Project Team Kassanova TR3 V2 (Tc3 Truggy)
 

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...0TR3/tk122.jpg
Anybody ready for a long post?
Back Round:The idea of this project has been on my mind since November 05'. After collecting parts I ended up starting the Version 1 build July 06'. I ended up with this.
Team Kasanova TR3 V1
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...20TR3/TR36.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...20TR3/TR33.jpg

After soon breaking the main chassis and taking alook over the car , I was not impressed and felt like I could make a cleaner,better handling,stronger,more unique,lighter,and altogether better car. You can find more information about the version 1 on my last thread : http://www.rctech.net/forum/showthread.php?t=146640
The thread was getting very long and I decided it didn't have enough room for my latest version. The Team Kassanova TR3 V2

At first I began with a new sheet of G10 and soon hacked it up with my various hand tools to make a new upper and lower chassis. The plan was to use a Side -Side battery pack on one side while all the other electronics where on the other side and the motor mounted towards the rear.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3tires2-1.jpg

After many hours of cutting and sanding....and messing up one attempt at a lower chassis.:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/eds24/Tr3chas.jpg

This was the platform for the new version 2. All until a terrible accident. I sent the lower chassis to my friend in California for him to make me soem aluminum a-arm mounts for a "Hingepinless Design" (more on that later). He soon informed me that the chassis had snapped. I told him to send it back. I examined it and sure enough the chassis had snapped on the rear right around the spur hole is on the rear. After hours of pondering I came up with a idea to fix the rear weakness and also improve the whole layout....


Present

Now the actual project. The version 2 is going to be a great improvement to the V1 ans is exstensively thought out, unlike the Version 1.My drawn plans...
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...dom007-2-1.jpg

The features/Differences of the V2....
Mid-motor layout- This is the largest change from the Version 1. The spur hole in the chassis on my original Version 2 chassis just made the rear way too weak. I decided to fix this that I would make the car mid-motor mounted. This moves the spur close to the middle chassis. This also will help keep the car more balanced,give the rear more traction. The B44 ,D4,Bj4 all use this set-up and there must be a reason. I will have to use saddle packs though.

-G10 upper and lower chassis: I wanted something that would be stiffer,lighter and thinner for the chassis. Carbon fiber is too exspensive and too stiff for a basher/Racer. G10 is still very tough but at a fraction of the cost.

-Hingepinless Suspension: I hate hingepins! Thats the idea behind this concept at first I was going to use a hinge pin set up like this:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/.../grill0132.jpg
But I found that it was very difficult to make all the holes line up accurately with just a hand drill, Also I have always hated bent hinge pins and e-clips. I could have come up with a way to eliminate the e-clips like on the T4/B4. Instead I just decided to get rid of the hinge pins all at once. The design I have come up with uses no hinge pins. Instead it uses Pivot Balls. This reduces resitence and friction. Also this set up will always me to make sure that the a-arms mount up nicely with out having to worry about hinge pins binding and holes not matching up.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/eds24/Pinless.jpg

-Ultra long A-arms - Anyone ever see the a-arms on the MMGT or the Revo? They are very long and are mounted close together on the chassis. The longer the a-arms the higher the maximum ground clearance and also the more stable the car will be. So I have tried to make the a-arms on the TR3 as long as I can and as close together as I could get them on the chassis. The result is a-arms that should come out to be about 105mm long including the pivot balls.

-Laydown shocks-You may ask why I am going with the laydown type of suspension. When I was making the rocker mounts I was asking myself the same question. But there are advantages.
1. Lower Center of Gravity
2. Less bent shock shafts
3. In my opinion more durable
4. Progressive suspension
5. Its unique
I will be using Revo rockers. For the shocks I have B4 threaded shocks and also some threaded touring car shocks. I will have to experiment with both.

-Quick release motor mount- I have always had a hard time adjusting the gear mesh on the Version 1. With the mid-motor this task was going to be even harder. Until I came up with a different type of motor mount. Its a system similar to how the Rc18t. Two slots on the lower chassis and one on the top chassis. All you have to do slide the whole motor mount towards the spur gear to set the gear mesh. At the end farthest from the spur gear on the slots it opens up to the motor cooling hole. This is what makes it quick release. You just loosen the 3 screws and the motor mount and motor comes out.

-2.2 Race tires- The masher 2000's on the V1 are good for bashing and will still be used but for racing I will be running either Proline Step pins or Holeshots depending on the track.

-Beefy pivot ball hubs- One problem I had with the TR3 was the durability of the hubs. I was running RS4 c-hubs and Tc3 steering block on the front but this proved to be week and was the first part I broke. I was also useing modified Tc3 rear hubs on the back. To keep the set-up simple and durable I decided to switch to nitro tc3 front and rear hubs. Along with being beefy and simple, they also make it very easy to adjust Toe and the width of the car all you do is unscrew or screw in the pivot balls. This is important especially for the width. Because I have limited out drive space for the cvds. So for racing I will lower the ride height and make the car as wide as the outdrives will allow. For bashing when I raise the ground clearance I will make the car less wide so that the cvds don't fall out of the out drives when droop occurs.

-Lexan Roll-cage (optional)- Alot of the time I don't like to use the body becuase it is a hassle. I want protection while I don't use a body so I am designing a roll-cage that will also fit into a body so when I do use a body to bash with the body won't get torn up as fast. When I am ready to race though the roll cage will come off.

-RPM wide front bumper (optional)- Another most have for bashing. It will protect the front and can be replaced with a regular bumper for racing.

-Longer wheelbase (11.75")- I would have been happy with the orginal wheelbase. But to keep things simple I am useing B44 Cva's in the center and this pushed the wheelbase to be alittle long which will help with stability, Also the width of the car will be right at 13".

-10 degree front kick up- I think its very important that everycar has atleast alittle bit of kick-up in the front so that less force is applied on the front a-arms when the car lands not perfectly level

-Anti-bump steer servo saver- Since there is kick up its also smart to have the servo save/rack tilted at the same degree as the a-arms to reduce bump steer.

I hope you guys enjoy and will enjoy the rest of this project as much as I do and will. I apologize for such a long post but this is a very complicated and large project. If you have any questions or comments post away :) I will be making updates as soon as they happen.

Ethan
Team Kassanova

So now that we got that out of the way how about a update. I still don't have a new sheet of G10 for the new chassis but I am getting close to ordering it. In the mean time I have been working on finishing up the hubs and started work on the a-arm mounts. The original plan was to send drawings to my friend in California for him to make me mounts out of aluminum. After looking at the plans I figued that they would be accurate enough for him to build them and for them to fit with out me modifiying them. Also the alumium would make the mounts very heavy and perhaps too strong. So after many hours of ideas , designing and modifying I came up with these:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...TR3/TR3021.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...TR3/TR3041.jpg

They fit under the differentials like this...
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...3/TR3026-1.jpg

These actually took quiet awhile to make and still need to be perfected. The pivot ball housings are cut off of NTC3 hub carriers. I had to drill holes in the them for two long screws to go through the whole thing on each end of each housing. The screws clamp together all the compartments to hold the pivot balls in place. In order to make sure the caps did not get over tightened which would prevent the pivot balls to move freely I put spacers under the caps. I even had to grind the spacers down so they would fit. Overall I am very pleased with this set-up and I am excited to hook it up to a-arms.

The other parts I have been working on are the hub carriers. For the front and rear I had to figue out the spaceing with the cvds. In the front I used a 4mm brushing on the inside of the carrier and a small washer and Cone washer on the outside creating just enough room for the pin to go through the axle. With the rear hubs I made slight modification to the pivot ball holes so that they would allow for more travel. I also filed down the top of the hubs where the turnbuckle screws in to make it flat instead of having it be slanted down. I won't be using traditional ball cup turnbuckle ends but instead screw in types. I just hate having to pop on and off the ball cups. I also hate when they pop off in the middle of a bash session or a race. For the spacing I had to file down the 4mm brushings to be more like 2mm. What a pain. Then I put Associated aluminum axle spacer on the outside.

Front Hubs:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...TR3/TR3037.jpg
Rear Hubs:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...3/TR3047-1.jpg

The rear a-arm mounts, Hubs,and Differential posing:
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...3/TR3043-2.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...3/TR3045-1.jpg
Peace,
Ethan
Team Kassanova

Feels sorta lonely in here :( anyway on with the updates :sneaky:
I have a small update but a very exciting one never the less. I have been browsing ebay lately. I decided to look up some carbon fiber just to see if they had any good deals. I came apon aton of listings from a artist that bought alot of cutoff's and was selling for cheap after getting out bid on 2 sheets I finally email him and we work out a sweet deal on a 24"x24" 2.7mm thick piece of carbon fiber. Its 2x2 twill weave and best part it is black and blue. He says its a "scrap" piece and has marks on it (see pics) but I think it should still look very nice on my projects.Oh and a price on this great sheet $45 shipped. So forget the G10!
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...TR3/carbon.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3/carbon2.jpg
When I get the sheet I will start on the upper and lower chassis's. I will also be trying to order a piece of 3/8" lexan for the a-arms soon.

Peace,
Ethan
Team Kassanova

I Thought I would share some pics of the drawings/designs I have been working on. The objective is to create a design that’s light, strong ,flows nicely, and fits together like a puzzle.
Lower and Upper Chassis
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...designs022.jpg

Top: The design for the rear.
On the left:Front Shock mount, Rear rocker mount/turnbuckle mount
On the right: Front Rocker mount/ upper a-arm mount
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...designs021.jpg

dude! try to get yourself a freebie cad program like intellicad or something if it's still out there. develop some cad skills while you're working on these projects.

that suspension mount idea is one of the more creative things i've seen in this hobby, and i've been in it since the late 80's.

also, for machine work, maybe check out www.emachineshop.com. they have a free downloadable drafting program and you can get your own quotes.

I have been offered a free CAD program from a friend but my computer just isn't powerful enough to run one :( I guess I will have to stick to pencil and paper for now. I would like to take CAD at my school... but the teacher is a jerk.

Thanks :)

I did once download Emachineshop but the prices for machining where outrageous.

:nod:

The carbon came a couple of days ago. It was pretty sweet it came on my birthday. Unfortunatly its only glossy on one side. Which is disappointing so I will put the non-glossy side on the bottom. I started cutting the main chassis yesterday and finished it for the most part today. I also started the upper chassis today. I will post pics when I finished the upper and lower.

Keep it coming. I enjoy watching the progress.

I like it too , a lot ! Bravo. You have very very good ideas !

Yeah, fun watching what you do.

Thanks guys! I'm glad you guys are interested in the build.

I have continued work on the chassis. I'm just working from the bottom up. Today I got the diffs secured and also the front a-arm mount. I cut a new rear a-arm mount and will get that mounted tonight or tomorrow. I also have cut a rear brace,battery posts,battery hold downs,and slipper supports. Unfortunately though I will most likely have to re-cut most of these parts but its coming together very nicely.

I was looking over the designs to finalize them before I cut the chassis and I was sorta playing with the slipper clutch. I put the slipper clutch in the diff case and then for some reason I flipped it backwards. I got a quick idea and after a couple shims I found that if I where to flip the slipper backwards that the spacing works perfectly and that it pushes the spur gear forward about 1/2". This allows for more material to be in between the rear of the chassis (where it gets narrow) and the spur hole. Greatly strengthening the rear of the chassis which is where I was having problems with my earlier chassis design with the Tc3 type of layout (motor in the rear and battery on opposite side) So then I was faced with a decision... to stick with a saddle pack/mid motor layout or go back to the side-by-side pack/rear motor layout. I couldn't decide so I figured I would just design the lower chassis to be able to accommodate both layouts.

Ethan

After about 6 days of working I finished stage 1.:sneaky:Here are some pics please keep in mind I'm not a CNC so nothing is perfect and also I haven't sanded alot of the carbon fiber yet.
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/.../Stage1001.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/.../Stage1006.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/.../Stage1013.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...tage1022-1.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/.../Stage1017.jpg

Stage 2 out of 3 will include a-arms,getting the hubs mounted,turnbuckles mounted. Until I get enough money to get more lexan for the a-arms and rocker mounts and other parts I will be working on sanding and ca'ing the chassis,making another upper deck,battery strap,battery posts,slipper stand off, to accommodate the sideXside pack/rear mounted motor configuration.I just got my wisdom teeth out yesterday so the progress maybe abit slow because of the pain.

A pretty major update today...
Phrase 2 is pretty close to finished. I got the a-arms and the hubs mounted along with new rocker mounts and the steering. I decided to go with 3/8" on the lower a-arms which as you can see is beefy.... perhaps too beefy. So I might try some 1/4" a-arms instead or try to lighten the current ones. I still have alot of adjusting to do on the toe and chamber and stuff like that but I couldn't help but share...
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...phrase2002.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3/Zero007.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3/Zero014.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3/Zero013.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...phrase2008.jpg
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a2/...R3/Zero022.jpg