I’ve been thinking about getting a 4WD buggy for a few months now, it’s the only 1/10 scale class I haven’t owned.
There are a lot of competitive wheelers on the market today, nearly all of them are good.  They each have their pros and cons.  Of the ones on the market:

• Team Associated B44.3 - this buggy is ancient, is non-metric, and is likely to be replaced soon by a new platform.  It’s also the least competitive buggy on the market and has a fair number of issues I didn’t want to deal with.
• Xray XB4 - a very good buggy, but quite expensive and Xray updates their vehicles every year.  I wanted something that wouldn’t be outdated in 6 months.
• Hotbodies D413 - unfortunately the parent company has financial issues, and it’s not very well supported in terms of replacement parts.  It’s also 3 years old at this point.  Still a good buggy, but I was looking for something newer.
• Kyosho ZX6.6 - not quite on the market yet, but the very high price tag ($579) put it out of reach of what I was able to afford.  It also comes with ball diffs and I was looking for gear diffs.
• Yokomo YZ-4 - I don’t know much about this buggy, but it’s difficult to get parts in the U.S.  I believe only Amain can get parts for this buggy.

This pretty much left the TLR 22-4 2.0 as my main choice.  It is a complicated platform, and the belts need to be replaced frequently, but it is supposed to drive very well and I was looking for a fun build. 
A Halloween sale at my local hobby store and the buggy coming back into stock sealed the deal and I am now a proud owner of a TLR 22-4 2.0.  It will probably be a week before I am able to build the buggy, but stay tuned for a review in a month or so.

Halloween weekend racing

It’s been months since I last raced, but there was a special Halloween race on Saturday night, so I got to race 17.5 2WD buggy and 13.5 2WD truck. 

In buggy, there were 3 mains, I qualified 3rd in the B-main with my B6, and finished 3rd.  Probably could have finished 2nd and moved up to the A-main, but really didn’t focus on my driving and crashed a few times.

In truck, I qualified 3rd overall (only one main) with my 22T 2.0 and finished 3rd, which was pretty much where my speed was at.  The kids that finished 1st and 2nd were a lot faster, so there was no way I was going to finish higher than 3rd unless they did something ridiculous.  Truck still had new tires that weren’t really broken in, but I drove a pretty clean race.  Overall times were about a half second/lap slower than my 17.5 buggy.  I have a few thoughts on setup that I think could improve my times by a few tenths.

Overall I had a great time.  I’d like to get out more, but weekend races are few and far between.  Almost all the racing is on weekdays.

Challenging conventional wisdom: ride heights

I was at the track today getting my buggy and truck ready for a race this weekend and was doing a bit of testing/last minute tuning.  At my local track, when the surface is perfect (damp, blown off, and clean), Proline Primes work the best.  When the track dries out and gets a little bit dusty, Proline Electrons are my go-to tire.  (Note:  I’m not sponsored by Proline, these just happen to be the tires that I’ve found to work the best).

So I was at the track running Primes on my B6, and then as conditions worsened, I switched to Electrons.  And you know what, my buggy was still dialed and railing around the corners.  Great!

After another pack, I brought my buggy in and re-checked ride height, and it was off by about 1.5mm (too high).  OK, well the Electrons are a little bigger in diameter, no big deal, so I lowered the buggy back down and sent it out again.  Now the buggy drove like crap, and it got me to thinking about why.

If you think about ride heights, serious racers re-check and re-set ride height before every pack.  Why?  Because they want to maintain as much consistency pack to pack as possible, and they have their super-duper-awesome-dialed-magic setup that works perfectly at 23mm of ride height.  With Proline Primes.  (I’m using Primes and 23mm as an example, because that’s what happens to be in my setup).

Now when they switch tires, they re-check and re-set their ride height back to 23mm.  Why?  They already have their magic setup, but there’s nothing magical about the number 23 – it’s the configuration of everything working in harmony with each other (camber, links, toe-in, springs and oils, etc.) that produces the super-dialed setup.

When you raise or lower your buggy, even a mm or two, you are also making mild adjustments to the camber, roll center, bumpsteer – basically EVERYTHING.  To prove my point, take your buggy and put it on the table.  Now raise or lower it a mm or two, you’ll notice that the angles of every adjustment changes very slightly.

So after changing tires, by re-setting your ride height to that magic number of 23mm, you’re actually making the car less consistent and actually different than it was with the original tires.  You’ve completely gone against the original goal of why you were setting your ride height before every pack.

So try this:  next time you switch tires, DON’T re-set your ride height.  Don’t change a thing.  Take off the old tires, put the new ones on, and just drive it and see what happens.  I think what you’ll find is that the car drives more similarly to how it did with the old tires, and will behave more consistently with what you’re used to.

Team Associated B6 aluminum steering rack, bellcranks, servo horn review (ASC91669, ASC91668, ASC1366)

I noticed the stock plastic steering rack and bellcranks had a lot of
slop in them, so I decided to try the aluminum rack and bellcranks.  
The aluminum pieces are a little more precise and got good reviews online.

The weight difference between the two full steering systems is 2.6 grams.

I left the plastic servo horn in my buggy, but it broke within a few packs.  I replaced it with another plastic horn, and that broke on the next pack.  So I decided to get an aluminum horn.  Associated makes two horns, one for the B5 and one for the B6.  The B6 horn is a couple of mm more forward than the B5, but you should select the one that fits your servo better.  In my case, I have a Savox 1257-TG, and it would probably fit better with a B5 horn – the B6 horn mounts it a little too far forward.  It’s not a big deal, but it’s less linear this way and the steering linkage is not quite perpendicular to the steering rack like it should be.

Overall, I find the aluminum rack to be more precise and direct.  There might be a touch more steering with the added weight as well.

Something I noticed was that my steering linkage was hitting the left upper brace when steering is turned to full right:

I had to take my dremel and notch a little clearance for it.  I’m not sure if this problem existed with the plastic rack, but without the clearance I could only get 95% throw left and right.  With the notch, I can get 105%+ steering EPA.

Overall a nice bit of kit.  The buggy feels more precise with maybe a touch more steering.  As long as I don’t start blowing out servo gears, I’ll be keeping it in.

Top 10 TLR 22 character pros

I recently wrote up a top 10 list of the things I find a bit annoying about the 22 platform, so I thought I’d put up a list of the top 10 things I think the 22 platform excels at.

1. Shocks: the shocks on the TLR 22 series are flat out amazing.  You have aluminum shock bodies and caps, 3.5mm shock shafts, durable and smooth X-rings, and the pistons are machined.  They are some of the highest quality shocks on the market today.
2. Mid and rear motor: the 1.0 and 2.0 kits allowed for mid or rear motor, which was one of the first platforms on the market for both setups.  This allows your vehicle to work in anything from high grip clay to super loose outdoor tracks.
   
3. Option parts:  TLR is constantly testing and refining their platform and coming out with option parts all the time.  When they find something that works (front mounted shocks, 3-gear transmission, dirt laydown, etc.), they will quickly release it to the public and make it available.  You don’t have to wait for the next X.0 release, these changes come out incrementally throughout the year.
   
4. Diff:  the 22 diff has ground diff rings, second stage machining on the outdrives, and tungsten-carbide diff and thrust balls.  They are extremely smooth.
   
5. Support:  the TLR team is quite active online and on social media to answer questions, provide support and tips.  I think they have the most direct interaction with the customer of any company out there.
   
6. Durability:  while the plastic parts don’t wear especially well, they are quite durable platforms.  My son drives my T 2.0 and often plays “tag” with his friends’ cars, and it holds up extremely well.
   
7. Parts compatibility:  many of the parts are interchangeable between the buggy, truck, and short course which allows for experimentation on shocks, arms, wheel offsets, etc.
   
8. Out-of-the-box setup:  the stock setup is usually fantastic and pretty close to perfect out of the box.  You usually only need to make minor changes for your particular track and driving style.
   
9. Lexan:  I’m not sure if the polycarbonate they use is different than other manufacturers, but I find the bodies and wings to be especially tough and durable.  In fact, I use the 22 wing on all of my non-TLR buggies too!  Throw in the fact that they’re usually pre-cut, and these kits use some of the nicest Lexan out there.
10. Out-of-the-box thinking:  TLR often experiments with some unusual ideas, like race-level RTR’s, support kits, full screw replacement kits, etc.  A lot of these ideas don’t pan out, but it’s nice to see a company experiment not only with the vehicles, but also different ideas in the marketplace.
    

Tamiya Hornet tuning, continued

I made a couple of changes to the Hornet recently for the outdoor track I’ve been running at.

I swapped back to the original free-floating rear drivetrain (instead of the Grasshopper fixed pivot), because at this track it’s rather bumpy and I wasn’t getting enough suspension action.  The Hornet rear suspension definitely is more erratic, but it is absorbing slight imperfections in the dirt surface while the Grasshopper suspension is better for straight-line performance.

I think if you’re doing drag racing, the Grasshopper rear end is probably better, and if you have a mild bumpy surface, the Hornet works better.  But on big bumps, the Hornet really jumps around a lot and is pretty hard to control.  I’m not sure there is anything you can do for this.

The second change I made was to use Tamiya anti-wear grease in the diff to slow down the diff action and give it a limited slip effect.  This was a tip I picked up on the tamiyaclub forums, and it does work.  The anti-wear grease is quite thick and sticky, so it slows down the open diff the Hornet re-release has and works a little better is the loose stuff.  Hopefully it stays in place!

Slash 4x4 tuning for the outdoor track

I’ve been running my Slash at the outdoor park track and it’s been fun.  Ran into the guy who built it and learned a bit about its history and such.  Really nice guy.

Did some testing, and my indoor clay setup definitely does not work.  Dropped spring rate to SCTE blue front and SCTE green rear, and it’s close, probably still a little oversprung.  Over-damped as well, gonna dropto 27.5w 1.5 piston front and 25w 1.5 piston rear.  Also need to add a few more mm of ride height.

Pro-line Calibers work well in really loose stuff, like a BMX park or a baseball diamond, but this is too hard-packed and clean.  Going to try AKA Wishbones, which is the next step down in pins, but I really should get a set of dedicated hard-packed tires, like Proline Holeshots.

It’s been fun converting my Slash into an outdoor track basher.

Didn’t stick the landing that well, but here’s a little whip action at the local track with the B6.

I’ve been converting my Slash 4x4 into a basher truck for the local outdoor track at the park.  One thing I noticed was that the truck was making a clicking noise at full right, which I thought was the body hitting the tires.  I narrowed down the noise to the wheels.
These are Pro-line Calibers pre-mounted on Renegade wheels.  The inner ribs stick out too far and hit the steering blocks, so you have to trim them down with some curved body scissors.
Original wheel on the left, cut down ribs on the right.
Problem solved!