4roller

This is good to know, I just placed an order for the longer damper towers! Which means more rally.

A question, when using the longer dampers in conjunction with the damper towers, do I need to use the long or short damper ends?

I guess I will found out when all the pieces arrive in the mail.

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

my goal was to have a shock package that would give the most potential droop, and still give full up travel letting the chassis bottom before the shocks. Using standard length shocks with the long rod ends gives lots of droop, but running with standard towers the shocks bottom out before the chassis, not good.

I would assume running the tall towers and longer shocks the short ends would be best. the long rod ends add droop, but they dont compensate with more up travel as well.

airbiscuit

ThePanda. any link to those shocks?

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

I bought mine direct from tamiya.

you will need X2 of these for the front bodies https://www.tamiyausa.com/product/it...uct-id=9404701

X1 of these for the small plastic bits
https://www.tamiyausa.com/product/it...oduct-id=51282

X1 of these for the shock caps
https://www.tamiyausa.com/items/radi...-v-parts-51280

airbiscuit

Nice!

Speaking of which, I saw this part for the XV, 54480 Tamiya 1 mm Separate Suspension Mount Setting Spacer (4 pcs) & want to ask what it this for exactly?

I know where it is supposed to fit on the chassis but what does it do?

Tom1977

With this shims you can tune 5 things:

Roll centre
Front Kick-up / Anti-Dive
Front Pro-Dive
Rear Anti-Squat
Rear Pro-Squat

Cheers.

4roller

By using the shims under the suspension blocks, a side affect is getting a little more droop from the A-arms. Coupled with a longer stroke damper can give more ground clearance.

4roller

I went ahead and did it. I bought the xv-01 long damper towers. They are pretty tall. So much so that they reach beyond my projected CVA dampers that are 67mm. With the modifications I've made for maximum TC arm droop, i had to scavenge some really long dampers from my crawler and also put long ends to reach maximum droop. A total of 80mm center of holes to center.

I am using some Team Associated medium length springs, which are little soft for on road driving with a very pronounced dive under heavy braking.

However for off road, the long travel and buggy springs produce a very plush feeling, I would equate it to a Baja truck soaking up the terrain. Pretty cool to watch. The 75mm tires also help in this aspect.

The maximum ride height with the larger tires doesn't change in my case and is roughly 30mm. The main thing that changed is the upswing of the a-arm is significantly increased.

So far so good. I want to get some nicer dampers. Anyone have any suggestions for a 80mm damper?

I had looked at gmade XD 75mm. But the car really needs 80mm for the rear.

Now, that my curiosity has been quenched, I wonder if it's worth it for this whole conversion?

Long spec Damper towers and new dampers can be an expensive upgrade. While they add nice bling to the chassis, the only real gain from my stand point is that the a-arm and base of the tires can travel higher than the chassis. I suppose for really rough off road this is desirable as the car would pitch and roll more. But for smooth off road and on road does this help? Possibly. I have noticed that all my on road cars are designed in a way that the a-arm upswing is far greater than the downward travel. Does anyone know about this and how it affects the handling?

ThePanda

iTrader: (68)

you always want the chassis to bottom out before the shocks do. Having the shocks bottom out is bad because it puts tremendous stress through the suspension, and can lead to tweak.

4roller

I figured this was the case for road cars running low ride heights, having more upward swing beyond the base of the chassis will help keep the chassis flat.

In a raised chassis like that for rally, it still makes sense to have the suspension travel up higher than the bottom of the chassis for bigger bumps.

If the suspension bottoms out at the same point the chassis does, the cars stability may be compromised by a bump greater than the ride height. This is why upward travel beyond the chassis bottoming out is useful.

fyrstormer

iTrader: (1)

The XV-01 chassis gets tweaked no matter what you do, and you have to adjust it from time to time. Doesn't really matter if the shocks bottom-out before the chassis slaps.

airbiscuit

What is the Tamiya TRF Damper that is equivalent or if not better than the damper that comes with the Long Damper Kit?

4roller

Hi all,

It's been a while, but I've comeback with a modified long damper spec conversion of my Xv-01TC armed rally machine.

I bought some gmade XD dampers which are really nice. The length at 75mm. These dampers are big bore and big springed. The mounting needs a little modification since the cap doesn't take a ball joint. I am using the long Tamiya damper ends.

The springs are a tad soft for road rally, but for rutty grass, it works very well.

The damper towers are extremely tall compared to the stock towers. Therefore you will need an upgraded or longer damper about 75-80mm hole to hole.

In all honesty the amount of travel isn't anything that you can't do with the shorter towers. I get almost as much travel and ride height with 55-60mm dampers and long damper ends on the stock damper towers.

I am not sure what Tamiya was thinking other than getting a significant amount of money from me. I will say that the aftermarket carbon towers are nice to look at and are constructed with high quality. Otherwise you might want to just run what you have and make some suspension mods to get better ride height if that is your goal.

All and all its not bad. Just an expensive experiment to get a little more up travel.

fyrstormer

iTrader: (1)

There isn't one. You have to assemble them yourself from parts. I use a TRF damper kit, combined with the shock bodies from Yeah Racing's 60mm damper kit, combined with the long damper rods from the Tamiya CVA long-travel dampers.

airbiscuit

I am eyeing the TRF201 front springs & cross-checking your post here with some infos on the colors.

I found out the colors are
Hard (green), Medium (black), and Soft (brown)

How come the color you mentioned is not the same?