Tamiya M05 Setup Shenanigans
I raced the Tamiya M-05 at DMCRC for the first time last night. There were 3 more of them out there, and it seems there’s a bit of a struggle to get a set up that works!
I faffed about with mine a bit, and got it to work okayish, it was still a bit twitchy, and had a bit too much turn-in.
Tyres were key, as usual, I discovered the ones I were using weren’t actually glued on any more, so once I fixed that they were a lot better! I was using the usual S-grips up front and M-grip on the rear combination favoured on carpet. Other folk were using A-types, but I can’t afford them!
My car is short wheelbase, I think it might work better as medium or long. But that’s not easy to change without a longer bodyshell, so I’ll stick with short and get it to work.
Springing was a bit weird, I ended up with super ultra hard springs, on the rear! And on the front about 2 grades softer. I was running a front roll bar, but not a rear one.
The M-05 has it’s front shocks leant right in, I keep thinking if they were stood up more it would be lesss twitchy? I don’t know. I’ve seen 3-racing do a shock mount which offers two wider positions, I think that will be worth experiementing with.
The other thing I did was put about 2 degress of camber on the rear. The M05 Pro comes with adjustable rear links, but not front links. So the fronts remained at kit camber (about 0.5 degrees I’d say) – if they were adjustable, perhaps I could have increased camber to try and reduce the amount the outside edge of the tyre grabs as it rolls into the corner, to attempt to reduce the twitchyness. I’ll have to try and fabricate some short front links.
The end result was a car that was quick, the fastest lap was on the pace, but it was difficult to drive, it was all too easy to turn in too quickly and for it to hit the corner, so I made a lot of mistakes. The new steering system is too sharp, the old M03 steering was more forgiving!
Oh, yes, the other thing I’m going to try is to sand down the outer edge of the front S-grips, and maybe try the old superglue on the outer sidewall trick.
All in all the M05 is cool, it corners flatter, is more accurate and fun to drive. It’ll take a few meetings to get them performing well, and then I think we’ll have some really close racing.
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What was its’ top speed?
hi, old blog post but thought i would add my outdoor set up for the m05 ,,to reduce turn in try 1 or 2 degrees of toe out up front, use AW grease in the diff,, tamiya 53333 blue springs up front ,M03M-13/LB/V2 Aluminum Oil Damper Set (13mm) using the supplied black springs or tamiya 53440 blue springs on the rear , 40wt oil all round , RA rear upright (51425 )which give far greater static camber and greater camber change on turn in as well as a few options of camber to choose from , try m grips all round , shim the stub axles CVA’s to give minimum axle slop , add 45-60 g of weight to the on the chassis opposite the motor ( i use a strip of polycarb from a body shell wrapped over sticky lead weights and use the motor mounting screws to hold them secure, still there after a year of heavy use ! , i also have an aluminium steering set up from 3 racing, M05-15/LB Steering Track For M05 , will be trying the oil filled geared diff from 3racing soon.
settled and smooth and far more confident is how i can best describe it .
hope this is of use to someone .