Tech Racing do the machining work for Tamiya, and the prototyping of the TRF cars, thats about as far as it goes.

I have no idea why Hobby Co only brought 10 TRF501's into the country, when I ordered mine 6 had already been sold and they'd only been announced a couple of days earlier. I reckon Hobby Co made a bit of a mistake only getting 10, considering how (comparitively) well priced the buggy is, and how eagerly anticipated it's been especially since the Shizuoka pictures found their way onto the net. I was expecting the kit to be the wrong side of 500 quid and once I found out it was nearer 350 I said to hell with it, get me one!!! :D I hope it gets here soon... :cool: I'm liking the look of the in progress build pics and scans of the instructions, if the shocks are anything like (or better than) the DF-03 upgrade shocks they'll be fantastic shocks. One of my mates who I race with has a set of those on his Academy SBV2, and wants another set for his Sand Viper (:rolleyes:) that he bought yesterday cos he wanted a cheap and cheerful 2wd to race with... :D
-Steve
PS has anyone checked what pitch the spur gear is, is it 48DP or is it "metric 48" (0.5 mod) like the DF-03 uses? Also are there any spur gear options listed or included? I race in a small village hall (average lap time of about 15 seconds) and we run reeeeeallly odd gearing in there... :rolleyes:

The body doesn't fit :(

I cut the trim lines according the manual and make the holes where they should be but the rear hole won't fit the body post.

I read it was 48dp but it could be a lie! haha. Where did you order your car from steve, just go to a shop and ask them to get it ? or ?.
HobbyCo have been naff at replying to emails so im surprised you got one! :eh?:

The parts list at the end of the manual describes the spur gear as "48 pitch spur gear (96T)."

I presume this implies pitch as in diametric pitch (DP). Considering the market the car is aimed at I'd be surprised if they used MOD over DP.

However, this is just an assumption on my part - can any owners confirm?

Jimmy, I might just so happen to work in a model shop... ;) I've known the hobby co rep for ages and he knows I'm into my 1/10 electric off road, he did me a good deal on my DF-03 and a ton of spares for it. He came into the shop grinnign like a cheshire cat the other day and said "I've got something to show you which you might be interested in", and brandished a couple of pics and some spec lists of the TRF501 under my nose. :) It took me all of 5 minutes and a phone call to the boss (so he knew it was for me and not for stock, so he wouldn't sack me when he saw the invoice! :D) to get my one ordered up. :) I'm really looking forward to building this thing, a couple of the guys I work with are green with envy and they haven't even seen it yet... :D
-Steve

Now Then, Got It today, It'll be down the W/house on Sat :cool: At what stage of construction I don't know LOL!!!

I just had a quick squint through the instructions on Tamiya's website, and considering this is supposed to be a competition kit, there is virtually no setup info at all! No mention of the adjustments I could see in the kit (eg the spacers under the top arm mounts or above the rear lower hinge pin mount) just a brief "trying to teach granny to suck eggs" section on "if your car doesn't go, make sure the battery is plugged in" and a bit about what camber and toe in do. Please someone write a decent setup guide for this thing! (and other 1/10 electric buggies) :D
-Steve

Insider knowlege steve! nice one! :D

I noticed this screw kit from CHAMP, not sure what it is, looks to be possibly aluminium and titanium mix for different areas of the car (alloy for the unstressed parts I guess)

http://sv09.wadax.ne.jp/%7Erc-champ-...TRF501_640.jpg

there are a few too many steves on this thread, its confusing, what is it about steves and tamiyas ?

The spur gear is a proper 48dp - 96T. The car also includes a 17t pinion.

The internal ratio is 2.25:1

Finished building the shocks last night - they are damn smooth!

An update from my previous post about the shock caps - Having used AE shocks in the past I know how much better they felt once you put yokomo caps on them so you could use the bleed screw.

So I thought I'd have a look at the Tamiya caps and see what's required to use the bleed screw. Inside the centre of the cap is a small indentation - I simply drilled though this with a hand drill (2mm bit) and discovered that after only a few twists it pushed through to the end of the existing bleed screw hole :)

Now it was possible to use the bleed screw correctly - as seen on the prototype cars, and it made the shock feel really nice - I'm not sure why Tamiya didn't pre drill the hole as standard :o

As for the design, all I can say is that like touring cars, there is a basic layout that is proving most effective overall since the time of the XX4 - that is saddle packs right at the back, and motor towards the front.

What manufacturers like Yokomo, JConcepts, Tamiya etc have done is refine the basic layout, and re-route the drivetrain for better efficiency than the XX4.

Tamiya might have copied the "concept" from Yokomo/J Concepts, but once you build this car you'll notice all the little details which make all the difference ;)

A couple of pics. Sorry about the quality :(

Still need to finish the front steering hubs.

Another,

last one ;)

Jim, it is just Steve's have good taste :D

Wish I bought one now :(

Nobody having troubles with the rear body post?
It won't fit the rear hole of the body...

@bender: Which screws are used for the bleed screw hole in the shocks?

When you've finished you'll find you have 4 or 5 of the little M2 X 6mm Socket head screws - they are the bleed screws.

Mine is now finished (chassis anyway) so a few more comments:

Chassis looks like it has plenty of room until you start fitting radio gear!
The suggested layout puts the rx on the servo side with the esc behind the motor - you'll need a bloody small esc to do that.

For best balance, both the rx and esc need to be on the servo side - trouble is you need to leave a space behind the servo to access the bottom motor screw. And then you run into space problems again!

The pinion must be put on the motor before it is installed in the car cause once it's in you don't have enough room to silde a pinion on :o

I had a little trouble with the steering hubs binding - it seems the holes in the hub in which the kingpins screw in aren't perfectly straight, and the kingpins themselves appear to be very slightly too long.

After a bit of work chamfering all the holes on the c-hub and leaving a 1mm gap between the kingpin and the steering hub, everything seemed ok.

Not too keen on the standard screws either, which I admit was a problem on my 415 and Evo5 too. The hex isn't cut very deep so it's quite easy to slip the driver in the screw head - at least with the countersunk screws. It doesnt help when you're also screwing into very hard plastic!

I ended up ruining my Hudy driver on the screws and stripped a couple - previous experience with these screws tells me that getting them out of the alloy parts is going to be a pain.

I think I'll need to get a better screw set.

Other than that everything went fine - car certainly looks the business - unfortunately for me it will be quite some time before mine gets run as I need to get my spare esc fixed before I can run it :(

Does anyone compared the tamiya springs with the asso springs?

Which spring rate does they have?

Benders done all the chassis talk, so I went in a different direction.. Here's the first painted bodyshell. Couldnt be bothered coming up with something new and innovative for the first shell, so I went for a slight variation on the box art.
Be warned its a pig to duplicate and the 501 shell is just slightly annoying to paint...

That looks ace mate, I was thinking of doing something similar mainly because I'd be scared of it looking terrible with something different haha. it looks really good with this paint job.

A few more pics here:

http://kf2205.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/

http://blog.livedoor.jp/keokeokeo/