4roller

I was looking at bodies, truck bodies to be exact.

Do you think the Stadium Blitzer or F-150 (TA02T) body would work on this? Both have 257mm-ish wheelbases.

The Blitzer has a width of 162mm and the F-150 has a reported width of 180mm.

nosyajg

iTrader: (11)

here's a thread showing a 200mm body on the chassis...

http://www.rctech.net/forum/electric...-asterion.html

i'm guessing the blitzer will make the tires stick out like how the stock asterion body did...

4roller

Ah yes, fyrstormers xv01T. Thanks for that. I never read the complete post, but yes he details the details about the body width details. Ha.

I guess at least 3 of us on the xv-01 thread have gone on the quest for larger suspension / off road capabilities in the xv-01. The vehicle as it stands doesn't have the ground clearance like the ta02s did back in the day. Where the ta02s was pretty much a 4wd buggy tub that happen to work well lowered as a TC. The xv-01 I think is a road chassis made to handle off road, but pretty poorly.

Larger tires and longer shocks dont exactly cut it. Longer suspension arms and swing angles are what's needed.

The xv-01 TC with the short reversible arms (ta05/6, trf416+, tb03 etc) give ~.5mm more length. And only after shaving parts can you achieve usable travel. I'll see what this thing looks like with the suspension jacked up. Until then I'll decide whether or not I want a truck now. The body thing has me on the fence.

SoLost

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nosyajg

iTrader: (11)

tamiya needs to make a xv-02, keeping the front motor layout with a more capable off road chassis...lol...

fyrstormer

iTrader: (1)

The XV-01 is too narrow to handle rough off-road conditions effectively. No matter what I did to my XV-01T, I couldn't get it to corner without traction-rolling constantly. There's a reason off-road RCs intended to operate at any significant speed have the wheels sticking way out to the sides of the chassis.

You need to understand that the way we drive RCs off-road would be equivalent to making hairpin turns at 50-100mph in a real vehicle. Physics doesn't allow for that with a "normal" track-width. RC airplanes, and to a certain extent RC boats, can do that because they can dip parts of their body below their center of gravity to keep things balanced in sharp high-speed turns; cars and trucks can't do that because the ground is solid instead of fluid.

4roller

And thus the argument between scale vs purpose built rigs.

I like my vehicles looking like real cars/trucks. And having lots of options for bodies, thus Tamiya.

As capable as a 4wd buggies are, to me the current crop look like space shuttles with wheels. The closest RC that actually looked okay (before buying the xv-01), and could handle rally for real would have been the HPI wr8, or Team Associated rally. But those are basically 1/8th scale 4wd buggy/sct chassis with oversized lexan shells to cover the extend a-arms. No doubt loud, and ubnoxiously oversized.

Maybe the Xv01 inboard suspension mounts, raised (2-5mm) coupled with longer arms (TC) would allow for more travel, and scale width.

Of course I always think cars look dumb with giant spaces in the wheel arches.

I think the only exception would be maybe Dakar rally machines or real (1:1) stadium trucks, thus my original inquiry about bodies.

Mega travel means crappy road handling. Too slammed equals poor off-road. I am trying to find a happy medium. The xv-01 with big tires seems to fit the bill as long as it doesn't flip at 30mph+.

haplm

Happy medium setting seems to be around 18mm ride height - at least for the relatively low speed races I'm in.

It's funny that you are mentioning Dakar races - that is another thing which is popular here. Check this: http://www.rctr.estranky.cz/clanky/v...e-setkani.html ;-)

Qatmix

The XV01 is a rally chassis, not an offroad chassis. 20mm is plenty for a scale rally car, it is not meant to take on truggy style courses.

4roller

Agreed, but my point is that a lot of us are ever-chasing that little bit extra terrain coverage.

I've conceded that this chassis is really good on everything between tarmac to hard smooth dirt.

But our environments have us wanting to drive on deep grass, rutty dirt, snow etc. I guess it's the kid in us. We want to play in the mud, the messier the better. Scale rally is what the chassis is intended for, off road is what we want it to be capable of. So we try our best to mod the chassis the handle that extra lick of knar-knar.

18mm it is.

fyrstormer

iTrader: (1)

I'm not chasing better off-road handling anymore. The XV-01T taught me that was pointless. I run long-damper suspension on my XV-01 rally cars, and if I want better off-road handling than that, I run one of my buggies, or monster trucks, or rock crawlers.

*Race* buggies do look like "space shuttles with wheels", as you say. But there are scale-looking buggies that look much better. Here's my Arrma Raider, for example:





If you want something even better for going fast off-road, the Associated SC10B works great once you get the suspension tuned and the steering knuckles reinforced:



A short-course truck with a non-racing body is also a good option:





Or the Losi Ten-SCBE if you prefer 4WD with a center diff:



Or for a unique challenge you can get a solid-rear-axle trophy truck:



In short, there are lots of options for capable off-road vehicles that don't look like "space shuttles with wheels". All of the vehicles I posted above can go at least 30mph, and with the exception of the Arrma Raider (which I built specifically for on-road use), they can all go off-road very well. If you want something larger than the Arrma Raider that still looks like a realistic sand-rail, there's the Arrma Raider XL, or you can hunt for a Vaterra Glamis Uno on eBay.

4roller

Wow what a fleet of RCs! I know that's not even your whole collection.

The Baja Rey looked especially good to me as an off-road soak up anything kind of vehicle.

Alas, xv-01 is really a road car. I guess you could consider it similar to your real AWD car. It drives mostly on the road, but if you hit some dirt roads or bad weather, it performs just fine. Take it on rocks or through rivers, and you'll find yourself needing a tow.

You can't have RC that does everything perfect.

4roller

So today I ran the xv-01 with large tires, this time glued to the rim like they should have been.

WTF! Amazing fun. Power sliding like ya'dun know. On smooth concrete (like that you'd find on a driveway) it squawked like a real car taking corners too fast. Excellent handling, very precise. On tarmac it was great, lifting the inner rear wheel on super hard turns. Only if it caught an edge would it roll. The extra cush of the large tires provided a pillow like floating effect over street undulations. Sort of like a big Cadillac over big bumps on the freeway.

Off-road it can roll over medium and short grass without any issues, I even took it into some loose dirt. Fun fun!


Then I tried this lowered suspension set up with soft springs. Slammed, it was almost impossible to flip.



Though with this setup you can see massive camber gain in the front and rear. This probably help the car slide into corners instead of biting too hard. The con of this setup is that it has no ability to soak up oncoming obstacles.




So for giggles I went Baja/stadium truck style. Front end lifted,rear end squat. The least precise of the bunch but no worries about hitting the lip of curbs and rocks on the road.

I think with some tweaking of suspension, especially the camber at the desired ride height will produce an excellent handling xv-01T.

The TC arms and suspension are the reason why there is so much camber tweaking available. The standard xv-01 is a little more limited, providing a more neutral camber angle throughout the travel.

fyrstormer

iTrader: (1)

I think the Subaru body complements the capabilities of the Xv-01 chassis the best. That's the kind of vehicle it really is, able to go off-road, but not mud-bogging or fording streams or climbing rocks.

It looks interesting, that's for sure. I wonder if you can find a way to build a scale buggy out of it, with the wheels outboard enough that you can run oversize tires without them rubbing?

4roller

If the trf501x/db01 uses similar components to a TA05, then they might transfer onto the xv-01 too. Long a-arms, and axles. You might have yourself a front mount motor buggy. They might be a little too long though. Worth investigating?