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!