I have to ask because I'm becoming a bit perfection obsessed with my TT02: I see many people talk about putting a TT02 on a setup station, ensuring X degrees of front toe out, etc. Here's my knowledge gap - even with the upgraded steering and turnbuckles, upgraded rear uprights, etc... there is still so much slop, easily 1-2mm front and rear, that how can anyone actually setup this chassis with a real "XYZ"degrees of ANY adjustment?

Help me out here!

If it comes back, check for interference between the drive shaft and the steering linkage. Run the car on a stand and turn the wheels all the way left and right and observe.

Ordered both wheels and tires, thank you for the info!

When I drove my TT02 after the build it seemed to drift a tad to one side when pointed straight. Putting it on the setup-station I could see that the toe-out angle on the front wheels was not the same, the left side was out about 2 degree whereas the right side was about 3.5 degree. I get that there is a tiny bit of slop, but still when I set my toe in to be the same on each side the car no longer veered to one side when pointed straight (when tested). I have a tiny bit of slop, it is very minimal ...but like said, many Tamiya kits seem to have this and trying to remove that play doesn't seem to be a good thing.

not sure if that helps/answers your question totally, but w/ a setup station you can really see what is going on w/ any car. I love using mine and makes adjusting the car super quick/easy ...takes all the guess work out.

hey, so I did a test the other day w/ shoe goo. It seemed to work just fine for me no weirdness on the paint. sorry, that I said shoe goo was bad w/ polycarbonate paint, i did have a bad experience a year or so ago and stayed away. Yet I am wondering if the paint was not fully dry when I first tried it? In any case it seems to work fine for me now. I did let the paint dry for an entire day and it was about 85* out.

Nice
Yeah, maybe the colour needs 24h to fully dry out...
Good that it worked!

Don't forget chassis balance guys. That is one of the most over looked things to a setup of any type of car. You will want a 50/50 left to right with no more than a 60/40 front to back if not closer to 50/50. But 60/40 tends to work best in my opinion for acceleration reasons.

Personally I don't use setup stations due to said plays. There is and always has been a better way to go about these sorts of things in my opinion. That is to simply test drive the vehicle. There will always be some sort of variance that will need to be tuned at any giving track in any given weather environment. For example, what you said about the car drifting to one side or another can be fixed by something as simple as a trim adjustment. There is no golden rule to follow in the amount of anything needed such as toe. Not enough and your car will push through turns, to much and it will be overly snappy and or start breaking rear traction half way though a turn.
This is something that should be setup per outing, not set and forget like a setup station would subconsciously have you believe.
If you not running lathe trued foam tires, there will almost always be an indifference from tire to tire when it comes to contact patch. For example, if one tire has a slight offset on one of the sidewalls of foams, then it doesn't matter if your camber is set exactly the same from side to side, your actual contact patch will be different.
The tire it's self will take that balance right away and can only be tuned by feel and eye.
Then there is acceleration creep to be considered to. Seeing if a car is trimmed to drive strait down a line is only half of the attention it needs attended to.
Once you get your tracking right, then you need to adjust your spring pre-loads to achieve a hard acceleration alignment.
For example, if you gun the car from a stand still and it jumps one way or another, even if ever so subtle, (lets say right this time) then you need to tighten up the rear right spring with a bit more preload to get the pressures equalized from tire to tire.
Once you do this and your vehicle tracks straight, it is at this point your done with the trimming process.
Things like this mean nothing on paper vs actuality and be damned a setup table.

Did I mention how impressed I am w this car for the price.

Handles really well!

Now just need to get the body done...waiting for some pant to arrive.

My point was, with so much slop in the car, how can a setup station give you accurate measurements? I can move my front wheels in and out (toe) at least a degree, just by nature of slop with the front end.

Car is pretty easy to drive. Might have something to do with the "slop". I put mine up on the setup station I have just to get the thing centered up. After that I'll just drive it a bit and tweak it on the wheels. Don't really worry about getting all the play out.

Okay, you may just have to use a setup station to fully understand, but i'll try again

The TT02 in my opinion has minimal play, but it does exist.
I am assuming that this is like other Tamiya kits where a bit of play is actually okay, and trying to remove that play doesn't seem to work well for the kit.

The Setup station helps me measure many things other than toe in/out including camber, ride height and steering angles (what degree of turning radius I am getting on each side).

You mentioned that the wheels of the TT02 can be pushed in and out slightly about a degree. I get that and have the same experience w/ my build.
With my TT02 on the setup station what I do is turn my wheels via the controller a few times to the left and right then see where the steering naturally settles (while on the station). From here I adjust the left and right front toe. After adjustments are made and while the car is still on the setup station, I again turn the wheels via the controller a few times to each side see where the steering naturally settles and re-measure the toe in angles. In my case the TT02 kept its settings and my toe angles were set as I wanted. I believe this is because toe out for the front shows play only when you move w/ some force (in this case your fingers). So the setup station shows where the toe out falls naturally (your not pushing on the wheels w/ your fingers to move it out of whack). Sure after I took my car off the setup station I could push the toe the wheels w/ my fingers and feel some play, BUT this does not seem to effect where the car naturally centers (especially after set correctly).

-I also used the setup station to adjust camber both front and rear.

-I balanced my wheels and added puddy (not w/ the setup station)

-I weighed my car front/rear and side/side (not w/ the setup station)

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Using these tools my car went from swaying to one side (a tad) after the initial build to running a perfect line. Also my turning was equal in both directions (whereas w/ the build it was not perfect). W/ the setup station you can also measure steeering angles and adjust.

I only used my controller to adjust:
-end point steering on each side (as there was a tad of binding at full turn)
-throttle curves
-steering curves
-abs braking

I hope this helps, makes sense?

I personally feel that a setup station is very valuable when used to measure and get precise readings. It has saved me a ton of time and all of my cars are set correctly mechanically w/ very minimal tweaking needed via the controller. The only things I set on the controller are my endpoints, throttle and steering curves/delays, etc, and braking adjustments. If I have to adjust my steering trim via the controller more than about 1 or 2 clicks I always go back and see what is going on mechanically that is causing me to to adjust steering trim via the controller.

For me it is also really easy to make quick adjustments to my cars setup during a race day. Takes all of 5mins and you don't really have any other option on race day ...there isn't opportunnity to get practice sessions in between heats. You know that if your car needs more grip during a race you can easily adjust the camber to gain a bit of grip (for example) by adding a degree via the setup station. If you had to eye ball this you wouldn't get it to be precise on each side.

-agreed, that is pretty much what I did too. The station just helps center everything (in the most simplest terms).

I bought this kit>
yeahracing essential conversion


And this>
Yeahracing Tie Rods


Slop is non existent now.
The idea that being loose helps the car is a myth in my book.
Losi is another company that is famous for this ideology with their SCTE SCT, but I also own the Tekno 410.3 that has virtually 0 slop. The Tekno is by far easier and more consistent to drive. Slop is never a good thing period. And is nothing more than crap engineering at best.
Consider that every best thing in any performance category always has virtually no slop. Think fighter jet, indy car, the fastest street bikes to further that realization.
Don't fall for the BS people and companies try and feed you because of their lack of better judgement.
That being said, I personally thought the top crossbar brace of the tt01 was a better design that helped tie in the bell cranks. To remedy this on the tt02 I cut a carbon fiber tab to link across to both bell cranks, held right under the screw heads. This stops any possible independent flex. Also, adding the 2-3 degree toe-in rear hubs is the first thing everyone should do to this car. Without those the handling simply sucks in my opinion, and it makes no sense why it wasn't a stock item to begin with.
I don't mean to sound like a @%^#$!, or seem like I'm trolling this thread.
But the only reason I bought the TT02 was because my local track runs these cars in the winter season in a spec class and I thought it would be fun.
But honestly I was wrong. If you can't upgrade these things, they are complete trash and are uncontrollable. Not my idea of fun, and a terrible choice by our club.

After running them a little while in the stock class I have come to the realization that they are essentially junk without upgrades and there are a lot better choices out there if you really care any at all about performance for little more to the same money spent. Tamiya in my opinion is second to none in the static display category and their bodies are amazingly well molded with all the correct curves and lines.
Past that they never grew up with the industry in the performance department and there is virtually no excuse for a lot their (or lack there of) mechanical designs and methodology, so I simply don't understand where a lot of you that comment on "how good they run for the money" are getting that idea from?
I could have designed a better set when I was 10.
Either many of you haven't ran a good chassis to compare them to, or I must be doing something terribly wrong.
Sorry if this offends anyone, but I feel like it needs to be said after burning my cash on something I regret.

Excuse my ignorance but what exactly is slop? Been running Losi EP vehicles for many years & never heard or read the that term.