Tamiya 511 Build Review
After a short delay of doing other things, I’ve finished the Tamiya 511 build. It worked out real nice, probably the nicest kit I’ve ever built.
Last year I built a Tamiya TRF-416WE touring car chassis, and the 511 is remarkably similar, but chunkier, more robust, and just more more more (no much).
The build was sweet, it went together no problem at all. Mark and I did 80% of it one Saturday afternoon, and built it to kit settings, apart from ceramic balls in the diffs (from Ghost RC), Ghost damper o-rings and a couple of other bits here and there, including some titanium turnbuckles.
And of course, wishbones are (or will be) 501X kit items after my embarrassing wishbone breaking incidents: I dropped it breaking a rear, and I drove it into the living room door breaking a front, before it was even finished…
Very few parts needed adjustment, everything is mentioned in the manual. Shimming of the wishbones and steering is worthwhile, so spacers and shims on hand are very useful.
Getting it up to rolling chassis stage was easy. The electrics install was hard though, it easily took as much time again. There’s a lot of things to avoid, the spur gear is right where you want to put everything, and the belts are close by too.
Electrics for now are Losi Xcelorin speedo and 6.5 motor, Futaba S9550 low-profile servo, Futaba 2.4GHz receiver, AMB PT.
After a lot of perseverance, the install was done, and it’s neat. The lipos I used are only 3200s so no clearance issues, higher capacity lipos need the bulkheads trimming, or lipos moving out a little. I located the lipos with some lead strips on the bottom in the cell slots.
The weight distribution is okayish with 845g on the rear axle and 795g on the front. Total weight comes in at 1640g. So that’s 52/48, so I need a touch more over the rear. There’s space between the lipos for some weights, but I’ll probably run it first to see what it’s like, once I’ve got the race tyres on it, currently it’s just a set of Tamiya wheels and tyres from the DB01 kit.
One thing I’ve not done is remove the rear spring adjusters. The ‘TRF boys’ all remove them to get the rear end low enough, but with kit springs (which are arguably too soft?) the rear driveshafts are almost horizontal. I’m as yet undecided whether to run Tamiya springs or Associated, I’ll end up trying both I’m sure.
A quick shell in my usual colours topped it off, and a few stickers and it’s almost ready to race. I’ve got to do final camber/toe adjustments .
Very nice car, I’m looking forward to getting it on the track this year. I’m keeping the DB01 to run along side it, and to compare the two.
Brilliant!
