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Tamiya mini cooper

Old 05-12-2014, 12:01 PM
  #20956  
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I just did a Google search: Tamiya Brittle Chassis

actually there are a ton of complaints about their brittle ABS plastic. So glad to know I am not alone.

I have to say that the M05 and probably all M's are pretty crappy out of the box. Again, speaking about the M05 as that is my experience here. The steering is horrible, the shocks or "friction dampers" are a joke and seriously silver can motors ...40 years later!

But, they are fun to tweak to get from crappy to great. That I am sure is the lure, we all start at a serious low baseline and up to you to work out all the kinks and get it to r-u-n! It is a very fun car and class.
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Old 05-12-2014, 01:03 PM
  #20957  
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The brittle plastics really came along with the 05/06. I've killed a bunch of 03 chassis, but most of that was wear and tear from hours of racing and repeated assembly/dis-assembly. There is one weak spot on the 03, but it's easily addressed. They're decent cars. The challenge is wringing the performance out of them and not getting obsessed with precision, as you would with a TC or pan car.

As for the out of the box experience, absolutely. Those aren't even friction dampers - they're just spring holders. That said, some of the kits are pretty good from the get go. The amount of hop-ups you get with an M-05 Gold makes it worth the price of admission. I paid $129 for mine, chucked on a few goodies I already owned and it was good to go.

Silver cans are a good enough motor, especially when they come free with a beginner kit. They've been around for something closer to 55 years, though. Earliest reference I've found to a Mabuchi 540 was from around 1960. I still believe it's a shame that we couldn't keep them going.
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Old 05-12-2014, 11:35 PM
  #20958  
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I personally have gone through 3 chassis in less than a 1 month span. It was so bad I was really close to selling the car off because of it. But alas I am still here and racing my M05 regularly.

Jason

P.S. This happen in the not to distant past too. Also just this last weekend saw a fellow competitor rip off a lower suspension mount on a M05 gold.
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Old 05-12-2014, 11:43 PM
  #20959  
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The last one was a huge hit. Rob did a good job driving my m03, but I regret not giving him more laps so I could make a couple more changes so the car wouldn't be quite so free. He doesn't prefer a car quite as edgy as I do.

Should have my m05 done tomorrow, all ready for TQ ON Sunday.
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:21 AM
  #20960  
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Silver cans are a good enough motor, especially when they come free with a beginner kit. They've been around for something closer to 55 years, though. Earliest reference I've found to a Mabuchi 540 was from around 1960.
WOW! -you know I actually do love this class. I love that there is still one popular vintage class around. ...I mean vintage as in truly vintage ...not VTA (which is also a very fun class). I can appreciate that this class hasn't changed and the motors are 50+ year old technology! In many ways I enjoy the mini class as much as 17.5 on road class, etc..

I personally have gone through 3 chassis in less than a 1 month span. It was so bad I was really close to selling the car off because of it. But alas I am still here and racing my M05 regularly.
Oh no! -what I was afraid of. I have another chassis on order, should be here tomorrow ..then I can begin putting all my parts back in and ready for the next race in a few weeks. Guess I should order a few more chassis' if they are so prone to breaking. ...you know I think I have only crashed meaning tumbled around a corner that I took too hard about 6 times EVER. The car is too slow to have hard crashes with and the round Mini cooper body I run does a good job protecting it. I think the chassis cracking is more from stress on it ...mine crumbled near the steering mounts and motor mount area. The motor is easy to address as I have an aluminum motor mount on order. The steering is another story though. ...and not sure what I could do and still keep it legal w/ TCS rules (probably not much). My thought is to bore out the steering post holes and run a rod down w/ bolts on the bottom ...to take stress away from the chassis ...but would not be TCS legal. ...guess i'll just replace chassis every month during race season.

Where is 3Racing or Tamiya w/ an all aluminum chassis? I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it were legal to run.
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:36 AM
  #20961  
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wow... I've never broke a single m-chassis, whether it was the 03 or my 05. both have had ton of hours on them, the M03 was even run (way back when...) with a 27t stock motor to compete with the HPI mini's we used to run a long long long time ago.

I've only ever replaced 2 chassis, and one was because I felt it was worn out and I was doing a complete rebuild... and the other (my 05) was because I wanted the 'bling' black chrome chassis...the stock plastic one had over 2 years racing on it and never once had even a fracture..

I guess I somehow managed to get lucky.. now I know the shocks were bad and ditched them right off the bat wasn't too keen on see thru shocks on the m05 anyways

but I would NEVER run an all-aluminum chassis on any car I own (outside my nitro TC)...aluminum tweaks and 95% of time is a headache to fix
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:44 AM
  #20962  
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but I would NEVER run an all-aluminum chassis on any car I own (outside my nitro TC)...aluminum tweaks and 95% of time is a headache to fix
agree, but thinking of an alternative to the brittle chassis (that I and some/few/many others have experienced).

probably not a big deal to just replace the $12 chassis every month or so during race season.

wonder why some people get more miles out of their chassis than others though? wonder if there is any difference in the in the plastic used or process from batch to batch?
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Old 05-13-2014, 11:19 AM
  #20963  
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Two of the three chassis Jay broke had a bunch of inclusions and cracking out of the package. You could see the fracturing out of the package if you inspect the chassis closely.

The gold chassis Jay broke was the result of an on track incident, and hit hard enough that it broke two cars (the other an M03).
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Old 05-13-2014, 01:09 PM
  #20964  
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Minis can get expensive, depending on luck, skill and location. If you race clean and rarely crash, the chassis can last for years. Some tracks will be less liley to cause damage, as well. Where I race, there are usually large bricks behind the boards, to prevent the, from moving around too much. (Velcro and Ozite don't play together very well.) The luck part is whether or not the molding is good. These things are slapped out in the thousands and sold cheap. I'm pretty sure they're not rigorously sticking to ISO standards.

I'm not surprised that the plastic is brittle, just as with the tires that wear out really fast, it's a good business model. More wear = more sales. They're pushing the envelope, however. We've had racers bailing from the class because it's costing them more to run weekly than TC. You can run thousands of laps on our spec TC tires, but S Grips become useless in 4-5 heats.

There are bright spots: The new super hard foam will likely mean a little better life on the tires, so I won't have to go through my stupid tire assembly process and since we went with cheap, spec, brushless motors, my costs there have been $0.
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Old 05-13-2014, 01:21 PM
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What are you running on that S-grips only last a few heats?

I've been running the same set for ~5 months now, every week, 3 heats and a main.

The M06 chassis is a little stronger, but it does break right before the front bulkhead
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Old 05-13-2014, 03:21 PM
  #20966  
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yes, my S-grips are lasting very well. I've run about 9-12 races on them and a few parking lot sessions. The races were all on hot asphalt (85 degrees outside, -track had to be much much hotter).
I am getting really good wear/use out of them.

Hey, what motor are you running? I am using the stock silver can w/ Lipo and getting great wear ...as the speeds are quite low. I could see if you were running brushless or higher turn brushed ...like 17 turn or faster?
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Old 05-13-2014, 04:04 PM
  #20967  
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We run on carpet with medium grip. It's not so much the carpet as it is the very stiff diffs and level of competition. The oil filled diffs with 500,000-2.5M weight oil are great out of a corner, but destroy tires. Our races are such that anything short of perfect tread won't cut it. The silly torque from brushless power only encourages wheel spin.

We run Orca Q 2200kv spec motors. Basically the same thing as Hobbywing 13T, just slower.
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Old 05-13-2014, 10:20 PM
  #20968  
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Originally Posted by eR1c
I just did a Google search: Tamiya Brittle Chassis

actually there are a ton of complaints about their brittle ABS plastic. So glad to know I am not alone.

Hi

Could you share with us sample pics of the brittle chassis ?

I wonder which section of the chassis that would be prone to break.
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Old 05-14-2014, 08:44 AM
  #20969  
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-Yes I will take some photos this evening and share (at work all day today).
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Old 05-14-2014, 09:01 PM
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Here are a few photos. It is cracking all around the steering posts. my steering was giving me problems when I first built my M05, ..somhoping this was caused early on and that the new setup I am using will cause less stress on my new chassis.
Attached Thumbnails Tamiya mini cooper-image.jpg  
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