tygertyger

Thinking Nissan Skyline or maybe Primera?


It's a very common illness and I feel myself catching it as I get older. On rc10talk you have guys promising themselves that their next RC10, or their next YZ10, is going to be a runner. 6 months down the line, they've spent 50 hours+ and hundreds of dollars into it and it becomes their 17th shelfer. "But the next one will be a runner, cross my heart!".

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

This chassis will definitely be a runner. Thats a promise!
It will also get more tuning



Somehow the hinge pin tuning found a place in my heart and I sourced the needed pins from other Tamiya models to add them to the “runner“. I also added aluminium rear axles, steering arm ball bearings, replaced the steering bridge with a TRF turnbuckle and replaced the motor screws with titanium screws. For full adjustability another set of neon color springs was purchased.

Today the car got a receiver, which finalized the electronics part of this build.






How much does this car weight?



I am impressed. I thought it would be heavier. The body will add around 130gr. At least that is the weight of my Honda Civic VTEC.


And to protect the car, three layers of vinyl will separate the chassisplate from the asphalt, in case ...




The first test drive was successful, but the gearbox makes an unwanted sound. I will have to look at it
Let’s pray that the Mondeo body will arrive in time...

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

Volltreffer! It is gonna be a Castrol Primera

Nicadrauspro4

wtcc What part number is the aluminum suspension mount for the rear in your FF-01?

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

I really don’t know. This and more aluminium parts came with the car that had the carbon chassis. I tried to find out the manufacturer, but was unsuccessful...

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

In todays news:

The chassis of the „runner“ is race ready.
Yesterday evening I recognized that the whole chassis was tweaked. Today I looked why. The middle pair of the topdeck screws caused the tweak. As they also make the chassis very hard, I just left them out. I also milled off some material of the heat sink to move it more to the inside. Now the damper cannot touch it anymore and it won’t interfere with the upper motor/gearbox housing.





Most time was spent building the shocks to the right length to have a healthy amount of droop and a healthy spring length. In the rear I removed the preload ring and replaced it with the spring centering ring of the TRF shocks plastic parts sprue. By the way: Tamiya uses the same sprue for nearly 30 years now . 5mm spacers went below the piston. As I really like the look, I did the same to the front dampers, but with 3.5mm below the piston and a 2mm ride height clamp. The car has 6mm clearance and can still drop the suspension a little bit. The springs have enough space and are not compressed in a negative way.

With this setup I put the chassis on the tweak station and it is balanced very good

David101

+1 Oh, man looks really awesome!

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

The shelfqueen finally got a body This is the story:

When the FF-01 virus first took over, I just wanted one runner chassis. So I ordered a fake Mondeo and fitting 3d printed wheels. Then I after weeks of searching for a chassis, I found the yellow Opel Vectra box stock shelfqueen and shortly after the much used FF-01 with carbon chassis. This decided, that I will have a runner and a shelfqueen.
And while the runner has its Mondeo body, the shelfqueen body was not decided (I am not a fan of the Vectra). In my research I found out, that there were Nissan Primera kits from Tamiya and that these are the holy grail of the FF-01 church. Of course these are rare and not to be found (except on Ebay for 369€, just the body).
On a similar site (Ebay without shops) I couldn’t believe my luck when I found someone selling a body undriven, but in questionable condition. That is nice, but a body whithout the original rims would be not cool. We all know Tamiya for using the same parts for different cars. So I made my research and found out that the same rims were used for the Isuzu Mu Type-X. Our trustworthy german Tamiya importer had one new set left. That sealed the deal.





When the body arrived, it was some kind of magic tragedy. The outside was shiny nearly new. The stickers were put on wrong, partly missing and badly placed. The exterior parts were dirty and uncolored on the outside, but full of paint on the inside of the body. The old owner must have put the stickers and parts on first and then use a paint brush with not only the wrong color, but the wrong paint (not for lexan). That is why the color fell off on some places and also found a way underneath the stickers near the fender. On one side it was frustrating, but I would have never gotten this rare body for that little money without someone ruining it.

This meant a lot of work had to be done to restore it and make it the beauty it was meant to be. Unfortunately the sticker were useless. I removed all of them. I bought a lot of paintkiller. It was a mess. With time and patience I removed 99%. Some small places wouldn’t let go of the color... The paintkiller and or the color did harm the lexan and made it blind. So I had to wet grind the whole inside minus windows with 1200er sanding paper to remove the blind spots.





Then the easy part masking, using the right colors and applying the decals like in the manual.





The finished body is a dream and fits so nice to the shelfqueen chassis. It is true love

rcguyfpr

iTrader: (52)

Civic Type R

gigaplex

iTrader: (2)

What kind of spacer are you using under the piston? I'd be worried it could scratch the shaft.

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

Just the normal plastic spacers Tamiya provides with their standard plastic shocks.

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

I found out These are Eagle Racing aluminium parts for the FF-01.

Nicadrauspro4

Nice! Thanks!

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

I knew, I should have opened a new thread for my FF-01 project... Well now it is too late and you all have to suffer from my selfishness

Tomorrow I will drive a FF-01 for the first time The iconic Honda Civic body will have the honor to be the lid of choice for the maiden run:



That is the weight...


...and that the car.


Fear the mighty VTEC

Why the Civic you might ask. Well the awesome shop in the UK (it is really awesome! L&L models) unfortunately made a mistake and send a Toyota Celica rallye body instead of my wished Mondeo. And it didn't arrive, yet...

wtcc

iTrader: (2)

I am back from a great day! The sun was shining, the asphalt was clean and the cars ran great!

Some last preparations:


"Our" "track" drawn with chalk on a schoolyard:


The F1 fan couldn't resist to add a main sponsor:


The rides:


The "box":


My chassis after a few runs:


The fights were great! My friend had the Sport Tuned can installed and it had visibly more punch compared to my Mabushi box stock can. We had a lot of side-by-side-battles as I had to hold him off. Overall our laptimes were pretty similar. I was a little bit faster in the slow sections. The balance of the FF-01 is near perfect. After we had cleaned the driving line (after the video was made ), the car had good steering and a planted rear. Impressive what Tamiya managed to engineer at that time.

Here a short video of my friend VTECing around the circuit: