Audi R8 body shell

I just finished a new body shell (Tamiya item #51471) that I am going to put on my TT-01D. I used (in the order I painted):

#86005 PS-5 Black (Intakes, Exhaust, Front lip)

#86409 PS-49 Sky Blue Anodized Alum (Main body)

#86041 PS-41 Bright Silver (Side Blades and backing)

#86301 PS-31 Smoke (Windows)

I used 3M blue masking tape on the side pods and it bled through in areas. I am going to invest in some higher quality masking tape the next time I paint. The masking tape that comes with for the window is amazing compared to the cheap blue stuff.

New ESC and motor for my 49400

The 49400 is handling just fine, but I felt it lacked a little bit in the power department. Not a lot, but a little.

So when I found a Tekin RS Redline 13.5 in a drawer in my garage I decided to swap out the powertrain. Let’s see if this is too much power for me… I’ve made that mistake before!

After a bit of soldering and almost screwing up the order of the A,B,C wires I took it up and down the street and it is really fast now. The throttle response is what I’m most interested in and not so much top end speed. I’ll try to take another video next time for comparison :)

I also found the hotwire PC interface in the drawer. It worked just fine on my Windows 7 laptop. I didn’t use the CD that came with it, instead I got it from the Tekin website and that triggered an ESC flash right away. That took about a minute and all I had to do was recalibrate the ESC to my transmitter again. It’s a very easy setup ESC. I’ll have to bring my laptop the next time I’m at the track so I can play with the settings. One comment about the Hotwire is that they are trying to be cool in their GUI which makes it a worse program. Just look at that red and black mess below. Just because you can make a transparent window doesn’t mean you should!

Tamiya DF-03 Ra Castrol Celica (92200)

This kit was bought a long time ago at Ultimate Hobbies, apparently the less pictures are on the box the more special it is.. or at least so I’m told. So when I saw it on the shelf I wanted one.

For this car I did the lexan body paint and stickering first. And I was rusty, tired or just stupid as I made my first cut.. If you notice the side skirt along the door I managed to cut the left side shorter than the right (FAIL!). For the paint I decided to stick with the original scheme and the stickering took a very long time. Message to Tamiya, please make more pre-cut sticker sheets!

The build itself was very straight forward and I already have a DF-03 MS so I was pretty familiar with it. I decided to try out a Futaba S3050 servo for some higher torque and a Spektrum SR300. The ESC and motor is stock. I think I have learned my lesson about not adding too much power too early. Learn to drive it well as stock first! (I’m still a novice driver).

A very nice feature of this kit are the painted drivers that you can put inside. It makes it look really cool, I don’t know how well it will last when driving. It’s just Velcro tape holding it on there.

And finally some comparison shots between the Ra and MS.

Look at what UPS just delivered

Tower Hobbies had them in stock AND a $60 off coupon for members AND free shipping… how could I say no? ;) I better finish up my rally car before I can start on this one…

Boxes… lots of boxes :)

Took a picture off all the Tamiya boxes I have (so far)…

I passed the “it’s taller than me” mark :)

F104 Rubber tires & wheels

My F104 rubber tires finally showed up from Hong Kong, here’s some updated shots of the different tires for the F104. Please note that I haven’t glued any of my rubber tires to the wheels yet.

F201 Type-A on the left, F104 in the middle, Foams (type A I think) on the right. The top row are fronts, bottom row is rears.

 

rear tires on the left, front on the right. left to right: foam, f201, f104

I’m hoping to get my F104 back in working order (after my Formula Tuned motor broke) in time for this weekend or the next so I can try the different tires out on the track…

F201 rubber on F104 wheels

Tamiya recently released rubber tires for the F104. They have been in limited supply so far. And even slower to become available were the wheels. I finally got a set from tamiyausa.com last week. But my tires are still in the mail from Hong Kong… So while I waited I wanted to try some Type-A F201 wheels (as I have tons of them from an ebay auction that I lucked out on) .

First off I wanted to do some size comparison.

Item	Front Width	Rear Width	Diameter F/R
F201 #50936	32mm	36.8mm	39.85mm
F104 #51398	30mm	34.95mm	44.85mm

The F201 wheels are smaller but wider than the F104 wheels. The groves that the rubber tires slide over are beefier on the F104 as well.

Some comparisons to the Foam tires.

If you look closely you can see the tire taking on a concave shape. I haven’t driven this yet so I have no idea on how the handling and grip is going to be affected by this. The front tire will have a lot more grip than the foam one, it always puzzled me why the front foams aren’t as wide as the rim.

So there you have it, a F201 tire will fit a F104 rim. Time will tell if it’s a good idea or not :) When I get my F104 tires I’ll take some more pics for comparison.