gee-dub

iTrader: (1)

the product appears to checkmark all of the latest design trends. are there any new/unique features that move the proverbial bar in the category?

mes

There's no sense in promoting a product that's so far off and ruining your dealers' sales. I'd expect the kits to be available before the end of January, but that's just speculation on my part.

Quietman

https://youtu.be/fo7h_LgMNBI?si=xNVEI9rThoC8SpYp

may be closer than we think
with under body shots

tony6187

Hall brothers running theirs https://youtu.be/fk4B56ryRK8?si=il6z9g6jgU-3DMH9

sosidge

If they have done this (and it does look that way) it's a really big change. First time they've changed the fundamental front end geometry since the launch of the B4.

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Cinnabun

iTrader: (39)

Pistol123

Rear arb mount looks much easier to change arb.

CCristo

iTrader: (56)

What is going on with those caster blocks?

BigBuckORamma

Judging by the new footage of the car...EVERYTHING has changed. And by everything, i mean the only thing that might be able to be carried over from the B6 family...is the 13mm shocks, and the turnbuckles. Everything is different.

sosidge

Cinnabun thank you for sharing the stills. When I watched their part 2 video a moment ago I thought the car was going to be more radical. However I think there are a few big changes in there that will shake things up:

1. Longer arms all around, I'm guessing 77/79mm region, we'll see.
2. Abandoning the waterfall for a touring car style motor mount which "might" moor to the chassis like a touring car's does.
3. Possibly a more forward motor position? I say this because there does not not seem to be much space for battery position adjustment so I'm assuming that is because the motor has taken some space away
4. Caster blocks seem to have a built in carbon travel limiter, I assume for more accurate travel limit adjustment
5. Low mount anti-roll bars.

Overall looks very refined and modern, a step forward from the B6 which had become a bit of an "ugly duckling" over the various iterations with the mix of parts that were fitted.

sosidge

Oh and a decent battery mounting system at last!

Cinnabun

iTrader: (39)

Im seeing adjustable roll center at the outer camber link which is a new feature that will give more tunability.

RogerM

1) definitely longer but more important than that ..... looks like it should have a fairly low level of jacking and/or roll induced roll centre migration (means less compromise needed in setup when trying to tune for a particular section of a corner)

2) in the video you can see a block on the chassis in front of the motor

3) looks like it from the side profile too but hard to tell

4) doesn't look like travel limiters to me, I believe they wrap around the front of the castor blocks and provide location for the vertically mounted outer camber link ball stud .... near limitless front roll centre adjustments, this has me VERY excited as we have to run with Schumacher tyres in the UK (I'm sure people know I'm not a fan by now).

5) Low mount but also quick change and very well located, no more nipping down a grub screw, wiggling, nipping down, wiggling, backing off ... darn now to sloppy again ;-)

There are a whole host of other things I can see in that video, if they have got the flex characteristics right this should be a weapon straight out of the box!

EdgeOfTheRazor

iTrader: (3)

I believe they use the clear parts more on the engineering side of things. There’s a cool process you can use on clear plastics called Birefringence/Strainoptics where you can use polarized light to see the internal stresses of the part caused by the injection molding process. Computer programs can to a pretty good job at simulating that kind of stuff but nothing beats having the actual part in your hand for testing.

BigBuckORamma

I am going to use your images, because its easier. Thanks!

So lets talk about visible changes...



We will start at the rear, and move our way forward.
All new wing button. A flat plastic piece similar to the CF FT units released last year.
Shock tower is all new. And it has a new shock tower cap that covers the whole top of the rear shock tower.
AE looks to have also included a molded version of the little 3D Printed Body Support dingus that people like 1up, and others have sold.
If you look to your right you can see the new ballstud mount on the rear hub. It has a completely different shape to the B6 family, but obviously the same function.
The entire transmission case is slimmer and flatter, and appears to be longer than the B6 family gearbox. Placing the motor further into the middle of the chassis. You can see that more in the later side profile shot.
The most obvious change in the area is to the motor mount. No longer is this just a motor mount plate. But rather a machined lower structural motor mount, like on a touring car. Given the designer races TC, makes sense.
We also see that there is no waterfall. A lot of the factory drivers have been running without one the last few months.
Then we get to the all new battery tray, very similar to the XRay style battery holder. I guess thats OK, considering XRay all but copied the B6.4.
We can catch a glimpse of the new servo holder top tray. No integrated transponder mount...also, no aluminum. But we can see that better in another angle.
Then we can see the new clip on front shock tower cover. It just has a spade connecter on the back to clip over the shock tower. Better angle fo that below.
What appear to be the only real carry over from the B6 family, are the 13mm shock bodies.
And then if we look down below them, we can see the new TC style lower sway bar mount.
Right behind the new narrower front bulkhead, and front ballstud mount.
Also good to see the standard inclusion of the B74.1 turnbuckle ends with the 3.5mm shafts.



Not much to really see in this picture.
We can see that the steering setup, at least mechanically, appears to be similar to the B6. If you watch this shot in the video, right before it fades you can JUST catch a glimpse of the new sway bar mount.
Also interesting to see that it looks like the battery could be moved one more notch forward, but rearward battery placement seems very limited with the motor placement. Makes me wonder if there will be a new "stand up" transmission, or a more rearward motor placement transmission, or an augmented idler gear placement transmission case?



Quite a few interesting things to look at here on this shot. From top to bottom...
First is the new shock tower cover that just clips into the center hole of the tower. Really clean design. Though, i would imagine, after a couple of removals and reinstalls, that little spade connector is going to be chewed up. I suspect we will see zipties through the front shock tower hole before too long, jsut for holding the cover on.
The middle of the shot, left of the tower, we can see a glimpse of the spindle and the caster block. Spindle looks more or less the same, with the same little top hat bushings for axle height adjustment. Though it looks like there is even more axle trail than before. Maybe an optical illusion?
The steering arm at the spindle seems to be of the same design language of the B6 family. Two screws in the spindle, with the single ball stud and nut for the steering arm to mount.
Where this gets interesting is on the inside of the caster block, as can see two screws. These two screws hold down a hocky stick shaped CF sheet, similar to the steering arm, that holds the ballstud for the upper arm link to mount to.
This will allow for you to adjust the front end geometry in three dimensions. Similar to the way that say, TLR does it. Being able to put spacers under the ballstud to raise or lower the upper arm pivot at the hub. Instead of the two positions we had in the B6 caster block previously. Though, i do worry that thats a fair amount of extra unsprung hardware weight, right out at the end of the moment arm. Sure its probably just a couple grams. But it ads up. Time will tell.
If you look at the caster block upper link plate, you can see that is has a white "0" marked on its side, similar to the "+1" we have had on the HT B6 family steering arms. I assume there will be a "+1" and/or a "-1" plate for the B7 in order to move that pivot point in or out as needed.
Moving down we can see the new part number for the front shock tower. Yay?
We can also see the new front shock tower mount, and where it is slightly extended from the top plate. Given that the top plate is a lot narrower, as is the front shock tower, i am surprised to see a small amount of square material connecting the shock tower mount to the top plate. I hope this does not become an inherent weak spot, because it sure looks like one.
Moving down we can see the servo mount and brace...and i am shocked that the whole servo mount is plastic. I am sure there was some serious cost cutting involved there by omitting the aluminum mounts in the box. MAYBE we will get lucky and the servo mount will be the same as the B6.3/4 and we can re-use our mounts from that? But given how much everything else has changed, i am not holding my breath. But you can bet that there will be a FT aluminum option, and a couple from the usual suspects in the aftermarket sector as well.
Below that, and to the right, we can just see the mounting nut for the new lower front sway bar, peeking out from under the steering arm turnbuckle.



Some cool stuff in this shot.
From the top, you can see how the new rear shock tower cover covers the whole top of the rear shock tower.
Directly below that we see the new wing mount. I am very annoyed that this reminds me WAY too much of my old TLR 22.
The Shock tower mount is decidedly AE, nothing too surprising there. But its curious to me that they kept this central tower mount design, because with the way the wing mount is integrated into the shock mount, you can rear mount the shocks and shock tower anymore. Not that anybody really did...but its one of those strange legacy design queues for the sake of familiarity that seems a little dumb to me. Something that can be seen all over the TLR 22 5.0, for example. Where as on the B6 family, its all functional design choices.
To the right we can see the new spur gear cover. Interesting that is has some 3 dimensional shape to it. It looks a bit more modern. I mean, its a gear cover, it could look terrible, and still do its job, but i found it interesting, none the less.
Opposite that, we can just BARELY see the top of the tension spring for the slipper clutch. This looks the same as the thick spring that AE had before. And, there is a possibility that the slipper pads, slipper plates spur gears, and perhaps even the layshaft itself, might be a carry over part from the B6 transmission. I would expect the slipper pads and spurs to be the same for the sake of familiarity. It would be stupid to change it, just for the sake of changing it...but...look at the rest of the car...so who knows?
Below that we see the new narrower rear ballstud mount. Given that they are adding 4mm of shim, i would expect a +2mm FT rear ballstud mount to be another coming soon hop up.
Obviously there is a lot going on with the transmission case. It looks slimmer than the B6 family transmission case. And not housing the sway bar internally should make it more stable and accurate. And easier to get into the diff case.
Below that is the biggest change to the B7, the rear sway bar mouth. Just like the front TC style mount. Release the grub screws, slide the nuts outward, undo the grub screws on the roll bar links, and out the rollbar comes. Just that quick.
Right below that, is the significantly narrower D Block. And on top of being narrower, it looks like the pivot point sits level to the chassis, as opposed slightly above it, on the B6.
We can also see the new rear arms, really beefy looking, and again, very modern looking as well. Interesting that they have all three shock mounting holes on the same side now, as opposed to the 1,3 on one side, and 2 on the other. But, like we said above, you cant reverse mount the tower, so it makes some sense. Be curious to see if the older B6 tower is the same mounting pattern, or if they have changed the spacing, and see if the older rear arms work with the new C and D blocks, and hubs.
And finally, though its hard to see, it looks like the drive shafts say "70mm" on them. WHich would also indicate that the transmission is itself thinner, and the differential along with it. So it will remain to be seen what differential parts can be re-sourced as well.

If you have made it this far....im sorry. LOL!