Thanks nubs.

I'll do my shocks oil to 450 later & will try to use the purple progressive on the rear with progressive red front just to see how it goes. I got the linear silver on order soon.

Are TRF419 kits a limited release or something? It seems that no one has any stock of the 419XR, and the odd one that is available is insanely expensive (seen USD$1800 from Japan). There are still some 419 or 419X kits floating around too, but it seems a bit of a waste to buy an earlier version. It doesn't seem to be normal for TRF kits in general to be so hard to find, the TRF211 and TRF102 and now TRF103 are widely available, its just the 419 which aren't. Can anyone enlighten me?

TRF touring series seem to be released in very small quantities, seems like after a few batches they are gone. 419XR kit is a JDM only kit for now, rumor (at tqrc regional Fred told me) said Tamiya may release 419XR kit in US market. But don't have high hope on a reasonable price. 419X (or x w which is still available from US vendors) is not a bad choice because Tamiya release the 419xr conversion set for US market, which can convert only the 419X series into a 419xr.

Be aware of that $556 from activepowersport though, that is not a legit shop. 419x/xr will cost you around 800 to 1200 dollars.

Thanks that was really useful and explained a lot. 1999.co.jp have it for a reasonable price, I was able to fimd that once you said its a JDM kit. I'm in New Zealand so shipping is a bit but not too bad from Japan. A couple of local sellers get them from time to time as well but its really sporadic. Apparently the TB EVO 7s here were sent here in error as well, they weren't too badly priced.

Every single time I've tried to buy something from Active Powersports, my order has been cancelled (or I had to pester them to cancel it) because they didn't actually have the item in-stock. I gave up on them a while ago. Same with HKS Hobby.

Some time ago I read in the net, that Tamiya produces only ~1000 TRF cars per model/batch for worldwide market.

I don't know, if this number is legit, but if you see, that the 419 cars were relatively fast sold out after release, I'm not far away from this estimation. Tamiya do not publish its production numbers. But my original TRF419X motormount has TEC serial number 099 (in Germany you need the original motormount with Tamiya laser engraved serial number for Tamiya Euro Cup races).

High end touring car market worldwide is not as big as many people think.

possibly this is a correct number. if my memory is right, for the 414 series tamiya published how many they produce. none of the version seem to exceed 500. For the latter series the number may be higher but i dont think a batch means 10,000 cars.

I got the new TRF parts today. I will do a weight comparison old vs. new axle later on...

The parts are hard anodized and have a nice goldish surface.
I mount them finally in my 419XR.

Weight saving (rotational mass): ~5.5gr. total on all 4 axles.
Thickness of rear axle slightly more than the blue ones.

It's not a must have but a nice to have...

Wow..... These axles are pretty beefy compared to my Associated tc4.2(bert edition) 3.5gram(rear) to 4gram(front Aluminum lcd drive) axles..... All four of my axles weigh about 15grams(my rear diff+front spool weigh about 20grams)... I guess these were meant for mod racing...

Tom how do you get those parts so quickly?

I think rcmart got them in stock. Few units only IIRC.

No. Tamiya Germany has them already in stock.

Is Tamiya a really popular brand in Germany? Like similar to Xray?

Germany is XRay and Tamiya land...
Tamiya is very popular here.
Team Associated is also very popular, but more in the Off-road section.