wtcc‘s TA-03 projects

[wtcc5 4897]

 

After @Quincy and @Sgt.Speirs got their TA-03 bug a long time ago, I am joining now. The „flame“ was ignited by the beautiful Nissan R390 body. I looked at that body for two years now and recently decided to get it. The question then was on which chassis it should go on. I checked where Tamiya put it on and found, that it was used on a gas motor chassis and the TA-03R (and not the F103GT like I thought).   I have very different personal views on the TA-03 variants. The TA-03F is ok for realistic front engined 4wd bodies and racing. For me an unattractive layout and the least wanted chassis of this family. The TA-03R-S is definitely the better choice regarding layout and weight bias, but I am not a fan of the short wheelbase series. 

Knowing that the Nissan R390 body came with the R variant made the decision easy for me.

The next steps were to get all parts. With the rerelease of the GT1 Porsche, getting an R-S is easy. Making it a R needs additional parts like the tub, the belt and the reinforcement plate. Not so easy to find the tub and the belt, but I got them in a not so well known shop.

Right now I have two TA-03R projects in mind: One with the Nissan body, plastic tub and a lot of Hop-Ups and
a second one with maybe another R390 body, carbon plate chassis, a lot of Hop-Ups and a little CAD-3d-print-magic.

I am not going for the hard to get and expensive Hop-Ups though…

 

At the moment I am waiting for the body and some more Hop-Up parts.

[GermanTA03Guy 1327]

Cool project, can't wait to see it. I'm a bit torn on the r390 body... I think the proportions are really off. But still I dig the group c style shape. Are you going box art or different? I've got a custom one but always wanted a box art... Why do you want to make a tub version, especially when you have the carbon plates? Because of the special look with the tub? Which hop ups are you not gonna get? What are you gonna build in 3d? Just really curious. Cheers

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Custom R390 based on the Calsonic livery always looked better than the Clarion one that Tamiya went with imo. As per my image below. Cant wait to see this progress 

James

[Sgt.Speirs 1253]

5 minutes ago, InsaneJim69 said:

Custom R390 based on the Calsonic livery always looked better than the Clarion one that Tamiya went with imo.

I love this car since Gran Turismo 2 and the further sequels…

[GermanTA03Guy 1327]

Great idea... The shape of that r390 98  is different to the black and red one in real life, so it's not scale or time period correct, but nicely done will look awesome... I dig the red accents as well... 

[InsaneJim69 1584]

Yeah the Calsonic was the later version R390 Long tail. Bit like the McLaren F1 did at the time. 👍

James.

[wtcc5 4897]

17 hours ago, GermanTA03Guy said:

Cool project, can't wait to see it. I'm a bit torn on the r390 body... I think the proportions are really off. But still I dig the group c style shape. Are you going box art or different? I've got a custom one but always wanted a box art... Why do you want to make a tub version, especially when you have the carbon plates? Because of the special look with the tub? Which hop ups are you not gonna get? What are you gonna build in 3d? Just really curious. Cheers

So many questions 

I wanted to stay with the box art as I like the look very much.

I want to make both. One with tub (classic look, typical Tamiya car) and one with carbon plates. The latter will need plastic parts/aluminum posts to complete the chassis. The plastic parts aren’t easy to get, so I will be forced to reverse engineer them to print them.

Most TA-03R Hop-Ups are difficult to come by and/or ridiculous expensive, so I will miss out on drive shafts, aluminum hubs, sway bars, steering arms and maybe more…

 

@InsaneJim69: The long-tail R390 is a Beauty! Unfortunately I don’t think I have skills and patience to make it happen.

 

For the body of the carbon plate TA-03R, I think of having the Mercedes CLK-GTR shell, as it is easy and inexpensive to get (and looks fabulous).

[Tbird232ci 333]

I'm excited to see where you go with the TA03 builds. The TA03 is one of my favorite cars. I have 4 to rebuild and one TA03RS kit to build. You will be my inspiration.

[wtcc5 4897]

@Tbird232ci: Now I don't know if I should feel flattered or under pressure  Looking forward to your rebuilds!

 

I nearly finished the build of the chassis for the Nissan R390 and have to say, that it was a real difference compared to any other Tamiya I build in my life. It is somehow a very complicated design, with many solutions that seem over-engineered and over-complex. The result then has its own charm and I like what I see. The amount of 3x10 screws this chassis "eats" is amazing  Here now a picture storm of the build (so far: the reinforcement plate will be added later).

Since some months now, I enjoy preparing the tires first:

 

Differentials:

 

Front gearbox and shocktower:

 

Front suspension and axles:

 

[GermanTA03Guy 1327]

For a simpler livery, I think the test car always looked great 

[wtcc5 4897]

@GermanTA03Guy: That livery looks very good! Mmh...hard decision. Thanks for suggesting 

 

Rear gear box, shocktower and suspension:

 

Motor and motormount:

 

Front- and rear-unit:

 

Damper:

 

Steering and tub:

 

Belt tensioner:

 

[wtcc5 4897]

Belt installation:

 

Rear-unit protection:

 

Hexes:

 

Servomount and -saver:

 

The nearly completed chassis:

[GermanTA03Guy 1327]

I don't know why, but a hopped up tub ta03 can look so nice :). Somehow I always end up with a doubledeck, part of it might be the battery shape.... You inspire me to get more ta03s and more shells... Oh no! I wanted to stop.... But I love the latest ta03 hype on here.. .. No surprise with my nickname.. Cheers

[hIghQ 149]

Wow, that stirs some memories... I fell in love with and bought a TRF TA-03RS (some David Jun edition, I believe), back in 2000 or 2001 or so, and then I also got all the parts to get it to full length. Gee, how much money I dropped into that car... (only to discover that it didn't perform all that well on the track) but that way it somewhat cured me of the Tamiya virus. Didn't buy another Tamiya for racing purposes until the M-07 came out. 

[Toad16v 282]

Looks great. Massive inspiration for my build. Might have encouraged me to spend some more monies...

[wtcc5 4897]

The last part for the chassis arrived today (the body delivery was delayed another day ).

Thought hard about the warning sticker, but then decided to go for it 

[wtcc5 4897]

The kit for the second TA-03R just arrived today, but I couldn't wait to tinker around with the Carbon Plates in the last days. So soon after I installed the upper carbon plate, I removed the front and rear gearboxes from the tub. The K- and J-parts for the TA-03R carbon plates are not available (haven't found them new or complete), so I was keen to find out what I need to do to make it work.

A beautiful design, quite the opposite to the tub version car:

 

To my surprise, the only part I had to hack to make it work was A3:

 

It is the replacement for the K4 part. Obviously the same design with a motor protection cage.

 

Everything else was just removing not needed parts, like B2, E5 and E8 and the 12 screws that were needed to attach them. The plate chassis is so much simpler and also looks like the car was planned for it, that I wonder why Tamiya took all the time to make a tub chassis...

 

Then I thought about a way to make the missing battery mount & servo plate mount. I decided for a simple slim design:

 

Together with servo mounts and servo plate it looks very good:

 

Attached to the chassis:

 

Some days ago a little miracle happened. My favorite hobby shop got TA-03F pro gold damper cylinders again.I could score a pair and with them I build the shocks for the carbon plate car, which will be my runner TA-03R:

 

I somehow forgot to make a picture of the completed shocks... well, here now how the soon to be runner looks right now:

 

By the way: I am still waiting for the Nissan R390 body. Hermes is really the worst parcel service a shop can use. They said it will be delivered on saturday and since then delay the delivery every time 

[Tbird232ci 333]

I love that battery holder. I've had a similar design floating around in my head, but yours is much cleaner than the idea I have. Have you considered a design for shorty LiPos?

[wtcc5 4897]

@Tbird232ci: Thank you!

Yes, several times (fighting with my inner self)  but this is a classic vintage approach for a sub-c-cell-Lipo.

If you need/want one, let me know. I will redesign this design for a standard shorty Lipo 

[DarkSonic 212]

Really like your classic build. The TA-03 is such a nice chassis. Easy to drive and bulletproof. Reminds me of the races in the parking lot of a supermarket 20years ago. Oh I miss that time.

I have to search in Kleinanzeigen for this 

[Flexin5 13]

that CF chassis looks so sick. makes me want to build one too. nice work. 

[Tbird232ci 333]

On 10/20/2021 at 5:02 PM, wtcc5 said:

@Tbird232ci: Thank you!

Yes, several times (fighting with my inner self)  but this is a classic vintage approach for a sub-c-cell-Lipo.

If you need/want one, let me know. I will redesign this design for a standard shorty Lipo 

I would love it if you did. Do you intend on putting your current one, and the shorty one on Shapeways or something similar?

[wtcc5 4897]

@Tbird232ci: Yeah, can do. I post the link here if I it is online 

[wtcc5 4897]

Did some more stuff 

First, the silver can didn’t fit any more to this tuning chassis:

 

 

 

 red and gold

 

Then I added outer pins (the inner ones are still unavailable).

 

The bodies also arrived (finally) 

 

The front damper setup didn’t meet my standards and wasn’t good to run. With the long lower ballcup and the long damper rod, I needed a lot of shims under the pistons and the piston was too high in the damper cylinder, nearly touching the upper seal. Also there is space to locate the spring retainer lower. I used the short low friction 5mm adjuster and a 4mm spacer with 4mm shims underneath the piston for the perfect ride height and droop:

 

[svenb 3778]

Smart👍