perfect timing for you to have done this properly. Mine arrive on Friday and no doubt I would've dived right in and missed the first step. Interesting that it uses 8mm screws, the TA07 came with 10mm and I would've thought they'd be the same. Or did the DCJ come with shorter screws because its a fatter collar?

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