Tamiya TRF 2wd Buggy
Tamiya TRF 2WD Prototype Satoshi Maezumi (Pic: Jun Watanabe)
It’s been many years since a proper Tamiya 2wd racing buggy. And now finally there’s one on the way.
There’s a pre-production prototype being raced by TRF team drivers, and photos are slowly leaking out.
It was first spotted at the Yatabe Arena being raced by Satoshi Maezumi. And now there’s (at least) one in the UK, it appeared at PDA piloted by Lee Martin.
Tamiya TRF 2WD Prototype Lee Martin @ PDA (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
(Pics of Lee’s 2wd at PDA by Ross Whitelock, click here to see full set on Ross’ site.)
So from the photos, and the gossip, what does it appear to be so far?
It’s all pretty traditional 2wd layout, rear motor affair, but we don’t expect Tamiya to reinvent the wheel, they know better than that, just improve on what already works.
The details?:
- Moulded tub chassis
- Rear motor
- Front TRF dampers behind moulded front shock tower
- Rear TRF dampers behind moulded rear shock tower
- Rear wishbones from 511
- Rear hubs from 511
- Rear driveshafts NOT from 511
- Bearing in wheel front wheel fitment
- Cells down centre
- Servo in front of cells
- 511 steering rack
- Body clip wing mounting
- Moulded rear motor guard
- Slipper clutch
- 3 gear gearbox
- 511 type ball diff with geared pulley
It all looks very familiar, suitable for Tamiya to do a normal ‘plastic’ kit, at a cheap price, and a TRF bells and whistles carbon fibre one.
I had a quick chat with Lee, and got a few confirmations out of him, and it’s close to production and the above list is pretty accurate…
One rumour is it is to be released end of May. There’s the Euros warm-up around then, so I guess we’ll see lots there. I’m certainly sure we’ll get it this year though.
But, the big question, what will it be called? 211? 212? Manta Lee?
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- Tamiya TRF 2WD Prototype Lee Martin @ PDA (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- 511 rear suspension (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- Rear motor (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- Tyre… (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- Big Air (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- Underside (Pic: Ross Whitelock)
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- Tamiya TRF 2WD Prototype Satoshi Maezumi @ Yatanabe Arena (Pic: Jun Watanabe)
Written by simon.
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!
Written by simon.
Tamiya Minis at YMCC
Dan from Blink Studio got in touch with this ace video, the Yateley track looks ace fun for the little front wheel drivers.
Prediction: in-car / on-car video is going to be big in 2010…
Written by simon.
Durango? No. Durga.
Whilst fitting yet more hop-ups (alloy hubs) onto the Tamiya Durga I realised that Durango is an anagram of No Durga.
I have a feeling that I may soon have No Durga, I keep breaking the thing! My Durga has probably cost as much as a Durango with all the hop-ups and repairs it’s had! Though, it’s been, err, fun trying to get the plastic fantastic to work…
Written by simon.
Building a Tamiya TRF416 Worlds Edition
After a year or so of running used Tamiya’s, I decided it was time I splashed out and got myself a new car. There was only one choice really, the Tamiya TRF416 Worlds Edition.
It’s clearly a very quick chassis and it comes with pretty much all the bits to be very competitive right out of the box.
Finding one in stock was a very different matter. Tamiya stopped production for a while, but it transpired they did another batch, so I found one of the new batch online. Ordered and it was with me a few days later.
It went together like a dream. Being a man, and very familiar with Tamiya builds I didn’t really follow the manual, well, I did, but not the exact order of the manual.
I added JAAD ceramic balls and thrust to the diff, Tamiya don’t seem to do a ceramic option, and I wouldn’t run steel balls since experiencing ceramic, and they’re not that expensive.
I also added low friction ‘V’ parts top and bottom on the dampers, with fluorine shock shafts. Mainly because I had them in the spares box, so it made sense to add them from the beginning.
The only awkward bit was the rear wishbones, they seemed a bit fat, I realise now I should have trimmed them a little, but instead I removed a 0.5mm spacer, and shimmed the gap back up. I’m sure after some use the 0.5mm will go back in there happily.
All the standard screws were used, they’re steel, but we’re underweight these days anyway, so no worries there. And some blue Tamiya threadlock was used with all screws that go into alloy, that’s pretty much all of them as there’s sooo much blue on this car. The weak threadlock prevents the screws loosening, but enables them to be easily removed, it just fills the gaps in the threads a bit.
Some photos are below of the build. I forgot to take photos as I was nearing the end, but some photos is better than none I figure!
First time out I ran it with electronics from my old car, for a direct comparison ‘chassis only’ upgrade. And I knocked 3 seconds off my personal best at Bashley, including a roll that cost me another 3 seconds. It really is quick then!
I was staggered how much more corner speed it carried, I built it pretty much with kit setup (a few very slight changes), and the grip was amazing, it turned in, carried the speed, and you could get back on the throtttlw very early. ’Glorious’ was how I described it on the night, whilst grinning like a Cheshire cat.
If I gave up racing now, I would still say it was worth every penny [cent]!
The final pictures show it with the Team Wave RB50 that was chosen to go in this car, a ‘generation 3′ speedo, with timing advance and ‘full-throttle turbo’ functionality at a bargain price. I look forward to fiddling with all the settings.
I think it’s an ideal speedo to squeeze more power out of the stock motors I like to race, whilst still being able to run 10.5 and mod motors should I desire.
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- Shiny Shrinkwrap
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- Lovely Label
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- Bags o’ Fun
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- Picture Book
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- Hang the Superglue
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- Blue is Best
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- One Down…
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- Motoring On
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- Note the Lengths
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- Spool Included
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- Added Ceramics
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- Not Difficult
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- Driven by Belts
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- Note Missing Screws
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- Rear View
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- Front View
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- Electrics Fitted
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- Race Ready
