ABC Gambado/Grid
 

Some weeks ago, I replaced my ancient Tamioya M02 (don´t laugh, I found it still competitive for chasing M05s ans M06s) with an ABC Gambado/Grid.

Any help and setup tips would be greatly appreciated, I´m from Germany and after sarching the forums there it seems I´m the only ABC Gambado/Grid racer in the country...:rolleyes:

If there already is a thread concerning this modell (I didn´t find one), could someone point me in the right direction, please?

I ran one last year outdoors on tarmac (UK) and it was very competitive against the M05 and Top Sabre I was racing against. I did have a little setup help from ABC USA, here's the info:

1)
Front spring >> Yellow or Red. Grid need soft front suspension on the bumpy surface.

2)
Rear spring >>Yellow. Cause present battery (Li-Po) is light weight, Rear suspension needs soft spring too.

3)
Stock Hard grease is Fine, Also, all the suspension need smooth moving.

4)
*** Most important is Smooth moving suspension, Especially, King-pin and king-pin ball. Please check your car,

5)
Tires. You can choose your favorite tires for matching on your track surface. But, under setting, Please try same tires for front and rear, you can find different from same tire traction.

6)
Additional weight, Grid is light weight chassis. If your Grid doesn't have stability. Please add 100g weight to the center of the car,

7)
Gear Diff, You can use #5000 - #10000 oil
By the way, Ball diff is better than gear diff at all the surface. Easy to get traction.

Great info Conrad! Thanks for sharing. :D

I've been checking the ABC site often these days. They have so many cool bodies for their FWD's. I might get the Civic Euro-R one if ABC is not releasing another 4WD (Genetic) this Spring at the show next month in Shizuoka.

I like how their motor is centered as it should be, very symmetrical, everything placed low to the ground.

Thank you, guys.

At the moment, I´m running black springs in the front and blue (softer) springs in the back. The reasoning behind that was that (a) the car is heavier at the front, and (b) this kind of setup worked well on my M-02. I reduced droop at the front almost as much as possible to stop weight transfer to the back when accelerating, and added a little toe out at the front wheels. With this setup, the car already has decent steering.

I´ll try a softer front spring as soon as I can get another blue spring set. I have a yellow spring set and could try a yellow front / blue back setup, but I think that this setup may be to soft in the front because of the weak damping the friction dampers can provide. I already tried blue front / yellow back, but found that this setup unsettled the car to much on the one and only bumpy section of the otherwise very smooth track I race on.

Drachenschorsch - No issue running firmer springs on the front. If that setup works for you, then that's the right set up for your track. I do recommend you try other setups too as there might be a better setup, or just to reinforce your current setup is good. :D

My M03 and M05 both have firmer springs on the front too. The weight transfer is crazy while off-throttle and entering a turn. Hard to keep the rear from stepping out unless I have very good traction on the rear tires. That is where I want to get away from... relying on tires so much. If the chassis can run well on soso-loose traction, then you got a really nice setup for bashing at home or at parking lots. :) For example, my M05 ProV2 is like this. Very good with even not so good traction.

It seems that I have to get some additional spring sets....:D

I feels just wrong to use softer springs at the heavier end of the car, but you never know, and according to the tamiya mini thread this seems to be the setup many people recommend for he M05 Pro V2, which has a similiar weight distribution.

What I really like about the abc is that it is so unusual with its kingpin/MacPherson-strut-like suspension. This made it a more approbiate replacement for my (slightly weird) M-02 than an M-03 or 05.:)

That's correct, my V2 uses the softer springs on the front and for that chassis it works very well. I tried the same configuration on my standard M05 with CVA super mini dampers and it drove COMPLETELY WRONG. :lol:

Tamiya did some magic to the V2 chassis for sure. It is a well engineered piece of plastic. :cool:

I did notice on your ride the more real-car like design of the suspension. I'm definitely interested in trying one of these ABC FWD's. :D Once I figure out that ABC is not releasing a 4WD this year, and decide against the Atom (also 4WD), I will order one of these kits. I want to use my own electronics so will buy the 'partial' assembly kit. :lol:

Actually a very long time ago, I made my own FWD M-chassis using HPI parts. It ran quite well and won a few local parking lot races. :D The bulkhead, etc on the ABC reminds me of the car I created.

Well the grid was originally designed for NimH's so the kit black springs are heavier than you would need with a lipo. I had to add around 60g of lead to make the 1250g minimum limit when I was running it with a lipo and that was with yellow springs all around.

Widening the track width with some wheel spacers will increase the stability of the car at that end. Off power oversteer was pretty bad with the grid especially in high grip, in low grip, damp/wet conditions the car was just awesome.

Hi Conrad, so in moderate to low traction you are saying the Grid does real well, but not in high traction? :confused:

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

This is the original thread on this car. I have raced this chassis at TITC and we used the original yellow friction shocks with heavy oil, red springs front, yellow springs rear, with short lipos fitted. We used the 50/25 gear and 31 tooth pinion with a 17.5 brushless blinky system.

My current setup with Sweep 33 front tyres and spice 28 rear is with the new alloy knuckles, shocks etc. I run a short lipo pack and use 5mm hexes on the car. 1 degree front toe out, 5mm ride height a little droop and had no handling issues at all. Car is on rails. I use the Suburu BRZ body shell.

I also use the white or blue spring up front and the yellow or black spring on the rear. Great car, I just need to use a less powerful/torque motor system in the car. Our standard 13T BL systems have a great deal of torque and I tend to chew gears.

I like the car that much I have 3 of them in swb plastic chassis, swb graphite chassis and mwb plastic chassis. The mwb is two chassis cut and glued together.

Impressive stuff, caltek!

I got a reply from ABC that they are completely out of stock of the Genetic, going to discontinue the RWD's and currently selling just the FWD's...oh and still working on the next generation chassis. I suppose that's no new news to anyone. :rolleyes:

So I think I will try another 4WD chassis from another brand or try the FWD ABC's next. :p

3Racing are making a conversion kit for a Tamiya TT01. It´s inexpensive and might be worth a try.

We had a pretty warm spring evening yesterday, and I was able to do a bit of testing on the track. I tried blue springs in the front / yellow (i.e. softer) springs in the back first, and blue springs in the front / black (i.e. harder) springs in the back later.

I have to admit that the second setup worked slightly better. Although I used harder springs in the back, the back of the car didn´t step out as much as with the softer springs.

The reason might be that with the softer setup the car was to low (I lost one of the clips, and because of the smaller spring diameter clips from other dampers don´t fit) and hit the ground when cornering.

I´ll have to verirfy that. As soon as it stops raining....:ha:

Caltek1, who much rear toe in do you run?

I'm not saying it can't be good in all conditions but that was my experience of the car in the little time I ran it, yes.

Sounds like fun, Drachenschorsch! Springs sometimes work in mysterious ways. :lol: Well, not really, but I try the other end of the spectrum in small increments too just in case I'm not missing out on something I didn't think of. :sneaky: :lol:

Thanks for the info on the TT01 conversion. I will check it out. At one point someone appeared to have made one for the TA02. I have a TA02 from the early 90's just sitting around..
Sounds good, thanks. :D

Do u guys have issues chew gears? Normally either the gear box 20T gear or the gear diff outside gears got chewed up... It gets frustrating because I am on my third set of gear diff and 20T

I am running on a 13T hobby wing (3000kv) Brushless motor and Hobbywing 80a WP esc

Any help would be nice! Thx!

I replaced the idler gear inside the diffbox with a metal gear, because the original gear was missing one tooth. Out of the box.:weird:

Make sure the screw that holds the outside gear on the shaft is securely thread locked. On mine the guys who built the car in the factory (the car comes 80% assembled) didn´t use any thread lock at all. The gear got loose and therfore the gap between gear and motor plate widened considerably. This lead to binding between gear cover, (outer) idler gear and spur gear, which damaged both gears.

The gap between motor plate and gear should be minimal, almost non-existent. I thread-locked the screw and made sure the gear is in the correct position, and didn´t have any issues since.:nod:

Yes I tried threadlocking the screws for the 20T and 25T and switched to metal versions of these as well.. I may considering use "Steel" version of the shaft as well... :cry::cry::cry::cry::cry:

Love the car... HATE these things from happening all the time!

how do you post with pictures? I kept getting:
"You are only allowed to post URLs to other sites after you have made a certain number of posts. You have not reached that limit yet."

Here is the pics of the Diff.... :cry::cry::cry:

Ouch.:eek:

I use a 23 turns brushed motor, perhaps a brushless 13 turns motor ist just a little to much. Try the metal gears next, if I ever chew the outer gear on my car, I´ll use a metal gear there too.

Edit: I just noticed you are already using the steel gears. :blush: You may need a steel diff, too....

They made a steel diff??!?
If so what is the part number?

Also if 13T is too much for it... would a Brushless 17.5 T be ok?
what is everyone running?
1) Drachenschorsch @ 23T Brushed
2) Otaku521 @ 17T Brushless - (Gear Chewed)

Also got an advise from another forum to use countersink/flat screws instead of button screws - Dont know if this works or not... appears that the motor blades plates are not stable enough even if we used thicker ones (like the optional hop up alum part) ... Maybe a design issue?

(photo from another forum's post)

Sorry, they don´t make one. But it seemed to me you may need one nevertheless.:nod:

agreed! If they do make it that is!! :p:p:p

Thanks!

Interesting that on the other forum... they guy told me to use countersink/flat screws... he said he is running 8.5T and changing to 13.5T with Turbo...

I wondered if it is safe to do that? :confused::confused:

Only one way to find out. 😄

But I don't think a 8,5 turns motor makes any sense in a m-chassis sized car.

I am also running grid indoor on med to high grip carpet with the upgraded motor plates and steel shafts and steel counter gear but still stripping teeth on diff when I use steel counter gear I am going to try a ball diff

What motor/ESC you are running? pls do tell us ball diff results...
Will it be higher maintenance? That is the impression that I got about ball diffs...

I am running a Saturn 20t brushed motor with a fushion podium esc I am trying ball diff as teeth look a bit stronger maintance wise never had a problem with them in tamiya m03 and m05 preferred them over gear diffs

:weird: What the heck, ABC...

Are these chassis supposed to be powered no more than a silver can/21.5 brushless? :confused:

I guessed that they are designed on the silver can platform

Just checked my diff gear, everything is fine. Maybe it has something to do with driving style too, I always try to be as gentle as possibe with the throttle.;)

What bodyshells do you guys use? I always use Mini shells, at the moment I have a Montech Turbo Spidy. It´s very light, but quality wise a Tamiya Racing Mini would have been a better choice.:cry:

Looks good! :D I only use the Tamiya Rover Mini bodies on all my m-chassis. If I get the ABC kit, then I would probably try the CivicR body though.

I suggest getting a small parts box worth of wear parts in your arsenal. Just keep it around for just in case, so that you can minimize down time. :D There is a part that I ordered from a Japanese hobby shop that is taking over 20 days to get delivered...:flaming: Luckily, I have spares to use for the time being, but if I didn't that could be a frustrating 20 days+

I actually did, for the very first time ever.:)

I just didn´t think about getting a diff housing as spare. My 20-year(or so)-old M-01 still uses its original gear diff. Ok, it might be used only 5 years because at some point I put in a ball diff and I didn´t use the car at all for some years, but still.:rolleyes:

I run tamiya mini shell and motech spidi shell tried ball diff which held out all night which is more than gear did mind you there is a lot of light contact at our club my spare I order from germany they come in three days as tax is paid so no holdups in customs

Do you order your spares at www.emt-versand.de?

Yes I do first class service from them I belive they are awaiting restock

I Drove the ABC Colt with Lights buckets @ Home .. and For Track Running... I use the Colt "Porsche"...

Will release its 190mm version too:
http://kentech.blogs.se/2015/05/01/a...bado-20263810/

That´s interesting. And with the release of the grande gambado chances are good that the "mini" gambado won´t be discontinued very soon.:sweat: