fat500

iTrader: (48)

here is a pic .... I have just started to play with this adjustment. It is the same way on my f104 pro and steers fine but i am building the f60 now and am thinking about tinkering with this.
BTW the frp chassis has about 20% more flex than the carbon so should be interesting to see how the two compare.

jonest

iTrader: (10)

Seen some1 installed an LED light as brake light, whenever he brakes, the LED lights up. Any idea how to do it?

Thanks.

Tom Slick

Wanted to point out that I believe Mr. FIXX was at Tamiya yesterday, and his F104 with the retro Honda scheme was excellent. Very smmmmmoooth, as usual. One Q, Red: were you really running no oil in your rear damper? Yowza. Good to see you again.

Also wanted to tattle that there were two F60's at Tamiya yesterday, and one was mine. My car had a Johnson motor, and I had replaced my carbon chassis with the FRP one. Also, when I built the rubber tires, I took out the rear inserts and threw them far, far away. Result: I had rear grip. However, at the end of the day when track conditions were cool and the tires had four runs on them already, the car was pretty skatey. I suspect that with no inserts, the rear tires will not last long, as they started to show blistering on the inside of the RR tire right away. But it definitely solved my massive-push problem with foam tires for good. Car had good steering and was much more responsive. So, clearly rear inserts will be a major issue. Next set of tires I will build will be with the old F103 neopreme inserts.
On the brake-light question, jonest, Tamiya used to market an old tail-light kit that attached two wires to the motor leads. The light would be on all the time, unless you pulled more than 1/2 throttle. It used a fairly large (by today's standards) circuit board to do this. Frankly, the modern brake-light kits that D-Drive Sports and other vendors sell take up less space and are cooler.

Sauber F1

Since I only have ESC with reverse, I don't know what signal the ESC sends to the motor, when you hit the brakes. But if it sends a pulse to reverse the motor as well to slow it down, you could just hook up a LED (including resistor) on the motor wires.

Tom Slick

I didn't notice a huge difference yesterday. The new rear wing is OK, and the front one looks--well, goofy, just like last year's F1's did at the start of the season. Took me all year to get used to that. With the rubber tires, the car didn't seem like it suffered areodynamically. However, I'll admit I didn't run foams yesterday. Might try that next week just for the notebook. My mechanical changes to the car were meant to get the rubber to work, and it did, but I had a surprising amount of steering without being mad-loose. I did loan my rubber tires to two friends with Pro cars with the Pro body; they reported a big difference in driveability. Both friends had not changed their mechanical setups to suit the tires, so their cars were set up for foams; but they found different results. One friend reported his car practically dialed with the tires. One said his car was pretty loose; but considering how his car was set up to make it turn hard with foams, I'm not surprised.
Anyhow, I think the new body is just fine. I should try it with foams, though, for a definitive answer.

aussierevo

iTrader: (14)

What type of setup changes are suggested for this car when changing from rubber tires to foam. What do people focus on when doing this.

zpmhinojosa

Me personally, I just make the switch. I'm not that technical. I feel it's up to the driver to adjust his driving. If that makes any sence? BTW, I usually run B rubbers in the rear and foams up front. But that's with me and the guys. I've never entered a real race @ a track. Spring time I should be taking some trips to Roseville!!! I'm possitive I'll have to learn the right technical way to do all of that fancy footwork when I do finally enter a race.

WheelNut

iTrader: (5)

Mostly finished my F104 now and raced it for the first time today. Might repaint the helmet still, so I haven't stuck the visor decal on yet. Gotta say it's a tight fit to get everything under this body without any problems. Luckily I'm running brushed, so it's not so tough, especially with the Tekin FX ESC, which is insanely small.
The handling is pretty good out of the box running on our low grip super tight track here. The steering seemed touchy at first, but I got used to it after a few minutes and started to dial more dual rate back in. Our track is really really bumpy and I managed to catch an inch or two of air off a few of the bumps! The car was surprisingly stable over the bumps though and only sent me almost into the wall once or twice all day, which isn't so bad. Didn't break anything, almost no tire wear and didn't need to make any adjustments besides gearing. Stock foams worked well and responded good to Niftech traction compound
I'm running a 200g lipo and the Tamiya silver can motor right now. Has decent speed on the small and very tight track here.

My "murdered out" paint scheme. The lip on the wheels is just 3.2mm (cut in half for the front) vinyl striping tape.


Focus was a bit to far forward on this one, but it shows the whole paint scheme at least.


Aussie- F60 looks good so far.

DaveG28

iTrader: (65)

Guys, forgot to ask about the battery fitment on 2s lipo, on he connection side will batteries with the built in 4mm corally sockets fit in on in as far as being able to actually connect them up?

aussierevo

iTrader: (14)

wheelnut....I do like the black....good job.

Can I ask people what size spur's and pinions they are running. I tried today to get a 48p 75T spur and 29T pinion to fit, and I couldn't get them to fit at all. I'm hoping of starting at say 80mm rollout for a brushless 21.5.

Am I missing something???

RedBullFiXX

iTrader: (34)

Hey Aussie
I use an 88T 64p spur gear with pinions from 35 to 45.
This gives a good range for 1S BL 13.5 or 17.5
My rollout with 17.5 is 81mm with tires at 61mm

Geppetto

iTrader: (35)

Looks great. Also, thanks for sharing your method of creating the red lip on the wheels.

skyline1015

iTrader: (148)

Hey guys, I was wondering what batteries you guys are using in the F104. I have 2 F104's that I am trying to get ready. Just need to buy batteries. Thanks in advanced.

Tom Slick

WN--Jeez, I gotta admit, that looks really good in black. The official Tamiya body pics did it in chrome silver, which is overdone unless you do all the McLaren decals too, so I must say your choice of black is pretty cool!

If your track is really bumpy like Tamiya's, try the "old" red spring, or even the super-soft gold spring off the old M04 kits, and 20-wt oils. Then you can start dialing in steering with the radio and with the usual tricks.

Tom Slick

Clearance problems for the traditional Corally-plug LiPo's are a real issue for the Pro car and the new FRP-chassis car. If you use a traditional 2S pack the Corally banana plugs won't fit well at all under the upper deck, and if you have the graphite deck you really don't want them touching.
I have used the Orion/Peak 3800 packs with happiness, but I did have to notch the upper deck with my Dremel to clear the plugs. If you used a smaller 1S pack you might be able to get by without doing that. RedBullFIXX, any ideas?
You could buy the new-style LiPo's with the central-wire coming out the end, which the battery holder is engineered to use. I'm planning to try some of Orion's new packs with that feature, and going to traditional Dean's plugs. This will also prevent me from ruining a perfectly good ESC as well. And since I only plan to use Johnson motors and Tamiya's 35-turn torque monsters, running a battery with a lot of "C" isn't going to do me much good.