Hello All,
On Friday I received my High Speed Gear Set, motor mount, tie rods, pinion and spur. I quickly found out that a 74T spir and 44T pinon will not work as there is not enough adjustment for meshing the gears (too small). I ordered another spur and pinion (81T & 51T) and low and behold it showed up today. At lunch I installed the spur and kept the 44T pinion in it for the time being which gets me a FDR of 4.79:1.

I also ordered new wheels and tires which also arrived today. I went with the HPI Gram Lights 57S's, Not my first choice as they are a little JDM looking to me but I found them cheap and in the correct offsets all from one vendor. I went with a 3MM offset for the front and 9MM for the back to offer a staggered look but all being the same width. I mounted a set of Gravity (Ride) USGT tires on them. They fit pretty darn well.....

It is raining here at the moment but I just could not resist seeing how she does with the new gearing....What a difference....I only did two runs up and down the road in front of the house but this is much more like it, not sure why Tamiya insists on offering such short gearing on so many of their cars. I will put a couple batteries through it with this gearing to check on motor temps and I hope to move to the larger pinion which should help a bit more.

Looking forward to playing with it now that she is up to speed ;-)

Cheers,
Jim

On Sunday, I used the TT02-S in USGT with the Porsche 911 GT3 body. This was a scale race where we had 1 qualifier, and 3 mains.

In the first qualifier, I placed 3rd which placed me in the A main. First Amain 1 I placed 3rd, Amain 2 I placed 4th, Amain 3 I placed 2nd.

The competition ahead of me were all running Xray T4 16, Proto Crap bodies.. so all in all I gotta say the TT02-S is an impressive little machine.

My set up on carpet was as follows:
Ride height 6! - USGT has a 5mm ride heigh but that center channel won't clear at 5.
Droop - 1,5 over ride height in front and 2,5 in rear
Camber - 1,5º all around
Front toe - 1,0º toe out
Dampers TRF419 big bores
Shocks Muchmore 400 wt
Springs Muchmore X springs Red front (firm) Pink rear (medium) - I also tested the old HPI Pink in front and silver in rear.. was about the same.

Diff - Front 2.5 million, Rear 10k (using my diff mod in this post

R/C Tech Forums - View Single Post - Tamiya TT02 Thread

Motor fantom FR-1 21.5
ESC HW Just Stock
Gearing 78/51
Tyres USGT Spec

My only wish is that there was a way to add sway bars.. would have helped immensely..

Simple. Despite what we'd like to believe to be the case, us racers are not the core market for Tamiya. Casual bashers are the majority of the market and they're happy to run silvercan motors all day long. Short gearing gives just enough zip to make the car feels fast on acceleration while keeping the top end low enough to retain driveability on the (fairly low grip) kit rubber. Also helps run time and doesn't over stress the kit motor.

The TA05 had optional pieces that you needed to attach to bulkheads for sway bars. I am wondering if those could be made to fit the TT02

Does anyone have a TA05 handy?

Raman,
Good to hear that the TT02 is fairly on pace. There is an indoor carpet track not far from me and I am tempted to at least do some laps during the practice session one of these days...I have not run a car on a track in a good 20 years.

I really had an itch to run the car but it was still pouring, then I thought about the parking garage at the local Costco which is alway pretty darn empty. The pavement proved to be super smooth but quite dusty but I got to burn a pack....yahoo. The car drives pretty well. I had taken out the really stiff stock spring on the front and put in tamiya yellows which I am running on the back as well and as you might guess it it pretty tail happy but super fun hooning it and sliding the tail around. I have to say that for bashing on unprepared tarmac the 17.5 is pretty perfect, you can spin it if you are not careful on the throttle but not so over powered that the drivability goes away.

Cheers,
Jim

I ran my TT-02 with 100 weight in the front and 80 in the rear. Worked really well on the asphalt parking lot we were racing on. I know that may sound kind of thick to some, but plastic shock have so much oil that blows by the piston you need to go thicker than you would with their better TRF shocks or something like that. The oil also thins out in warm or hot track conditions. Silicone oil tends to vary greatly in viscosity depending on temperature.

Getting my TT02 Type S dialed in for TCS today, she ran beautifully. The car handles like it is on rails. Was running a 540J motor, 64t spur, 25t pinion, TRF Black Coated Shocks with 40w oil, semi slick rubber and a Subura BRZ race body. They combine pro spec and novice in the same class so I was running with some 21.5 brushless motors. Brought it home in second between a X-Ray chassis and a TT02 set up for Pro Spec, both running with a 21.5. Feeling pretty damn good with my car right now.

Doesnt it feel great ...kickin some carbon butt......like the Tamiya TT series a lot

I have to say hearing about you guys doing OK on the track has me wanting to try it out as well, it has been 20+ years since I use to run a TA03 on a real track. This past weekend I put about 4 packs through my car, one of the local schools just had their parking lot paved. I marked out a couple of turns using long pieces of rope and it was fun practicing the corners and it also allowed me to test some changes. I was running Tamiya yellow springs front and back and the car was very tail happy. I swapped over to the silver springs that come with the friction dampeners (much stiffer then the yellows) in the front and what a difference it made. I can still get the car to rotate under throttle on tight turns and on the more open turns the car felt pretty good being able to adjust the attitude of the car with the throttle....it was fun.

I also ordered a new body for the car, The RSR body just looks so darn good that I do not want to bang it up, or run it on dirt, so I ordered the Tamiya Suzuki SX4 WRC body (uses the same 251MM wheel base as the RSR) for $25.00 which seemed like a deal, I am going to go with a very simple practice car livery on this one. Now I just have to get a set of none staggered wheels and tires for the new body.

Cheers,
Jim

Forgot to ask, I am running an old Novak Hovoc sport with a 17.5T Hovoc motor. I get about 10 minutes run time on a 4000mah pack geared around 4.35:1. With that said the motor is a bit warmer then I feel comfortable with according to my highly calibrated finger, right after the run I can keep my finger on the motor for about 5 seconds before it gets really uncomfortable. The ESC is only slightly warm. Do motor fans really help? Should I use the kit supplied mount?

The motor/ESC have thermal protection so I wonder if I am just being paranoid.....

Thanks.

your motor is not getting too hot if you can keep your finger on there five seconds. Regardless, get yourself a highly calibrated infrared temp gun and let your finger take a break lol

I am telling you....my finger is pretty good

with that said I have been using a finger to check motor temps for 25 years of flying high performance e-powered RC planes and I have yet to demag a motor from heat.

Cheers,
Jim

That's probably because you're not even getting close to 160f using your finger as a temp guage lol. Which is good. I like to be on the safe side too.

I think that is probably about right, I know I am fairly comfortable at 130-140*, I am betting I am right around 150* give or take a couple. In the past I have used the 10 second rule and that has worked for me.

Cheers,
Jim

lol well at least I'll feel comfortable buying used electronics from you. You could probably even gear your motor higher for more top speed if you wanted before temps started to be an issue