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ThunderDragonCy

Thunders FF01 Bandwagon Jumping

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This is all the fault of all these lovely FF01 builds on the site recently, and people saying how lovely they are to drive, and i love my FF03, so when this popped up on ebay at the right price, i jumped on the bandwagon. 

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Seems a really nice spec, but it's going to take a while to get here, but i need some advice about it. 

Firstly, as this will be a runner i am not sure i will keep the dynatech motor. The car has clearly been well used, but i don't need to be completely ruining a vintage someone else will be stoked to have on their shelf. 

I think i will keep the FRP chassis as its been well used and i can probably run lipos. 

It doesn't have camber links, so what best parts for that? 

Ball diff - don't know the spec but i have decent ball diff grease. Is it worth getting carbide balls? 

These don't appear to have any caster at all. Would it be worth gettibg TG01 c hubs and knuckles? I might be able to use the universals i have just taken off my FF03 then? 

I am planning on mounting my 306 shell and running the Ride ETS treaded wheels/tyres. What body mounts will i need? 

Anything else i need to get, ready for when it arrives? 

Cheers! 

 

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This will be interesting. I am teetering on the edge of joining the FF03 club already, and seeing another FF build won't help!

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3 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

It doesn't have camber links, so what best parts for that?

The Upgrade Special Chassis uses: 2500024 3x18 turnbuckles, 50579 screws, 50797 adjusters and 9804206 ballnuts. You can use any other 3x18 turnbuckles and short adjusters.

 

Ball diff - don't know the spec but i have decent ball diff grease. Is it worth getting carbide balls?

Not really, maybe in the longrun...

 

These don't appear to have any caster at all. Would it be worth gettibg TG01 c hubs and knuckles? I might be able to use the universals i have just taken off my FF03 then?

No need to do this for balance or performance. The car will also become wider and you cannot use the classic bodies. But it should be possible. Could even fit TRF420 arms in front with a little effort.

 

Anything else i need to get, ready for when it arrives?

Some hours of fun cleaning and rebuilding. Prepare to find damaged outdrives and diffplates. On page one or two of my thread is a list of parts of my runner, you can look what kind of tuning is attractive for your runner.

 

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Stop it! Now I want to start on mine haha :lol: Just got a third (? I think) FF01 a few weeks ago and have plenty of parts laying around.

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Welcome to the rabbit warren... don't go looking for hopups, at least not period correct ones!! cause they are darn hard to find! I mean the chassis is only 28 years old....

At least the diff is still current and can be bought brand new (53070) 

replacement universals are CC01 Jobs (54608)

Hopefully the front gearcase is in good nick, they are not easy to find now, often $$$ for NIP. 

The heatsink motor mounts are still around, they must have been gold pricing at the time, because they still seem to be quite readily available, although they are still gold money now. Forget about the blue one, that only came with 58151 and 58190 I don't believe ever sold separately.

 

 

 

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@Juls1 I am under no illusions about parts. If the gearbox plastics start giving up, I'll be designing some 3D printed cases I expect. I have seen the heatsinks are a bit hard to find, but I'm not too concerned. I'm not going to run a super hot motor.

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Don't be afraid because of th Hop Ups. They pop up from time to time, even the heat sinks and aluminium c-hubs. But the former is not needed really (only for shelfqueens) . A fan does the job better.

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This is SO TEMPTING!! 😲

Ever since I saw my Friend's FF-03 run (the FWD Civic), it was LUST at first sight!! 😁  It didn't just handle well for a FWD Car... It was an amazing Road Car full stop!! Is they're any difference in Model designation between FWD and AWD Belt Driven versions??   ..... OK! I'd take either if given the chance! 😁😉

@ThunderDragonCy If you're not insistent on all Tamiya Parts... If you've seen on my M05 Thread, I substituted Axial SCX10 Links and Ball Ends. The Metal Ball Ends (ONLY) have nearly NO SLOP whatsoever. Readily available and CHEAP! They're also TOUGH. 💪

The only issue is, if you need VERY short Links (like a M Chassis), you'll have to cut the Nylon Ball End bodies to the similar length as Tamiya...  Just my 2¢. 😉

I know it's going to take me over a year to be able to get one - so I hope you Gents don't buy ALL of them by then. 😜

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Well, the two FF01s i bought artived today, and this thread is dead before it starts. My heart just isn't a resto, and i clearly just got swept up in the FF01 hype. Both for sale straight away. Would rather they go to a good home. 

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Aw man... why not save them for later instead of selling them? They will only go up in value.

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1 hour ago, wtcc5 said:

Aw man... why not save them for later instead of selling them? They will only go up in value.

I am not enough of a collector to want to do that. Would rather they went to someone who really wanted them rather than gathering dust under my spare bed. 

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I feel like a proper drama queen doing this, but I'm keeping the FF01. I've had a few days to look at it and fiddle with it (the joys of being quarantined after the rules changed whilst on holiday), and I decided that before I sell it I should at least run it. I had the ESC and I swiped a servo and Rx out of my DT03 truck to give it a go. It helped that the intended 306 body simply dropped onto the body posts with no issues. I gave the ball diff a clean and some AW grease (thanks for the tip @Nicadraus it works great!), and checked the dampers. EEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!! Very old oil that separated from my silicone oil, and one damper had a random TRF piston whilst all the others had the 2 hole black pistons from the low friction set. Luckily I had a spare low fiction parts sprue from the DF03 dampers, so I was able to clean them up, even them up, and put some nice fresh 400cst Core RC oil in them. Seals seemed good.

 

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The springs that came on the car are kinda dayglow red, which led me to believe they might be the super soft red springs from the 53163 rally set. No good for this. I had some medium yellow and soft red springs from the 53440 onroad set spare, so whilst not as still as I might have liked, at least they were in the game and stiffer front than rear. I set the ride height with some spare CVA preload clips to around 7mm. One of the motor mount screws was rounded off so what turned out to the be the Dynatech 02H motor stayed in place for a quick drive. I used my trusty Ride treaded wheels/tyres, and my shorty lipo pushed over to the right to balance out the motor offset a bit.

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And the reason for this whole escapade - my 306 shell

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And what do you know? It's so nice to drive! The chassis came fitted with the tallest possible 25/66 gearing, and the actopower on 2S lipo really flies! It's a little bit lively at the rear, but in a nice way. 

So yes, I'm keeping it. I think on Tuesday I was so disappointed that the other shelfer I bought had cracks all over it that I just threw my teddies out of the pram, but having stripped down the transmission on this, it's in generally good condition, with the only big crack being on one of the spur cover screws, which is hardly a deal breaker. It's going to get a light resto and a couple of hop ups. I've ordered some new bearings, and some fresh adjusters and some 18mm turnbuckles to make some adjustable top arms at the front for now. I've also just found out quite how valueable Dynatech 02H motors are, so that's up for sale on the Sales forum, and I'm putting the Team Powers Iconic motor in. Only thing missing is the bumper because this came with a weird home made thing. I think I'm going to measure up the holes and get a little carbon plate made up by fibrelyte. 

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I am so glad to have read these words 😉

FF-01 for the win!

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I swear I'm joining the FF Club! I would get a FF-01... But how much Suspension Travel does it have? I can see why the lay down Shocks are advantageous on the others - but IF I got a FF-01 - I would leave it as is! 😉

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I'm gathering my FF-01 parts upgrade and will share my re-build soon. :)

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2 hours ago, Carmine A said:

I swear I'm joining the FF Club! I would get a FF-01... But how much Suspension Travel does it have? I can see why the lay down Shocks are advantageous on the others - but IF I got a FF-01 - I would leave it as is! 😉

It has a lot. There are no down stops like a modern chassis. My shocks have a fair bit of dead travel before the spribg engages to get 7mm ride height. If you set it up with all the shock stroke used it would probably be around 10-11mm with road wheels on. If you are want ng clearance, with rally blocks it would liklft up another 2-3mm again. 

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Second that! Box stock build with 5mm of spacers inside the shock, it already has 8mm ground clearance. So you can easily get rallye-like ride height with rallye block tires and leaving the spacers in the box.

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Few little bits arrived, so i started the freshen up. 

20200902_172440

The new open face adjusters are so nice. Really hard, smooth plastic. 

First thing is to strip down the front knuckles. 

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The thing i am really beginning to appreciate about this car is that its clearly been very well used, but quite well looked after. The universals are a bit sloppy and worn, and needed a bit of spray oil to freshen up, but they are actually still quite smooth when installed. Again with the knuckles - a couple of the bearings were really quite bad, but one was fresh and quite high spec. They all got replaced so i know what i have got. 

Similiar with the transmission 

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Replaced all the bearings with metal shield, but the 850s that were in there were actually pretty good. Also found that it has the hollow carbon shafts! This is a really high spec car. I was going to replace the rear wheel bearings, but when i checked, they were clean, rubber sealed, high spec and really smooth so i left them. I replaced the 850 bearings in the steering as these were in pretty bad shape though. 

Feels to me like this was raced for a good long time by someone who knew what they were doing, then it's passed through the hands of someone slightly less careful. It's the only way i can explain the combination of well used, very high spec, with the couple of doozies i have found whilst stripping the car. 

Onto the front camber links. These are Tamiya 18mm turnbuckles as per the Calsonic Primera manual, but with the modern open face adjusters in the medium length.

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The kit top arms are around 29.5mm pivot to pivot (near as i could measure). The adjusters are 11.5mm each, so i set up the links with 6mm gap in the middle (11.5 + 11.5 + 6 = 29). After measuring once it was all back together this gives around 1.5 deg camber at the front. I had some spare 8mm thread ball screws which went into the c hubs, and i left the brass bushing in the inner pivot and used M3x12 screws to fix some aluminium ball nuts in place. All fairly straightforward. 

When i put it back together i had a play with hex widths to get the track looking a bit more scale. The rears in particular really didn't fill the arches. I ended up with 7mm thick on the front and 10mm on the rear. The thread is so long on the rear axle that this was no problem, and it looks better. 

Finally, fibrelyte got back to me on the carbon bumper plate. They don't what to make one as its too small a job, but if someone else is interested i could get 2 or 3 at once. They are a little narrower (82mm vs 90mm) and shorter (7mm from the hole centres instead of 10) than the kit item, so you won't be able to mount a foam to it, but it will do the job of making the front look finished. They would be £7 each plus postage. Any of you FF01 fans interested? 

 

 

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Good discoveries so far! I like those surprises!

Sorry, I want no bumper, but cool that you designed one 👍🏻

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The servo and receivers arrived yesterday so i could put the borrowed parts back in my buggies and get this set up properly. I got a metal gear 20kg servo and used a spare hi torque servo saver. Now it's all staying the car i sort the wiring too. I can never seem to get it as incredibly neat and some people do, but this is about as good as it gets for one of my cars. 

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Don't know if it's wider rear track or that the car is quite a bit slower with the 17t Team Powers iconic motor, but the whole car is much more planted. No sliding, lively rear end, so the turning circle was a little larger, although it occurs to me now that i didn't reset the dual rate on the Tx for the new servo so it might have been that. Anyway, nice to drive, and a bit less ballistic. Those old dynatech 02h motors really are something else! Unfortunately the wide turning circle meant i dropped it into a sunken drain at the edge of the road, and this happened

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Classis old shock tower cracked open. ******! I fired up the computer and was going to design a whole replacement tower, but it's actually a really complex piece. It sits at an angle to the mounting face, and the body posts are offset at another angle again. Not the work of a minute. Instead i have cut back the broken part, ordered some 10mm long drone standoffs in aluminium as a spacer, and drawn up a carbon stiffened plate to bridge the back of the tower. Once that arrives i will drill out both top mounts with a 3.1mn drill and run an m3 bolt through the stiffener and the tower and use bull nuts on the end. This will replace the ball screws threaded in which should hopefully improve durability. I check the rear and found a small crack too so i have designed a brace for that end too. Sent them off to fibrelyte, which together with my bumper should be enough of a job for them to do for me. 

 

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You can do that, or use a longer screw and attach the upper shock end where the body mounts are. As the shocktowers are weak I do this with my runner 😉 For details just look at the pictures in my FF-01 thread.

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I saw this 3D printed parts for the FF-01

Download free 3D model Tamiya FF01, Anthony-plqn

Download free 3D model Tamiya FF01, Anthony-plqn

Download free 3D model Tamiya FF01, Anthony-plqn

Would be nice to re-design and incorporate carbon fiber shock towers for the front and rear. 

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@Nicadraus Thanks. I have seen those too, but i think for now i will go with these stiffeners. I will design a carbon front tower at some point, but when i have more time, as it will need a 3d printed mounting lug designed to bolt to the front transmission. The rear tower is a bit trickier because of all the other interfaces. 

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Couple of shiny bits turned up from Eagle Racing, which is good because now I'm using the car a lot of the plastics are cracking.

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Front fits beautifully. Rear needs some reaming, which is a job for another night. That's because with everything apart I have measured it all up and ordered the parts for these:

Carbon front tower:

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And Carbon Rear Tower with Carbon Rear Top Deck

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Plastic bits plus a new bumper that fits my 306 are on the way from Shapeways, along with some 3D printed steering arms. The carbon bits are ordered from Fibre Lyte. Will take a few weeks to arrive, but if it all fits and works out I'll put it all up on my Shapeways store so you can buy the parts and upgrade your own FF01.

I have started modelling the front gearcase, but MY GOODNESS it is complex! I have it roughed out and uploaded it to Shapeways. Would be around $60 in regular plastic. Not sure if that's good or not?

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Glad you decided to keep it, and look forward to seeing what you do with it. As 3D printing evolves do you think the cost of them will come down enough for you to invest? Even the limited things I've designed and had printed at shapeways have struck me how expensive it is! I hate to imagine all the expense you've had with all the prototyping you've done!

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