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.