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TD-2 - New Astute

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9 hours ago, akimrc said:

Hello.

This can be a improvment: 22060 - TD2 Mount Pivot Set for Big Bore Dampers (Front)
Front TRF big bores have much more droop and up-travel than CVA or basic alu shocks.
 

Edit: its only in testing position and need to add spring cup.

 

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5.jpg

Let me know how it works out for you!

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On 6/12/2022 at 5:34 AM, akimrc said:

Hello.

This can be a improvment: 22060 - TD2 Mount Pivot Set for Big Bore Dampers (Front)
Front TRF big bores have much more droop and up-travel than CVA or basic alu shocks.
 

Edit: its only in testing position and need to add spring cup.

 

4.jpg

5.jpg

Any news on this setup?

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Question, on page 5 of TD2 manual, what's the purpose of gluing the part (M6)? And what is even "synthetic rubber cement"?

td2.png

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6 hours ago, Gabranth said:

Question, on page 5 of TD2 manual, what's the purpose of gluing the part (M6)? And what is even "synthetic rubber cement"?

td2.png

You glue it to stop dirt ingress (the TD4 uses same chassis but would have the driveshaft there so dirt won't enter).

Synthetic rubber cement is not super glue - I would use something like Uhu glue for that.

Amazon does sell rubber cement - not sure how different it is to Uhu like glues

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I see, if the purpose is to stop dirt (and maybe water?) then it can be replaced with something that has similar property. Also I assume all those sponge sheet inserts have same purpose?

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3 hours ago, Gabranth said:

I see, if the purpose is to stop dirt (and maybe water?) then it can be replaced with something that has similar property. Also I assume all those sponge sheet inserts have same purpose?

Yep. A plastic part glued in may be more resistant to changing shape and abrasion through cleaning, but whatever stops the hole, stops it. 

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Almost done with my build, rather disappointed with plastic wheel hubs as they look cheap and finicky. What's the best hop-up replacement for them? I look around and they seem to come in different size

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27 minutes ago, Gabranth said:

Almost done with my build, rather disappointed with plastic wheel hubs as they look cheap and finicky. What's the best hop-up replacement for them? I look around and they seem to come in different size

I would go for a 5mm Tamiya clamping wheel hex. The Yeah Racing clamping hexes are also of reasonable quality.

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On 7/21/2022 at 9:53 AM, Gabranth said:

Question, on page 5 of TD2 manual, what's the purpose of gluing the part (M6)? And what is even "synthetic rubber cement"?

td2.png

Contact adhesive / shoe glue

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On 7/18/2022 at 8:36 PM, redlinegw said:

Any news on this setup?

Hello,

i have the new parts: 22060 - TD2 Mount Pivot Set for Big Bore Dampers (Front).
But strugle with the rear hubs. I have 5-6 pieces broken so far in same point. On some tracks with jumps is hard to finish 5min drive without break...
If someone release ALU rear hubs, i will continue, but now its not working for me.
TRF201 rear arms + hubs can work, but this is not solution for me. (and its better to switch complete to older cars).

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4 hours ago, akimrc said:

Hello,

i have the new parts: 22060 - TD2 Mount Pivot Set for Big Bore Dampers (Front).
But strugle with the rear hubs. I have 5-6 pieces broken so far in same point. On some tracks with jumps is hard to finish 5min drive without break...
If someone release ALU rear hubs, i will continue, but now its not working for me.
TRF201 rear arms + hubs can work, but this is not solution for me. (and its better to switch complete to older cars).

I've had same issue on TD4 - I'm looking for a hub from another manufacturer that will fit well but had no luck so far that doesn't require replacement of the driveshafts.

I hope for a Tamiya release of carbon reinforced version soon or an alloy hopup. I can get XV01 carbon reinforced hubs to fit but you need to use a TRF 201 driveshaft (rare) or a Kyosho RB5/RB6 driveshaft (also rare - but not as hard to find as the 201 version)

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On 4/2/2022 at 5:53 AM, BloodClod said:

First Impressions at the Track
Wired up the TD2 Astute 2022 and took it for a test run at the local rack today. The car is running a basic 120A Hobbywing Quicrun ESC with a 10.5 brushless motor and I have 3 aftermarket items installed in the car.

Options and Settings
The first is the slipper clutch which I consider a must-have when doing any real sort of track running along with the second item which is a metal diff nut for the ball differential. The third item installed are a pair of old DF02 front shocks that I had in my parts box. The reason I installed them is that the stock shocks have limited travel which results in the front end of the car being unable to bottom out on full compression. The DF02 shocks have more travel once the internal limiters are removed - so I was able to use the rearward shock mounting holes to get more uptravel while maintaining the same droop settings. For those who are interested, I used 3-hole pistons in the front shocks with AE 35wt oil and for the rear I ran 2-hole pistons with the stock kit oil - stock kit springs all around. I was running Schumacher Mezzo on the rears and cut staggers in the front - yellow compound all round. Other than that, the car is pretty much stock. For power I am running a shorty pack in the battery compartment but it is spaced all the way to the left. The space on the left is taken up by some battery foam spacers and another 25g of weight to balance the car out.

The Track
I ran the car on the local astro-turf track. It is an outdoor track so traction is medium-high and the surface is bumpy. The track has some mid-sized jumps and tight hairpins - overall a decent track imo to test the overall performance of the car.

Impressions
I really didn't know what to expect when I put the car on the track. After a few slow laps to make sure the car was functioning well I started to push the car more.

JUMPING& LANDING: The car actually jumped very well - it was predictable, easy to control and had a very neutral jumping attitude. The suspension settings were also surprisingly good when it came to the landings, the car settled well after each jump without being unsettled. I don't expect much out of Tamiya's stock shock settings but this was pretty on point.

STRAIGHT LINE: This car was a rocket. I think my gearing was probably too high but the car handled it like a champ. It shot down the straights confidently. I put the car on my scales and the front/rear weight with my shorty pack was about 37/63 which I think is in the ballpark of the typical mid-motor buggy today. Great on the straights.

CORNERING: The car corners well but this is where it lacks a bit of the aggressiveness of my other race buggies. I peg this down to the slightly more limited physical steering angles of the wheels at full lock on this car. To be clear, the car doesn't turn like a truck - not at all - but at the tight hairpins I had to push the car harder just to get the front to bite harder and the rear to come around. On the plus side, the car handled the rest of the track very comfortably with the steering feeling predictable and never twitchy. Again I was impressed with the largely stock suspension settings which were just a tad soft for the astro track, but still very good.

TRANSMISSION: The transmission of the car is silky smooth. I liked the positive feel of the throttle and how the car puts power down. Time will tell how well the gears will wear, but first impressions are pretty darn good. I did have one problem with the rear dogbones though... and it was a similar problem I had experienced on the front of my TD4. For some reason, after some hard running, the sponge spacers in the outdrives will get chewed up which leads to engagement issues where the dogbone meets the outdrives. I will put a thicker piece of sponge in their and try again - but given the performance of the car so far I might be willing to spring some $$$ for universals.

Overall
I was really pleasantly surprised with the car. Although I expected it would be able to get around the track, I had thought that it would need quite some work to keep up with the other race cars. The TD2 actually did a pretty good job of keeping up with most of the AEs and Yokomos. I wouldn't say it is a better race car than these thoroughbred competition buggies (it's not and don't expect it to be), but I think in the hands of a decent driver it'd give the other guys at the club a good dogfight or two. I also love the look of that F1-styled body zipping around the track and there's always a bit of fun when a fellow racer comes to your pit table and realizes he was battling with an odd-looking, plastic chassied Tamiya...

First track impressions of the TD2 are all positive and I think Tamiya has developed a really unique car that has that Tamiya DNA but yet feels at home at the track - perfect for the guy looking to challenge himself with something different. :)

IMG-20220402-WA0004.jpeg

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Just curious.  did you build the shocks per instructions or did you do something different?  Thanks!

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This might be useful for any of you racers.

I really wanted to run competition wheels on my car (E.G Associated B6 / Schumacher) and have found a way.

Note that changing the rear arm is optional - but if you keep the stock rear arm you will need to Dremel a small amount of material off the arm at the hub end to allow the driveshaft to clear.

Anyway the key is XV01 rear hubs, but there are some caveats

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The above image shows a DB01 arm on the left with an XV01 hub, the distance between the inner and outer suspension shaft is identical to the stock TD2/TD4 arm - the DB01 arms is also slightly wider on the inside, but only by enough to reduce slop, it still fits on the inner mounting point no problem).

The XV01 hub mounts the axle lower to the ground than the TD2/4 hub (which can't allow the axle any lower as there's no gull wing in the stock arms) - this is why you would need to remove some material if sticking with stock arms, and the XV01 also hub reduces the width of the car, allowing you to run standard offset wheels (its also more adjustable as there's plenty of options for mounting the ball stud further in or out).

The main issue with adopting the hub becomes the driveshafts:

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Both of the wishbones/hubs above are using identical TD2 CVDs, you'll notice that the driveshaft on the left extends beyond the inner hinge pin, this prevents you using the hopup CVDs as the diff halves for the TA06 gear diff are not deep enough (and even if it was you would still have limited suspension travel before hitting the diff outdrives with the drive shaft).

The solution is to use a 64mm CVD - as this is the length used on the rear of the DB01/02, TRF2*1, and the TRF5** cars, it's very difficult to get a set of these from Tamiya, sometimes the 501 rears become available, and often the versions that come up as new stock are the very early versions that Tamiya quickly updated/replaced. As the Tamiya ones are so rare (and when I find some they go straight into my stock of 201 spares as I still race it) I've opted for some Kyosho ones:

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These particular ones are from the RB7SS - but many of the RB series share the same length driveshaft - and there's some aftermarket bits available as well.

On the inside of the hub I used spacer A4 from the TD2 kit and a 0.3mm Tamiya shim, on the outside of the hub I used another 0.3mm shim, it's important to shim the inside of the hub enough to make sure the driveshaft stays in the diff outdrive.

You also need to use a slimmer wheel nut, as the stock nut is not slim enough to lock onto the part of the axle that protrudes though the wheel, you could also run a slimmer hex:

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I use the TRF serrated nuts on most of my race cars, but Associated ones would work fine as well.

The result:

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Hopefully this post helps someone else at some point!

P.S no mods needed to run slim competition wheels up front - they just fit.

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BuggyGuy: thank you for pics.

I post here earlier in august some info. TRF201/501/DB01 arms + hubs are direct fit.
The driveshafts are issue.

The season is over for me, but i have plan to try Yokomo ball diff outdrives in TD2, with 2,5mm pins driveshafts from YZ2 with TRF201/XV01 arms and hubs.
They are in different lenghts (from 60,5 to 77 i think). I have some spares for experiments.
Only reason to do this is the availablity...

BUT, if you have older TRF car (201/211), its a better chassis in every point, except for spares.

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7 hours ago, akimrc said:

BuggyGuy: thank you for pics.

I post here earlier in august some info. TRF201/501/DB01 arms + hubs are direct fit.
The driveshafts are issue.

The season is over for me, but i have plan to try Yokomo ball diff outdrives in TD2, with 2,5mm pins driveshafts from YZ2 with TRF201/XV01 arms and hubs.
They are in different lenghts (from 60,5 to 77 i think). I have some spares for experiments.
Only reason to do this is the availablity...

BUT, if you have older TRF car (201/211), its a better chassis in every point, except for spares.

Cool - would be interested to see if any Yokomo bits fit, Tamiya parts can be tricky to get reliably.

I race on high grip carpet with the 201XM / 211. Parts are just to hard to get, hence looking at the TD2 a bit more seriously as bits are much easier to come by. Some Associated and Yokomo bits can be made to fit the 201/211 - but I like to keep them as original as possible.

Nothing looks seriously wrong with the geometry of the TD2, the motor is the right place, the TA06 gear diff works well. The quick blast I've given the TD2 on carpet I don't think it will be much slower than the modern competition cars.

Quite a few hopups needed to race though - so despite the TD2's low kit price it's probably still comparible in cost to a B6. I just like to run Tamiya's though :D

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Few more changes:

Fan fitted, secured with M2.6 bolts (same thread as rear gearbox top) - excuse the wiring mess, currently rejiggling everything as this chassis was converted from a TD4:

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Also swapped the slipper pads to something that should last a bit longer, and also added a slightly larger spur:

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Left to do:

- I've got an TD2 body to cut and paint (the TD4 shell did fit but I'm not a huge fan)
- Need to finish redoing the electrics
- Got a TRF201 racing wing to cut and fit
- I want to sort out the weight distribution a bit as it's got way to much rear bias at the moment I think (probably fine for dirt - but not for carpet)
- Fiddle with the steering some more to try and get more out of it - looks a bit short on travel at the moment

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2 hours ago, ThunderDragonCy said:

@BuggyGuy If you need more forward weight, would adopting some of the TD4 steering setup allow you to put the battery longitudinally towards the front? 

I'll definitely have a look at that, hadn't though to try that! I'll need to drag myself off of the sofa and go and have a look at the car to be sure, but I think if you retain the TD4 damper mounting position so you can have the battery underneath the shocks, you'd also have to drop the TD2 front bulkhead and use the TD4 one.

The main issue with that is that you would loose the front 25 degree kickup which I think would make a 2WD pretty undrivable as you would loose too much caster angle.

I'll have a look though as maybe something could be made to work with a shorty lipo? I think that would mean the servo would have to go on the side that it is in the TD4 though, or some other alternative servo mounting method.

I was thinking of just putting some brass lipo weights under the servo and ESC, but this would be adding total weight to the car - unlike your suggestion which would just move the weight around, which would be a better solution.

I'll investigate and see what the options are, I should probably weigh it as well to see how far above or below the BRCA regs it is...

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@BuggyGuy I haven't got either car, but looking at the manuals, I think the longitudinal battery space is the same for both. Looks like the way to do it is, if possible, mount the servo like the TD4, tucked to the side, but on the right of the chassis. ESC goes above the battery on the cross member, and the receiver goes opposite the servo.

Replace a30 parts with A15 and I think you are good to go. Maybe! 

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