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

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

32 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

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?

I did think about you when taking photos! The screws aren't in the DCJ set, i just found them as i had to pull the knuckles off the car to fit the DCJs. If the TA07 has 10mm maybe Tamiya are learning! 

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

Track night! 

 

Ran the car and just had to hook up the rear bar again, but it ran great for the early part of the session before i switched to the TB03. The conditions were lovely, and at the end of the session i needed to run down the battery. Having switched the treaded tyres to the TB03 I thought i would try the Sweep34 slicks on this. I bought them used, but i don't use any additive or heaters or any of that faff. Turns out they work great! This car seems to work better with them than the TB03. Turn in is great, and despite the TB03 running well, I was definitely still more consistent with the FF03. I put a timer on for 5 minutes for a heat length and I ran really consistently and didn't fall off the track. Then i ran until it got dark. Love this thing. 

 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

Additional - The DCJs definitely helped the power delivery, but even with slicks it was still jumping a little under power on full locked through long, on throttle, medium speed turns. I tried much softer springs and that didn't help, but made all the other handling worse. Could it be the diff? It's running 300k oil. I have 100k and 2 million (effectively a spool) options and some TA06 diffs in other cars i could swipe to have a different setti g to try at the track. What do people think? Stiffer or more open diff for smoother power delivery? 

[wtcc5 4894]

If you need full lock steering in medium to long turns, then the setup has not enough rotation. That is no problem with the drive shafts or diff. You should only need full lock steering on super tight hairpins. Outdoors 300K - 500K are good for the diff.

Please reconsider my setup help some posts earlier. My guess is, that the front outside tire gets too much load, while the inside tires are nearly free of load. That is for example limited by droop setting. You can also manage the balance easily with droop.
Try to get more grip in front or take out in the rear to get more rotation. The aim must be to have a rear that is not stuck, but slides just a little bit (like a very small, near unrecognizable drift) if you drive the car on the limit around a turn.

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

@wtcc5 Thanks for the advice. I don't currently have enough spare springs to try stiffer springs, but there was a way to stiffen the setup slightly anyway. I am running TA07 arms flipped and using one of the sway bay mounting points for the damper because it matches the original kit arms. Now i have the carbon shock tower with lots more outboard mounting options, i flipped the arms back to use the standard shock mount hole. This is 3mm outboard from the one i was using, so effectively makes the shock stiffer because the moment arm is shorter. Also found a bit of play in the plastic spacers, and i now have enough aluminium ones so i replaced those. 

Went and ran it outside and it helped a bit, but it still wasn't rotating a lot on the slicks. I raised the rear roll centre by removing the 1mm spacers under the inner ball studs, then after that i put the FF03 stiff blue roll bar on. Definitely more positive turn in, but in the street i don't have any space to really load up the car on throttle for long turns. 

I have options to shorten the rear camber link and add spacers to the upright end, but that will need track running to try out. Another thing i thought of as i was sorting the rear arms is that am still running the kit setting 2.5 deg rear toe in. Is that a lot for a frontie? Feels like i need to invest in another set of 53440 springs and a 1XB adjustable suspension block so i can tweak the toe in.

 

 

 

[wtcc5 4894]

I am just back from driving with Quincy at the schoolyard. We used the 26mm Type-B slicks with the hard foam insert... and the cars where glued to the line, had steering and rotation, awesome! I really love this tire!

Just the wear is a bit of a problem. You get two days running maximum...

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

17 minutes ago, wtcc5 said:

I am just back from driving with Quincy at the schoolyard. We used the 26mm Type-B slicks with the hard foam insert... and the cars where glued to the line, had steering and rotation, awesome! I really love this tire!

Just the wear is a bit of a problem. You get two days running maximum...

I really like the sweep slicks and treaded tyres. They have nice feel. Maybe the thing to do is different tyres on different axles. Our club races open tyre rules, so maybe some really hard slicks like 40s or something. That said, i have a lot of scope to loosen the rear end with setup too, so i will try this first

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

Got the adjustable A suspension blocks to mess about with the rear toe in. 

The car has a 1B rear block in to give 2.5 toe in, like the kit, but following on from the advice above i am trying to make the rear of the car a little more mobile.

 

The kit above gives options from 1XA, 1X, 1A, 1B and 1C. I went for 1X to reduce to 1.5 deg rear toe in. Good thing about doing the rear block is that i can get at it with out taking the whole rear end apart so i can easily change it at the track. 

Gave it a quick run and the rear end is definitely lively! Was still nicely driveable, but i will need a track session to figure out if it works. In the street i don't have any of the long, high load corners the track has. 

 

[Nicadraus 6198]

8 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Got the adjustable A suspension blocks to mess about with the rear toe in. 

The car has a 1B rear block in to give 2.5 toe in, like the kit, but following on from the advice above i am trying to make the rear of the car a little more mobile.

 

The kit above gives options from 1XA, 1X, 1A, 1B and 1C. I went for 1X to reduce to 1.5 deg rear toe in. Good thing about doing the rear block is that i can get at it with out taking the whole rear end apart so i can easily change it at the track. 

Gave it a quick run and the rear end is definitely lively! Was still nicely driveable, but i will need a track session to figure out if it works. In the street i don't have any of the long, high load corners the track has. 

 

You're a bad, bad, bad....

 

 

influence. 😆

I thought I was done with improving my FF-03s but you just gave me a reason to upgrade my RR with aluminum suspension blocks and get the Pro-R those adjustable ones. So the Pro-R's current suspension blocks will be inherited by the RR.  😉

 

[ChrisRx718 4470]

Interesting, had never seen those adjustable suspension blocks outside of the promotional images.

If the reason for upgrading to aluminium blocks is to reduce play because the plastic counterparts gradually wear, how will these cope? Surely the same play will end up manifesting within the plastic parts?

[Nicadraus 6198]

4 minutes ago, ChrisRx718 said:

Interesting, had never seen those adjustable suspension blocks outside of the promotional images.

If the reason for upgrading to aluminium blocks is to reduce play because the plastic counterparts gradually wear, how will these cope? Surely the same play will end up manifesting within the plastic parts?

That is actually a good question...

Or could those adjustable plastic pivot be reinforced plastic?

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

1 hour ago, ChrisRx718 said:

Interesting, had never seen those adjustable suspension blocks outside of the promotional images.

If the reason for upgrading to aluminium blocks is to reduce play because the plastic counterparts gradually wear, how will these cope? Surely the same play will end up manifesting within the plastic parts?

 

1 hour ago, Nicadraus said:

That is actually a good question...

Or could those adjustable plastic pivot be reinforced plastic?

The plastic is pretty solid feeling, but the main difference is that the suspension shafts run directly into the plastic inserts. No pillow balls at all, so the shaft is now locked in, and you rely on the arms pivoting around the shafts, so it all feels pretty solid. Not sure if the insert sprues are available as spares, but I'm guessing that can't be far away either. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

Track day!

Been really looking forward getting some track time after making the changes listed above. Initial impressions weren't great! Rear end was very loose, with a lot of lift off oversteer, and although it was rotating really well in the slower corners, i was struggling to hold onto it everywhere else, and i was getting oversteer where i wasn't expecting. Not fun! 

I put the thinnest TA06 rear roll bar on, didn't help much. Added some rear camber, didn't help much. Moved the damper top mounts inboard to soften off the springs a little, didn't do much! It was all helping a bit, but ultimately the rear was just too lively and inconsistent for an average sticksman such as myself. And it was disappointing too, because the FF03 had gone from being my rock solid consistent runner to being a right handful.

Given that i had time, i started moving towards my old setup again. Using the adjustable block it was only a 5 min job to swap to the 1A position for 2 deg rear toe in.

Although this did help a little more again, i was getting a bit demoralised at this point, so i went back out with my TB03. After running that for a bit i got over myself and had a read further up this thread to remind myself what changes i had made. I had raised the rear roll centre by ditching the 1mm spacers under the inboard camber link balls. I went in my spacer bag and couldn't find 1mm, but found some spare 0.7mm shims, which was better than nothing. In those went (slightly fiddly as its a shock tower off job), and went straight out. BOOM! Back end was stuck down again and i could get some consistent lapping in. It was actually a bit too planted, so i came back in and put the yellow FF03 rear bar on (1.4mm vs 1.2 for the thin pink TA06), and that did the trick. The rear wasn't loose but turn in was crisp, and there was definitely better rotation in a couple of the corners. I was still getting that balanced throttle front axle bounce through the medium speed long sweeper at the end of the lap, but i think that's just something to live with as it did not go away when the rear end was hyper mobile. 

So, what i learned here is that roll centre adjustments are by far the most powerful adjustment you can make. Everything else is fine tuning. Really good to experience this and know about it. Also really glad i have gone through this process, because i am running the rear of the car a bit stiffer and with less toe in and it is better. Here's the rear end as it finished the session, when i ran lap after lap until the battery was done. 

 

 

Oh, one last thing. For a bit of cooling i put two holes in the grill of the shell, one each side of the centre badge. Worked brilliantly getting some air flowing directly onto the motor. It was running much cooler than previous track visits.

 

[ChrisRx718 4470]

So how much toe are you running now? I built my 03 with 2.5deg I think, believing that "more is better, but not as mad as 3deg".

I wish I could get some track time in. Need to really travel for a decent circuit though - I enquired at my local hobby shop and they suggested one nearby. They said it was derelict however, and that I should probably bring my own mallet to flatten some of the lifted parts.... er, guys that sounds more like a crawler course than a track!!

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

4 minutes ago, ChrisRx718 said:

So how much toe are you running now? I built my 03 with 2.5deg I think, believing that "more is better, but not as mad as 3deg".

I wish I could get some track time in. Need to really travel for a decent circuit though - I enquired at my local hobby shop and they suggested one nearby. They said it was derelict however, and that I should probably bring my own mallet to flatten some of the lifted parts.... er, guys that sounds more like a crawler course than a track!!

After today i am down to 2 deg rear toe in, having started at 1.5 deg. Until i started fiddling recently i was running 2.5 which did work well. When i get another test day in i will pit it back to 1.5 now that i know its roll centre that's most important. Would be interesting to see how it goes. 

I am very fortunate with this track. Its 40 min drive and its in a public park so access is good. And the 4 visits i have made on my own outside of racing have been so good for my car setup and driving skills. I just don't think i would have got near this sorted just going to race meets. Its way too hectic to learn much about your car. 

[Carmine A 2046]

That is fortunate indeed to have a nice Track nearby. My nearest is 150 MILES away!! 😖  It's something requiring planning for me. 

Funny you ended up with roll centre! When I Raced 1:1 SCCA, about 100 years ago, that was also the most critical setting on the real thing, barely ahead of anti squat, which probably doesn't apply to these. 

So as I'm planning to stop drooling, and get a FF-03 sometime next year, could you illustrate how you set up your roll centre?  

Also... In your opinion, we're the DCJs worth the cost and effort? I'm FAR from a Pro in RC TC Racing, but I Love the tuning, tweaking and setup part of the Cars!! 😉

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

9 hours ago, Carmine A said:

That is fortunate indeed to have a nice Track nearby. My nearest is 150 MILES away!! 😖  It's something requiring planning for me. 

Funny you ended up with roll centre! When I Raced 1:1 SCCA, about 100 years ago, that was also the most critical setting on the real thing, barely ahead of anti squat, which probably doesn't apply to these. 

So as I'm planning to stop drooling, and get a FF-03 sometime next year, could you illustrate how you set up your roll centre?  

Also... In your opinion, we're the DCJs worth the cost and effort? I'm FAR from a Pro in RC TC Racing, but I Love the tuning, tweaking and setup part of the Cars!! 😉

Anti squat is really powerful in buggies, but it rarely used in touring cars. 

As for how i set the car up, i just started with the kit settings and adjusted from there when i didn't like the handling. Having tried some different rear uprights and not liking it, my preference for the FF03 is the kit rear uprights (or their TRF416 Reinforced version) with 2 holes on top. Camber link set to the longest possible, so most outboard upright hole, most inboard hole on the chassis side for the ball screws. The ball screw on the upright has no spacers. To adjust the roll centre i add or subtract spacers underneath the chassis side ball screw. You just have to remember everything is backwards if you do this. Raising the inner ball studs lowers the rear roll centre (for more roll and grip) and vice versa. The 53539 spacer set is a very worthwhile purchase for these cars. 

As for DCJs, not worth it unless your kit comes with dogbones, in which case I would get them because they aren't much more than universals. If you pick up a Pro or R kit with universals, not worth it IMO. I had universals already, and haven't noticed a difference in smoothness. The front axle still bounces a bit under power, and the fact my diff is stiff but not locked means the DCJs aren't needed to protect the drivetrain like they are with a spool. 

[Carmine A 2046]

@ThunderDragonCy Thanks for taking the time to explain that! 👍👍  Although this isn't my "first Rodeo" (as we like to say in the SW United States), my experience with On-Road TC is LIMITED to say the very least!! 😖 

I Raced first for Team Associated - SO long ago that we were Racing GOLD PANS!! They didn't have the wealth of adjustments that later people took for granted. We stuck with that Buggy for almost a Decade! Just tweaking and adding hopups as they became available. Most People don't realize now, how SLOW the development was, on the then "World beating Buggy". BIGGEST news from 1985-1994 was the "Graphite", rushed out because Gil Losi Jr. left the A Team to start his own Company - with his own Buggy! 

The second BIG improvement was the now famous "Stealth Transmission" - basically a 3 Gear design, that was far more efficient than the original 6 Gear... and basically a blueprint for Performance Gearboxes leading up to the Axial AX10! 

AND for quite a while it was rumored that the design was ripped off from the Tamiya King Cab!!! 😲 (they ARE actually interchangeable!) 

When the NEW Chassis finally came around in early 1995, everything after that was a rapid blur of Development!! 

WAIT - WHY did I just type out that History Lesson?? Oh yeah, because the 1995 RC10B2 was the first to have Anti Squat adjustability!! 😜 I got out soon after that.... I was NOT one of the A Team Guys. Except for what I got from Reedy, Novak and Thorp, I had to buy a lot of my own stuff!! And it started to feel like if I got the Buggy dialed in on Thursday - it was OBSOLETE by the Saturday A-Main!!! 😖 

I got into RC Crawlers, when I came back in 2011. There, Anti Squat was vital to keep from flipping onto your Roof when pointing UP! It was actually MUCH easier, because they all have 4-Link Suspension. Raising or lowering the Upper Link pivot point determined if you were going to grip and go - or flip onto your Lid!! 

SORRY!! I have a bad habit of going way off on tangents sometimes! I'll leave it, but I hope the History wasn't too boring. 😧

Getting somewhere near the point... I'm a little confused on one adjustment. The Long Upper Camber Link. Wouldn't that setup cause an increase in Positive Camber in the Rear Tire on the outside of the turn, when leaning into a Curve? Causing Oversteer??  UNLESS the inboard Link placement is LOWER, than the outboard position on the Hub....

Believe me, I'm NOT questioning you! I'm just trying to wrap my head around dialing in a TC Car, which seems much different from what I've been used to!! 😳  I'm pretty sure that I feel SO ignorant right now, that I may need illustrations. Can you share pictures of the Rear bulkhead and Rear Suspension? 

I LOVE a challenge, and I'm looking forward to digging in! Even though I'm not going to be able to afford Cars of this level until next year. 

Currently, I'm enjoying tweaking my M05 and TT-02... But as you know, those are very basic, simple machines. I KNOW I'm getting at least a FF-03. No logic to it, I've just been extremely fascinated with it when my Friend in England got one, and then reading all the FF Chassis MANIA on several Threads here!! 😁  My Friend keeps telling me that his FF-03 handles BETTER than his XV-01, an AWD Car!!!  And if I'm spending that much anyway, I might as well go for the Pro or R, just to get some extra goodies IN the Box! 😉

I'm trying not to be an annoying Kid (despite the fact that I'm WAY TOO OLD!!), but if you could share anything - I'm ALL Ears!

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

The inner camber link is still lower than the outer mount, and your understanding is completely right. Just when i tried a shorter link which raises the roll centre and increases the camber gain the rear lost grip. Just my preference though. You clearly have a good grounding and the fundamentals are the same, so run kit setup, then make single changes from there. You'll figure it out. 

[Juhunio 6830]

20 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

I am very fortunate with this track. Its 40 min drive and its in a public park so access is good. And the 4 visits i have made on my own outside of racing have been so good for my car setup and driving skills. I just don't think i would have got near this sorted just going to race meets. Its way too hectic to learn much about your car. 

Just out of interest, where is the track?

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

38 minutes ago, Juhunio said:

Just out of interest, where is the track?

Hall Park in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire 

[Carmine A 2046]

2 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

The inner camber link is still lower than the outer mount, and your understanding is completely right. Just when i tried a shorter link which raises the roll centre and increases the camber gain the rear lost grip. Just my preference though. You clearly have a good grounding and the fundamentals are the same, so run kit setup, then make single changes from there. You'll figure it out. 

I like to think that after 36 years, I at least have the concept! 😜 

THAT Camber Link setup makes sense. On Buggies, I'm sure you realise, there's about a 65% Rear Weight Bias. WE usually kept a very short Link, outer High, inner Lowest..... Or else it would just do donuts at every turn! LOL 😆

That's the absolutely fascinating bit about the FF Chassis. That BIG LUMP of weight, hanging WAY out front!! For all intents, it SHOULDN'T work. 😲  But it does, brilliantly.

With my unfamiliarity of Tuning TC Cars, I'll heed your advice. All kit settings, until I get more familiar with what does WHAT. 

Then when I'm feeling cheeky, I copied YOUR setup sheet - as a GUIDELINE. Track and Weather conditions will be vastly different here in Arizona. 😉

[Juhunio 6830]

50 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Hall Park in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire 

Cheers! Too far from Cardiff unfortunately 

It must be amazing to have something like that on your doorstep. As a total newbie, to have a purpose built practice space nearby is a dream! 

[ThunderDragonCy 7877]

FF03 4GR has been laid up for a few months after it developed some particularly evil, oversteery handling. I put it down to the cold weather, but I've been starting to run my cars again in the last week, and it was really annoying me. I tried different tyres, tweaked the setup, couldn't get it working. Especially annoying as my relatively simple FF01 is just running lovely! Anyway, lunchtime today I had received some brand new Ride ETS precut slick tyres which I knew were good. Still really oversteery! Took the back end apart and found a couple of things:

1) Due to the carbon tower the fairly laid over rear shocks were catching on the spring cup on the arms and binding a bit. I put a 10mm standoff on the tower, and a 3mm CVA spacer in the arm with a longer 8mm threaded ball screw. Freed up nicely. Still didn't solve it! 

2) Camber. Even though I was doing a quick on-the-deck camber setup 3 deg rear, when I came back to the car with it's body off after running my FF01, I noticed the rear wheels looked REALLY cambered. Rather than measure it I just wound out both sides and equal amount, equivalent to two full rotations on the turnbuckles. There was still a bit of camber by eye, but way less. SUDDENLY stuck to the road. Really lovely again. I don't know what's going on with my measuring or my general abilty to read the angle gauge, but clearly I had managed to get to a situation running way too much rear camber. 

Just spent the rest of the pack whizzing up and down the street down drain cover slalom. And using my new shell I painted a couple of months ago, and hadn't got around to fitting. Not @wtcc5 levels of Super Touring scale awesomeness, but I like it.

 

[Carmine A 2046]

AWESOME news!!! I still haven't been able to run mine yet... Still waiting for a 840 Bearing (that didn't come with the kit - or I just lost it!). Can't find any, except high dollar Ceramic, and NOT ordering a single Bearing from CHINA, and have to wait nearly a Month. Of course it's the only one in the Kit, goes in the Gearbox...

So glad you sorted the Oversteer issue!! I may have to rethink mine. I'm currently set at 2° Neg. Camber in the Rear, 3° Neg. Camber in Front.  I haven't driven it yet, and am not sure what to expect.

Glad yours is making good progress!!! 👏👏👏🍻🍻