Spares Box TT02 Type S

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Thought i would put the info about my bitsa build. After upgrading my TA06 race car i was left with spare arms, front and rear up rights, driveshafts, wheel axles, and turnbuckles and adjusters because i did standard front shocks instead of IFS. I wanted to use them and bought what i thought was a basic TT02 to upgrade to Type S spec. The car i bought turned up with CVA shocks and spare diffs and gears.

The key here is that Tamiya have released 54634 Steel Suspension Set. It has steel gearbox outdrives and all the end plates, pins and spacers to mount the TRF style arms all in one pack. It even has a slight advantage over tje kit as it includes the hop up end plates with mounting holes for the optional droop adjuster plates. 

When i went looking for the steel suspension kit i found that tubs and parts are generally super cheap so i hatched a plan to build a whole other car from scratch. I got most of it from rcmart which kept the cost right down. 

I went for a regular tub as the hard tub isn't available readily right now. I have since found they are releasing a black hard tub for thr first time later in the spring - probably to conincide with the Type SR release. I bought D parts (white because they were super cheap) for spur and bearing covers, reinforced grey A parts from the TT02D 9000614 for a stiffer steering set and hard diff cases (a tip from thercracer.com excellent mod and tuning guide), the Type S upgrade set, TB03 steering knuckles, 54075 TB03 hop up steering pivots, Type S carbon towers 54632 and 54633, 54550 upgrade step screws for the steering, Tamiya aluminium prop shaft. The only thing that tripped me up was battery posts. I have ordered aluminium ones as its cheaper than an entire B parts sprue i don't need. Battery strap is the spare TA05 strap from my TA06 kit, but there's a TT02 strap on the D parts if you don't have one of those. The TT02 version is just a bit clunky looking. 

Here it is with the Steel Suspension Set parts mounting the arms, and you can see the grey reinforced A parts for the diff covers and steering rack. I had some 4mm diameter shims and added one on top of each steering step screw which took out a little bit of movement. This is by no means as slop free as a bearing set, but the whole reinforced A parts sprue is 1/3 the price of even an aftermarket bearing steering set and i wanted to try and stay fairly sensible on budget. The bumper mount is swiped from the rear of the original TT02 i bought. They are the same front and rear. Given the gear bag is super cheap (although i lucked in with the spares from the car i bought), i think the bumper mount is the biggest stumbling block to making one of these as the sprue it comes on is one of the most expensive. 

I built the front diff packed with some blue tack to 'soft lock' it for better handling. Rear diff is open apart from a dab of grease. 

Little bit of mission creep here in a couple of ways. Firstly, i couldn't resist the Fibre Lyte top deck after seeing it on @TurnipJF build. Secondly, i thought i had some spare 3x32 turnbuckles for the camber links, but they must have been used on something else. I found some Core RC ti turnbuckles for only a little more than Tamiya steel ones so the TA06 got hop ups and these cascaded down.

And here it is finished 

Despite everyrhing being as per the kit build the driveshafts are super tight. I have pulled the urethane spacers out of the outdrives and they were still tight on the front. I had some 3mm thick 1050 bearings in the spares box (rcbearings do them. They are metal shield one side and rubber sealed the other, making them 1mm narrower). I put them inside the knuckles and it all freed up nicely. I had to use my recently acquired Schumacher U4124 5mm x 0.4mm shims on the outside to take up the slop. 3 per side, with a 6mm hex. Gives the front a nice wide track, more than the rear using regular bearings and 5mm hexes. This works well on my TA06 so keem to see how it goes here. 

I got a base setup on it, but to get the rear droop around 4mm with a 5mm ride height the shock needed two o rings inside to reduce it to 51mm. To get 5mm droop front on 5mm ride height i needed to build the shocks with a 1mm spacer for 54mm length. The end plates of the mounts for the droop plate hop up but these are super expensive! 

Overall it was a fun build and it's got quite a few higher spec parts than the regular Type S. The chassis owes me less than 100 quid if you leave out the fibre lyte deck, so if you have a bunch of spares from a hopped up TA05/6/7, FF03 or TRF i think this is a great fun way to get a clubman spec runner. I plan to use it as a spare or hopefully tempt one of my kids to join me on race night.

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Had a bit more of a go with setup this morning as the rear suspension was really stiff. I pulled the dampers off and found the rear driveshafts binding too. I don't know if this is because the 51353 arms from my TA06 are maybe shorter than the kit. I measured them and got them checked by other members and they don't seem to be. Maybe it's only at super low racing ride heighta it becomes an issue? Although i could have done the narrow bearing trick i want to keep the rear track narrow if possible. I had some 39mm steel dogbones spare and they are pretty loose. I put a urethane bumper in the gearbox end and halved one for the wheel end and they hold in nicely. The urethane bumpers come with the Type S upgrade set. We'll if they stay put when running, but the suspension is free at least. 

The shortened rear damper was quite limited in up travel so i re-measured and rebuilt it with only one o ring (so around 53mm length) and moved the arm end mounting to the outer hole. The kit recommends the inner hole. I moved the upper end to the outermost hole on the tower. The shock is still fairly leaned over so should be fine. 

Despite trying to use the spare Yeah Racing springs i got with my alloy shocks on the TA06 i couldn't get the combination of droop and ride height i wanted. They are only 20mm long and very stiff compared to Tamiya 53440 springs. The only spare tamiya springs i had were yellow medium and white extra hard so they went on rear and front respectively. Rear is now 5.5mm ride height with a single thin preload clip. The front is 5mm with no clips, which leaves the spring a little loose at full droop. I think ideally i would want a front blue hard, but mine is on the front of my FF03. According to @speedy_w_beans magnificent measured spring chart, the softest red Yeah Racing springs are a little softer than the Tamiya Extra Hard so i will try and make those work. 

[Juls1 1661]

Interesting your having trouble with too long driveshafts, I’m running yeah racing xv01 42mm units front and back on my TT02 type S. They are great fun cars. Not quite as great as a xv01 though. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

45 minutes ago, Juls1 said:

Interesting your having trouble with too long driveshafts, I’m running yeah racing xv01 42mm units front and back on my TT02 type S. They are great fun cars. Not quite as great as a xv01 though. 

Yeah, i though it was odd. That said, unis are usually a couple of mm shorter than the equivalent dogbone, so those 42mm you have should work fine. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Final bits arrived. Battery posts from rcmart and the rcracer centre brace because i couldn't resist for 6 quid when i was getting the top deck for my TA06 anyway. 

Centre brace install

Going for three screws as a starter for 10.

Battery posts installed, TA05 strap, all finished

Took it for a quick spin in the street and it is immediately a good balance and easy to drive. I have tamiya yellow rear springs and yeah racing red (roughly same as tamiya yellow) front. TRF 3 hole pistons and 500cst oil in the CVA shocks. 

Stoked how it's turned out. Really need to get to a meet and race it and see how it fairs. Doesn't feel all that different to my TA06. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Been running this a bit and found that the 42mm driveshafts really don't work. They are tight and bind like mad preventing full suspension travel. It barely moves past droop. I put some spare 39mm shafts i have in the rear and this freed up the suspension completely. I put another spare set in the front and even with the narrower bearing mentioned above they fit way better and again completely freed up the suspension. 

The other problem is shaft chatter on the front. I guess it must be the blu tacked front diff, but on full steering lock the shafts chatter really noisily, which is super annoying and give weird wander on acceleration. This evening i tried something else. I have some 39mm universals that i got for my short lived TL01 project, and they ended up in the back of my RR-03RA rally car. I whipped them out and put them in the feont of the TT02 and woosh! Quiet! And so nice to drive. Really planted and fun now the suspension is working properly. I am using Yeah Racing medium yellow springs on the front and tamiya 53440 medium yellow rear. 

If you have a TT02 Type S I really would double check the driveshafts and binding on compression. I can see how it would be better on the kit despite it having slightly different arms. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

I have managed to run this on the trqvk a couple of times. After breaking a c huh on my TA06 a few weeks ago it got chucked in at the deep end and i raced it. It was a hanful! Wildly oversteery and just not nice to drive, and wall hits kept popping the steering arm off the knuckle. Realised the yeah racing spring colours bear no resemblance at all to the list in the instructions and i was running supersoft fronts and medium rears! Effect exaggerated by using my old zooracing hellcat shell which is "pointy" to say the least. I switched that around and setup ride heights again. I also got some advice from another experienced club guy wjo races a TT02 Type S. He found a locked front diff didn't suit his car, and that the stiff deck and carbon reinforcement made it edgy too. Our tracks are medium grip at best, so it seems some flex is worth having. It's interesting to note that the stock TT02 tub is stiffer in torsion than my TA06. You can tell just by twisting them in your hands. So, as aresult the top deck came off but i left the centre stiffener in place. As for the diffs, i fished all the blu tac out of the front and replaced with 300000 oil. This is stiff but still with a little diff action. 

In the meantime i designed an anti roll / sway bay kit based on using spare FF03 parts. 

I ran with these last saturday in practice with the GTR shell, and had lots of understeer this time! I unhooked the front bar and it was a little better, but definitely a setup thing as well, although the GTR has a massive rear wing so might have been that too. It all finished with a snapped stepscrew in the steering when i hit the wall, which sheared off flush so i couldn't remove it, so the tub was a write off. I think it's due to using a solid servo arm. No give at all. I rebuilt the car onto a new stock tub this week and used a kimbrough servo saver instead. I also designed some bearing steering arms which aren't much more than replacing the lightweight stepscrews, and certainly miles cheaper than the alloy steering sets! I also got V2 of my sway bar kit. 

It seems that new FF03 sway bar kits are virtually impossible to find now, so i redesigned the front around my TA06 bars which will suit the TRF418 set too. It's also mounted further back to use the rear link connectors, because i realised with the original that people using later TRF419/9/20 or TA07 arms couldn't fit the front bar, and the new SR kit used 418 arms. It's still not right as it interferes with the carbon top deck if fitted, and it's a little high, so there is a V3 on the way to integrate with the top deck perfectly and just be a bit neater. 

[TurnipJF 9192]

Your misadventures with the steering link popping off intrigue me, as mine does no such thing. Furthermore, I think I might have an explanation, based on the last photo in your above post. Is that a Yeah Racing black steel ball nut I see on your steering rack? And are you using the same ones on your knuckles? I seem to recall reading that while Tamiya balls are 5mm, the Yeah Racing ones are closer to 4.8mm, meaning that if you are using them with Tamiya plastic adjusters, they tend to come off more easily.

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

18 minutes ago, TurnipJF said:

Your misadventures with the steering link popping off intrigue me, as mine does no such thing. Furthermore, I think I might have an explanation, based on the last photo in your above post. Is that a Yeah Racing black steel ball nut I see on your steering rack? And are you using the same ones on your knuckles? I seem to recall reading that while Tamiya balls are 5mm, the Yeah Racing ones are closer to 4.8mm, meaning that if you are using them with Tamiya plastic adjusters, they tend to come off more easily.

It is and i have been suspecting as much. I'm going to switch to tamiya ball nuts as well. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Bit quiet on this as i was pondering what to do with it. My daughter hasn't shown any interest in joining me at the races, which is one reason i built this, and also i simply don't get enough track time to try and get it set up, especially when i am still chasing the setup on my TA06. Thought about selling it, but i do like it, and i wanted to try and find a place for it. Then i ran my RR-03Ra at the buggy track the other month and on saturday and it was great. Really great, so i got to thinking of rallying the TT02. 

Last weekend i took the dremel to the front arms to remove a bit of material and allow the arms to droop enough to give me about 22mm ground clearance at full extension. With 5-7mm of sag ride height would be around 15mm. The rear is free enough to do this anyway. I put the shocks on the inner holes on the arms, but that wasn't quite enough, but long cva eyelets were too long. I have ended up with 5mm adjuster ends on the rear and spare ends and balls from my TRF Aeration buggy dampers on the front giving about 58mm eye to eye shock lengths. I dug out the 53163 road/rally springs i originally bought in error for the TA06. They are less than half the stiffness of the 53440 on road springs but still fit the super mini shocks. Stiffer than buggy springs i have on the mini cvas on RR-03Ra, but not far off. Went for blue hard front and red soft rear. 

So what shell? The GTR wasn't really the look, but i didn't want something super complex. I am a ford guy so i was looking at Ford rally cars when i spotted this 

The Fiesta R5 is testing. L and L models have some lovely shells, including a Fiesta WRC in full Ogier stickers. The thing that put me off was the 200mm shell width but after seeing this i took the plunge, and this is the result. 

It has 10mm wide hexes on the rear held on with low profile serrated wherl nuts. On the front, i had a pair of long nuts i got with some axle extender hexes that were too wide for the DT03. On that, i drilled some 10mm hexes and the wheels with a 5.1mm drill and used the extender long nuts to fit the wheels to regular axles but with a bit more width. That's what i copied here, just with 12mm hexes to get 198mm across the front wheels. 

Ran it tonight and it's pretty planted. Possibly a little loose at the rear, but i only have the softest anti roll bar on the front using my V2 mounting bracket. 

I'll try a stiffer front roll bar at some point. 

Finally, although the shelf sticker sheet looks impressive it wasn't tamiya quality that's for sure. Quite glad i wasn't sold of using them all. In particular the rear lights were awful. I'm not really that fussy, but they just would not do! I bought some stained glass window film in red and grey and orange for a few quid. After some rough templates made from paper i ended up roughing them out onto the light area, heating with a hair dryer to smooth them around contours, then carefully running a scalpel around the edges. In the end i didn't use orange as the fiesta lights are mostly red. Here's the result. Benefitted massively from silver being the base colour

Reg plate is spare from my RS200. Looked better than the supplied version. 

Although it will a while before i get to run it at robin hood raceway, i am pleased with it. 

[Busdriver 6209]

Have a Metro and RS200 shell on the way for my TT02-T . I do love a rally car

[ThunderDragonCy 7881]

Got the final iteration of the front sway bar mounting, and it works beautifully.