53884 TA05 Carbon Battery Plate Set

The Porsche Turbo RSR 49400 kit was pretty carbon fibred out, except for the battery plate cover. Which is plastic. So the idea is/was to tape a TLU01 and TLU02 unit to either of the two covers and be able to more quickly swap that way. But there’s a snag. The carbon battery plate fits rather poorly, at least it does on the 49400. Some dimensions for comparison below.

Battery Cover	plate thickness	Post hole diameter
Plastic	4.9mm	6.2mm
Carbon	2mm	6.5mm

you can click on the images below to see a larger view, notice the much tighter fit of the plastic part on the left.

The thing that puzzles me the most is that there’s a 3mm difference in plate thickness, but the blue aluminum mount screws that come with the plate (goes nice with the rest of the 49400) have the snap pin holes in the exact same place as the mount screws for the plastic plate!? As a matter of fact, since the pin hole is slightly smaller, it’s a bit higher. The remedy for this (according to the instructions that accompany part 53884) is: “Cut screw-thread in advance using kit-supplied mount screw” I’m not sure what that means exactly… My guess is that they want me to cut the plastic posts that he mount screws are supposed to go into? Which maces it impossible for me to switch back to the plastic one (remember what I wrote earlier about being able to trying to have LED units taped on one of these).

 

Instead of cutting the plastic posts I put some sponge tape on the back of my carbon plate, unfortunately the kind I have isn’t thick enough to prevent the plate from being loose.

The part comes with a different snap pin, which is much harder to remove, I decided not to use it. Below, the plastic plate on the left, notice the gap still present on the right and imagine the slop without the sponge tape!

Finally a couple of shots of the two different plates from further back.

So in conclusion, the carbon plate and the blue aluminum mount screws improve the look of the kit but it fits very poorly out of the bag. Had Tamiya drilled their snap pin holes 3mm further down on the mount screws and made the holes on the carbon plate the same as their plastic plate this would only have been a one picture post about how sweet it looked!