Reflex Suspension Dynamics (RSD) TC6 Upgrades (vertical ball studs, pistons,etc)
 

This thread is to be used for questions and announcements about the new suspension upgrades for the Team Associated TC6. The first upgrades below are currently in production and should be available in about a month.

First Up, we have the Vertical Ball Stud Shock Tower Mounts. Much like the other popular TC's out there, these shock tower mounts give you infinite roll center adjustments. You have the option of the extra long link or a second hole which makes the camber link slightly longer than the shock tower mounting positions.

Images are below:

http://www.reflexracing.net/images/R...werMount_4.jpg
http://www.reflexracing.net/images/R...werMount_1.jpg
http://www.reflexracing.net/images/R...werMount_2.jpg
http://www.reflexracing.net/images/R...werMount_3.jpg

We also have the popular 1,1,1.5mm pistons, machined out of teflon in order to allow smoother shock operation and of course ease of use, as no drilling or shaving must be done to these to make them work flawlessly.

http://www.reflexracing.net/images/R...115_Piston.jpg

Dang it Christian, your gonna make me get a TC6 :lol:

Do it! Our local club is almost all converted now ;)

You got to like the black and blue look! ;)

I remember seeing your name POP up every so often when browsing mini z srudf. so u racing tcs now?

I still do Mini-Z, and that is the primary focus of our company, but TC is where I got my start with in on-road. My very first TC was a TA-02RS, back in like 95-96 :)this was my B-day present for my 14 or 15th b-day, if I remember correctly. I quit TC Racing back in like 03-04 and picked up the Mini-Z's in 2005. Since, I have dedicated myself to develop, work and manufacture Mini-Z oriented equipment. When our local Mini-Z Club died about a year and a half ago, I decided to pick up a TC to keep a radio in my hands and keep racing.

Now that we are set-up to design and manufacture parts, we want to release some high-quality choice upgrades for different vehicles. The TC6 Just Happens to be the car I am running right now and there was several things that we felt like required improvement upon, so we jumped at the opportunity to do so.

We already have 2-3 other products in the works, that will not only be very functional, but of great quality and great value :)

Ill see how Matt's car drives and go from there, but I have a feeling I'll end up with one sooner or later (probably sooner):lol:

Look great! Be even better in blue :p

What sort of pricing are we looking at?

When will these be posted on your web site and available for purchase?

Looks good Cristian.

Tom, we are building out categories on the site as we speak. I could make a pre-order ASAP, but I am afraid that people will get too anxious waiting and I don't want to upset a new customer base. You see, they are scheduled to be ready in roughly about a month. Sometimes, items get delayed a bit at the factory though (more like MOST of the time) so I was going to hold out about 2 weeks to start a pre-order though.

With that, what do people think? Are you guys interested in starting a pre-order soon? I am pretty certain these will sell out quickly, at least the first production batch.

David, thank you for your words.

What is the projected price point on both? I'm certainly in for a set of the ballstud mounts, especially pre-order.

Well, we thought about blue, but our concern was that we are 100% Sure we could not get it to match. So it would add yet another shade of blue to the car. Associated is using an off-shade of blue now that is lighter in color than the dark blue they used to use and darker than say, Tamiya blue. After long consideration we opted for black, since the car does have black accents, we figured it would look best this way. The tower mounts match the diffs and the shocks. Any other aluminum parts we come out with will be black as well. The biggest advantage is that black is hard to mess up, it will always come out the same color.

Pricing will be around $45.00 for a set of F&R. The stock items are 9.99 for a single, so we thought this was a fair price for them.

They look pretty good, I think you will sell a lot.

The pistons, if made of black delrin as in the pictures (not teflon), they will sell for 7.99 for a set of 4. We are working on some teflon quotes right now, but this might make them prohibitively expensive, or at least a bit too much to justify making them. If let's say they are 2-4 dollars more on the retail side to make, we'll make them teflon, but if not, we will stick to delrin. This is what we tested with and it's not so much that they are much better than drilling and smoothing out your own pistons, it is that it takes all the effort out of the equation. I remember what it took to make my pistons "good" and boy... That was a lot of sanding and test fitting over and over again. These, just pop right in.

Thank You Josh! :)

When the outer bulkhead holes are used without any shims, approximately what shock tower hole does it equate to?

From the pictures it looks about equivalent to the top shock tower hole... which isn't ideal as I generally only adjust down from there rather than up. It looks like it would be difficult to get a more angled link with these mounts.

Those upper bulkheads look great! And they already match my blacked out car:D I will definitely get a set of those when there out :nod:

The lowest position is about where the middle hole is on the tower with the black ball studs. You can always also use a ball end with a lower profile. We are working on some lower profile studs as well. These should allow you to have an even more angled link, if that is what you like. You can still also fit about 4mm under the outside stud, combined with no shims under the outside hole, you end up with REALLY angled linkages. If you want to raise your roll center that much, you really are better off changing roll center blocks. It is much more effective.

From our personal experience testing, we never liked the lowest hole on the tower, but that is a total to-mey-toe/ toh-mah-to thing though, I am not one to say what works for you and what does not.

hey i need those pistons :sneaky:

I had an extra set for you to test them Frank-o! You never came out yesterday! I'll get you some next time I see you.

Will these pistons fit the TCX shocks?
Thx-John

the center hole for the TC6 is slightly bigger than the TCX. I tried it last night.... what you can do is wrap a thin strand of Teflon tape around the shaft for the tcx and it will fit perfectly:sweat:
CT can I swing buy today??

I guess, Frank answered already ;) But you could also use a TC6 shaft I guess. They are 10mm diameter pistons, so they should fit the majority of 10mm shocks out there. Also, we will double check, since the AE stock pistons is probably what Frank tested and those tend to fit a bit loose.

Frank, you can come by as long as it is before 4, I am going out of town to a race in Lousiana today.

You're going to be a busy man Cristian!

That's what we are hoping ;)

very interesting iam definetly looking to purchase when available.

So these will fit TRF Shocks? I tried googling and no results.

What is the diameter of a TRF Shaft? I know they are 10mm bore correct?

The TC6 has a 3mm shock shaft and a 10mm piston diameter. If the TRF has these dimensions, then they should work.

really nice stuff! definately interested:nod: and i just drilled a set of pistons last week:lol:

those bulkheads look really nice... good work!

Good Day of Testing
 

Yesterday I had the chance to play with the shorter links quite a bit. Even though the track did not have as much grip, I was able to match my fastest lap on the layout. All the other drivers were about 2-3 tenths off from their usual "fast lap". Sam, who is usually about 2 tenths slower on fast lap, with a TC6, was 0.5 secs slower. Another thing to note is that my fast lap previously was on new tires. This week, I ran the fast lap on tires that had about 4 runs on them.

Does this mean the car was faster? Maybe. The car felt a lot more responsive, and switched directions much, much, quicker. It was crisper and it felt like it tracked much harder with the front tires. The reaction of the front end of the car was even overwhelming the rear at times, if driven too hard on power. It was really reactive to small changes on the inner link position. A difference of 1mm in the rear would make the car either super loose or hooked up. The car excelled in high speed transitions, but it seemed to lack grip on power. This could have been due to the decreased track grip though.

I ended up settling for 2mm underneath the inside ball stud (black AE) at F/R. This felt the best and gave the best traction overall. I do feel the springs are about a lb too stiff. The good thing is I have some prototype TC6 springs on the way. They will have 1 lb increments in order to fine tune better. They will also fix the AE shocks perfectly, unlike XRAY or Yokomo Springs which are oversized. With the roll centers I run (3A all around- they don't allow the arms to get as loose through a run) I think a 13.5 lb rear spring and a 15.5 spring at the front would do the trick at our track. Right now I am running 14.5 R and 17.0 F (silver and blue respectively).

The pistons were excellent. I switched over from my drilled AE pistons to the machined delrin ones and the shocks felt smoother. I could not really tell a difference on the track though.

Well, the pre-orders for the bulkhead caps should go up next week if all goes well.

WTD
 

Wa Da Fa....

that looks very nice....

Thank You! We are quite proud of them. And if testing performance is any indicator, they might be a must ;)

i have tested the pistons for 2 weeks now and they are smooth i have tried 3 different pistons in the TC6 and these are the smoothest and the fit is spot on no need to shim or drill perfect fit. if you decide to make some out of teflon ill be first in line.. can wait to test out the springs next ;) thanks again CT and BTW awesome racing tonight

Thumbs up for a great entrepreneurial idea!

Cheers.

You can add me to the waiting list. In addition to the RDS and pistons, I'm also interested in the gear diff.

Thanks,
Jim

Thanks for the kind words guys. :)

We are not making gear diffs, the one you see in my car is the Spec R diff, modded to fit. We can probably, start selling modded diffs to fit in the cars. Let me see if I can perhaps get the cases machined just enough to fit- it just might be a great product.

What we did have to test yesterday was springs :) Our springs, again, not re-inventing the wheel, but they are actually are made to spec for the TC6. What this gives you is a spring that fits the shock body, spring perch and shock collar perfectly, without having to use different spring perches that still make the springs fit poorly (like the Yokomo and XRay ones).

We have 4 spring rates that we tested, and liked the most.
-13.5 lb spring (my favorite at our track for medium-high grip, it really settles the rear of the car down. With the 14.5 the car seemed to float too much, with 12.0 it was way too soft),
-14.5 lb spring (same as the AE Silver- so debating on the need for these, except for the fact that they are made from really high quality spring steel),
-15.5 lb spring (my favorite for the front, really made the car easier to drive more responsive off power and better rear traction on power with the rear gear diff- great for our medium-high grip track)
-16.5 lb spring (slightly softer than the AE Blue, great for high bite, ultra smooth surfaces. Makes the car really stable off power and gives the car tons of on power steering).

The springs really made a difference. They also compliment the shorter links very well. With the shorter links, the car acts slightly stiffer, so we needed something slightly softer "in between" to get the perfect roll stiffness we were looking for. They allowed the car to achieve a balance that I previously was not able to find with other springs. The fitment is perfect and through all our testing they have remained consistent and linear on the bench and on the track. We had another driver test the springs on his TC6 tonight and his results were very, very impressive. He was the only driver to stay inside of a lap of my time in qualifying.

Pictures of the springs are coming over the weekend. Pre-orders for all the parts should be up by Sunday night.

Put me down for pistons and bulkhead tops! :nod:

I was actually talking about the Spec-R Gear Differential for Yokomo BD-5 which I thought was a drop-in diff?

You can put me down for some springs as well. Nice stuff!

Jim

Thanks Jim. Well the diff is not exactly a direct fit. It is slightly too wide and also the balls on the dog bone side of the Unis are too big.

Easiest solution is to drill out the outdrives on a drill press with a 1/4 in bit and the unis drop right in. To make it narrow enough to not bind, you can shave off with a sharp blade about 0.5mm on each side where the outdrive bearings hit the case, this allows the bearings to sit closer to the case and to not bind against the bulkheads. You also must obviously remove the stock shims from the diff that are used to space it in as well.