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Tizer

More FF01's! Carbon fibre upgrades

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As mentioned a while ago I'm also jumping on the FF01 bandwagon. I've been a fan for years and I've had two FF01's so far. One completely standard (and brand new) and another with a HPI racing tub chassis, white suspension arm set and some aluminium bits around it. In August last year I received another one I bought a few months before in Japan with a HPI carbon fibre double deck chassis and some more upgrades. I took it out of the box for an unboxing video on my YouTube channel, took a few photo's and back in the box in went until now.

When I saw the CTE carbon fibre + 3D printed parts for the front and rear shocktower and rear bulkhead I thought it would make for a great upgrade for my FF01's. Since I work at Shapeways the printing of the parts was easy as it didn't need to be shipped. Now I'm just waiting for the Fibrelyte parts to arrive. 

This is the car I'm going to upgrade in this build thread, my HPI Racing carbon fibre FF01. It is used, but in really good condition. The plastic parts are not cracked in the common area's like the front shocktowers etc. It also has a set of pink Tamiya dampers installed and a aluminium motor cooler. I haven't peaked inside the gearbox to see what gears and diff are in it.

The body is in great condition without any cracks, but unfortunately the fluorescent paint has started flaking off. A common problem with PS fluorescent colours. Not sure what to do with the body yet. The wheels will go ofcourse as the tires are shot and the rims are scratched and cracked.

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And here's my other FF01 with the HPI Racing bathtub chassis, white bits and my own design toe-in rear knuckles printed in white SLS nylon (versatile plastic from Shapeways), polished and clearcoated to keep them nice and white. Picture was taken before I added the knuckles though :D 

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wow thats nice. really like the carbon chassis.

 

Not owning a FF01, but FF03 and great cars.

 

any chance you could scan these carbon parts :D

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4 hours ago, Fabia130vRS said:

wow thats nice. really like the carbon chassis.

 

Not owning a FF01, but FF03 and great cars.

 

any chance you could scan these carbon parts :D

More than happy to borrow it to someone or scan it if a replica can be made :) It would also help me make extras for runner cars. 

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15 hours ago, Tizer said:

Since I work at Shapeways

:o That explains some of the magic, at least :P And "magic" is the word for these fine FF-01s! I can hardly wait to see it all underway.

Thanks for the tip on clear-coating the white plastic, too - I have plenty of use for that, and I like that better than just throwing white paint on it.

Best of luck with the rebuild!

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Here's the @ThunderDragonCy printed parts layed out. 2x front shocktower (will probably put one on the other car too) but only 1 of the rear braces as I have the aluminium brace on the other car. I left the parts white for now, but will probably dye them black for the runner car to match with the other parts on it. I have a ton of other TA02/FF01 upgrades so let's see what will end up on this car.

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1 hour ago, Grastens said:

Thanks for the tip on clear-coating the white plastic, too - I have plenty of use for that, and I like that better than just throwing white paint on it.

Best of luck with the rebuild!

Yeah the SLS nylon is quite porous, so once you get some oil or other stains on it you can't fix it anymore. The clearcoat really helps and allows you to clean it. And thanks!

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2 hours ago, Tizer said:

More than happy to borrow it to someone or scan it if a replica can be made :) It would also help me make extras for runner cars. 

If you're scanning the carbon parts, can you also scan the fibreglass parts from the HPI tub chassis? I have the tub (came in a job lot I bought years ago) but not the 2 frp parts that make up the top deck and battery holder. I have a sheet of black frp and I'd love to get it restored so I can make it into a full chassis again. 

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3 hours ago, Tizer said:

More than happy to borrow it to someone or scan it if a replica can be made :) It would also help me make extras for runner cars. 

That the idea :oD

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Your cars are great! The carbon double deck has so much style :wub:

You could put it on a copier and save the image on a usb stick. I could draw it in CAD and then share the files here.

Please more detail pictures of your beauties ;)

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Finally got my Fibrelyte parts after they've send them to the wrong address in the first place. 

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Two full sets of the CTE carbon bits. Will keep one set of the rear parts as spares because of the already installed aluminium rear end on the white car. 

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Here we go! 

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Quickly testfitted all the printed parts to the carbon fibre. I already noticed I need some more screw options as I dont have the correct lenghts for it all. I'll put in an order to re-stock my stainless screw supply :) 

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Last week one of my collected orders from Yahoo Auctions came in and included was this Eagle Racing aluminium rear suspension mount. The front one + motor guard is included in the next box that should arrive this week.

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It was quick and easy to assemble the rear bulkheads too

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I did notice the upper plate wasn't sitting level. I played around with flipping the rear mount upside down, but that also didn't sit level. It could be because I'm using a non-Tamiya chassis that the sizes are just slightly off, so I'll just add some small shims to fix it later on.

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Does look good though!

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On to the front!

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As clearly mentioned in the product description for this front tower, the original fixed upper arms do not fit. I'll need to order myself some ballends and turnbuckles for this chassis. 

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Next problem however was that when I put the Civic body back on (with factory drilled holes) it didn't sit right. The body was pushed backwards in relation to the chassis.

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I then figured the Eagle Racing mount might be off, as I have had bad experiences with newer Eagle Racing stuff in the past.  I swapped it out for the original plastic mount.

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It didn't change anything, so I fitted the body to my other FF01 which has stock towers and suspension to see if it was sitting right. It was.

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Also noticed my other FF01 has the stereotypical FF01 front shocktower issue... A cracked damper mount. And it was even sitting off the floor and still cracked. Sad times! But I have a carbon tower for this one too in the future so no worries.

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After some careful measuring and comparing stock parts vs. the newly fitted parts I found the new front shocktower moved the mounting points for the upperarms, dampers and bodyposts ~3mm backwards. Luckilly it's designed in such a way that one can fit spacers between the printed mount and the carbon tower, so I did. I added 3mm thick spacers and tested the fitment again.

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It worked! It's sitting much better now. The body is not sitting level in the pictures, but with the rear end a bit to low. When sitting level the wheels sit in the center of the wheelwells though. I didn't touch the rear end at all, it was all in the front tower it seems.

As a bonus, when flipped around the front upperarms now do fit as well.

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So here it is, the FF01 as it's sits at the moment. Waiting for the correct screws and some other bits and pieces to make adjustable upper arms. 

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Bonus pictures!

This is my third FF01 that's disassembled. It's brand new and never used and includes some upgrades as you can see. There's also a cool Tekin ESC that I might put in something else sometime. Let's see.

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And this Cross Racing (?) delrin suspension for TA02 also came in together with the Eagle Racing rear mount. I might put this on the FF01. Not sure yet. It's a very cool rare upgrade though!

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Now I have a 3mm bigger mount already being printed at Shapeways and the option of only moving the bodyposts forward (not the rest of the tower) thanks to @ThunderDragonCy who has been so kind to alter his designs slightly for me to perfect this build. Stay tuned for that!

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New parts arrived from RCmart + my new print from Shapeways to try and fix the front shocktower/wheelbase issue. 

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Got some extra turnbuckles for a possible second car, like a runner TA02.

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Here's the new front shocktower support Cy designed for me, but as he already thought the carbon tower now was too close to the gearbox to fit a screw for the upperarm inbetween.

Luckilly he already suggested another fix by moving only the bodyposts (and perhaps dampers) forward and keeping the tower itself where it sits. I think that will be the winner, and will get the parts printed up soon.

For now I just moved on with the original mount so I could at least get the car together. I added the big bore dampers (which come with a full spring set which is great!), aluminium hexes, the new adjustable turnbuckles and a bunch of TRF blue screws I got in an auction a while ago. Also found a set of blue servo mounts in my spare FF01 box. Here's the result so far :) 

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And next to it's white/silver HPI FF01 brother

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@Tizer: Wow! This is a very good looking chassis. The blue parts look superb together with the HPI plates :wub: 

I guess you will do some more tuning, pins with e-clips replacing the rusty armscrews would be a nice fitting upgrade.

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On 6/22/2021 at 11:36 PM, Tizer said:

New parts arrived from RCmart + my new print from Shapeways to try and fix the front shocktower/wheelbase issue. 

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Got some extra turnbuckles for a possible second car, like a runner TA02.

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Here's the new front shocktower support Cy designed for me, but as he already thought the carbon tower now was too close to the gearbox to fit a screw for the upperarm inbetween.

Luckilly he already suggested another fix by moving only the bodyposts (and perhaps dampers) forward and keeping the tower itself where it sits. I think that will be the winner, and will get the parts printed up soon.

For now I just moved on with the original mount so I could at least get the car together. I added the big bore dampers (which come with a full spring set which is great!), aluminium hexes, the new adjustable turnbuckles and a bunch of TRF blue screws I got in an auction a while ago. Also found a set of blue servo mounts in my spare FF01 box. Here's the result so far :) 

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And next to it's white/silver HPI FF01 brother

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This is WOW!!! Really nice detail pics. Someone asked for a Poster? : )

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7 hours ago, Collin said:

This is WOW!!! Really nice detail pics. Someone asked for a Poster? : )

Would be cool to do a printed photo yes :) Now I have my new photobooth I can get really nice pictures of my cars.

12 hours ago, wtcc5 said:

@Tizer: Wow! This is a very good looking chassis. The blue parts look superb together with the HPI plates :wub: 

I guess you will do some more tuning, pins with e-clips replacing the rusty armscrews would be a nice fitting upgrade.

Thanks! Yeah all the rusty crap will be replaced. Most of the parts need a good clean too. I'm just making it a mock-up for now, and once everything fits right and is complete I'll tear it down for a proper clean and rebuild with all the right settings :) I'm still in doubt what to do with the suspension. I could design my own long arms for it again as I did with my TA01 runner and make use of more modern c-hubs and knuckles, or go with the Cross delrin TA02 arms I have. We'll see!

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3 hours ago, Tizer said:

Would be cool to do a printed photo yes :) Now I have my new photobooth I can get really nice pictures of my cars.

Really nice photos. Can I make a suggestion though? For the close-ups of individual areas, the variation in focus works really well, drawing your eye to a particular part of the photo, but for the overview shot at the bottom, it might be good to have the whole chassis in focus rather that just the front end. 

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It's been a while since I updated here. I have been busy with other projects and life in general.. I do still have 7 (!) big boxes of stuff on the way from Japan, and one more that needs shipping. In the last one is this FF01 I bought that has a rare Big Wave carbon of FRP chassis set. Pretty cool next to my HPI carbon and HPI tub. All the aftermarket stuff for FF01/TA02 :) If anyone's interested I can scan the parts too of course.

Here's some pics from the auction:


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Few cool little extra's included too like the Cross rear anti-roll bar, aluminium kingpins and the Mugen wheels that would suit the Civic body pretty well.

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The Big Wave FF01 arrived a while ago and took some time to take pictures of it. It had a few upgrades, but the plastics in front are smashed as always. Shocktower cracked and the bumper messed up. I do like the lightweight kingpins and universal shafts that it came with. The body is also in really good condition, so after painting the wing and mirrors I'm thinking of making this into a Zexel livery body?

Anyway, here's the pictures of the Big Wave chassis.

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Soo cool :wub:

The front (gear-) box is a topic on my list. I recently bought a Volvo 850 and even though it looked very good on first sight, it has cracks everywhere around the threads and sides… With the difficult and/or expensive availability, I will try to design a carbon-plate version.

Looking forward to your restoration of the Big Wave chassis!

By the way: The HPI chassis copy had its first outing and handled well.

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1 hour ago, wtcc5 said:

Soo cool :wub:

The front (gear-) box is a topic on my list. I recently bought a Volvo 850 and even though it looked very good on first sight, it has cracks everywhere around the threads and sides… With the difficult and/or expensive availability, I will try to design a carbon-plate version.

Looking forward to your restoration of the Big Wave chassis!

By the way: The HPI chassis copy had its first outing and handled well.

I have tried a few different variations of front gear case design, from full 3d print plastic, so carbon plate with plastic parts. It all just ends up being EUR60-70, but as good FF01 gearcases get more and more rare it might well be the way to go 

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Back to the HPI FF01 project, I FINALLY installed the longer bodyposts mounts to hopefully fix the body fitment issue I've had before. It's better, but still not great unfortunately. I think it needs to be another mm or 2 or 3 pushed forward.

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You can tell a little bit by the factory drilled holes. The body is pushed backwards a bit too much still.

Good thing the chassis itself still looks amazing! I need to start ordering some bits to complete it (more blue screws, pins with e-clips and electronics)

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