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 !

Building the most extreme Tamiya TRF 416 to ever have been built. Lots of new Supertec developed experimental parts plus we will examine every single part on the chassis to find out what improvements can be made to cut laptimes. Follow this build process all the way until first shakedown run and test session. 

Lately we have not been doing much testing or racing with the 416. The indoor season got finished early this year as I have decided not to attend many races this winter season. But now as the outdoor racing starts we are speeding up the Supertec 416 programme that will see a lot of new parts for the car during the comming months.

During last weeks test session we tried out the three new upper decks for the first time. As the 416 has a very soft chassis it would be interesting to see what would happen when trying the stiffer top decks on a carpet track. Quite surprisingly we found that the car did not improve when going stiffer on the upper decks even if the grip in the carpet was relatively high. Stiffer top decks made the car more difficult to drive and did generate less grip. We will continue testing the top decks and 5-cell chassis in the coming weeks.

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 are soon to test new chassis parts for the TRF 416. The new upper deck will be 2,4 mm and assembling this in the car will be a fast and simple way to test the effect of less chassis flex.

The 6 cell main chassis is a direct copy of the standard chassis but made from high grade carbon fiber in 2,0 or 2,4 mm. We have also designed a 5 cell chassis with the battery position optimized. The chassis parts will be made from high grade carbon fiber. The torsional stiffness will be measured and compared with the standard chassis. 

CAD images.