TITC 2014..anyone?

Little help
 

I'm looking to upgrade my m03 with front aluminum uprights 54177 and wondering if I need to get special sized bearings for them too? Thanks in advance for the help

No

The only thing that is special about the bearings would be the different sizes, and that depends on which M03 kit you're starting out with.

The original M03 and M03L kits used the TL01 B plastic parts tree for the front and rear uprights, these take 1150 sized bearings. The first alloy front uprights in silver also used 1150 sized bearings.

On later versions of the M03 kit (the M03M & M03L w/cooper s body), the plastic front and rear uprights used 1050 sized bearings, the blue alloy front upright 54177 (and the blue alloy rear upright 54178) uses the 1050 sized bearings.

The standard M05 kit comes with 1150 sized bearings to suit the front and rear plastic uprights, but all of the optional Tamiya alloy uprights to suit the M05 use 1050 sized bearings ... it can be a hassle/confusing if you are new to mini and trying to upgrade to a bearing set and alloy uprights as well, but I'm sure Tamiya have their reasons for it :)

Thank you guys for the help!

I have never liked the #54000 Mini shock. Much to my chagrin this was more likely due to my assembly than any short comings of the shock themselves. Unfortunately the overall length of these shocks were 2mm too short, which caused all sorts of problems with the "handling" on the surfaces I usually race on.

Rather than going into any detail, let's just say it was a "bonehead" error on my part. In order to get the lengths I prefer, a 1.5 mm spacer was used on the shock shafts in the front and a 1mm spacer on the rears.

This set of shocks won't be given a trial for a couple of weeks. The fact that they have 2mm more "room" on the compression side than my usual TC TRF shocks causes some concern, but then again, it may be a good thing. We'll just have to see.

Regarding the M05, I have fitted the Tamiya wide carbon rear shock mount with the four shock hole choices. The inner most holes match the standard car's mount, but I am interested to find out how the car would respond to the shocks being moved to the outer most hole and thus being in a more 'stood up' position. I have mounted the shocks on the outer most hole to try at my Friday race night (indoor carpet). Of course it's raised the wishbones up a bit, with the shocks at 57mm (I haven't touched them, just moved them) the wishbones are now in a level position.

Has anyone experiemented with this, or how would you guess moving the shocks to a more upright posistion would affect the handling?

Cheers all!

All of this type of observations are subjective. It seems tho that standing the shocks up gives you a little more steering. The stock mounting points, even tho the shocks are more "laid" down gives a much stiffer front than the more upright positions. This seems counterintuitive, but the more upright shocks gives you a softer front end. thus a little more steering. On my M05s, The stock mounting points make the front very difficult to compress.

The outermost hole gives you nearly the same shock angle as the M03. The second hole seems to give me the best results.

Thank you Granpa, I always appreciate your expertise!

Regarding the shock length, did you lengthen yours when you moved the shocks to the outer holes? As I mentioned I have not touched my shocks, however when I lift the car off the ground whilst using the outer most hole, the wishbones are in a parallel posistion. Should these droop a bit more than that?

I use the aluminum shock mount. With these, the wishbones or lower suspension arms will droop past parallel even in the outer hole. The shocks are 56.5 mm in overall length. If you are using the TRF Mini shocks, building them per the instructions, will give you a shock that's 56 mm in length if you use one black o-ring.

Whether the arms droop past parallel or not doesn't mean much. Getting the right ride height is the important measurement. Exceeding 5mm of ride height is counterproductive if you are racing on hi-grip surfaces since you don't want as much chassis "roll" as you do on the lower grip surfaces.

Measure the overall length of your shocks. It should be about 56mm in length. I carelessly built a set of #54000 TRF Mini shocks using the same spacers as on my usual TC shocks. I did not bother to measure the overall length and later found them to be 54mm. I just discovered my error and may have to reassess my evaluation of the Mini shocks. With the short shock the handling was awful.

Long answer for a simple question, but hope this helps.

Thanks Granpa.
I take it you are referring to the rear shock mount too? I wasn't aware there was an alloy one!

If you fit the rear shock mount in combination with the M06 hinge pin, you need to lengthen the shock to 58mm. Just remove the o-ring on the shock shaft. All sorts of combinations can be used and whether you need to alter the shock length would be a matter of trial and error.

With the new front camber links, the variety of combinations should keep you busy for awhile.

With that being true, so far the ancient M03 is still faster, easier to tune, and more consistent than the 05. The 05 can be made to handle well, be smooth and easy to drive, but so far in my experience and that of the Mini Mafia, it just lacks the outright speed of the 03. This may not be true of all track surfaces, but at the Tamiya USA track, that seems to be the consensus.

These observations are with Tamiya or Shimizu 60d tires at a specific track. Also the cars have only TCS legal upgrades and bodies.

Hey guys,

I finally decided on which car to run at Tamiya Worlds in about 3 weeks. After about a month of testing all the wheel bases at TQ RC raceway. I'm going to run a M05L, it's seems to be the best option for the rules they run and conditions I will be running on. New carpet, no sauce, no CAing the sidewalls or treads on M or S grips with hard foam inserts and minimum ride height of 5mm. Only 05 and 06's, they stopped allowing the m03 a few years ago.
Which brings me to my question. Does anyone has a new LW 2006 Mini Cooper body they want to sell or trade I have a few light weight Swifts, LW short Mini Coopers, Abarths all new and unpainted. Just PM me i might have the body. i saw some on eBay but might not get it in time. I should have stocked up when Tamiya was blowing them out last year but I never thought of ever running the Long wheelbase. I usually ran the mid outdoors and the short on carpet. Hit me up, if you have one or know of a shop domestically that has it.

Bensi

Just curious: I can kind of see the no traction compound thing, but why the ban on gluing sidewalls? CA doesn't come off or wreck carpet, as far as I know.

While we're here - Any thoughts why there seem to be different lengths of front upright for the M05? There are the standard ones that originally came out around the same time as the 03R and have carried through, then there are the stubbier looking ones, like those made by 3Racing. Just wondering.

Mini at TITC 2014 may not happen. At this years TITC event mini was cancelled and they ran more classes of Non boosted 13.5 and Mod
You will have to see what classes are being run when entries around Nov/Dec 13.