Terra Scorcher damper upgrade.

[Smidsy 46]

Just taken delivery of the re release Terra Scorcher, and I'm looking at upgrading from the kit dampers. My initial thought was the either the DF02 or DF03 aluminium sets. Im currently building an all black chassis one too, and I've used the 54567 black CVA set on that. Before I spend £80 on a set I'd like to know if anyone has used either in a build. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

Unfortunately the fronts are too long. The Terra uses 64mm cva shocks. The alloy shocks you mention are 75mm,and end up with hardly any stroke if you space them down. Don't really know what to suggest. I designed and 3d printed a new tall shock tower for my Thunder Dragon to use 75mm shocks. 

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

If you can find any the official hol up BITD was the Super Astute Hi Cap set. 

[graemevw 823]

58 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

If you can find any the official hol up BITD was the Super Astute Hi Cap set. 

Was there a specific hi cap set sold for the super astute?

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

40 minutes ago, graemevw said:

Was there a specific hi cap set sold for the super astute?

I believe so, although not with the rere. 

[Problemchild 2149]

If you go on AliExpress there are any number of alloy dampers and you can select the length you want 

more go to GPM site as they do the same also 

 

JJ

[Jonathon Gillham 4605]

You can buy the hi caps and then the bodies for the Avante fronts which would get close. Getting expensive though

[mtbkym01 4008]

I guess it depends if you are wishing to upgrade the look or the performance. Upgrading the look will be easy with any alloy shock that you could get, upgrading the performance isn’t going to happen with these cheaper alloy shocks, the CVA’s in the kit will be far better performers. I regularly use cheap alloy shocks that I can get in any colour and any length, but mostly for the “hopped up” look that these give.

[MICHAELs TopForce17 586]

Maybe these?

https://www.rcmart.com/xtra-speed-aluminum-front-damper-set-for-kyosho-optima-2016-1-10-buggy-xs-om27001-00068009

https://www.rcmart.com/xtra-speed-aluminum-rear-damper-set-for-kyosho-optima-2016-1-10-buggy-xs-om27002-00068010

[Avante2001R 305]

Why the heck doesnt Tamiya just offer a set of hi caps - even if the new type like in the Egress 2013. 

[Superluminal 3750]

They like you to have to buy the hicap bodies and correct length pistons separately and then they dont produce any or stock them at the same time so when you do want to build a complete shock it takes at least two years to accumulate the parts. I think Tamiya also think this is an exciting aspect of the hobby.

[Smidsy 46]

1 hour ago, Avante2001R said:

Why the heck doesnt Tamiya just offer a set of hi caps - even if the new type like in the Egress 2013. 

I'm hoping they are going too. Didn't they do this for the re release Top Force too? 

[Avante2001R 305]

2 hours ago, Superluminal said:

They like you to have to buy the hicap bodies and correct length pistons separately and then they dont produce any or stock them at the same time so when you do want to build a complete shock it takes at least two years to accumulate the parts. I think Tamiya also think this is an exciting aspect of the hobby.

Insane if that’s really the case!!

[Superluminal 3750]

Its ok, i'm only bitter about the time it took to assemble the parts as a replacement for an Egress rere front hicap bearing in mind the kit itself was readily available at the time.

[Ferruz 11701]

Bump! 

I will soon start my TS build and I too would be interested in alloy dampers. That's not about performance, but merely because of the toy-look of the yellow CVAs which just bugs me, no matter how hard I try to ignore the feeling.

I'd be willing to give the cheap alloy ones a try, but wanted to make sure about the measurements first. 

@ThunderDragonCy you said that the front ones are 64mm, I've read conflicting information in other discussions saying they are 70mm.. do you know by any chance if the re release has the same specifications? (Knowing how familiar you are with that chassis I would take your word about the lenght of the front shocks)

Also, any knowledge about how long the rear ones are? 

 

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

2 minutes ago, Ferruz said:

Bump! 

I will soon start my TS build and I too would be interested in alloy dampers. That's not about performance, but merely because of the toy-look of the yellow CVAs which just bugs me, no matter how hard I try to ignore the feeling.

I'd be willing to give the cheap alloy ones a try, but wanted to make sure about the measurements first. 

@ThunderDragonCy you said that the front ones are 64mm, I've read conflicting information in other discussions saying they are 70mm.. do you know by any chance if the re release has the same specifications? (Knowing how familiar you are with that chassis I would take your word about the lenght of the front shocks)

Also, any knowledge about how long the rear ones are? 

 

Absolutely definitely positively 64mm. People might be getting confused because the same spec modern black cva is generally used as a 70mm shock, but the rere uses original cva shocks with short eyelets. 64mm for sure. If you are looking for upgrade options, these cars benefit from a stiffly sprung front end, so maybe some of those 60mm yeah racing alloy shocks, with the eyelets wound out a couple of turns? Actually, 55mm touring car shocks with the tamiya long eyelets to make them 62mm long would be really good. 

[mud4fun 1696]

32 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

these cars benefit from a stiffly sprung front end

I hear people keep saying this but I've been running thundershots and terra scorchers for 30 years including alot of racing and that is the opposite of what I've found?! I guess it depends on how rough the track is but certainly my daughters 23t softly sprung monshocked thundershot has achieved consistently better lap times than my firmly sprung terra scorcher despite me running bigger voltage battery and 19t motor on our very rough garden track. Even back in the days when I raced them at my schools club track I still found a softer setup better. Is the firmer setup based on indoor/carpet racing on smooth tracks I wonder?? I've only ever raced on dirt.

EDIT: I should point out that our track has two jumps that are immediately followed by hard turns, the surface is rutted hardcore. The monshock thundershots plant all four wheels perfectly on landing and can immediately power away, the terra scorchers tend to bounce on landing and take fractions of second to settle before applying the power. So, while I can leave the thundershot standing on the straights, I lose 0.5 - 1 second per lap just in those jumps/corners let alone the other rough technical parts. It is not just my daughters driving, while admittedly very good, it is defo the suppleness of her suspension.  The yellow CVA's are excellent shocks, better than most modern alloy ones. Highly tuneable too if you have all the various drilled disc options and different oils. I have mostly rectified my issues by going to soft oil and larger holes in my piston caps.

EDIT2: TO the OP, I have also run the black CVA shocks off an Avante 2001 on my terra scorcher but I think I had to use a different rear mount, I have several options as they differ between terra scorcher, thundershot and fire dragon. The black avante 2001 shocks are hard to find and are identical (AFAIK) to the terra scorchers other than colour and connector (but you can use a variety of Tamiya rod ends to find one that gives the correct overall length. I will be putting avante 2001 shocks on one of my daughters thundershots at the weekend so I'll post a picture when done.

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

@mud4fun It's certainly surface dependent. I run on grass or astroturf, both of which are pretty high grip, and i found my cars handle much better run lower than stock with stiffer front springs, and some o rings inside the rear shocks to limit droop to stop the drastic weight transfer/oversteer. On a rougher, low grip surface supple is best all day long. 

On your terra scorcher, if it is taking a second to settle off a big compression then maybe try some slightly stiffer oil in the damper? Sounds more like a dampibg than spring issue to me. 

[mud4fun 1696]

10 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

@mud4fun It's certainly surface dependent. I run on grass or astroturf, both of which are pretty high grip, and i found my cars handle much better run lower than stock with stiffer front springs, and some o rings inside the rear shocks to limit droop to stop the drastic weight transfer/oversteer. On a rougher, low grip surface supple is best all day long. 

On your terra scorcher, if it is taking a second to settle off a big compression then maybe try some slightly stiffer oil in the damper? Sounds more like a dampibg than spring issue to me. 

Thanks for that, yeah, I have ordered a range of schumacher oils to try. At the moment it seems to be more settled on landing but still not perfect. I just wish you could get different spring rates for these shocks. The spacers are useless, generally only changing ride height rather than rate and often splaying open in hard use and allowing the spring to ride up under the spacer, especially on those front mini CVA's.

I should also add that my daughtes and I run DF03 wheels (wide rear, narrow front) with schumacher pin spikes (blue compound) with medium foams for garden racing. We all think the narrower fronts make a noticable difference to handling (and crash resistance) but take a bit of getting used to if your been used to running wides up front. No more understeer! in fact, a tad too much oversteer of anything but we are getting there. My middle daughter is starting to get really consistent lap times, very few crashes and is beating me most races now!

Our track is not that big, just 10-15 second lap time depending on car but it is still fun and we can easily spend 8 hours on a saturday racing around having fun :-)

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

17 minutes ago, mud4fun said:

Thanks for that, yeah, I have ordered a range of schumacher oils to try. At the moment it seems to be more settled on landing but still not perfect. I just wish you could get different spring rates for these shocks. The spacers are useless, generally only changing ride height rather than rate and often splaying open in hard use and allowing the spring to ride up under the spacer, especially on those front mini CVA's.

I should also add that my daughtes and I run DF03 wheels (wide rear, narrow front) with schumacher pin spikes (blue compound) with medium foams for garden racing. We all think the narrower fronts make a noticable difference to handling (and crash resistance) but take a bit of getting used to if your been used to running wides up front. No more understeer! in fact, a tad too much oversteer of anything but we are getting there. My middle daughter is starting to get really consistent lap times, very few crashes and is beating me most races now!

Our track is not that big, just 10-15 second lap time depending on car but it is still fun and we can easily spend 8 hours on a saturday racing around having fun :-)

Nice! I run modern 2.2 wheels as well. So much better. If you want to try some springs, have a look at the DF03 spring set 53927. Much stiffer options for front and rear and they fit cva shocks. 

[mud4fun 1696]

11 minutes ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Nice! I run modern 2.2 wheels as well. So much better.

Yeah, I'm replacing all our old vintage wheels (on thundershots, terra scorchers, Vanquish and Avante 2001) with 2.2 inch DF03 wheels and schumacher tyres and foams. They are great tyres, we have the mini spikes, the full spikes and the venom road tyres (for use in the local car park). The silver, green and yellow compounds are superb BUT they wear out in no time, so for our sort of use the blue compound is best as it lasts a lot longer. At the end of the day all three of us are running identical tyres and wheels so it will come down to either the car or the driving - no excuses about one person must have better tyres than the other! ;-)

[Ferruz 11701]

10 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Absolutely definitely positively 64mm. People might be getting confused because the same spec modern black cva is generally used as a 70mm shock, but the rere uses original cva shocks with short eyelets. 64mm for sure. If you are looking for upgrade options, these cars benefit from a stiffly sprung front end, so maybe some of those 60mm yeah racing alloy shocks, with the eyelets wound out a couple of turns? Actually, 55mm touring car shocks with the tamiya long eyelets to make them 62mm long would be really good. 

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll definitely look into it. The touring car idea sounds interesting, too.

Also, do you know the correct lenght of the rear shocks?

[ThunderDragonCy 7873]

3 hours ago, Ferruz said:

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll definitely look into it. The touring car idea sounds interesting, too.

Also, do you know the correct lenght of the rear shocks?

85mm for the rear, although again, i found something a touch shorter works better for high grip surfaces. The hicaps, are 82mm, for example, and i have a couple of o rings inside my yellow cva shocks on my OG Thunder Dragon. 

[ruebiracer 1045]

5 hours ago, Ferruz said:

Thanks a lot for the info, I'll definitely look into it. The touring car idea sounds interesting, too.

Also, do you know the correct lenght of the rear shocks?

Why not wait for the Hicap rerelease for the Vanquish? Perfect fit, like back in the days. Octobre is not so long anymore, they should bump up soon, after the VQS is coming. No need to pay horrible prices finding some Avante ones at the moment...

[mud4fun 1696]

@ThunderDragonCy I have ordered a LapMonitor timing system for our track, I know it is probably overkill for such a small track but I think it could add a bit more fun and accuracy to our timings. Our current solutions are not great, we've had the phones not count a car at all when using the app with the motion detector and the other app requires a button to be pressed as each car goes over the line, not bad but not super accurate. Once I have the lapmonitor I should be able to play around with setups and get much more accurate results to confirm what is working or not on the suspension setup. I'm tempted to remove the anti-sway bars off my terra scorcher too as I don't think they are helping me on rough ground.