Supertec

With no testing expectections were low and the two day race was seen as a practice and testday. I used a similar set up to Hupo Honigls TRF501X euros set as the base to work from and the car felt extremely well from the first run. I experienced some teeting troube in the beginning but othervise the car was very reliable. I only broke two suspension arms and bent a hinge pin during two days racing.

The driving and especially clearing the jumps were very difficult and i think my driving only got worser through the weekend so more practise is needed.

In true racing fashion the car was completed in the middle of the night prior to race day. I only had the possibility to do some testrun up and down the street at 00.30 ! But the car worked well straight out of the box, I did not even have to adjust radio to get it to track straight !

I have decided to to try out electric 4wd off road. It has been a long time since I last owned a 4wd buggy. It was in 1990 and the car was a Kyosho Optima Mid Custom which actually was my first proper rc car but I did not race at that time.

I chose the DB-01 Durga over the TRF 501 X because I wanted to try something diffrent. Building the car was ok but it is ofcourse far from the precision and quality of the aluminium / carbon fiber chassis on the 501.

I have added many options on the car. See complete list here.

We did a short shakedown and then stright off to the first outdoor race with the TRF416. Using the same base set up as the TRF team in the ETS race in Netherland we improved the car during the race and in the end it was on the pace. Now we hope to start testing on our test track to get better understanding of the chassis on outdtdoor tracks. It is great running on asphalt again !

The new main chassis plates and and top decks arrived and have been tested for torsional stiffness. The test was a simple arrangement just to get some information about the stiffness of diffrent carbon fibre materials.  Here are the results: 

Supertec 5 cell 2 mm main chassis - 6 % stiffer than the standard 416 chassis (both new, never run)

Supertec 2 mm CRP top deck - 7,5 % softer than standard 416 top deck

Supertec 2 mm Carbon fibre top deck - 22 % stiffer

Supertec 2,3 mm Carbon fibre top deck - 46 % stiffer

Soon these parts will be track tested.

We continue the 416 testing program with a one day test on a bigger fast flowing track and again the car feels really good. Having rebuilt the car in the week before I started with the standard set up.  I managed to test diffrent motor and speed control setups and batteries. On the chassis I tried, battery position, roll bars and ackerman while monitoring tyre temperatures and laptimes all day. 

Next weekend it is my first race with the TRF416 and I will use basically the same setup as on the test. I only need to figure out what is the best way to take away a bit of corner turn in steering, then the car should be ready for the race. 

We have done three days of testing with the TRF 416 in January in our attempt to try to find the ideal settings for the new chassis. Having started with similar set ups that worked well on the 415 we have now ended up with setups that are a bit softer and similar to the ones used by the TRF team at DHI cup. This is a good base to work from to gather better understanding of the car.     

But so far it is clear that the 416 is a lot easier to drive than the old one. Also the car responds well to set up changes and it is easy to change the balance of the car. It is even possible to get it to understeer a lot on carpet and that is something that we haven’t experienced in the past.

We completed a two day test with the 416 chassis on carpet. During the two days different set up changes were tested to get a good balance. We tested diffrent ackerman settings, springs and damping, droop and one way vs spool. 

A good number of battery packs were run and it seems that the handling is an improvement over the 415 MR edition. Especially the sometimes too agressive turn in that was typical for the MR edition on carpet seems to to have been corrected with the new steering system geometry.

Generally we found that similar set ups that worked well on the MR also works on the 416 so we have a clear direction in which to go to on the set ups. We also noticed that the chassis never got tweaked, a common problem with the 415. The upper chassis with 8 screws to the bulkheads is a big improvement.

In the upcoming tests we plan to try the short suspension arms and diffrent upper suspension arm positions.

The long awaited Tamiya TRF 416 chassis was assembled during christmas and the end result is impressive.

- long upper chassis for better flex characteristics, mounted with 8 screws to front and rear bulkheads, less prone to tweak the chassis.

- uprights with 5 x 10 bearings for better precision and more reliability.

- more reliable and externally adjustable diff.

- new steering system geometry. The compleate steering assembly can easily be slided out from chassis for easy adjustment of ackerman. 

- symetrical chassis for better flex characteristics.

- improved and more efficient transmission.

The only problems was that the inner suspension arm hinge pins have some slop and need to be ca glued and the central post need to be shimmed to the motor mount for good alignment.