TA07 to RS7

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

So some will know about my stop/start attempts at onroad racing (more stop than start) which has led to me spending far more than I needed to on my TA07 Pro, which doesn’t really resemble a Pro anymore.  It still has the shocks.

I bought the car along with a TRF102 to race onroad a few years ago and didn’t really gel with the club, so I only went a handful of times.  I went along to outdoor onroad racing with the same club after a 2 year break and had a great day.  The club has changed with a new committee, and I think the outdoor racing is more relaxed than indoor where they seem to be more serious.  My son had a blast and won the kids class so we’ll definitely be going back.

The TRF102 was always easy to drive (its all relative, they're a handful but the box stock TRF102 holds its own against XRay etc) and the only upgrades have been the wider F103 arms, so I have both options now.  This performed flawlessly all day and I ended up a clear second, with a lap either side of me.

 

The TA07 has always been the problem child.  It is very flexible out of the box and my knowledge of setup when I started was non-existant.  I have a much better understanding now, and the car has undergone a lot of changes along the way to the point where it is now in a good place.  Easy to drive and clearly not holding me back at all, in the right hands it would be a front runner.

Stock form – a real handful.  I probably didn’t have it set up very well at on the first few outings due to lack of experience.  I ran it indoors a few times with just sway bars and never really got going.  I was always well off the pace.

Upgrades – I bought a series of upgrades for the car, some of which I think are really important, many less so.

Stiffeners – all of them.  I bought the carbon fibre and carbon reinforced plastic ones as well as the extra centre stiffener, all of which made a massive difference.

Alloy suspension blocks – I just have the kit sized ones, but what a huge improvement.  Probably the single biggest thing.  It removed all the slop from the arms which I had been shimming out previously.  Since installing the alloy blocks I haven’t had to touch them again.

Shock towers – the kit ones have a bit of flex, the carbon don’t.  Its on the plastic bulkhead which of course will mean a bit of flex, but these remove 99% of the flex

Servo mount – I’ve heard this is a big improvement but didn’t notice anything.  Looks cool though.  I have the Active Hobby one because I got a deal on a bunch of hopups from someone at the club.

Motor mounts – not sure these make much difference, since they are screwing into a plastic chassis, but they are cheap and blue.

20T pulley – this reduces the IR to 1.85, same as the TRF419 and TA07MS.  Not sure it makes a difference but it was about $2 for the 20T pulley so why not.

 

I also have the TRF418 swaybar set, and a bunch of springs and shock oils for tuning.

This is how it was when I took it out of its box from the last meet, ages ago.

I used a shorty pack and that foam block was cut from packaging, transponder mounts on the front bulkhead, and you can still see the sand and grit from its last use.

I had a hankering to build a new touring car but that would just end up sitting next to my TA07 unused, so I bought the Exotek RS7 conversion instead.  Now I just have half a touring car sitting in a box.  This is a traditional double deck touring car layout in carbon fibre.  There are a number of carbon conversion kits available (PSM, RCLabHK, Jazrider) but I’ve always found Exotek to be excellent for my offroad cars so went with the Exotek one.

I bought a few other bits too for it when I bought the RS7 conversion like arms – soft, med and hard arms (but the description was wrong on 54691, you need 2 packs) and then shims, o-rings etc to freshen the whole car up.  I decided against the TRF420 upgrade as it would cost a lot compared to just some new arms.  I also added carbon reinforced A parts for the bulkheads (USD10 total vs USD30 per alloy bulkhead and I’m hoping I get some or all of the benefit).

The issue with 54691 meant I needed a second order because they are the medium arms and the ones I wanted to start with.  Because of Covid shipping is super expensive, so to lessen the blow I also bout the blue steering bits.

Obviously had to disassemble the Pro since about half of it is still being used.

Then reassembly on the RS7 chassis

Lucky the instructions actually point out that the belt has to go under the steering bridge.

Thats an Active Hobby servo mount.  It has worked really well, it has another bit you can add to the top for the TA07 chassis, but works for this one too.

New motor mount was included with the RS7 kit.  The motor sits lower.  In practice it really just means you use 2 screw holes on the same side of the motor and brushed motors won't work since it doesn't have a screw hole for motor holes that are opposite each other.  You could use the TA07 motor mount though.

I probably forgot some photos since its jumped ahead to a finished car.  That battery still works, but its being relegated to practice or my son's TT02.

Fiddly battery mounts, I need to work those out, but will do it when I have the new battery so I can set it for that.

So this is how the car was for the first race meet in ages.  I only used the lower parts of the bulkheads as I ran out of ball connectors and would rather leave the originals in the arms, bulkhead etc in case I reuse them, which is either a bitsa TA07 build or running repairs.  

I put a basic setup on it for stock racing and it was all working pretty well.

 

Another change which has made a big difference is the spec motor, everyone runs a Reds VX1 which are getting on a bit now.  I was running a Speed Passion V3 which is fine for bashing, but up against Trinity Monster Max, R1 Wurks etc I was being passed like I was standing still.  NZRCA adopted a spec motor a few years ago and the club adopted it last year.  I think this is changing next year, if it does the Reds will go in the TRF102 and I’ll get another Surpass V4S or V5R for the TA07. 

 

I didn’t actually finish the final at the race meet, I had a heavy crash in the warmup which resulted in a broken c-hub and eventually a lost screw which was ripped out of the upright.  Its frustrating as it’s a temporary track, so I clipped a piece of track border which had moved from someone hitting the other side of it.  The car was on its roof and then got collected by another car resulting in the battery coming out and me starting from the pits.  About 3mins into the race the screw must have finally fallen out as the car was very clearly pulling to one side, so I stopped at that point.  On closer inspection I realised that the c-hub was broken too, so needed a new upright and c hub.

This meant another order.  I searched locally and while TT02 parts are easy to get locally, I couldn’t find anywhere in NZ which had any stock of uprights or c hubs.  I’m not sure if my searching is useless, or they just don’t carry parts for the mid-high end Tamiya’s.

Once again shipping was a killer, but I had to go with fedex to ensure I got the stuff in time, so I padded the next order too.

DCJ’s – recent addition to ease the pain of covid shipping costs.  Not yet run.  Also, didn’t notice steering chatter with the universals.

Uprights – soft and hard options

C Hubs – 4deg and 6deg options, hard and soft, but should get more as spares.

Titanium turnbuckle kit (Yeah Racing, cheap and should be good)

Various bits like flanged tube, ball connectors etc

I know I asked about the best ball connectors, turns out that the cheapest ones were the best afterall!  They were USD2.50 for a pack of 10, the best ones were about USD7.50 for a pack of 5.  I needed 10 just to fit the bulkheads and set up the stiff arms.

Here showing the new upright, c-hub and DCJ fitted

I have also rebuilt the shocks which I didn't do before the last race meet.  They actually felt pretty good still, and I just ran out of time.  It took over 4 hours to do the RS7 conversion.  The shocks got thoroughly cleaned and new seals etc, but otherwise built just the same as they were which is as per kit with 400CST oil.

There is some headroom in the gearing at the moment, the motor came off cool but my IR temp gun ran out of batteries so I stayed conservative after the 2^nd qualifier last meet.  I reckon I have maybe 2 more teeth on the pinion to go, I have pinions though.

I made yet another order, but this one isn’t urgent, I did it now for some spares and it doesn’t matter if I don’t get it for a month or so.  A spare set of 54691 arms, spare c hubs, rear uprights (carbon reinforced, also ordered 2 sets so I have spares) and a bunch of bearings.  I try to keep a stock of bearings and was running low on some, and also thought I should get some 5x10x3 which the DCJ’s require.  I would happily run metal shielded and change them out, but they only had rubber shields so they’ll have to do.  I find that Tamiya bearings last really well unlike other brands so expect them all to last ages, but you never can tell.

So its all ready for the next race meet which is on Sunday, assuming the weather plays nice.  

[ThunderDragonCy 7878]

Great @Jonathon Gillham! Nice to see you get a write up going, and I think it's the first TA07 I've seen on here too. 

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

8 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Great @Jonathon Gillham! Nice to see you get a write up going, and I think it's the first TA07 I've seen on here too. 

I've been pretty slack - that was the first 3 posts in one, at this rate I'll be doing another post at christmas!

There are 2 TA07 build threads on here if you're interested in a TA07 Pro build. Effigy did a very detailed one and so did Fujio, but Fujio also detailed his TB01 restoration in the same thread so its not all TA07

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

Rebuilt the rear diff which has always leaked.  I had just topped it up previously, knowing that I needed to rebuild it properly soon.  I followed the guide on rcracer which will hopefully mean no more leaks despite the thin 2k oil in it.  It suggests using a lot of green slime, where the manual doesn't mention it at all.  I don't have green slime, but I do have XTR o-ring grease which I'm pretty sure is the same thing, so used a lot of that.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures as my phone rang so was on my phone which I needed for pictures while I did it.  Used my last 1510 bearings too, luckily some new ones are on a slow boat from Hong Kong.

The car is now all sorted for Sunday, hopefully this rain passes and I get to actually race it.

[Re-Bugged 10147]

Good luck for Sunday 👍🏻

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

11 minutes ago, Re-Bugged said:

Good luck for Sunday 👍🏻

Thanks, it may not be the rain thats the problem. We've just had 4 covid cases announced, first in 102 days here, back into lockdown. Could be over by Friday, could be the weekend done as well...

[Re-Bugged 10147]

49 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thanks, it may not be the rain thats the problem. We've just had 4 covid cases announced, first in 102 days here, back into lockdown. Could be over by Friday, could be the weekend done as well...

Nuts, and we just saw NZ celebrating no new cases for ages on the news here just yesterday. Stay safe mate. 

[Nicadraus 6198]

This is a beautiful build @Jonathon Gillham!

[matman 1499]

23 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thanks, it may not be the rain thats the problem. We've just had 4 covid cases announced, first in 102 days here, back into lockdown. Could be over by Friday, could be the weekend done as well...

Yes , it's not good . This will stop me getting back to Australia . I have my flights cancelled last month . I have rebooked them

for the 1st sep , but that may get cancelled if this keeps up  . I have been here since 6 june . ( had too come to NZ sadly ) 

So the news of 4 cases and another lockdown not too good . Hope it's only 3 days . But i can't see that it will be .

So are you Auckland area ? As i'm not luckily . Was there two weeks ago , seeing a M8 . 

Great build .. You may have time to do it if, we all get another lock down . ..

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

2 hours ago, Nicadraus said:

This is a beautiful build @Jonathon Gillham!

Thought you might like it, now we're in lockdown I might try some custom carbon pieces. Won't be anything like yours though!

37 minutes ago, matman said:

Yes , it's not good . This will stop me getting back to Australia . I have my flights cancelled last month . I have rebooked them

for the 1st sep , but that may get cancelled if this keeps up  . I have been here since 6 june . ( had too come to NZ sadly ) 

So the news of 4 cases and another lockdown not too good . Hope it's only 3 days . But i can't see that it will be .

So are you Auckland area ? As i'm not luckily . Was there two weeks ago , seeing a M8 . 

Great build .. You may have time to do it if, we all get another lock down . ..

Yep in Auckland, luckily I can work from home so I'm not too badly affected but this time will be a lot harder than the last one. Where are you staying now?

[Nicadraus 6198]

2 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thought you might like it, now we're in lockdown I might try some custom carbon pieces. Won't be anything like yours though!

Why not? All you need is dremel, carbon fiber boards and imagination. 

I'm sure that'll turn out really nice.

[matman 1499]

16 hours ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

Thought you might like it, now we're in lockdown I might try some custom carbon pieces. Won't be anything like yours though!

Yep in Auckland, luckily I can work from home so I'm not too badly affected but this time will be a lot harder than the last one. Where are you staying now?

Waipukurau @  (mums)/ Family house . 

Good you can work from home then .  Gee RC is very costly here in NZ WOW !! ...  Only saw one rc shop so far , 

that was in Taupo . Got grasshopper/hornet chassis and B parts tree boomerang . Didn't need them , but just wanted

to buy somthing rc tamiya here ....

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

18 minutes ago, matman said:

Waipukurau @  (mums)/ Family house . 

Good you can work from home then .  Gee RC is very costly here in NZ WOW !! ...  Only saw one rc shop so far , 

that was in Taupo . Got grasshopper/hornet chassis and B parts tree boomerang . Didn't need them , but just wanted

to buy somthing rc tamiya here ....

If it wasn't for online shopping it would incredibly expensive!  It wasn't so bad for kits about 9 months ago, prices have gone up heaps since then.  But then some electronics are crazy money here - 10th scale ESC for $500 is just ridiculous.  Then you get the HW1060's for $40 though, which is about the same as they are anywhere.

Hopefully you can stay sane at the family house, I reckon I could manage about a week before needing some time out...

[matman 1499]

2 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

If it wasn't for online shopping it would incredibly expensive!  It wasn't so bad for kits about 9 months ago, prices have gone up heaps since then.  But then some electronics are crazy money here - 10th scale ESC for $500 is just ridiculous.  Then you get the HW1060's for $40 though, which is about the same as they are anywhere.

Hopefully you can stay sane at the family house, I reckon I could manage about a week before needing some time out...

I did two weeks ago , headed to Auckland , stopped in taupo etc . .

Board as heellllllllll , been here since 6 june . NO rc or 3d printing etc . NO money as thats running out . Can't get home ,

as they get cancelled . I'm sure it will be cancelled again and i will have to wait , till 25 oct as that will take me to Perth WA .

Not through Melbourne then perth . But got to go to Auckland to fly out  . I may be stuck here for ever  ... 

MFU in taupo $700 or so . I get them under $500 just , in aus LHS . I almost fell over on the prices here . I would have

got an rc or even a truck to keep my self busy . But not at that price :O .

[Falcon#5 594]

Hope you can get back soon.

Auckland probably isn't the best place to be right now.

At least you're away from that lunatic named Clive Palmer...

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

We went racing last weekend and the car was going really well for the final. The only change I made before the race was swapping 5mm low profile connectors to fit the new battery - a Muchmore LCG 5500mah stick pack. Man they are expensive, shorties with the same spec are about 20% cheaper.

One of the guys owns a shop and I buy most of my onroad stuff off him. Last race meet he lent me a gattery, hes a good guy. I was pitting next to him and he had a look at the car since he hadn't seen an RS7 conversion before. He tells me the belt is far too tight. On the old chassis I swapped the centre pulley to lower the IR to get the right FDR for 21.5T blinky racing as I couldn't fit a big enough pinion. On the RS7 I noticed the belt was really tight, and also that I had a heap of room for a much higger pinion. So I swapped the centre pulley out and then needed a much bigger pinion, but the biggest I had was 41T which was on my FF04. Speedi to the rescue again. He gave me a 44T from his toolbox, FDR 3.07. Seems really low. 

Also a fresh set of tyres this round too, the old ones are on the FF04.

The first 2 rounds were ok but not great, I think I was 8th or something going into the final and I while consistency was good I was off the pace. All the changes had been made for the final and what a difference that made. I had a bit of bad luck where I clipped a barrier (my fault, too close in the corner) but then the car ended up stuck in a weight that is used to hold the corners in place. Its bascially like a bit of concrete with some rope for a handle. My car was stuck in the loop of rope. Marshalling is always slow at this club, the track neevr has spots for marshalls to be in the centre so it takes ages for a marshall to get there and no one runs. It took the marshall an age to free the car. I went from being in the chasing pack 3rd - 5th depending- to losing a lap and a bit, I was stuck for about 25secs. I finished 2 laps off the pace, but when I checked consistency it was really good and also my fastest lap was about 3rd which never happens for me.

This is car is fast and dialled now. And it looks like my 3 years of racing means I am consistent enough and getting fast enough that I may even get some decent points in a full season (as long as I turn up every time).

There are 2 meets left this year, I definitely can't make one as its the last Sunday before xmas and we are busy. I can probably make the other but its a Saturday afternoon/evening instead of all day Sunday so not sure yet.

The club uses a spec motor but that will change next year. It remains to be seen whether the NZRCA will adopt a new spec motor (voting is on now) or it will be open motor. I'm hoping for another spec motor, it works out a lot better than motor wars.

I don't know how this compares to a TA07MS which is what it is closest too now, but I suspect its pretty similar. The cost is probably about the same, but it seems better somehow to spread it over a few years.

[V8 Rumble 113]

You seem to have the most detailed info on this conversion. Nice job on your build! I've been wondering on doing this myself since used trf kits are still up there in price and I don't race enough to justify a new chassis. What is your race ready weight? battery weight? I plan on using this in usgt and the minimum is 1380 grams. My ta07 is fine in it's current form but I know the carbon cars are typically significantly lighter.

 

Thanks,

Joe

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

6 hours ago, V8 Rumble said:

You seem to have the most detailed info on this conversion. Nice job on your build! I've been wondering on doing this myself since used trf kits are still up there in price and I don't race enough to justify a new chassis. What is your race ready weight? battery weight? I plan on using this in usgt and the minimum is 1380 grams. My ta07 is fine in it's current form but I know the carbon cars are typically significantly lighter.

 

Thanks,

Joe

Thanks, I can recommend the RS7 conversion, great bang for buck and certainly makes the car competitive with carbon cars. It is quite flexible which suits me as I race on asphalt, but there are stiffer kits available if you're racing on high grip surfaces.

The car weighs 988grams. That is RTR with motor, ESC, servo, rx, wheels/tyres but no battery or body

[V8 Rumble 113]

Thank you differe the info. I mainly race on carpet and with the stiffeners the car has barely any flex. I may get the trf suspension upgrade. 

I actually have trf420 chubs on 419 arms on my ff04 but have yet to try them out. 

 

Thanks again, 

Joe 

[Jonathon Gillham 4606]

So another update on the RS7.  I've been racing a lot more onroad lately which is really because my son prefers it and the race days often clash with offroad, so we can only do one.

I added the SSBB dampers about a year ago now and realised that they never made it into this thread.  The main reason for those was that the new bodies wouldn't fit over the taller shocks and towers, which was becoming a problem.  The race bodies change all the time and people don't keep old stock, so it wasn't possible to buy bodies that would fit better without going to some of the VTA style bodies.  The other thing is the body makes a big difference, with the latest bodies being noticably faster than the old bodies, but also more of a handful to drive.

The other change was the servo.  I have been using the Trackstar D99X for years and found them to be great, but wanted to see if a faster servo was better.  The Trackstar was around .1 sec and 9kg from memory.  I bought a Power HD B7 which has claimed .065sec and 10kg at 6v, and .055sec and 13kg at 7.4v.  The old ESC only gave 6v but its still a big jump in speed.  And I noticed no difference at all.  I did notice in my offroad buggies when I switched from the Savox 1251 to the 1258, but didn't this time.  Maybe I would notice if I swapped back in a few months?  I also mentioned old ESC.  I swapped the Speed Passion Reventon Pro 1.1 out, not because there was anything wrong with it, it worked perfectly.  It went into my son TA07 which was built from leftover parts, and I put a new Surpass Rocket TS160 which I picked up for a bargain price off Banggood.  This ESC can be set so the BEC is 7.4v, so that servo can get even faster

https://flic.kr/p/2n7Saqa 

 

Obviously things got a bit carried away with this car, so why stop when there are other blue bits still available.  They were hard to find, but a store in Japan had them, the bulkheads.  This would make the car look like a proper high end touring car, but probably not make any difference whatsoever to the performance.  So these arrived

 

I took the old ball studs from the old shock towers as they are a bit blue.  All my new ones are brass as they are a lot cheaper.

The old

I did clean that up...also, you can see the SS shock towers here too

This is the rear so has a gear diff, the front has a spool

https://flic.kr/p/2n7HVvp

 

The new bulkheads use a bearing swaybar holder too.  I'm not sure that it makes any real difference, but you know.  The big issue for me is that the front bar was too thick to fit so I had to go to a thinner bar.  I need to check the other pack to see if I have a thinner one for the rear now, as I was suffering from oversteer on power exiting the corner which is why I had thickest front and thinnest rear.

 

Front done too (other than the shock tower, swaybar etc)

 

Now the last thing (famous last words!) I have on the way is a new rx, the Sanwa RX482.  That will tidy up the wiring significantly as it has no aerial or telemetry.  The current one has telemetry which I don't use, but it effectively makes it a 3 channel and I run a fan and transponder so need to run a y cable which just adds to the mess.

I should be able to get in a lot of racing this year, as the venue is outdoors but covered so weather doesn't matter too much, and we don't have too many covid restrictions now.  In saying that, I've missed the first 2 meets of the year as we had an unprecedented storm which closed our harbour bridge (which I need to cross to get there) and then I was sick (despite it not being covid!) for the second.  So who knows how much racing this will see.