DesertRat

iTrader: (2)

One reason the car is a bit difficult is also one of its strengths under the right circumstances, its chassis stiffness.

Removing the top deck side braces and trimming the top deck itself may help, it would also allow you to run the car with the ESC in the battery tray behind the battery pack.

Brian10811

iTrader: (4)

I find it interesting that this thread just will not die. I had this car back in the day of brush motor cars and really liked its performance. Losi may be dead in onroad but this thread is still going lol. Perhaps one day someone will design a gear diff for this car and people might start seeing it winning a few top level races.
Can you even buy parts for this anymore?

DesertRat

iTrader: (2)

Meh... its pretty dead. The car is obsolete. Fifteen years will do that in RC.

Andy_F

Ha, the thread is pretty dead, I just post occasional updates for what is really a passion project. I'm just an old school Losi fanboy and I really like the design, it's quirky and just about still from the era when manufacturers were trying different approaches. I just can't really get excited about any modern chassis when you can hardly tell one apart from the other. I also really enjoy putting an old car somewhere on the timing sheet that it doesn't really belong!

I still think the centered mass can have some advantages over the modern stuff in specific circumstances. I wish a manufacturer would make something like the Type R but built around the narrow form factor lipos, with gear diffs and more modern geometry. I really think that could be something quite special. And no, you can't really buy parts for them any more because I have them all!

bertrandsv87

iTrader: (2)

If you have a type R running shorty lipos with a front spool and ofna diff lock lube in the rear ball diff, it will be very competitive....

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

My Type-R was good enough to finish 4th overall at the USVTA Nationals this year. Had to chase setup all week looking for more corner speed, but in the end, didn't traction roll at all. A few of the pivot ball cars were flipping over during A2 and A3, but I kept the roll centers low enough to stay rubber side down.

jasons56

Not at all surprised. Over the year a couple of us have ran our type Rs in that class against the newest crop and found it works quite well. Been a couple years for me but not like the other cars have changed any in that time period.

I only stopped running it because I didn't want to loose any rare parts. Now trying to decide if I should move them on to someone else to die fighting or keep it locked away on my shelf. LOL.

Andy_F

Really cool achievement Greg. I'm running mine in a national UK carpet comp over the next few months. What general set up were you running out of interest?

thefnshow

iTrader: (32)

would anybody happen to know the number of teeth on the front and rear belts on the type r ? thanks

bertrandsv87

iTrader: (2)

If you set your car up with the latest/smallest esc, servo, and lowest profile shorty battery pack, you will easily increase your corner speed without any sign of traction rolling...

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

The biggest difference on this particular chassis is the use of modern short shocks from Xray (T4-21 ULP). I drilled new shock towers with the upper shock mounting hole in the appropriate locations for the shorter lengths. Besides that, having forward facing ball studs on this custom steering rack made more finite Ackerman adjustments possible which helped keep the old gal from being edgy on the super high grip, new CRC black carpet. I'll grab some pics of those two mods...

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

We ran a shorty pack at the ROAR Carpet Nationals where my hired gun, Josh Knight, won the VTA title with this car. However, we definitely didn't have the fastest powertrain. People smarter than me have found that the shorty packs don't have as much punch as the standard packs, so I tried a few brands and finally settled on the SMC Extreme V2 6000. Since that race I also updated the ESC from a cheap 60amp HW to this Orca Oe101 which was worth a good bump in punch and adjustability that helped keep me from falling out of the A-main. I still used the HW 25.5 though, which apparently isn't the go-to motor choice on large, free flowing tracks. The HW is very rev-happy, so it has good pop off the apex on shorter tracks like Coastal RC for the ROAR Nats.

Andy_F

Very cool Greg. Gives me some inspiration for some future mods for more performance. I've been thinking about redesigning the front shock tower for a while for better body clearance. Hadn't thought about the rack though. Nice work and thanks for the info!

DesertRat

iTrader: (2)

That's a quite unusual setup, at least in my opinion. My swaybars save my life, keep the chassis from dragging. How much suspension droop do you run?

Greg Sharpe

iTrader: (15)

At that event, 2mm front and 2.5mm rear. I kept lowering the roll centers as the grip came up, which did make the chassis drag more. The pivot ball cars were traction rolling later on mains day, so I knew it was only a matter of time before my car tried to flip over. By A3, the chassis had a fair amount of carpet drag marks, but it didn't traction roll. I had run swaybars earlier in the event, but they were preventing the final amount of chassis roll and maximum tire loading that it needed to stay near the leaders, so I removed them instead of going to the lightest bars. With limited testing on qualifying and mains day, making that big change was all I had time to test.