wtcc5's Tamiya Dyna Blaster

[wtcc5 4896]

Thought about it, but I will wait until they break again. I was surprised, that all the other fdm printed parts didn’t give up 

[wtcc5 4896]

After me breaking the rear hub last time out, I was fed up with having to pop out the ballcups if I want to work on the car.

So I ordered these:

With them I replaced some of the brass ballstuds at the outer suspension and rear lower shock mounts:

Add a 1.5mm shim between mount and ballnut to prevent the lower shock cup to touch the arm under compression (not in the picture).

This should make maintenance a lot easier and gentle on the ballcups and hubs.

 

Then I cleaned the shocks and worked on a process to build these without air and rebound.

It is pretty much the same process as with the Hi-Caps (described earlier in my Thunder Dragon buggy family thread).

I used blue O-rings...

... and added a 0.5mm shim between them to be compressed more evenly:

Before filling in the oil, I put in one blue O-ring and a 2mm shim and then close the lower shock body. Then I fill it up with oil, remove all air, fill the cap half with oil too and then screw it on. At some point, the inner pressure will prevent you from turning the cap further. Then I slowly open the lower part, screw the cap fully on, take off and out the 2mm washer and O-ring and let the trapped air out. At that step I slowly move the piston up and down to help the trapped air. In the end push the piston in all the way and put in the O-rings, 0.5mm washer and lower cap. If done right and with patience you will end up with nearly zero rebound and no air inside.

 

 

[ruebiracer 1046]

Great engineering again on this classic Kevin, and congratulations for @Quincy to have a comparable Truck in your sandpit trips! Great video and cutting, nice track layout with all the hills!

I wished I could have made a ride with you there! I´m slowly restoring a Blitzer beetle at the moment, and I´m tinkering around with some mods / improvements. Next up is a slipper mod. If I get it done, I will let you know! Should make life easier accelerating out of the corner on the hilll for the Stadiun blitzer!

But great video, reminds me very much of the fun we had in our youth with some close fights, but without all the "stress" we give ourselves in the modern racing events.

Kind regards, and thanks again for the insight on your shock mods!

Matthias 

[ruebiracer 1046]

Another question, because it´s hard for me to see it in the pics: Do the new TRF ballstuds have a hex profile to tighten them? or how do you hold them whilst mounting?

[wtcc5 4896]

@ruebiracer: Yes they do. Like we know it from high performance touring car shocks.

[wtcc5 4896]

Nice surprise!

The package came with 2x C-parts. That made it a very good deal 

[Collin 1956]

They did know why selling in double pack : )

Btw, I really like this shop lables. Every country has its own but still the same parts inside.

And something else, originaly they use tapping screws for the upper pivot ball. I think its not the best idear to use them. Pre-cutting a M3 thread about half the way is how I do it nowadays. The tapping screws do so much stress to the material.

[wtcc5 4896]

I didn’t understand what you meant for a moment. So I checked with the manuals.

 

Dyna Storm with tapping screw and 6mm ball-sleeve:

 

Dyna Blaster with m3 ballstud:

So they changed it... for reasons like durability and maybe money (less parts).

 

[Collin 1956]

Allright! Did not had this in my mind too. I think too much Dyna Storm and TR-15T. Maybe its time to do another Blaster : )

[wtcc5 4896]

Yeah! Can’t have enough of these beauties 

[wtcc5 4896]

@Quincy and I were "racing" again.

Same spot more fun! This time without repair breaks. The cars held up great. I would have wanted to drive two more batteries, four hours weren't enough this time, so much fun was it 

 

Again a video was made. This time I recorded more and different angles/clips:

 

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

Nice video of your Blitzer and Blaster! 

It's also nice to see that such trucks are not built / restored just to be put on a shelf 

Greetings from Laupheim

[wtcc5 4896]

It is 2023 already and I haven't posted any new stuff here for a long time.

Earlier this year, I found another Blaster for a fair price. It was missing some minor parts and someone without manual put it together. Oh well, exactly what make the fun for me. I corrected all the wrongs, gave it new tires and wheels and restored the body. It is "my precious" now (the red one in the foreground):

 

The other big Dyna Blaster story this year for me was the Tamico Offroad Cup, that happened last weekend. You maybe read my DF-01 thread where I build and track thoughened the Top Force for my dad. After seeing what the Top Force had to go through to work on a astro turf track, I was really afraid to use my Dyna Blaster for this race. So three weeks ago I carefully tried it... and Heureka! what a pleasure run this was. The Blaster is so easy and fast to drive. I also had nearly no accidents on the jumps. My decision then was made to run it. I carefully monitored all parts to see if I damage anything, but it kept strong as long as you don't do stupid things. Once I heart a near heart failure when I hooked in the front tire under the bridge at full speed and heard a plastic part snap  Lucky for me, all parts that failed during practice were my own 3d printed ones, which is exactly what I want. As long as these break, they protect every other original part.

(Picture by Benjamin Küsters)

 

On raceday then this car earned its name being just superior to everything else on this track:

Even the other two Dyna Blaster couldn't match the pace of my "Blue Flame". In the end I managed the fasted lap of the whole event: 27.420s/lap and the fasted run with 15L in 7:07,255. To put this in perspective: The track was wet and there was a strong 4wd class in this event.

Unfortunately on sunday the finals were poured away by the rain and we only had one last qualifying. I ended this run two minutes early to give @Sgt.Speirs a chance to improve his starting position (points system) and it worked. He won this run and got the second starting position. In hindsight, this was crucial, because the rain the started strong and the race was cancelled without any final taking place. 

I got pole and that meant the win in the end.

Overall my friends and I collected a lot of podium spots. @Quincy even won two classes, what a legend!

 

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

1 hour ago, wtcc5 said:

… I ended this run two minutes early to give @Sgt.Speirs a chance to improve his starting position (points system) and it worked. He won this run and got the second starting position. …

That was a great act by you and decided between second and third place for me…thanks again, mate 🙌🏻

[wtcc5 4896]

The next chapter is maybe a bit wrong for this section, but I don't want to open a different thread for it...

After the last race I have changes for this chassis in mind. The Dyna Blaster is one of Tamiyas best chassis ever, but it wasn't made for the high grip scenario most tracks now offer. Especially the ball diff is not up to the task or let me phrase it different: It is, but requires regular maintenance. At least once or twice every race day. Not a big deal overall if you would have quick access to it. Unfortunately, I need to disassemble the whole rear section if I want to reach it. And that is too much. I want to drive this car more frequently now.

When I had the balldifferential in my hands the last time, I found it pretty similar in size and shape to the TD4/FF03R/TA06 diffs. The investigation then found a lot of differences, but also similarities. And this then brought me to the 54471 gear diff. It would be direct drop in if not for its width and bearing size. This then somehow lead me to the TRF201 and its gearbox. When @Sgt.Speirs then mentioned, that the TD4 uses the same slipper, I decided to go the TRF201 route. From @ThunderDragonCy I ordered his design for the TRF201 gearbox for the 54471 gear diff.

Another problem is the parts availability. There is none. You get a bit of simple hardware and the original gearbox housing. On the race a friend from Switzerland  had two failures with the rear hexes. Luckily at least you can use ones from a different Tamiya car, but other consumables like outdrives, axles, gears, hubs, arms... all a problem. You see what this leads to: Like @Collin, I will upgrade one of my Blaster for the weekly high grip practice event.

I sat down this week and took some measurements, ordered parts and made a design:

 

The Blaster comes with a separated base plate for the drive train section, so it is basically just changing the screw hole location. For the TRF201 gearbox I drew some spacer and mounts and needed to think how I connect a shocktower with the gearbox and the upper tub chassis.

Impatient as I am, I asked @Sgt.Speirs for 3d-printing my design. He did it right away (love you ) and I could verify all my bad measurements. Luckily just minor mistakes:

You can see, that I found a cool way to make the rear unit strong by using Tamiyas 53628 TBevo3 upper arm mount as central mount for shocktower, chassis connector and front gearbox. It also looks fantastic in blue with the Tamiya lettering.

 

To further avoid negative surprises I installed everything in the chassis:

 

 

I wouldn't have thought, that the new gearbox would be so much more compact:

 

 

I will do some more fine tuning and then order the carbon parts. Right now I am eagerly awaiting @ThunderDragonCy gearbox order from Shapeways.

 

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

Looks even more stunning in real than only in the 3D design 😍

[Collin 1956]

This is the way.

[wtcc5 4896]

I continued with CAD and reverse engineered most of the front of the car.

 I used these data then to draw a new chassis for the Dyna Blaster:

 

The Blaster will have a practice form and a race version. The latter requires the original tub chassis and a bit of different parts set.

 I really enjoy the work on this project and the file exchange that happens between @Sgt.Speirs and myself. This helps a lot and saves time. I am looking forward to finish the front arms and hubs soon.

Now, the waiting starts again until the parts are manufactured and in Germany.

[Collin 1956]

Very nice transition. Really like the way you think this reconstruction. Maybe front upper deck also two mounts each side like the rear?

[wtcc5 4896]

@Collin: I thought two are enough as another four are already through the chassis in front... The parts are already ordered, so now I hope this won't be an issue 

 

I continued with CAD today and finished the front with the arms, hubs, anti-roll-bar and hardware. The front bulkhead also got a bit optimized to protect the inner rear part of the front arms, as these stick out and are then unprotected.

 

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

Absolutely stunning work, mate!😍

I wish I had the time to re-build all the original parts in CAD to get a complete model. So I have to reduce the work on my blaster on the new parts…

I‘m looking forward to the day when we drive together on the track 😁

[wtcc5 4896]

Good news: The carbon parts are already produced and in my hands:

[Collin 1956]

Cant wait to see the assembly. I am a bit jealous, but in a positiv way.

Btw. did you gave 3D Bavaria a chancr regarding 3D prints?

[wtcc5 4896]

21 hours ago, Collin said:

Cant wait to see the assembly. I am a bit jealous, but in a positiv way.

Btw. did you gave 3D Bavaria a chancr regarding 3D prints?

Not yet. But I have them on the list for future high quality prints 

[Kol__ 3377]

Amazing work @wtcc5! I've seen the race footage on YouTube 😎

Look forward to seeing the build got this one mate. Will parts be available for those of us who wish to follow suit?🙂