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slydar

DT02 Stadium Truck Conversion for club racing

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I Recently got back into the hobby, with a general emphasis on participating in racing. There's a great local track that race's 1/10 EP only (rare here) with a good turn out for stock buggy 2wd and 4wd, plus other classes every fortnight.

I did really want to use a Tamiya chassis in 2wd or 4wd stock, but fairly quickly realized after practicing with my DF01/DT02, that It's probably not a practical choice. I bought a used Xray XB2, and have done 2 races so far in stock class, and feel like it's coming together, quietly expecting to podium the B main in the next race or 2.

After my first race though I definitely realized that the day would be a lot more fun with 2 cars. Although my DF01 is just about there with a set up to work ok in 4WD stock, it's proved horribly unreliable, I have faith i'll get it to a point where I can run it, but running it every at every race is probably going to be frustrating. The surface at our track is definitely part of the problem. It's outdoors, using a surface designed for BMX racing, super high grip, and pretty unforgiving on the car.

Having the Xray for 2wd left my DT02 without a purpose, side by side with modern 2wd race buggies it's very obvious there's a difference very few drivers could make up..

So I thought I would have a go at converting it to a Stadium Truck. This is a "less serious" class at our track, with truggy and ST run together, motors are free, standard gearing for a DT02 is ~9.2?? with a 19t pinion, and about 8.2?? with a 17t, so it should run well with 10.5, or 13.5, which will make it pretty fun :) 

I ran the DT02 at our track quite a bit, I ended up breaking both towers, but it took a long time, and the truck body will save them anyway. The tub did end up basically worn out on the bottom and also cracked in a few spots. I'm going make up some skid plates, which are a general necessity at our track no matter what car you run, that should save the wearing through, and cracks may have been my error with incorrect screw lengths, or driving heaps of laps and not noticing things loosening off. I think I'll get better life out of the fresh one I have.

I've always loved the Stadium Blitzer. I consider the DT02 to be a kind of spiritual successor to the Blitzer cars. They are both basic 2wd buggies in the classic style, the only real difference being the very deep offset and wider wheels. 

So first step was to find some wheels. I found some old Traxxas wheels which looked like they might work, and ran the idea past local hobby shop, and he came back with a suggestion of some old Thunder Tiger wheels, which turned out to be perfect. They're the same width front and back, so will work with modern tyres, they're also bearing type front, AND metric, AND fit on a normal buggy front knuckle. The rears are pin drive, so also bolt straight on, and the offsets seem to be in the ball park for sure..

So here they are. You can also see my spur gear mod from the cars previous iteration, which I'll no longer need for the motor I'll be running.

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Front -

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Rear -

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Body on -

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Top view of body -

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Rear 1/4

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Front -

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This body I got from a Vintage Dyna Blaster. I'll run this for now, it definitely has some character, ill clean it up a bit (more) and remove the Dyna Blaster decals, but I have a Stadium Blitzer body and decals on the way, which I'll do in box art :)

Next up is to build a fresh set of CVA's. And later this week or next body mounting, after I grab some tyres. I think with some trimming I should have just enough clearance, but if not I've got a few ideas for widening the track a little.

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Some shock building as promised.

Super exciting stuff :D

My last CVA's for this DT02 were set up with 25wt Losi shock oil, 2 hole pistons front, and 1 rear.

I've gone slightly heavier with 35wt AE oil, maybe equivalent to 30-32 losi? There is a chart.

These are from a broken up Blitzer Beetle kit. I am going to use the kit springs to begin with, seem like the rates are close to what I had with the buggy set up, but they fit better. 
 

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Although I generally agree with the prevailing opinion on Tamiya Club that CVA's are decent, one thing I have noticed compared to other shocks is the sloppy fit piston/valve on the shock shaft, so I've decided to try adding some shims.

Before -
 

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After -

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Also using AE O-ring grease 

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And some of these damper ball ends harvested from the Dyna Blaster, which I've trimmed down a little. Got a fair even/uniform amount of by holding them in the chuck of the drill, and spinning them up while buffing them down with the Dremel

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Here it is as a roller again. Tyre's tomorrow, so we'll see where we're really at with body clearance

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I didn't really take a lot more process shots. Here it is.

I put the Body on, with the standard arms, and it was just touch too narrow to work but with clearance, and aesthetically. So it now has Traxxas Rustler arms front and rear, and also the rear hubs.

The arms themselves are actually aftermarket RPM brand, front arms being their wide version, and some alu rear uprights.

They are "almost" a bolt up job. at the front I had to drill out the outer hinge pin hole to 3mm, and add some 3mm I.D alu spacers to fit the Tamiya C hubs. also had to trim a tiny bit off the arm on the outside with a hobby knife, so I could run my DT02 shafts.
The inner part of the arm needed around 0.1-0.2mm? shave off also so it wouldn't bind on the DT02 bulkhead.

The rear needed about 3-4mm of spacer on the inner hinge pin as the Traxxas arms were a bit wide.

These photos show the first set up for testing on Saturday. With the body mount mostly un modified Rustler (I think) front body mount and  10.5t Brushless motor.


 

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Testing Saturday was a bit of a disappointment.

It looked cool,  was crazy fast and did great wheelies, but was just about un-drivable really. 

With some evening pondering I decided to give it another go.

Removed the 10.5 and swapped in the 13.5 from my DF01, as that car is due a major rebuild anyway. 
 

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The major re-think though was the front set up. I carried over the set up (springs, dampers pistons, oil etc) from when it was set up as a buggy as I had this working quite well.

 But somewhat obviously, although the truck rear tyres are a bit bigger than a buggy, they're comparable, the front's though obviously aren't. The car was pitching onto its front tyres and rolling over and pitching onto the front way too much.

Luckily though, I was able to get touring car springs to work. I also changed from 2 hole pistons to 1, and went to 45wt up from 35. 

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This photo was from earlier in the day. Was basically good out of the box. But I ended up to even stiffer front springs, and changing the rear shock oil from 35 to 45 also. Other than that it was just normal break in things coming loose, and learning a new car, got really lucky and had the track mostly to myself, other than this inquisitive guy.

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I did have one mishap, came off the track over a jump and hit one of the bolts that holds the pipe in and bent the knuckle, tried bending it back and.. lesson learned.
No big deal though as I had some alu C hubs and knuckles at home, so all fixed now :) 

 

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This is how it sits now, vintage body took a beating setting it up, but the race tape kinda suits it :D.

I think the arms make it about 6-8mm a side wider at the front, and a little less at the rear. this is just enough to make the proportions work. It's definitely not as wide as a modern ST, but it's about the same as a Blitzer, just with a bit bigger tyres.

Pretty stoked I was able to put my DT02 to use. The set up is not going to win any races, but it's drivable enough to get out there as a second car to make race day more fun, and nice to have a Tamiya out there.

 

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Doing some little things now. Remade the front body mount in Kydex, and put a radius on the bottom of the posts, looks a lot better. Never worked with this material before, it's really easy and workable :)

 

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And made a bumper/skid plate/wheelie bar/motor guard. Our track is super abrasive, so this is a must. Also means I can look at cutting away the gearbox around the motor for some cooling, and maybe adding a fan.

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I might put one more bend in it to bring it in tighter, but it will probably protect the body better like this, and maybe leave more room for a fan, so I'll think on it for a little while. New body is the next job.

 

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Nice clean rear bumper! Which type of aluminum did you took? Its 3mm?

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2 hours ago, Collin said:

Nice clean rear bumper! Which type of aluminum did you took? Its 3mm?

Yes 3mm. Really the main purpose is a skid plate, as although our track is outdoors, it's a sealed surface, basically sand with glue in it, and almost as hard as concrete, and maybe even more abrasive. 

So 3mm means there's some room to counter sink the screws a little deeper, so as the skid plate wears down, it doesn't wear the heads of the bolts as much, making them impossible to remove :)

 

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I did my first race. Really didn't go so well. but I've had some time since to work out the bug's, and do some more set up, and today it really came together.

At the track again today. down to 35wt front, and up to 55 rear. 

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Anyway, here's some action :)

This is the trickiest jump on the track, really easy to overshoot, bottom the car out, and slide out trying to take the corner directly after it in the buggy, but you can get away with being a bit messier with the grip the truck has 

And here is the triple, I've dropped down in turns with the motor to a 17.5, which would make clearing this jump pretty much impossible taking any normal line, but its faster to double single anyway. again, not my cleanest driving :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Which rear CVD axel did you use since you changed the arms to traxxas rustler arms?

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