Strangely enough, one of my mates who I raced nitro cars with last year, came along to the race meet last wednesday and ran my DF-03 in the same heat as me (that was confusing, 2 very similar looking bright green Tamiya cars!!

) and he had a quick spin with the 501 between rounds, he actually wanted to try switching the DF-03's shocks onto the 501 cos he thought they might work better

Very odd. I'm running Associated springs now, green rear and blue front, and I hear that Tamiya are bringing out machined low-friction pistons (hooray!!) which should work much gbetter than those injection moulded things they supply in the kit. We shall see.
-Steve