Juhunio's Bits-A-Builds WIP: TA03F-TRF Calsonic Skyline R34

[Juhunio]

12 hours ago, svenb said:

Some serious hunting gone in to these builds mate. Well done

Cheers Steve 👍 Searching out the parts is half the fun. Looking forward to the 49069 dampers turning up safe and sound 🤞

[ChrisRx718]

I have just realised another injustice! You've called it a Bluebird, but it hasn't got a Bluebird servo! This needs to be remedied.

I took the plunge and ordered a GPM belt tensioner like yours. £22 posted! I remember back in the day when Asiatees were selling them for well under a tenner 

[Juhunio]

14 hours ago, ChrisRx718 said:

I have just realised another injustice! You've called it a Bluebird, but it hasn't got a Bluebird servo! This needs to be remedied

I didn't even know they were a thing! I called it Bluebird for a reason...obviously, it's all very blue. But I also got really into the history of speed records when I was a kid, particularly Donald Campbell after a family holiday to the Lakes when I was 12.

I made a very ambitious attempt to scratch-build a lightweight wooden radio control model of Bluebird K7 for my GCSE CDT project, but it didn't work  I ended up making a motorised drawing board instead  So calling this build Bluebird is a little nod to that bit of personal history...albeit land-based rather than water and, this time, it will work 

Actually, responding to your comment has sparked another thought; that it would be cool to try and get hold of a CN7 sticker and incorporate it into the build somewhere. I'll have a look around...

14 hours ago, ChrisRx718 said:

I took the plunge and ordered a GPM belt tensioner like yours. £22 posted! I remember back in the day when Asiatees were selling them for well under a tenner 

Glad you got one, prices are what they are for vintage / scarce parts. I've given up worrying about what parts cost today compared to when-I-were-a-lad, as long as no-one's taking the mick

[Juhunio]

While I'm waiting for the dampers to show up, I took a few pics of the chassis build as it stands. Just dampers, body posts and (possibly) the body post brace to go I think

[ThunderDragonCy]

Fabulous!

[mtbkym01]

1 hour ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

Fabulous!

Yes 100%. Stunning!!

There is just something about blue and carbon 

[MadAnt]

Nice!👍

[Shergar]

A thing of beauty! How about blue heatshrink on the motor leads? 

[Juhunio]

On 6/21/2025 at 10:16 PM, Shergar said:

A thing of beauty! How about blue heatshrink on the motor leads? 

Thanks very much, and a decent shout on the heatshrink. That's definitely within the limits of my skills 😂 I'll have a look around 👍

[TwistedxSlayer]

Very nice indeed.

[Juhunio]

Blue gold arrived today! All-blue dampers and some shiny 3rd party rims that will have to do in place of the elusive 49029s

Those are the last bits I need to finish this project 

Oooh, the rims are aluminium, niiiiiiice 

[svenb]

What do you reckon to the damper springs?

I think they are fancy in glossy black

 

[Juhunio]

1 hour ago, svenb said:

What do you reckon to the damper springs?

I think they are fancy in glossy black

 

Yes, first impressions is that they are verrrry nice. It'll be the weekend before I get a chance to open them up and build them, I'll make a decision on springs then. Really pleased to have found a set though 👍

[Juhunio]

While saving the dampers for the weekend, I couldn't resist assembling the wheels and tyres this morning. I seem to have multiple pairs of these racing semi-slicks in the box so I'll use a couple here, and the tire inners are the same as the ones that come in the TA03 TRF kits so it seemed only right to include them here 

The foam set includes a strip of tape squares which are used to hold the foams in a circle shape

Ready to be inserted into the tyres

And all done. It's definitely a little frustrating not to have been able to find a set of the 49029s, but I do think these are a pretty gorgeous substitute

[Juhunio]

It's damper time 😃 Looking forward to this as I've not built one of these vintage SLF damper sets from scratch before 

I've got four different spring options to consider; the gloss black that came with the dampers, the 'luminous' blue ones that came in the early editions of the 53163 set and were supplied with the David Jun TA03F, the darker blue that come in later issues of that same set and some fancy Ltd Edition Mica Blue ones

First impression on the springs is....they all look pretty great 😂

The damper cylinders are super smooth and, I think, a slightly different shade of blue to core Tamiya blue again. That'll suit the slight mix of blues on the chassis. The insides are sooooooo shiny!

Having assembled the necessary tools...

...and fiddled about setting up the necessary line-up photo....

...the cylinders are rebuilt with the pistons, rods and o-rings before being filled with oil. A couple of gentle pumps of the piston rods releases the big air pockets, then a little top up of oil in place of the released air and they're ready to settle down for a wee rest to let the remaining smaller air bubbles escape

[Juhunio]

The dampers are done, with spring options fitted. 

I'm putting one on each corner for now so I can sit with the spring options for a few days and work out which one I like the most before making a decision

Light blue

Dark blue

Black

Mica blue

[Please step out the ray]

Decisions, decisions.

+1 vote for Black (from a colour point of view only)

 

However....

 

+1 vote for Light Blue (from a spring looking proportionally correct view point only)

 

How to decide....

 

(Mica Blue to many wire turns & Dark Blue just wrong colour)

[Nicadraus]

Beautiful build as always. Those blue bits and pieces are eye candies to me. 

[ChrisRx718]

Black or Dark Blue imo. 

Try white? TRF styleee 

[Juhunio]

17 hours ago, Nicadraus said:

Beautiful build as always

Thanks man 👍

[Juhunio]

Thanks for the feedback on the springs...now I've fitted the rims, I think I've narrowed it down to pale blue or Mica.

The pale blue look great, are TA03-appropriate and match the stabiliser bars...

...while the Mica ones really 'pop', irrespective of the fact they are Hard Type springs (ie 'wrong').

Having put the wheels and body posts on to see how the shell sat, one thing I learned straight away is that the rear body mount brace won't fit ☹️

It only works if you use those extended rear body posts that hang out behind the rear wheels and, as my shell is pre-drilled for body posts that go straight up from the damper mount, the brace is no good.

Next thing I learned with the blingy wheels on was woooaaaahhhhh that track is wide 😂

Could be because of the wide rear axles, could be the unknown offset of the rims. So I tried the appropriate rims for the R34 body...

Better, but still just too wide. So, as suspected, the wide rear axles aren't actually going to work out for this build and a little bit of dismantling was required to switch out the wide axles and spacers for some standard TA03 axles

Now the body shell is a nice fit over the rims, though the rear wheels are a little bit rear-of-centre for my liking. Not sure why that is, and doesn't look like there's much scope to change that on a TA03 🤔

The wide rear axles set is, like the rear body mount brace, now an unused Hop Up that can go and find a new home somewhere.

Once I've truly finished this build (I have a final part on its way from Japan) I'll do a reconciliation of all the Hop Ups and hardware that were actually used, and all the spare bits that are left over.

[svenb]

Can the rear uprights be swapped left to right? They look a bit offset🤔

[svenb]

Maybe not must be the angle of the photo or my poor eye site

[Juhunio]

2 hours ago, svenb said:

Can the rear uprights be swapped left to right? They look a bit offset🤔

I did wonder that. There were no L/R markings on the GPM uprights, I put them on this way round because it seemed to match the orientation and shape of the Tamiya part...I have a spare Tamiya 'L' upright which I've positioned over the GPM part below to illustrate

I could try flipping them round but it would definitely pull the rear arms further forwards to attach to the ball connector which would also be further forward.

I will also fit the Tamiya 'L' upright to see what it does to the rear wheel position as a side-by-side comparison with the GPM upright on the right.

Watch this space! 

[Juhunio]

So a little bit of rear upright footering today, to see if I could get the rear wheels to shunt forward a wee bit. First, attaching the Tamiya 'L' upright in place of the GPM part

It didn't make much difference at all, maybe a mm. Here's the situation with the GPM part...

...and with the Tamiya part. Marginally further forward, but nowhere near centred in the arch

Next, I kept the Tamiya part on the left and flipped the GPM 'L' part over to the right. It definitely shifted the wheels forward, possibly even a little too much.

But while now forward of centre, it definitely looks closer to centre. Better anyway. It might just be that forward-of-centre looks less weird than rear-of-centre. 

The opposite orientation of the upright did require the use of a 10mm spacer, 16mm screw and a ball connector nut to get the rear arms to attach, which in itself isn't an issue.

What is an issue is that, when flipped to the opposite side of the chassis, the top of the upright is too close to the damper and rubs on the spring. So it isn't an option.

I also considered whether the lower arms were fitted the wrong way round, but they looked right in relation to the illustrations in the manuals.

Now that I had the upper arms disconnected and the drive shafts out I could see that the lower arms were correct, with the 'R' arm on the right hand side. So it's not that either 🤷🏻‍♂️

After all that malarkey...the lower arms were on the right way round, the GPM uprights were on the right way round and the Tamiya upright didn't make any significant difference to the wheel position.

So I refitted the GPM uprights and will just live with it I guess.

Can I have that hour back please?