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ThunderDragonCy

Iconic Stock TT01E Racer - The slowest car i own

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Following @Mad Ax example, i liked the idea of recording what i do with this car, but it's not really a build thread. For a start, i didn't build it! I bought it used off FB marketplace as i wanted to have a go at my clubs Iconic class. I am still new to racing, and up to now have raced in my clubs top 17.5 touring class with hopped tamiya tub chassis - not very good eith a TA06, much better with my current TB03R. If i am honest i am a bit out of my depth and it's been as much frustrating as fun.

Our iconic class is fairly flexible, catering for most Iconic categories in a single heat at various points. However, recently a few of the really experienced guys started racing a sort of Spec Stock Class. The basis is the Iconic Stock rules allowing TL01, TT01 AND TT01E, running bearings, alloy prop, alloy wheel hexes, steering turnbuckles, tamiya speed tuned gears, metal motor mount, and proper shocks. Tyres are open, bodies must be scale touring car. This class uses the Team Powers 17t brushed motor at the national events. The sub-class they came up with was this car, but TT01E only, Torque Tuned motor, 25/58 gearing. 

Here is my entry

Iconic Stock Class Tamiya TT01E

Now strictly speaking this body isn't class legal (its a GT class shell), but as its scale and we are just having fun the club have ok'd it. I amvery glad because my initial plan to buy all new would have involved a lovely L and L models JACCS Accord body, which i would have loved, but cringed at smashing up at the track! The car came to me for £100 with this slightly pre-bashed 911 which is perfect track fodder. It was a bonus too, as although not mentioned in the advert, it came with bearings, said metal motor mount and alloy prop, and ball adjusters on the steering. I added an RW Racing 25t alloy pinion, 53665 Spur gear set for the 58t, a spare Trackstar 99x servo, spare TBLE02S ESC due to the low spec motor (i'll run a lipo alarm), my Core RC stick pack lipos, and my little treat from RCMart, the beautiful 54000 M Chassis 50mm long aluminium damper set built with 3 hole pistons and 400 oil, and 42168 Short Spring Set for tuning. 

Built up on saturday and set up with the hard blue front and yellow medium springs from the M-chassis damper set and worn Ride ETS tyres from my FF03. Few things i noticed

- the 50mm shocks get you to 5-6mm ride height, but with almost no droop.

- The body scraped on the floor until i trimmed it flat and flush all the way around. Clearly the regular setup is a fair bit higher! Some o rings on the body posts stopped it rattling and bought an extra couple of mm. 

- The 911 runs the short 251wheelbase a d wider rear track. I have 7mm wide hexes for the front and 11 for the rear with race wheels

First impression is it's fairly slow and a right handful! Lots of power oversteer if nailing the throttle with a lot of steering. Also the steering is super sensitive. I have a spare (fairly long) servo arm on and i have the dual rate turned right down. 

I switch springs to fully hardest 42168 front and softest red m chassis rear. It's better, but not right. Time to tinker.... 

Read up a bit and a stiffer front diff helps. I got the diffs out and they were full of goey grease. Cleaned most of that up, left the rear open, front got 3 blobs of 2 million oil. Still some diff action, but much slower. Not sure if it's within the rules, but i am sourcing some TT02 diffs as the plastic internals are much lighter, and that counts in a spec class. 

I wasn't happy with the lack of droop. I recently got the new TRF v parts for my other race dampers and spare on the new parts are longer eyelets - 2mm longer to be accurate. I put these on and they are now perfect. 5-6mm ride height is now nicely in the middle of the damper stroke and i have more scope to change the ride height with preload. And there is a good 4-5mm of droop front and rear. 

Finally tyres. The guys at the club mentioned they were running staggered tyres - harder at the front than back. Makes sense given the inherent balance. I dug out some very well used Sorex 32 front, 28 rear. 

This afternoon with some sunshine drying the road a gave it a run and it's so much better. Much less wayward, takes full throttle well. The springs were immediately wrong with decently balanced tyre grip and more shock movement. Working through i ended up with medium front and soft rear from the 42168 and it seems good. Still some roll through so i could see it needing to be harder at the track with more grip. 

Steering is still super sensitive. I ended up with the dual rate down to 40 and expo at - 40 and it still had plenty of lock and was still very sensitive off the straight ahead. I have ordered a short Kimbrough servo saver to reduce the throw (and add some crashability!) and i think some thicker 500 oil in the front shocks should help too. 

To be continued..... 

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Ahh. The TT01. That takes me back. It was what I used when me and a friend had a go at indoor racing at a club one winter. My car was awful to start with as I turned up with a 1 way roller in the front, so lots of spin out in the corners, and an overheating tamiya ESC (Can't remember what they were back then). I cured the ESC overheating by bolting 1/4 of a PC CPU heatsink to the tiddly heat plate, put the gear diff back in the front. Didn't last long, we had a long drive to get to the club and the enthusiasm ran out when we saw we were way off competitive. I sold the car and went back to buggies. Fast forward a few years and I picked one up for £25 at a boot sale, and thought, 'Right, lets have some fun', and ended up trying to outdrag a friend of mine with an associated B4 (The thread is buried in here somewhere, titled 'Need help in the horsepower wars). I ended up trying to drive it with a 4000KV brushless motor in it, speed gears, and a 10.8Vnimh battery shoehorned in. Fun, but highly uncontrollable......

 

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Neat project.  Spec racing is the way forward - some clubs have got so caught up in the TC scene that it becomes inaccessible to new racers.  It's not just expensive, it's very frustrating if you don't know where to start with your adjustments and you don't have an experienced pit buddy to help you out.

I'm sure you'll have loads of fun with this project.  I learnt so much about car tuning last year while a doing club-level vintage class with my TL-01LA.  Almost everybody else in that class was racing TT01s but by the end of the season* I got 1st place** in the B Final, my first win in as long as I can remember.  Enjoy the racing when it resumes, and keep track of your setup and laptimes :)

*actually officially it was the first round of the Winter championship but it took place in late October and we all know what happened next

**arguably I would have lost to a well-driven FF01 if its gearbox hadn't failed on lap 1

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To be fair, after feeling pretty lonely the first few races in 17.5 TC a couple of tje club Tamiya nuts took me under their wing, but it's still been hard, especially racing outdoors into early winter where my car would be perfect one week and then nowhere the next because it was 5 deg colder. I am hopibg the lower speeds and less to tune give me a bit more leeway. 

Once i feel i have a fairly sorted street setup, i'll post here. Then when i get the chance i'll spend some time at the track and see where that gets one. One question: i have some new tyres for racing. Should i scrub them in or just hope they work like me current ones? Also, the only 28s i have been able to get are Sweep EWS carpet tyres with hard inserts. Are these a complete non-starter on asphalt? 

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The TT-01 is very tyre dependent, because it has no rear toe-in, and Iconic Cup rules forbid the use of the toe-in rear uprights. It's one of the reasons I've stopped Iconic Cup racing because tyres are actually more hassle than with a full-fat touring car.

The old-school "soft" touring tyres are hard to find now. Most touring has gone to harder compounds because of higher speeds and the use of tyre warmers.

If you are able to find any Sorex 28s or Sorex 24s then that might be a good combo with 32s on the fronts. The Sweep's might be OK, no harm in trying them. Shouldn't need any special run in, normally a couple of minutes on the track is enough.

The only other tyre I've used recently that feels "soft" is the Ride cut slick that is used for Frontie racing. So that might be worth a try. Haven't run it on a TT-01 though.

For the front diff, try a putty rather than the oil (the oil will eventually flow out of the TT-01 diff case), I use silicone ear plugs.

You've already learned that the TT-01 needs a standard touring shock for full suspension travel. Short springs let it sit a bit lower (although to be honest I couldn't tell much difference even when the car was up on stilts for its standard ride height).

They are also pretty body sensitive (which was why GT bodies became so popular in the class before they were banned). I've seen the 911 on fast cars so I think you are probably OK with that one.

Not much you can do with them on actual setup so just hope that the rear end decides to grip, and keep on practising!

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@sosidge Thanks for the information. Much appreciated. I thought it was a bit odd not to allow toe in rear uprights. It's such a cheap upgrade compared to all the others allowed. Weird.

Anyway, i have Ride cut slicks. I run them on my Fronties. First run i did with the TT01 was with themfront and rear. They are fairly worn though. I will try them on the rear with the front 32s. Cheers! 

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Last bit of tweaking before sorting tyres and lots of practice! Kimborough medium servo saver. With the servo in the normal position i needed to run the drag link behind the saver towards the servo. That meant i couldn't use the holes closest to the centre. The next one out worked, but that wasn't much shorter than what i had been using. Not ideal. I had another think then tried this setup

20210319_133608

Its a low profile servo, so with the posts mounted in front of the tabs the drag link is perfectly straight attached to the front of the saver, and i can use the hole closest to the centre to reduce throw. 

Here is the whole electrics install now

20210319_133542

All fits very nice and snug and neat. I also added a cheap heatsink / fan combo as the motor gets surprisingly warm. Maybe because it's running full throttle so much? 

I ran it today and steering feel is definitely better, but still pretty fierce. I am still down at 65% on the dual rate (i am on 70/75 on my other cars) and it's still quite sensitive around the straight ahead. Might try dialing out the toe out on the front. If i coulf adjust it, it feels like i want another hole further back on the steering knuckles to get less ackerman and calm it down, although i suspect the lack or caster and rear toe in aren't helping. Still, it drives. Just need some races now. 

 

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Races are entered! Two outdoor rounds later in April. I got the TT02 diffs and installed them. They are sooooo much lighter than the 01 diffs. Although the only difference i can tell just at the moment is the front is a little stiffer and rear is more open (just a tiny dab of grease) rather than the more gloopy kit diffs which the previous owner stuffed full of grease. The upshot is that it is slightly better balanced with a bit more rear grip. 

Shock setup is as extreme as the stock car is unbalanced - 500wt front oil with the super hard springs from the 42168, and the softest red M chassis damper springs rear with 300wt oil. Seems to work ok. 

Played around with tyres yesterday and am sorting out what state thry are in. The sorex32 have least use and are grippiest as a result, but do need a bit of heat in the air and tarmac. But not too much as i only used them briefly last summer and cooked them in hot weather. Some very very used Sweep 34 BRCA (which replaced the sorex32 last year) were great, but are clearly passed their best. With 32s rear and sweeps front the balance is actually understeery. With the 32 both ends its pretty good. With some very used sorex28 rear this was oversteer central again so these are clearly done. At the moment i am hoping the Sweep24 i have just bought can be scrubbed in so i have something if it's cold. However, having an option with a bit of understeer is a big step forward for having options at the track. 

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Track time! Took advantage of the bank hol to get to the track ahead of next weekends race. Having struggled with grip in the street near my house and having new tyres i have bought feel like i am driving on ice, i was very keen to run on track to see where i was. It was 5 deg, but sunny. Cold, but the track was dry and it was somewhat warm in the sunshine. 

20210405_115741

The good news is that the track is way more abrasive and grippy than my street! I started out with low use sorex32 rear, well used Sweep BRCA 34 control tyre front. This seemed to give the best balance at home, and so it proved on the track. The balance of the setup was as good as i could get it, and it was really fun driving it. It's nice that it's so much slower than my 17.5 TB03R. You can recover mistakes more easily because they happen more slowly. It still feels edgy around the straight ahead. I had a play with the dual rate and ended up with 75% for enough lock around hairpins if there is no oversteer, but - 46% on the expo to try and make it less edgy off centre. This means you have to be quite precise with your steering inputs. You cannot just jam in a big steering input and "throw" it at a corner, but it was the best i could come up with. I even tried putting the steering arms in the front hole on the knuckles to try and reduce the throw and speed of the steering, but this also reduces the ackerman and makes it even more twitchy so i went back to stock. If anyone with TT01E experience has any suggestions for calming the steering down without breaking Iconic rules i would be interested to hear.

As i wanted to know what other options i had i tried my other tyres. I have some nearly new Sweep24 with soft inserts specifically for the cold weather i was expecting, but i just could not get them to work. The fronts gripped ok, but i could not get anything out of the rear. I just don't know what it takes to turn these on! In theory they should have been perfect for today. I really am at a loss to explain it. Conversely, the Sweep EXP28 carpet spec tyres with hard inserts i picked up cheap and couldn't get to grip at all at home actually worked ok. Turn in was really sharp, and needed some adapting and managing, but the rear did live with it and i could drive them consistently. But then i put the really worn BRCA 34 fronts on to see if that would calm it down and suddenly the rear was all over the place. So clearly grip wasn't that high. Back to sorex32 on the rear and balance was restored. I am finding these softer Sweeps completely confusing. Yet the BRCA 34 and the treaded frontie tyres they do i really like. Its odd. 

So, i have my setup. I didn't touch springs or dampers, as it was good with the right tyres. And i have my starting option for next weekend. Its looking similarly cold for Saturday so hopefully it should just work. 

On a side note, i find the inability to put toe in rear uprights on Iconic stock class TT01E very confusing. I am sure it would really improve how easy these are to drive, and it's not exactly an expensive part. Just seems like an odd place to draw the line when you can put £75 dampers and £20 worth of aluminium prop shaft on it. 

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Interesting reading. I've been out at the track myself this weekend and sub-5 degree track temps are a challenge! Wind chill on your face is also a challenge!

Interesting that the softer Sweeps didn't work. The 34 is an unusual tyre, a special one for the BRCA - who knows how different the compound actually is from the others? Sweep have done a lot of different tyres over the years.

Also shows just how good the old Sorex tyres were. Shame they are no longer made - I believe in part because one of the materials they used is very difficult to obtain now. Which is why we've had a lot of attempts at building a tyre as good as the Sorex but none have quite hit the mark in my opinion.

Radio is the easiest way to calm down the steering so you're doing the right thing. You should have a small amount of toe-out on the front end and also a thick front diff helps. But you are probably mostly feeling the lack of rear grip which is making the whole car nervous.

I'd consider going to the same springs all round, or only one step difference, when the rear is much softer you can get some unusual behaviour at the limit, which might be making the soft tyres appear worse than they actually are.

Looks like your local track is Broxtowe? Very entertaining track but I've never had great success there. Last time I was there for the Iconics I was using the Sweep 34s all round, that was in September so probably a lot warmer than it is now.

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@sosidge Thanks for the advice. Didn't realise they weren't making Sorex anymore. I got them last summer and they were no good in the warm weather, but seem great now. The BRCA are mad. They replaced the sorex in the hot weather and were brilliant but still seem to work now.

Interesting thought about the 24s with soft rear springs. I'll try something stiffer at the next time i get to test. I don't want to change anything for racing on saturday now i have something working. 

Yes, my club is BMCC. I don't have any experience of other tracks, but i love it. It has so much going on. I can see why you might struggle as a visitor. My first few club meets were horrendous. Spending a few hours last summer practicing really helped. 

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First race day. Turned up really early to test some different tyres as it was cold today with the potential for rain. I scrubbed in the new Sweep 32 and 24 asphalt tyres, but they weren't right for the early conditions so i went back to my Sweep BRCA34 front, Sorex32 rear setup from last weekend and it was spot on. One cheeky mod i made during the week seemed to be a small improvement. I was looking at the top arms and noticed they are slightly asymmetric. So, i tried flipping them and it fitted and had no clashes, so i ran it. The flip tips the top pivot back which increases caster and also ackerman as it drops the steering knuckles down and back a little too. More caster and ackerman calms down the turn-in and the sensitivity around the straight ahead which is pretty twitchy on a stock TT01E. It wasn't a big difference, but i do think it made the car a little easier to drive. It certainly did not warrant any changes to the dual rate or expo. 

20210410_150138

I also had to mount my transponder. I found a servo extension lead so i took a leaf out of TT01E Master @GooneyBird book and cut it a little home in the bumper. Every little helps in stock racing! 

Pre-race nerves not pictured! 

20210410_150132

There were 5 people in my heat, and i set off last as i wasn't seeded yet. I kept it steady and the car seemed nice and easy and consistent to handle. Overtook a couple of cars, but also made a couple of marshall requiring mistakes. Luckily so was everyone else! By the 2 minute position call i was third, so i really concentrated on just being neat. Not pushing, just hit my marks. By the 4 minute position call i was 2nd. Gibber! KEEP IT TOGETHER CY! I did manage to do just that and the buzzer went, tje cars counted off and the announcement came. Winner - Car 5. Me! I just won my first rc race! Top 3 were covered by under 3 seconds, and i won by just 1.6! Take about close. 

Conditions stayed good, dry, with a little sunshine, so i left the car alone, but decided to do race 2 with my posh ultra low cg race pack i got last year. I definitely had a little more go initially. As i won the first round i was set off first in round 2. Eek! Pressure! I just desperately tried to ignore all the others and just drive. I managed probably my best ever rc drive. No mistakes, not marshalled once and added over a lap on my previous race distance. I won again! 

Now i started to fiddle. The car was starting to understeer a lot towards the end of the heat, and when i had a look at the tyres they were developing a wear groove on both inner shoulders. Now these are very old, well used tyres and the ladt thing i wanted was a tyre failure, so i swapped them for the other pair of BRCA34 from the same set. I gave them a few laps with my transponder unplugged whilst the buggies were racing and it definitely had more front end. 

Race 3 i was set off first again, but i don't know if it was the nerves, the tyre change, or the cooling conditions, but i made a lot of mistakes. Just couldn't seem to keep my mind properly on my car, especially once i dropped back into traffic. Didn't help that Tom had got his FF02 singing by that point, and Keith had got his car more dialed in too. After a very scrappy race i ended up third by nearly a clear lap, but still comfortably ahead of 4th and 5th.

One thing i will say in my defense is that Tom - despite running frontie - is running a pretty trick FF02 with the full 17t Team Powers Iconic motor. 

The car was definitely getting short of rear grip though, and it was much colder. Once the buggies were running again i swapped out the Sorex32 on the rear with the new Sweep32 but they were worse than the Sorex. As it was overcast and just 7 deg, I put the Sweep24 on and it was immediately better. I ran a few laps and they reallt came in without over heating, and i was now getting more understeer again, but i will live with that in a TT01 any day! 

Race 4 was better, and I was set off third. I made a big mistake on just the second lap when i just understeered off the top of the banking. Those 24s were really hooking up! It cost me over half a lap as it was an awkward marshall, so again, i just tried to drive. The conditions were definitely difficult being so cold, and i did get used to the car but i think i could have done with something a little softer on the front. I made one other big mistake and a couple of little ones. Everyone was making a similar go of it though, and through the announcements i stayed steadfastly 3rd, which i held to the buzzer. This was another close one though. I had had a better drive overall and Tom, Keith and I all finished on the same lap, Tom 15 seconds up the road, but Keith only beat me by 1.6! Our best laps and best 10 were within 10ths. So close, and really. These guys are much more replaxed than the 17.5 guys. We had a good chat between heats. 

All in all very nice. I still can't quite believe i won two races! If its similarly cold next week i will bring some Sweep28 Carpet tyres i have. Not ideal with firm inserts, but the softer compound might be the thing for the front as it cools later in the day. 

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Nice! Aren't TTs great fun when raced? Everyone's always so dismissive of them, but they're stupid-reliable, and with proper setup can be great track-day cars. I love mine, and as soon as this stupid lockdown lifts, will absolutely shred some more tires with it.

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6 hours ago, GooneyBird said:

Nice! Aren't TTs great fun when raced? Everyone's always so dismissive of them, but they're stupid-reliable, and with proper setup can be great track-day cars. I love mine, and as soon as this stupid lockdown lifts, will absolutely shred some more tires with it.

It's surprisingly lovely. I would REALLY like to tie the rear end down a little better (i have a lower roll centre toe in upright designed but not made), but otherwise lovely. It helps racing in a class using a very slow motor too. I like how slow everything is. 

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Second race day. A couple more novices entered Iconic this week and after my performance last week i was bumped up to the "fast" heat. Here we are lined up for Race 4. I'm numver 789.

Iconic Class racing at Broxtowe Model Car Club

Race 1 was good. I was tidy and neat and eent pretty much as fast as I could (matching my best race time from last week) but i cake 4th out of 5 and everyone else seemed awful quick, including the guy i beat last week who had also bumped up. So, i had a noisey around the pits, and that guy had improved his car no doubt, but was running a cup motor. The fastest guy was running an FF02 with all the toys (he just lapped me). Hmmm. 

Race 2 was a little scrappy, as some of the drivers got quite crashy, which caused me some trouble as i came upon them, or they nearly landed on me from another section of track in one case! I was quicker though, by 4 seconds, but i was still lapped by the winner and just couldn't catch the guy from my heat last week. He was 10 seconds up the road, but i got third because of trouble for the others. 

Since the iconic series is back, a lot of the people in the iconic class have been running various specs of car with the full Cup motor. After catching up with the club guys who had fallen over eachother in the race, i found out they had dumped their torque tuned motors for cup motors and some Super Stock parts. So, i was the only one in the race not running a cup motor now! I felt a somewhat moral victory at this point. 

In between races i tried out some different tyres, including running 32s front and rear. Worked OK, but did loosen the rear so i went bqck to my worn BRCA34 fronts. If it ain't broke etc.... 

Race 3 was a few too many mistakes when running closely with other cars. A couple of the other guys were having a scrappy time too though, so i cracked on. Was 7 seconds slower, but still third, and finally beat the guy from last week to another third. 

I'll admit I was a bit annoyed about the motor situation at this point. Nothing to be done about that, but clearly in terms of car spec all bets were off and i realised as well as agreeing the Torque Tuned motor, we had originally fixed gearing too with 25/58. I had the 55t spur in my bag. I agonised a bit brcause it's not the work of a minute to switch, but i went for it and got it done quickly enough to even give the 25/55 gearing a quick shakedown whilst the buggies raced. It was appreciably quicker down the main straight. Evened the score a little. 

Race 4, off i went, and promptly understeered off the top corner. Going a bit quicker! Car landed at the feet of a marshall so didn't lose too much. After that i settled in and got neat and tidy. A couple of the other guys crashed ahead of me letting me through, and one broke his car. The nice thing was that with the taller gear the guy from last week couldn't catch me now. The fastest guy in the FF02  was still off and running, but the car felt good and clearly had a little more speed once the tyres warmed up. And the buzzer i was second! So happy with that, because i wasn't getting close to the winner. Also did my fastest time of both races by over a second even with the first corner marshall moment, and fastest lap over 0.5 better than anything i had managed before. 

So, overall super pleased with how the car is set up and how i can drive it, but a bit of a quandary about motors. I have a V2 Cup motor in the FF01 which i could switch in, but they are quite a bit faster and i am a little concerned that it will make the car a bit tricky to drive. I might not get racing the next couple of weeks so i probqbly have time to get the motor in and get down one evening to test. Other option is one of those cheap Hobbyking mabuchi motors which are roughly Sport Tuned, so a little quicker than the current motor, but not super quick. Some thought needed, but as i have the V2 Cup motor already that's the obvious first step. 

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Decided to bite the bullet and put the Cup Racer motor in the TT01. I took it out of the FF01 - which has had a string of what looked like esc failures. I had a new 1060, but within 3 minutes of running it started doing odd half throttle behaviour again. Annoying! I flipped to the esc mode to nimh to get it running and boy is it fast! I geared back down to 25/58 for the faster motor. I put some sweep32 front and 24 rear as its going to be cooler on saturday. The car wasn't quite right so i put replaced the soft M Chassis rear springs for medium. This definitely helped with the sticky rwar tyres and higher speeds. 

The car was making odd noises though, so out came the cup motor as i was beginning to suspect my esc failures had been caused by this motor being dodgy. I plumbed in a silvercan, put the esc back in lipo mode and had no trouble at all. I confirmed all this today by soldering up my last "failed" 1060 to my Torque Tuned motor and ran it trouble free in my FF01. So, bad motors, but good ESCs. I don't have time to get a new Cup Racer motor for saturday, but i had already ordered one of those super cheap Mabuchi 7520 motors from Hobbyking, mentioned recently on here. It will be here on Friday, and has max revs of 23400 vs 24000 for a Cup Racer, and 18300 for a Torque Tuned. So, my plan is to run the Mabuchi on Saturday as it will be close to the Cup motors in the other racers cars so i should be in the game. 

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So today could be summed up fairly briefly: Put the Cup Racer motor in the TT01. Also got some fresh Rush. 32 tyres. Massively overthought changing the setup for higher speeds. Crashed my brains out first two heats. Gave myself a talking to amd reverted to last weeks' setup (softest rear springs, higher ride height to prevent elevation changes flipping the car because of low body clearance, worn brca34 fronts, rush32 rears) promptly did my fastest time so far in heat 3 despite apparently losing the ability to drive in the middle of the heat. Agonised over whether to run my FF01 in the final heat as i gave it a run between heats and it was blummin lovely. Decided to stop being an idiot making changes and put my car down for heat 4 with no changes from 3. Had my best race ever. Didn't get marshalled and only made one small mistake on the last lap. Result? 2nd in heat, my first ever 14 lap heat. One of my main competitors was watching the live timing and gave me an elbow bump for managing 14 laps, which was so nice. 

So, todays lesson is STOP FIDDLING WITH THE CAR IDIOT! I am torn though, because my FF01 was seriously lovely for the few laps I ran and i run it in the same heats next week as we lump any Iconic car in together. In fact, the guy who keeps smoking us in our heat has a nice FF02. 

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Nice to hear you’re dialing in the car! Those TTS are lovely to drive once you’ve got them working right. 

I miss the track. Everything here is still closed. Seeing your pics makes me hope they’ll allow us in soon. 

(Also, should I ever make it to the UK I need to grab a race or two of that series. Sounds like fun!)

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@GooneyBird I think it's as dialed as it will ever be in stock format like this. We are now into mixed class running so i am going to add a couple of things to mine to improve it slightly without going nuts. Toe in rear hubs being the main thing, possibly the D/R arms for a little more tuning options. 

If you do ever get to the uk, you could drop your Club Racer straight into the Super Stock class as long as you get the Team Powers spec motor. Class rules are here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2360584570843689/permalink/2915966311972176/

And if the national races are full, then come and race at Broxtowe with me. We race every Saturday and are more relaxed about rules so you could probably just run what ya brung in our Iconic class. 

 

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The cold hard fact of racing touring cars is tyres tyres tyres. They are all that connects you to the track. Tyre warmers, tyre cleaner and tyre additive all need to be used along with roughly 4 sets of new tyres for each weekend event or 2 sets for a one day event. Some races will define the tyre you use and limit the sets (normally to 4).  Using new tyres gives you consistency in set up as you get the same grip each time. Some people swear by “scrubbed” tyres but if you ask top tier driver they will always want to start a race on new rubber. It’s all about the prep work, clean, treat and heat.

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6 hours ago, hedge said:

The cold hard fact of racing touring cars is tyres tyres tyres. They are all that connects you to the track. Tyre warmers, tyre cleaner and tyre additive all need to be used along with roughly 4 sets of new tyres for each weekend event or 2 sets for a one day event. Some races will define the tyre you use and limit the sets (normally to 4).  Using new tyres gives you consistency in set up as you get the same grip each time. Some people swear by “scrubbed” tyres but if you ask top tier driver they will always want to start a race on new rubber. It’s all about the prep work, clean, treat and heat.

4 sets of tyres per weekend! What race meetings have you been going to?

UK nationals is 2 sets of tyres. I can't think of a single series that has allowed more than that. Racing at club/regional level, you run the tyres until they wear through. I'll get a solid 20 runs out of a set before they go in the bin.

 

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Yikess I am out of date, I did nationals and regionals for a few years, 4 sets where standard then... Guess they wanted  cheaper entry point - good thing too!

Still, tyres are key to success and 4 set or 2 understanding how best to prep them and get the most grip out of them is key.

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Racing again last Saturday. I learned my lessons from the previous week and went in with no changes to my proven setup.

In the intervening week i had been somewhat suspicious of the ESC that i ran with the Cup motor last week as it had been one of the ones that i thought had been broken, but turned out to have been a faulty motor in my FF01. Whilst I didn't seem to have any trouble overall last week, the didn't seem to pick up cleanly on throttle and it had a couple of glitchy moments. As the faulty motor in question was also a Cup motor and the one i was using last week was the same unloved V2 spec and had been used in my Thunder Dragon offroad I decided to pull it out. The Mabuchi 7520 motor from hobbyking turned up so i ran it gently in some cold water for 5 minutes to bed in the brushes and installed it with one of my other, newer 1060 ESCs. It ran really smoothly. The specs on the 7520 are 23400rpm top speed vs claimed 24000 for a Cup motor. It doesn't have a fan like a Cup motor, but it seemed good. 

I also tried some gearing, as i picked up a 28t pinion from RW Racing, because you can fit a 28/55 tallest gear for 5.1 FDR. Acceleration was dulled a little, but top speed was good, however the motor was seriously hot after just a couple of minutes in the street which bothered me a bit. I went back down to 25/55 and motor temps were better, as was acceleration so i settled on that. 

Back to the track, and I ran some laps and all seemed good. Running the old BRCA34 fronts, and newish Rush32 rear. I had trimmed the front splitter because the high speed sweeper runs up a rise to the first tight corner, and last week the front end was digging in and flipped me a couple of times. I was still being a little tentative through here as the car does roll a fair bit because of the soft rear. However, after last weeks disaster with trying a stiffer setup I just concentrated on my line. I also played with the front ride height a little. The car was a little understeery last week, but i found the steering is super sensitive to front height. I had been running it pretty high because of the low shell and the bumpy track. Dropping it a little really helped turn in, so i went with that. It's still running about 8mm though. I have some new B parts coming with body posts so i am going to try running the body next hole up so i can run it nearer 6mm like my TC. 

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As for the racing itself, that was kind of great and a disaster all at the same time. I was back in a heat with all the guys i won against in the first week, but everyone has improved their setup and driving. We are now all super close, which makes for close racing, but in my case bad racing because i appear to be completely useless in traffic. I just make stupid mistakes, so despite consistently running 13 lap 304 second heats, which were all easily my second fastest times, all apart from one driver in my heat managed a 14 lapper. It was really frustrating too because i did 14 laps last week, and i KNOW i am faster than a couple of those guys in relatively clear air. Now we are all really close which makes overtaking hard, and i am just not good at it. Its doubly frustrating because i was Car 1 this week so i got sent off first in heat 1 and threw it away almost straight away. After that i was running car 4 which meant i was always in traffic and always making mistakes. Despite good times, they were all as a result of being marshalled or lots of mistakes which is really annoying. 

What was also slightly humbling was watching one of the guys in the other heat out his Stock TT01E down and smash out a 15 lap heat. He was soooo fast! I don't know how he got that TT01 so planted but holy cow he was quick. I have found out he does run the 28/55 gearing i thought got the motor too hot, so that's something to consider, but ultimately next week i just need to keep my gead together, be patient in traffic and just be better! 

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Didn't race last week because of the rain, but I've got thinking because having had a nose around the other cars people are running, even the TT01s I'm up against aren't completely Stock Class. And the fastest cars are fully hopped up FF02s and TA04s now, and we're all in together. So, the gloves are off and I'm going Super Stock! This allows any hop up short of carbon bits. I've started small, but where it counts. I couldn't find any Tamiya toe in uprights, so I designed my own with 2.5 deg toe in, and changed the pin positions slightly for good measure to give me a better roll centre and around 2 deg negative camber without needing the adjustable top arms. Then I found that in the spares box I had all the parts I needed to go to steel driveshafts at the rear, and some spare TL01 shafts, so that's all been done:

20210512_135340

At the front I bought some cheap Yeah Racing steel universals. 

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These will help because I run a fairly stiff front diff, and I've also got the TT01D hop up D Parts on order which will have the better lower arms, which don't clear the fat driveshafts.

Having found out about the gearing that super fast guy was using, I splashed out on a new Team Powers V3 motor and a 28t pinion. With a fan the motor temps seem OK, but it's not the slowest car I own anymore! And my goodness do the rear uprights make a difference! The rear is suddenly planted and puts the power down cleanly. I've had to shorten the shocks to reduce the droop and put slightly stiffer rear springs in, and it's still great. Better than great, it's FAST! Really hope the rain holds off this Saturday as I really want to see how this goes on track.

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Raced! It was cold and damp conditions which made it tricky, especially as i don't have any wet tyres, but i practised pre-race on a dry track with wet patches. The good news is the the setup works brilliantly. Despite the stiffer springs on the rear, the new uprights make such a difference. It puts the power down so cleanly, and i can now run the same tyres front and rear because the grip is even across the car.

The tall gearing for more straight line speed was good for the slippery conditions because it did made the punch out of corners more manageable. 

During practice i ran rush32s which were ok, and i tested the Sweep24 and they seemed good too, and didn't mess with the balance. It was super interesting to drive the track too. The big fast sweepers and main straight were dry - and therefore fast - but the hairpin at the top of the circuit was wet so you had to brake super hard from top speed really early and pretty much roll through the corner, and not accelerate until you were almost straight. 

Then it rained....... 

The track was pretty completely wet /damp when we raced heat 1, so i stuck with the soft sweep24. A couple of the guys were running wets and were pretty quick, but one of them had a mechanical. I had a clean race. It was slippery, but the tyres did seem to get some grip so i could just go steady. Also with everyone having crashes and such different pace meant i didn't have too much close traffic to contend with so i could just drive clean and tidy. It was a bit of a war of attrition, but i ended up second which was the best i could expect. 

Heat 2 was totally different! The sun came out briefly and the track dried really fast. At the last minute i committed to the 32 tyres. I had a couple of offs, but otherwise the car ran really fast, and because i came second in heat 1 i was away 2nd in heat 2 which meant i could keep my nose clean and just crack on. One guy was running a bit quicker than me but broke his steering, and after than the changes really showed through. The extra speed on the short straight meant lapping was easy if i just stayed patient and waited until that part of the track, and it was just pretty quick. I made one unforced error right at the end which took a few seconds to sort out and i missed out on a 14 lap heat by 1 second! I won the heat, which i was super happy about.

Then it rained again! It did stop but the sun didn't come out, so the track stayed damp. I went back to 24s and set off first. It was a lot more slippery, and i had a pretty scrappy race, and after a spin and double tap on the brakes my full throttle calibration failed and i was crawling around. I stayed out as the speed meant it was easy to drive because i could drive full throttle pretty much all the way around! Came last, but it was a slow heat so my fast time from earlier stood as my FTQ. 

I had to leave early so that was it, but the 4th round didn't see any improvement in times from any of the 3 full heats of iconic, so i ended up 4th overall for the day so i am really pleased about that. 

Not sure when i will get to race again, but i hope it's dry! Yesterday was fun, but man it was tiring. A real exercise in concentration. Good though. 

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