Tamiya Gravel Hound DF-02 Forum

[JDT]

nice job on that rear brace, this should be even better than mine, before I did it I was frustrated enough with multiple broken chassis that I ordered five the last time, three are still in plastic and one is used for mock up and such nearly a year since a problem.
Glad you were able to change the tower order in time as waisting the money for the shipping is not cool, the six metrics 16-22 will cost nearly as much as the 12 48p would have but this way you will have all possible gearing combos and it sounds like you got quite a bit of room so it will be nice to adjust the gearing for your driving style and surroundings.

[JDT]

forgot to mention, I don't have an ice, my buddy loves his and has pretty much sold me on one, coming up with the charger cost ain't bad but getting a high quality power supply will nearly double it

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEG98&P=ML
drool
http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEG99&P=ML

guys convert computer power supplies over but I ain't going to risk that, for home charging I use the MRC Superbrain 977

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXLCJ6

it will do 12 volt gell cells, two nicd or nimh packs up to 9 cells each at once at up to 5 amps, it can discharge one pack at up to 4 amps, its supposed to be safe for 1-3s lipo but due to horror stories on the internet I only tried it once or twice on its own then I got a Hyperion LBA10

http://www.b-p-p.com/proddetail.php?prod=2_LBA10

balancer from Bishop Power Products which is like a safegaurd balance charging through it. If you current charger is decent I would say just hold out for the ice until you are ready to try lipo. Needless to say there are a ton of power supplies out there from $29.99 and up, just make sure you get one strong enough for the ice when you go that route.

[SteveAndBelle]

Glad you were able to change the tower order in time as waisting the money for the shipping is not cool

Nah, turns out it's not as cool as I wanted it to be :( Those Tower people are just too efficient and replied to my email basically tellimg me that there was nothing they could do and that my order had already been picked & was ready to be sent off ! Oh well, I'll just have to order the correct pinions on top of all that ... lucky it's not ultra-expensive stuff I suppose.

... coming up with the charger cost ain't bad but getting a high quality power supply will nearly double it
I've been an avid electronics dork (especially 12V) for years so I've got plenty of hardcore high current switchmode power supplies lying around. I'm curently using a cool little 12A switchmode supply that only cost me about AU$40 (thanks to my trade discount card at my favourite electronics store) so I don't really need to consider the cost of a PSU on top of the charger price. I have bigger ones lying around but this one is nice & compact and does the job well.

My current charger is just an ultra-cheap ultra-basic Ansmann Delta Peak charger that cost me about $25. Six months ago I had no idea I would be getting into RC as much as I have so I purposely got the cheapest reasonable stuff I could be bother to spend the money on at the time and it works OK sure but there's absolutely no way of knowing exactly what the battery status is. I suppose I'm asking if these higher-end chargers also allow you to check cells and match them to make up specific packs etc. or do I need something else to do that ? Sure they'll tell me how the battery is going during charge but would they give enough info about the resistance, peak potential voltage & current etc. of each cell in my ladder pack ??

[JDT]

I am not aware of any charger that has individual cell monitoring for sub c batteries, the machines that load them and get the internal resistance and such are high dollar as far as I know thats part of what you are paying for with the high end matched packs as well as any "zapping" they may do, if the difference is only .15 per cell with six cells you nearly got yourself an extra volt with seven over a volt difference so you can see a little bit goes a long way, I was never one for buying high dollar matched packs but have owned a few that were used from local racers who would ditch them when the lost .2 volts but were still better than the sticks or side by sides I had. That sucks about the order being pulled and ready, the darn e maxx runs 64 pitch so they won't even work for that, I can just see it in a year or so you can justify spending $300 on a new kit to use $35 worth of pinions, sounds logical to me lol.

[SteveAndBelle]

I can just see it in a year or so you can justify spending $300 on a new kit to use $35 worth of pinions, sounds logical to me lol.

Sad isn't it ... I can see the logic in that :)

[SteveAndBelle]

Well, I'm getting there ... slowly but surely.

Tonight saw me finish the majority of my new 'onroad' bodyshell complete with my home-made, colour-coded air intake to try to keep the motor & heatsink as cool as I can without resorting to fans. All I've got to do is wait until the glue has cured completely and carefully apply the modified window and star stickers to the side with the intake

Click here to see it ! (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/NewonroadBodyshellwithintake.jpg)

From my initial 'wind tunnel' testing (ie. holding the shell in my hand and blowing on it) it seems to work really, really well so lets hope that translates to good performance once on the car too. I'm hoping it will keep my current Venom 21T under a reasonable temperature as the endbell has already started melting (probably from the 130C it reached a couple of pages back) but I'm really looking forward to seeing how it helps the MambaMax along when I get it sometime in the next couple of weeks. I'll be sure to do some comparison test runs to see how it goes with and without the intake and I'll post my results here.

Now that I have the majority of my new hop-up & alloy parts and I've strengthened the chassis to kingdom come I will be rebuilding my GH over the next few nights with the vision of a very entertaining weekend ahead :)

I'll keep you posted with my progress ...

[SteveAndBelle]

Well, I've just finished the bodyshell mentioned above. The glue is super strong and the air intake is solid as a rock but I'm still expecting it to get ripped off the first time I roll it ;)

Ah well, it was fun doing it and I reckon it's come up pretty well for a $2.00 electrical conduit elbow !

Here are all the pics from all the angles:

Here it is from the front-right corner (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/A-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... from the right-hand side (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/B-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... front the back (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/C-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... from the left-hand side (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/D-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... from the front-left corner (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/E-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... from the front (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/F-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)
... and finishing up with a bit of a closer view. (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/G-Finishedonroadshellwithairintake-.jpg)

I LOVE that paint colour (Tamiya Deep Metallic Blue) but I've got the Tamiya 'Lame Flake' (black with colourful big metallic specs) to paint up my 'bash' shell so that should be fun ... hopefully.

Righto, I'm now going to start on the actual car rebuild. I've got 4 hours to midnight so I'll see how much I can get done before I turn into even more of an RC phreak/loser than I already am ;)

Seeyuz ...

[JDT]

Looks pretty good, of course I was always a rising storm fan over the gh but to each there own I say, I got a truck body on mine, one of the reasons I liked the venoms was they have a vent on each side, the hood and the roof, it came pre painted to, for $29.99 I had to do it, I think someday I will get one of my to spair rs shells painted up nice. I may look around for the lame flake sounds pretty cool, do you got the tamiya part number?

[SteveAndBelle]

lame flake sounds pretty cool, do you got the tamiya part number?

Yep, it's PS-53 and you can see a sample of it here: http://www.tamiya.de/de/modelle/farben/lexanspray/rtp/86053/produktdetails.htm

It's only the coloured flakes by the look of it so it will need a black top-coat to act as a background when painted on the underside of a clear shell. I'd imagine other top-coat colours could also be used ... I might even experiment with using a metallic top-coat to get double the bling :)

The car is slowly coming together but because I'm using GPM, Yeah & Square parts all mixed together some of it seems to go together a bit too tightly for my liking so I'd say some of the tolerances between the brands probably aren't good enough. Still, it's a heck of a lot more solid than the plastic parts that's for sure :) I suppose now that means that my first accident will write the entire car off instead of just a few cheap bits and pieces :(

Oh well ... more reason to go get an E-Maxx :)

[JDT]

thanks, I'll check around as the hobby shops around here the only tamiya parts I can get is paint, of course my LHS does alot of model business to so they stock tamiya static models and paints.
unless you bend an aluminum suspension arm I think you will be good for most accidents, I used the sqaure carbon front shock tower mounted in front of the yeah aluminum one and have had no problems since, I have went back to using the stock plastic rear shock tower as my double thick yeah one resulted in ripped off diff cases, I run the bolt through the tower and diff case like someone showed us all 100 pages or so back and haven't had a problem but that may be due to the truck body, I think my wing saved alot of damage but once it was done I bent a gpm and a yeah aluminum shock tower so thats when I doubled them up and made the body post mount that I didn't really need, since it would not bend it tore the top of the diff case off, went back to stock and it sits nicely in the truck shell and no problems so far knock on wood.

[SteveAndBelle]

Hey JDT,

How low to the ground can you get the underside of the front of your DF-02 truggy if you pushed the front down with your finger ?

I bought a full set of Evader shocks a few weeks ago and put them on last night as a part of my mega GH rebuild. WOW the ground clearance is now incredible both front & rear (with help from the Dirt Hawgs of course) however I'm a bit concerned because the actual body of the shocks are quite long and I can't get the bottom of the chassis to get as close to the ground as I would like. I'm not sure if this is a big issue but I thought I'd ask anyway.

I can still get a decent amount of travel sure and the rear has heaps of headroom so they shocks can easily travel their full length taking the chassis from inches above the ground to slapping the skid plate if need be so they're not a problem ... I'm just a bit worried because the front shocks obviously take the full brunt of the load when driving hard and if they hit their end limits before the bottom of the chassis can hit the ground I'm thinking that the shock tower ain't gonna last too long as it will be the component taking all the load instead. I can see the alloy cracking after only a couple of strong hits ... but maybe I'm underestimating the strength of it, I just don't know.

Maybe the Evader shocks I got (an 'ST' front & rear kit of 4 from memory) aren't exactly right for the front ? I'm at work at the moment so I can't take any pics however I can post some when I get home tonight (in 10 hours time) or even make up a video and chuck it on YouTube if you like.

Maybe I just need to fit a tiny length of fuel hose to the shock shafts to absorb some of the more extreme hits, yeah ?

What do you think ? Did you have this problem ? I can't really tell from your truggy photos on page 113 that's all.

Thanks,

Steve.

[JDT]

I run the evader bx shocks on the front, not the st shocks, the rears are the same from bx to st but the st fronts are longer but if you can get it setup the way you wanted I wouldn't worry about it to much, did you get the yeah front tower or the gpm, the gpm has lightening holes in the verticle part, I run the yead with the square carbon brace mounted on the front of it, with the spur gear adapter and 4 inch tall dirt hawgs for trucks or the 4.9 inch masher 2000's the chassis would not get anywhere near the ground and I did not have any failures but that may be because of the sqaure brace, unfortunetely it only holds on with one of the two bolts that hold the stock tower on but with your fabrication skills and attention to detail you could probably just make the front brace yourself, just attatch the aluminum tower to the diff case without the shock mounting extensions and trace out the pattern, I had started using delron and gl 10 lexan to cut a front mounted shock tower brace, refined it enough to get bold enough to make it out of 5mm alloy, this however is thick and heavy, its on my car made from spair parts and is pretty much a lawn dart if you jump more than 2 foot in the air. The first sqaure carbon one I ran as suggested in the stock location instead of the stock or aluminum pieces, it lasted a long time but was eventually broken from to many upside down power slides, when I got the second one I decided to grind off the mounting extensions from the stock piece and put the carbon one in front of it, bashed and bashed with no breakage but when I noticed the whitening of the stock platic piece I used the yead aluminum one and its like 50 packs and 25 wrecks in at this point.

[SteveAndBelle]

I got a big surprise at work today ... my MambaMax arrived ! I couldn't wait to get home and finish off the car as much as I needed to fit the MM in anyway ;)

Here it is ! (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/F-CloseroverallincIntake.jpg)

I wont crap on too much this time as these extra pics should explain everything but feel free to ask any questions if you've got any:

Completed 'Alloy' Hound - View 1 (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/A-ThecompletedAlloyHound-1.jpg)
Completed 'Alloy' Hound - View 2 (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/B-ThecompletedAlloyHound-2.jpg)
A view from the front (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/C-Viewfronfront.jpg)
Closeup view of the Front-end (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/D-CloseupofFront-end.jpg)
Closeup of Rear (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/E-CloseupofRear.jpg)
Inside view from front (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/G-Insideviewfromfront.jpg)
Inside view from right (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/H-Insideviewfromright.jpg)
Inside view from left (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/I-Insideviewfromleft.jpg)
'Alloy' Hound with Speed Hawgs (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/J-SpeedHawgtyresdifferentwheelsfitt.jpg)

Once I got it up and running and the MambaMax configured it took it for a quick spin in a large room downstairs with highly polished cork tiles. Well, it was completely uncontrollable to say the least and even on my dodgy home-made 6-cell packs pulling the trigger made it spin out on control and flip onto its roof ! Amaaaaazing. I can't wait to build up my 7+ cell packs and give it a go :)

JDT, I might just run with it as it is and see how the front-end suspension goes. If I destroy the tower I've got enough plastic stuff to keep me going while I wait for/manufacture a better one :) Thanks for all the help anyway. I'm sure I'll have a few more questions for you but as you can see it's turned out fairly well already ... but I can't wait to try it out in the park on the weekend. Just gotta try to get the camber under control which will involve modifying some of the alloy parts to give me enough movement. I think I'll jsut rip up the park first though.

Yay :)

[JDT]

I'm glad it came in, I knew it would be smiles and giggles with the first trigger pull, I guess I didn't know you were running the truck dirt hawgs, let us know how your gearing experiments work out, just watch them temps so you don't cook that new motor.

[SteveAndBelle]

just watch them temps so you don't cook that new motor.

Yep, sure will ! Even running it on the polished floor for a few minutes with the cover off last night I managed to get the motor pretty warm so I'm going to have to really keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't go over the magic '200'.

I got a heatsink for the MM from tower along with my second order of pinon gears (duh) and got one with a fan but the fan can be removed which is what I wanted because I don't really want to run the fan initially but thought it was probably the cheapest way of buying a fan of that size/voltage in case I want to experiment later on with fan forced cooling. It's not a special 'brushless motor' heatsink and is similar to the one I've already got for the Venom so it doesn't go all the way around the can. Is it really that important for the heatsink to go all the way around a brushless motor ? Obviously a brushless motor is going to get hot all the way 'round the outside' but do they REALLY need a heatsink that goes all the way around too ? I don't think I've got the room for an 'all-rounder' in the DF-02 chassis anyway but I don't know how big they so I dunno. What does everyone else use in the DF-02 when running a MM ? Nothing perhaps ?!

Also, the warnings in the MM book tell you not to cut the motor wires etc. and I'm guessing this is because you'll stuff up the resistance/capacitance of the link between the ESC and motor therefore stuffing up the way the ESC controls the motor (as it's a sensorless system) but does that mean you've gotta put up with the 'triple connector' mess and ultra-long leads forever ? Could you at least replace the connectors with a triple Deans connector set ?

One more thing ... I know there are failsafes around that also monitor engine temperatures for nitro cars and I know most ESC's have over current/temp cut outs etc. for electric cars however is there such a thing as a full car monitoring device that allows you to program it to detect engine or motor temps, ESC temps, battery pack voltage & current and cut out at specified levels ? Something like this would be super handy when experimenting with all different aspects of RC stuff and would also be a great idea to simply leave connected to the car forever just to keep an eye on everything over time. Taking it one step further you could incorporate a USB connector to download logs of everything after a race session or whatever and even have different models allowing different types of sensors to be attached like RPM. If it did RPM it could then possibly be calibrated so a median value could be extracted and a 'true-speed' could be found.

Hmmm, if there isn't anything out there maybe I should start designing one ... hmmmmmmmmm, interesting. Would anyone buy one if it was small & cheap enough I wonder ? Hmmmmm.

[JDT]

I got tired of the fans only lasting one bash session so I don't run them anymore, I took the fan off the heat sinc and just run it that way, mine is also not all around either. I have been told the novak fans are the best, but at nearly $16 each I never tried them yet. The newest latest and greatest thing is a guy sells a tiny pump tank and line kit so you can actually wrap a tight tubing around the motor can and pump water thru it for liquid cooling but this set up would be hand to manage in a small car chassis, its really for 1/5 scale where room and weight is not such an issue but I have seen one on a bl 10s emaxx allready.

That passage in the mamba books needs to be corrected it has caused a buttload of misunderstandings, check page 4 there is a triangle box with an exlamation point instide it, it says "If you choose to direct solder or shorten the motor wires, you MAY do so only on the castle cm 36 motors" this means if you are using a mamba motor you can cut the wires without any issues in warranty and on the brushless thread here both Shawn Palmer a former cc employee and his replacement Joe Ford have both confirmed its okay and even better to cut them, they recommend braiding the motor wires also to help keep the field tighter for better power and less chance of radio interference, on my buddies on road he took the wires off the esc, then took the connectors off and soldered the motor wires directly to the esc without connectors, he twisted it once and now has a nice tight installation, since my system bounced some between a stamped, a T4, the df 02 and a ta 05 I left mine long but I plan on trying to make my next project a little tiddier. The reason why castle put this warning not to cut motor wires is because on some brushless motors like feigao the wires that come out are actually part of the windings and will affect performance if you cut them, by using the circuit bridge looking thing the mambas terminate the windings where the bridge is so you can add or shorten wire as needed, if this don't make sense try and read some of the "mamba max factory answers" thread they got a big discussion on this.

A local has one of the new nomadio radio systems that will track just about everything under the sun with the right add on accessories, temp, amp draw, battery life etc, I don't really know him but overheard him talking to some guys at the LHS and he was basically offering them all his spectrum stuff so he could get all the cool sensors and gadgets and stuff for the nomadio, I never did any research on them as my jr xs3 pro is enough radio for me. If you want to find some info on data logging and such I would say check airplane forums as I am sure there are at least a couple setups for tracking entire sessions for download to a computer, if not you could always look to the automotive world but you may run into component size issues there. I think if you could build a temp sensor cutout system for electric that would be cool and you could probably sell a ton of them but I think the products lilability insurance is what would get you, guys would be beating them heck out of them and then suing you for $5000 when it failed and they overheated the motor caught there lipo on fire and burned down there moneypit brushless monster truck. Most nitro guys that run an on board temp failsafe know to check them every once in a while as the constant bouncing and pounding they take is hard on stuff. Castle has ran the motors to over 300 degrees from what I understand, the problem is anytime they go above 200 its just a matter of time, needless to say they probably picked a safe baseline, they did a ton of testing on these things, I don't have the numbers but lets just imagine out of 10 test motors your lowest failure temp was 226 and your highest was 286, the rule of averages would say you are probably good up to 256 but castle don't want to give warranties on averages(and they want a good rep, no one wants bad word of mouth in this hobby) so they says its safe at 200 degrees at which point the failures would be 1 out of a 100 vs 10 out a 100 if they had told us 225, once again these are not real numbers just something to try and determine where we are really at, it may be 1 out of a 100 at 250 for all I know lol.

[SteveAndBelle]

Awesome reply.

Again, thanks for your help JDT !

[SteveAndBelle]

Whoa, that MambaMax 5700 is an insane way to get your beloved freshly rebuilt car into 'sef-destruct' mode ! Holy dooly !!!

I just took it down to a local park that just so happens to have a major netball club at one end of it so there are about 16 full size courts there all without barriers in between ... except for a level change between the two sets of 8. The level change just so happens to have a sweet 'hump' which is perfect for jumps or launches (insert evil laugh here ;)

Well, I pulled the trigger and POW ... my GH took off nearly launching into the air. Absolutely minblowing speeds ... and that was only on the dodgy DIY 6-cell packs I made. Of course me being an absolute self confessed RC amateur (but one with a stupidly steep learning curve) one of the first things I did was launch the car up the hump into the air at full speed and then slammed it straight into one of the netball posts ... accidentally of course. It made a BIG 'thwack' sound and came to an instant stop. I ran to it like a new mother to her baby only to find that the car was perfectly fine except for my front-end alloy hingepin brace ... it's now got a cool buckle in it as you can see here (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/Fullspeedpoleslamdamage.jpg).

I'm actually VERY surprised it didn't do any more damage than that and I'm even more surprised that my home made alloy brace did exactly what I designed it to do ... crumple when hit hard. Ahhh, my first ever DIY crumple zone :) As you can see the aluminium has embedded itself into one of the bumper bar screw mounts and the extra plastic on the bumper has all been squished out of shape but apart from that nothing else has been damaged. I wanted to make another brace anyway because that one was kinda only my prototype but in the meantime I'll just bend it back into shape and keep on bashing. I'm sure it'll be fine just as it is ... unless of course I slam it into another pole ... duh, what an idiot !

Anyway, after reconnecting the Deans connector on the battery pack that pulled itself apart in the accident the 'Hound was back up and running again like nothing had happened. I was flipping it and carwheeling it all over the place. There were screws rattling out of their threaded holes and lots of shell scratching too but luckily I wasn't using my new shell. I need a bit more practice before I use that ;) The dodgy packs ran it for about 5-7 minutes but they did very well ... until I compared them with my mates 7-cell pack ... whoa, it went even faster !! Incredible.

I then changed the wheels over from my off-road Dirt Hawgs to the slicker Speed Hawgs and that made a massive handling improvement (of course). It stuck to the ground and was a lot easier to control when cornering and was even great fun on the grass areas too.

All in all the MambaMax has turned a decent cheap 4WD 'starter' car into an absolutely crazy speed machine with heaps more grunt to go when I build up my 7-cell packs and then possibly go LiPo when I get my next car. Highly recommended for sure.

Only problem is that I have really ripped up my beautiful HPI rims :( The tyres are OK but the rims look terrible now. Oh well, they still work perfectly so no need to worry I s'pose.

JDT, I checked out the Nomadio systems and they're exactly what I'm after ... but probably not for the 'Hound. I might get that for the next car :)

A friend of mine (who's been into RC for many years) and I went around to all the local hobby shops in Brisbane today just checking out who's got what and who's got what kind of attitude. We''ve now established our favourites however there's nothing that compare to shopping on the 'net. Sure you've gotta wait a while to get the stuff but I can't see the point in ordering stuff through a LHS when you can just as easily do that yourself online. We went to 'TrackSide RC' which is a pro-shop run by the people who run the championship track here in Brisbane. It's right next to the track and they've got ome cool stuff in there ... mostly Nitro but cool nevertheless. I picked up a Venom temp & speed monitoring thingy at a reasonable price (about US$40) so I'm keen to experiment with that. The track was in full swing too so we stopped and checked out the 1/8th (possibly 1/5th) Nitros for a while. Wow, very cool.

Anyhoo, I'll stop crapping on again. The MambaMax is so cool, I've got my packs on charge right now ready to take the car back out tomorrow for more of the same. So much fun, I can't believe it !!

[SteveAndBelle]

I forgot to reply to some of your replies, sorry.


I got tired of the fans only lasting one bash session so I don't run them anymore.

Yeah, I didn't think they'd last long in 'bashing' conditions. Oh well, I'm hoping my 'cold induction ram air intake' (aka: hole in shell with condiut glued into it) combined with the fanless heatsink will be enough to keep the MM cool enough. One I manage to control this beast I'll be able to do some test runs and see. I actually think I'm going to have to program the ESC to back off on the throttle a bit because I'm not skilled enough to drive it now ! Good to know the grunt is 'on tap' though for when I;m a bit more skilled. Nice.


That passage in the mamba books needs to be corrected it has caused a buttload of misunderstandings....

Hmm, that's really good news ! I'm going to read through the 40+ pages on that thread later tonight and learn more about that. I'd love to tidy that up and possibly solder the motor wires direct to the ESC because even if I want to swap it out into another car later I can just whack a Deans connector onto it and I wouldn't have sacrificed anything.

Great, thanks again for your help. You've put yet another big smile on a noobs face :D

[JDT]

another homemade hinge pin owner satisfied, I again strongly recommend any one with a df 02 to try this, go back a few pages and look at steves hinge pin brace pic and look at the pics two pics above, this would have for sure took the frame out absent of the brace, about the rims that sucks for sure, I have the pro line buggy hawgs on some white hpi five spokes and the edge is all grissled and nasty looking all the way around and even on the inside of the wheel! they got to be a little less grippy than the speed hawgs so I can only imagine what yours will look like 100 packs from now.
Voltage is a seductive mistress huh, hard to understands how just adding the one little battery can make a noticibable difference
About the LHS thing, don't let them screw you to bad but why not throw them a bone now and again. you will find out with this hobby you will use up some tires, especially if you get race rubber to run the local tracks, I don't race at the lhs but its fun to bash their track, well its going to save me $5 to order tires from tower but shipping is $2.99 so for $2 I can help out them out. Like I said don't let them rob you but its okay to spend a couple extra bucks to keep the money not only in aus but in brisbane, champrc in japan has got just as much of my money as tower and the LHS has got more than either one of them so it all balances out in the end, my LHS is tamiya unfriendly so I have to go to champ for that stuff as tower don't got anything okay barely anthing and tamiyausa is only good for posting new stuff on there website, they overcharge for the minimal stuff they have in stock.

[SteveAndBelle]

Wow, I hammered 6-packs through the 'Hound today ripping up the local parks and dazzling the locals with its blitzing speeds. This thing is ridiculous with the MambaMax, I still can't believe that it can be this fast !!

Unfortunately though speed creates it's own problems ... after jumping it off playground equipment platforms about 3ft high, down stair cases and jumping over large mounds of mulch etc. I decided to blow the last pack on just crazy speed runs with a small jump in the middle. Well, here's the result (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/Front-endchassiscrack-SideView.jpg) and here's a different view (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/Front-endchassiscrack-UnderView.jpg).

Yep, today I quickly discovered that no matter how strong your chassis is something's gotta break after launching up from a jump, getting BIG air and then hitting the ground hard and cartwheeling three times. Ouch !

It was an incredible sight though ... the 'Hound hit the ground hard on the front-left from about a 4ft full-throttle jump and as it launched back up for its first cartwheel I saw something come flying out of it and into the grass never to be found. After inspecting the car I realised that one of my nice new metal drive-cups was gone ! I looked and looked but I couldn't find it :( I then noticed the huge crack in the front diff housing as seen in the photo. I then knew it was the end.

So, that ends my first weekend of my MambaMax loaded Gravel Hound. It's a sad ending but what an amazing thrill it's been. I still cannot believe how fast this thing goes now, far out. So much enjoyment, even the severe accidents are cool fun !

Now that I know what to expect from this package I think I might take my time rebuilding the car into my spare chassis and I may even develop an even stronger front brace that incorporates more of the main chassis (as per the back-end). I also need to build up my 7-cell packs and as I've got a heap of other stuff coming up I'd say the 'Hound is going to be off the road for a fair while.

So, this will probably be my last posting for a while ('phew' I hear your sigh) but when I get it back up and running again you can be assured of more stupidly lengthy postings :)

Thanks for all your help JDT and see you all later ... prolly in a few weeks time.

Ciao.

[JDT]

ouch, I take it you still have the stock front arms to grind on? just try the angle like I did, easy, cheap, sure you give up 2-3 mm under the bumper but you got a mamba now, power through lol, honestly I thought you rear part was superior to mine but I guess since mine hasn't failed yet I guess I win :D seriously though I can't wait to see what you come up with next, keep us posted, I just got my

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/WTI0095P?FVSEARCH=10445&FVPROFIL=++

selling the nirto stuff from the truck to put the mamba in it so the poor old df02 will get the lrp esc and mod motor but that will be a while as going from gas to electric is all custom with one of these trucks so I have a bit of work to do also.

[Niddle]

Hi All,
I have been reading the DF-02 forum, only just joined.
I have a DF02 with alu driveshafts, 67T Spur, 22T pinion,alu driveshaft,alu heatsink and 2.2" dirt hawg wheels (in post, not fitted) on HPI star wheels, Mtroniks Max ESC, alu bearing steering, hardened dogbones.

I am looking to choose a motor and gearing option using either the 67 or 70T spur, I want maximum top speed and a runtime of around 10-12 minutes from a 3000mah 7.2 pack, without having to worry about heat or melted wires or too much brush replacement, can anyone advise?

I am running an RS540 at the moment, but to be honest I didn't notice too much difference between that and the silver can, maybe more torque.

Thanks in advance - great forum:)

If I hit a tree I may actually cry!

Niddle

[SteveAndBelle]

Yep, I've got a huge pile of stock plastic parts plus a few spare alloy parts too so there's no problem with instant replacements for a while :)

That final crash was pretty impressive and I doubt even the tougher trucks could go through what my 'Hound did without any breakages so even though it's now dead again I was very impressed with its performance over the two days of hell I put it through. Amazing.

I'll think up a whole new reinforcement system and may just use the angle as you did but I'll be incorporating some extra bracing this time so that the front end (loaded with its heavy diff assembly) can't flex in the narrow section of the chassis when it hits the ground hard. Going by the damage I'd say this is what caused the problem. The front arm mounts are still in perfect condition so the threaded rod worked a treat ... I've now got to extend that back further into the main part of the chassis for more anchorage and to stiffen up the narrow chassis section just behind the diff housing. I reckon this is the weakest part of the chassis now and once that's stiffened up it should be a lot tougher ... but of course it'll never be indestructable.

I'm fine to lose 2-3mm of ground clearance now that I've seen how much further the 'Hound is off the ground with the new suspension and Dirt Hawgs etc. 2-3mm is nothing to worry about however when I was designing and building the brace it was still a big issue.

Hmmm, lets see what I come up with anyway.

PS. I snapped up a 'Square' carbon shock tower brace and will probably do a similar thing to what you did (ie. bolt it ot the front of the alloy tower). Prolly wont do anything to the rear alloy tower though, well except if I manage to destroy it too of course :)

[SteveAndBelle]

I am looking to choose a motor and gearing option using either the 67 or 70T spur, I want maximum top speed and a runtime of around 10-12 minutes from a 3000mah 7.2 pack, without having to worry about heat or melted wires or too much brush replacement, can anyone advise?


Mate, I doubt you'll get 10 minutes out of it on a 3000mAH pack (but who knows, you might) but I VERY highly recommend reaching straight for the sky and going for a MambaMax 5700 setup. Might be too much to spend though seein as you've already invested in a better ESC.

My car is now completely uncontrollably fast with the MM so all I now need to do is 'de-tune' it a bit to get it to a more comfortable speed and just get as much trigger time as I can to practice so I can tame the beast. The better I get the more throttle I can add as time goes by ... OR I can simply keep bashing the hell out of it and writing it off every week :)

Hmmm, I'm not sure which one would actually be more fun or beneficial ;)

[Niddle]

I know, I have been looking at your posts above, you legend! Thats a flagship 'ound if ever I saw one.
Nah if I get an MM, where will I go next? Ill be shelling out for an 03 in no time!
I just need a sensible, reliable fast motor I reckon next...

Softly Softly Catchy Monkey, not run in and slap him with your mamba!:)

[SteveAndBelle]

Softly Softly Catchy Monkey, not run in and slap him with your mamba!:)

Ha, yeah :) I know what you mean but when I started into this hobby at the beginning of the year the 'mod bug' bit really hard and I'm now addicted to it ! I've blown HEAPS of cash on the 'Hound ... much more than I ever expected but WOW it's a brilliant hobby even if that means I've got to rebuild the car every week :)

One day I'll actually learn how to control the car but first of all I'm just having far too much fun juicing it up and manufacturing custom parts etc. I'm kinda like this with other things I do too ... like computers for example. I work in IT all day and then go home to fiddle about with cool hardware in my own time ... but do I actually use it to its full potential ? No, of course not ... I just like seeing what different things can do really.

I suppose I'm just your typical IT dork ... and no I don't actually play games for any more than about 5 minutes at a time, well except for Virtual RC of course :) No physical damage, yay !

[Niddle]

[QUOTE=SteveAndBelle]Ha, yeah :) I know what you mean but when I started into this hobby at the beginning of the year the 'mod bug' bit really hard and I'm now addicted to it !

lol.I know what you mean (three bodyshells later) just love spraying the bl**dy things, I might develop a spraypaint related disease I reckon, Ill go in for an X-ray and my lungs will show up irridescent purple/green or something!(yes I know xrays are black and white).

Come on mate dig deep, imagine you only had a psycho rating of 9 not 15 what brushed motor would you plum for? :)

[Fenris]

Hey Niddle I think your gearing might be a bit high for a fast motor unless you throw a lower Kv brushless motor at it. I run 19/67 on standard wheels for my mamba 4600, I could probably go higher but I feel it is at a sweet spot. Its geared for 53Kmh or 33Mph :D Nice.
Maybe if you were running a good stock motor you could pull those gearings and be faster but if you are looking for a bit of speed you will need to gear down and get a faster motor and let it spin.
I used to have a Tamiya SuperStock RZ (23 turn) in my DF-02 on the standard gearing (19/70) & normal tyres and really that was about as high a gear as the motor was happy with. I would say I was getting 10 or 12 minutes playtime out of it on a 3000 mah batt. I also got a police radar on it in the carpark and clocked it at 33Kmh or about 20Mph.
I was really pleased with the RZ, it lasted for ages and was pretty easy on brushes, it copped a lot of abuse.

[SteveAndBelle]

Come on mate dig deep, imagine you only had a psycho rating of 9 not 15 what brushed motor would you plum for? :)

Hmm, dunno because I just went from the cheapie Venom Fireball 21T which actually went pretty hard but overheated too much striaght to the MambaMax. I didn't bother putting much research into better brushed motors but I've heard that the Orion motors are pretty good ... at least I think that's what I remember others saying in the previous pages anyway.

Now is that '15' psycho rating out of 10, 15 or 20 ?

[Niddle]

Great response Fenris, can you clarify what would happen with the high gear ratio?
Would anything get warm or drain batteries, or would it just not have the torque to get upto a decent rpm?


Looking like an RZ so far...
Cheers

[Fenris]

Checkpoint Money 19t I believe are a good motor. I was looking at what I could put in the DF-02 and that seemed like a good choice for offroad action. Then I saw the price in Aus was upwards of $100.
So I went with something completely indestructable.


With too high a gear ratio the motor would not reach top rpm and overheat and most likely melt as well as reduced runtime and stress on the ESC.

[Niddle]

Now is that '15' psycho rating out of 10, 15 or 20 ?

lol.10 of course!! Only a psycho worries about the denominator of his psycho rating!

LEGEND.

[Niddle]

With too high a gear ratio the motor would not reach top rpm and overheat and most likely melt as well as reduced runtime and stress on the ESC

Ever glad you asked a question?:) thanks Fenris.

I will be using rcmart or towerhobbies for the motor, so must be stocked by them.

[SteveAndBelle]

So I went with something completely indestructable.

Yeah, indestructable to a certain 'degree' (pardon the pun). You don't want to get the Mambas too hot but I'm sure you all know that already.

[Niddle]

Fenris, whats the practical answer to finding the best gear ratio, is it start with 19T and 70 spur and try 67/19, 67, 20 etc til it does not go any quicker or gets too warm?

[Fenris]

Yeah, indestructable to a certain 'degree' (pardon the pun). You don't want to get the Mambas too hot but I'm sure you all know that already.

:D On 6 cells I think I could run that bad boy all day long and not over heat it. As it is I get approx 15+ minutes out of my 4000mah. And only on hot days 30 Deg + does it get a bit hot.

Hey Niddle I am pretty much a novice as far as gearing goes. What I can tell you is the gear ratio in the diff is 2.6 so to get the final drive ratio you do this (67/19) the gear ratio at my motor and multiply it by 2.6. So (67/19) X 2.6 = 9.17 which is my final drive ratio. You can get calculators where you enter this info and you wheel diameter to get final speed.
A FDR of 9.17 seems to be about right for stock motors.
If you were gearing for a 19 turn motor you might drop a couple of teeth from stock so 17/90.
Maybe someone who knows more can help out.

Basically you are looking for the most speed with the longest motor life and the longest play time. If it is too hot, the less of everything you are getting.

[Niddle]

Thanks both, I have learned more in half an hour on here than I would all day leaning on the counter of my LHS.

[SteveAndBelle]

Thanks both, I have learned more in half an hour on here than I would all day leaning on the counter of my LHS.

Yeah, I've got to agree ... this thread, although very lengthy is very, very good for learning all there is to know about the DF-02, for sure !

The learning curve has been crazily steep over the last few months since I first put my Gravel Hound together and it's all due to the help I've had from members on this site and especially this forum. I used to walk into my LHS and ask heaps of questions ... now they are actually asking ME ! I had to explain to them all about the wonders of the MambaMax last week, amazing. This isn't because they're clueless/useless, it's just that they're probably concentrating more on what they can sell in the shop ... and believe me they sell some amazing stuff and know a LOT about electric RC.

It's all fun and if we all keep each other 'in the know' then no-one should be disappointed :)

[Niddle]

The Rims and Dirt Hawgs have arrived yay :)
Forgot the glue :(
Just ran round lounge (other half not in) and managed to drift all 4 wheels off the rims, time to get the batteries on charge and get down the LHS.

[SteveAndBelle]

Those are some sweet looking shells Niddle ! Well done.

Love the colour fades. I'd love to learn how to do that sort of thing but with the price of paint and the cost of shells I'm too scared I'll stuff it up ! I highly doubt I'd ever be able to make mine look like yours :(

Still, when you consider that as soon as I pull the trigger the car just flips over itself and scrapes across the ground on its roof maybe it's good that I can't do amazing shells like that :)

[JDT]

Niddle, is it the 8turn limit viper max esc you got? If so that will take up to 8 cells so you could always add on voltage, if you go to say a 12 turn motor with the buggy dirt hawgs you would want to be geared 70/16 to be safe on six cells, 7 cells it would be okay to try 70/18 but I would really keep an eye on it, the 12turn at 70/16 is going to be faster than you rs540 at 67/22 as the max rpm on the rs is between 18-21,000, a good 12 turn will easily pull 38,000 so by reving higher you gain back your speed, the gearing is to compensate for the poor tourque of the 12 turn, top speed would actually be higher when geared lower due to nearly twice the rpm if this makes a lick of sense.

[Niddle]

Cheers mate. I just love spraying the blighters up to be honest.
Nah mate your on road shell with the scoop and the dark metallic rocks, I like the metalic blue on the inside of the tube, sweet.

[SteveAndBelle]

your on road shell with the scoop and the dark metallic rocks

Thanks ... that scoop took me a while to make as I had to cut & file the piece of conduit down to fit the contours of the side of the shell as best I could. I filed that thing for about an hour solid but I managed to get it close to perfect with only miniscule gaps here and there. Once I fitted it the glue filled those gaps no problem so it's basically an integral part of the shell now :)

All I've gotta do now is hope that it actually works ! Once I get the car back up and running in the next couple of weeks one of my first jobs will be to do some controlled test runs with my new 7-cell packs. I'll do a few runs with the standard shell, a few with the standard shell plus motor heatsink, then a few runs with the intake with and without the heatsink just to see what REALLY keeps the motor temps down. Who knows, my scoop/intake might do jack-diddly ... but then again it might be so effective that it means I'll never have to use a heatsink again, I just don't know.

Time will tell ...

[Niddle]

Well, even if it turns out to be a chocolate fire guard or a skirting board ladder (and I don't think it will), it looks the business!

I have just run the car with new dirt hawg 2.2" buggy tires, tamiya RZ Stock and 67T spur 22T pinion...

Wow that really motors at the top end, actually a little too fast til I tinker with the steering a little.
However, bit like a drag car, takes ages to accelerate upto flat out, 1900mah batt lasted all of 10 minutes with about 5 punchy if that, motor stayed cool, battery was a bit too warm.
Good for oohing and aahing at, but no good for courses.

I will try lowering to 21T pinion tomorrow and see if thats enough.

Tonight was a LOT of fun though :):);)

[Niddle]

Any news on the Air Scoop? Is effective?
I have now settled on 19T pin 76T spur, reasonable acceleration and reasonable speed with the RZ.
My batteries aren't lasting very long though - 7 mins 1900mah and not getting hot either, I remember 12-15 minutes with these on a silver can.
Have a 3000mah and a 4000mah ready now so I am expecting 10 and 14 minutes from these.
Does this sound about right or am I doing something wrong?
Snapped front shock mount, not sure how, I have fitted another plastic for now, see how it holds up.

[SteveAndBelle]

Any news on the Air Scoop? Is effective?

Nah, I'm still on my few weeks off of RC'ing so I haven't touched my car since I broke it last time :) I'm actually busy with computers at the moment as I've just built up a new BEAST for Dad plus I'm just about to get stuck into configuring & installing my new sexy hardcore NAS box loaded with four 750Gb SATAII HDD's. It's going to be sweet when I get that online, oooh yeah :)

It's been kinda good to take a break from RC though as it was taking over my life for a while there but it's only been two weeks and I'm already looking forward to rebuilding the car and getting it back on the road again. Once it's back up and running and I've built up my four new 7-cell packs using my two new Duratrax ICE chargers (stil yet to arrive from Tower) to sort the cells out properly I'll then be taking things a bit more seriously and starting to try to teach myself how to actually control the car instead of just going ballistic over jumps etc. which is what I've been doing up until now ... but man it's been a FUN ride thus far :)

So, I reckon I'll be back on the road in about two weeks from now.

You can be sure of a posting here once I'm up and running again ... don't you worry about that ;)

[Anthrax]

What shells will fit the Gravel Hound ? I'm having trouble finding a Gravel hound shell

thanks

[szan]

You'll find body and stickers in Dinball ebay store (or RCmart.com)

Bye

[JDT]

What shells will fit the Gravel Hound ? I'm having trouble finding a Gravel hound shell

thanks


Are you in the US?, I could help you out with a rising storm shell and stickers, its a little more modern looking body for these buggies.


http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXJJA4&P=M

Shipping will be a little costly so I would probably need $35 shipped in the USA for the body and stickers, the stickers are kind of useless without the body so its kind of a package deal, let me know if you have an interest, I have two bodies and sticker sets so I could part with one.

[Anthrax]

I'm actually in Australia Sydney. Shipping might get a bit expensive.

thanks for the offer though, i'll just have to live with the colour the first owner spray painted it in. hahahha

Next on the list is larger wheels ? will any Tamiya truck wheels fit ?

[Niddle]

Hi Anthrax,
I have used HPI Mesh buggy wheels and Dirt Hawg 2.2" tyres and I have to say I am impressed. Much better ground clearance, front tyres are as wide as the back so it understeers a lot less. The traction on dirt and gravel is only slightly less than Tamiya spikes , probably due to the extra width at the front pulling the buggy along, and on Road they are great - good grip and no wear.
I should suggest though if you are fitting these to fit a bearing or racing steering set as I think it might make the 'play' in the plastic stock steering bar a bit more noticeable.

http://xyzzy.dyn.dhs.org/df02/

[Royal Male]

Hi DF02 users.....I have a confession.....I run a DT02, so must say sorry for sliiping onto your forum but I am in need of some information so please bare with me.

The trouble is.....I have been using a set of Tamiya Alluminium DF02 shocks on my Desert Gator with excellent results but after a few tumbles the front shocks have received some serious damage, the main ally components are fine BUT the plastic caps which connect them to my shock towers are worn down...VERY down.

I have been unable to find this part as a spare??? Do any of you experianced DF02 guys have a solution or part number??

These shocks are expensive and I hope there is a solution??

thank you in advance RM.

[fsh_62]

I'm not 100% sure but I think someone on this forum once said that the ones from the Gravel hound or Rising storm kit will fit. I don't know which parts tree they're on or the part number for the tree. Maybe someone will chime in with it.

[avizandum]

My Gravel Hound needs some repair. I have a disability and need help. Would anyone be interested in fixing my buggy if I were to send it to you? I'd be happy to pay a fair hourly wage.

Thanks,
Chris

[SteveAndBelle]

My Gravel Hound needs some repair. I have a disability and need help. Would anyone be interested in fixing my buggy if I were to send it to you? I'd be happy to pay a fair hourly wage.

Thanks,
Chris


Where do you live Chris ? No point in wasting money sending it to someone on the other side of the world that's all :)

[XXWoodmanXX]

Anyone looking to sell/trade their DF02/DF03? I've got an RC10GT RTR with new motor & LOTS of spare tires/rims. Also have an Ofna 1:8 Ultra Comp I may trade. Just throwin it out there. Thanks :)

[timie1]

Anyone looking to sell/trade their DF02/DF03? I've got an RC10GT RTR with new motor & LOTS of spare tires/rims. Also have an Ofna 1:8 Ultra Comp I may trade. Just throwin it out there. Thanks :)

Are you suggesting you would trade 2 competition quality Nitro cars for 1 electric car? What's the catch?

[timie1]

It's probably been mentioned before, but forgive me, I can't be bothered looking through 123 pages. Has anyone had the GPM and the Yeah Racing front shock tower? I want to know which one is better ie, stronger, less likely to break or bend.
Someone with experience in these items would be good, not just someone who has had experience with either makes' other items.

Thanks

[XXWoodmanXX]

Are you suggesting you would trade 2 competition quality Nitro cars for 1 electric car? What's the catch?


Not BOTH, but one for a nicely-acessorized one in RTR form, yes. ;)

[JDT]

It's probably been mentioned before, but forgive me, I can't be bothered looking through 123 pages. Has anyone had the GPM and the Yeah Racing front shock tower? I want to know which one is better ie, stronger, less likely to break or bend.
Someone with experience in these items would be good, not just someone who has had experience with either makes' other items.

Thanks

I have used both, two years ago they were both pretty cheasy however yeah has redesigned theres and its much stronger now, heavier but stronger, the only down side is they still want you to use the aluminum screw in stubs for the upper ball stud/shock mount, the small short threads are known to bend, most people just bust the treads off and drill a hole to through bolt it but this means you can no longer use the ball stud mount any longer, if you get shocks that use a bushing then there is no issue but some guys have simply kept using the stock shocks with a small piece of fuel tube as a bushing and when you tighten the bolt and nut it squishes and holds the shock on, one guy had reported about trf415 female ball studs so you can still use the stock shocks upper mounting but I never saw anything about that again. I use the duratrax shocks, they use a bushing so no issues there.

[timie1]

Not BOTH, but one for a nicely-acessorized one in RTR form, yes. ;)

Ahhh, that does make more sense:)
However, I don't want to trade sorry. I've been there with nitro, and unless I got a crap one, I wouldn't want to go there again. All that mess, constant tuning and complexity of it is too much for me. I do like the sound mind you. At any rate, mine wouldn't be accessorized enough to do a trade justice on your part.
Good luck finding someone to trade with:D

[XXWoodmanXX]

Cool, thank ya. Yeah, I've had a DF02 and a DF03 as well, and I LOVE my nitros,...but I have so many, that I may entertain a trade if anyone is interested in a dialed-in 1:8 buggy. ;) Worse comes to worse, I'll just buy another DF buggy in the future :)

[timie1]

I have used both, two years ago they were both pretty cheasy however yeah has redesigned theres and its much stronger now, heavier but stronger, the only down side is they still want you to use the aluminum screw in stubs for the upper ball stud/shock mount, the small short threads are known to bend, most people just bust the treads off and drill a hole to through bolt it but this means you can no longer use the ball stud mount any longer, if you get shocks that use a bushing then there is no issue but some guys have simply kept using the stock shocks with a small piece of fuel tube as a bushing and when you tighten the bolt and nut it squishes and holds the shock on, one guy had reported about trf415 female ball studs so you can still use the stock shocks upper mounting but I never saw anything about that again. I use the duratrax shocks, they use a bushing so no issues there.

Thanks JDT
That info is very useful. I like the yeah one with the three mounting holes. Whether or not they are used is irrelevant. They look the part:cool:
I use the ball studs with the standard shocks. I feel it adds a bit of extra protection in a roll over, the shocks pop off without breaking anything. It's saved the shock tower once for me.
Also, I got the plastic tamiya one last time it broke, and I feel the plastic in the new one is far inferior to the one that came in the kit. I got it from RCMart in hong kong, and it seems to be a lot more flexible. It got bent badly yesterday, but I managed to bend it back. I tried doing that with the kit supplied one, and it's sooo much stronger.

[Anthrax]

It's probably been mentioned before, but forgive me, I can't be bothered looking through 123 pages. Has anyone had the GPM and the Yeah Racing front shock tower? I want to know which one is better ie, stronger, less likely to break or bend.
Someone with experience in these items would be good, not just someone who has had experience with either makes' other items.

Thanks

I have the GPM one. Read this and make up your mind!

My friend and I were trying to get my DF-02 over this fence, jumping from an embankment. 9 times out of 10 it would fall short and crash right into the fence. The GPM front shock tower has not even got a scratch on it!, i'm surprised nothing broke on my DF-02 after the 20 or so head on, mid air crashes into this fence, hahhahha.

We managed to get the buggy over the fence though. My buggy did not sustain any broken parts from this fence crashing/jumping. It is very muddy though, i need to give it a clean.

Hope that helps. i have not had any experience with the Yeah! racing one, but i hazard a guess it will perform the same.

[timie1]

I have the GPM one. Read this and make up your mind!

My friend and I were trying to get my DF-02 over this fence, jumping from an embankment. 9 times out of 10 it would fall short and crash right into the fence. The GPM front shock tower has not even got a scratch on it!, i'm surprised nothing broke on my DF-02 after the 20 or so head on, mid air crashes into this fence, hahhahha.

We managed to get the buggy over the fence though. My buggy did not sustain any broken parts from this fence crashing/jumping. It is very muddy though, i need to give it a clean.

Hope that helps. i have not had any experience with the Yeah! racing one, but i hazard a guess it will perform the same.

Sorry for not replying sooner. Thankyou for that story, it's quite interesting. I still don't know what to get, or even if I'll get an alloy one. If I put an alloy one on, it might make something else break, so that'll need to be replaced. And then that alloy bit will make another plastic bit break, and so on, eventually my car will be completely alloy and it'll weigh a ton and cost a packet.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong!!

[timie1]

Is it me, or has this thread as good as died? Has everyone gone and bought a new Dark Impact or something else like a RC10B4? Come on people!

[JDT]

I don't think this thread will die for a long time, at least until tamiya quits trying to sell the cars, this is a "starter" car for most people, new people will continue to get these cars and find us here, I plan on keeping a DF 02 in running condition for years to come. Some people will move on and sell there df 02s others will just have a shelf queen, for me it will serve as a faithful spare car and basher, heck my hop up parts are worth more than two kits would cost so I better get my moneys worth (lol most parts have paid for themselves over and over)

[Bozman69]

Hey All....

Timie1 just make it all alloy like i did :):)

Shock towers, F/R upper and lower arms, cup joints etc etc...I will post a pic so you can all check it out...Its still in test and tune stage but boy this thing gets up and goes...Its not that heavy either


Boz :D:D:D:D

[timie1]

Hey All....

Timie1 just make it all alloy like i did :):)

Shock towers, F/R upper and lower arms, cup joints etc etc...I will post a pic so you can all check it out...Its still in test and tune stage but boy this thing gets up and goes...Its not that heavy either


Boz :D:D:D:D

Yeah I'd like to see that. If you could post a pic that would be great. What shocks did you put on? The stock plastic ones are pretty useless, I mean, they seem good enough until you see the car with different shocks on and then you think "I gotta get some shocks"!:cool:

[Bozman69]

The shocks I used were these:

http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=595_744_712&products_id=15021

http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=595_744_712&products_id=15025

They are heaps thicker than they look in the pics. The come with shock oil already in them but I drained it out and put some 50 weight in. They are awesome as they are adjustable on the fly too. :D:D

The only things that aren't alloy on it is the chassis, diff covers and the bumpers

Here's a pic i took with my phone, will get some better ones up soon :cool::cool:

[timie1]

That looks like you'd set off the metal detectors with that :D
So you like those GPM shocks aye? I have recently bought an RC10B4, and it looks like those shocks from the b4 would fit the gravel hound. i may try them, cos they are wicked shocks. I just don't want to pull my B4 apart, but i'll have to just get over it.
Nice car!!! It's nice to see red parts on the car other than the blue that everyone gets. My GH is pretty much standard apart from the full turnbuckle and camber kit and some dirt hawgs and different electronics.

[SteveAndBelle]

Is it me, or has this thread as good as died? Has everyone gone and bought a new Dark Impact or something else like a RC10B4? Come on people!


Ha, yeah. I don't think the thread will die for a while yet ... however I've noticed the supply of decent hop-up parts has dried up a heck of a lot since I blew hundreds on doing my 'hound up earlier on in the year. I used to have no problem finding parts but now (even on eBay) I'm finding it more and more difficult to get decent stocks of bits and pieces.

This leads me to my current dilemma. A lot has happened in my life since I cartwheeled my DF-02 to destruction a couple of months ago (only days after fitting the Mamba mind you :) and although I really want to get it back up and running and make it bigger and better than ever I'm now thinking I should just throw a semi-decent brushed motor into the 'hound to rebuild it as a tough backyard basher and go onto a slightly 'better' car ... a faster & tougher car with many more parts & hop-ups still available.

I'd be fine to go for a DF-03 however I'm thinking that may not be as good as jumping up another notch to something completely different again. I was originally thinking about 'Gorillafying' an E-Maxx over time but I'm still not sure which way to go as I don't know if that will satisfy my 'need for speed' as well as being a tough off-roader.

Any suggestions ? A 501X perhaps (although I don't like the whole belt drive system) ? What other ELECTRIC cars have you guys got and why do you like/dislike them ? And no, I don't want to go Nitro as I refuse to believe that they're any faster than a decent brushless electric (apart from the pro-grade cars of course) and you have to stuff around with them too much. Plus they're noisy & smelly. Maybe one day but definitely not right now.

Bring on the suggestions !

[JDT]

Steve you got more than enough fabrication skills to convert a nitro car to electric, rcmonster has bolt in motor mounts for some 1/8 buggies and truggies, toughness wise nothing surpasses an 1/8 buggy IMO, I would love to do one but I couldn't see spending $2000 on building one, of course I wanted to start with one of the better kits so that was $600 or more anyway, by staying with a 10th scale truck and stealing the mamba system from the rising storm I was able to do the entire conversion for less than the cost of the kit in the 1/8 world, I chose to do the HPI 10445 MT2 18ss + kit, there are cheaper 4wd 10th trucks around but this is the third generation of this truck and there are tons of hop ups included and more available for when you want to get nutty(I paid $329.99 from tower sold the motor pipe clutch tank etc for $125.00 so I have $200 in a pretty nice kit) you can pretty much build the entire thing with aluminum from gpm if so inclined, the first thing I noticed was how much better it turned than my big tired df 02, hard to imagine but a rc designed to run a four inch tire turns better with a four inch tire than a rc designed to run a 3.25 inch tire lol. Needless to say I don't know about parts support for HPI in ozzie land but I know from the past you are not intimidated by mail order, I personally have stayed away from the df 03 kits as the plastic gears and ball diffs scream failure IMO, alot of guys have good luck running them but many reports of ball diffs burning up are around to, some guys claim the slipper will help but they are full of it as if the diff gets loose its going to grenade slipper or not. I do not know of anyone that has the 501x as they cost so much, more of a racer than basher I am sure. CEN just realeased there new MG10 4 wd nitro truck, its supposed to have a sister ME10 4wd electric truck but now I can't even find a mention of it anywhere on there site, alot of people want a 10th electric truggy so hopefully someone will make one, as for me I didn't want to wait, still waiting on the painter to get my body done, once I get it back I can put some real time on the conversion and see how hot its going to run as I am trying to justify a bigger badder bl motor but the mm 5700 seems to have plenty of power on 2s in the shakedown runs so far but it is a little hot in the 90 degree weather. Sorry for the hella long post lol.

[SteveAndBelle]

JDT, thanks again for the quick & detailed response.

That kinda sounds more like what I'd be inclined to do. I like the toughness of those kinds of nitro cars but would prefer the hassle-free, quiet, odourless, smokeless 'underdog' qualities of electric so maybe a Nitro-Electric conversion IS the answer. Hmmm, now you've got me thinking :)

I went to RCMonster.com but it looks as though the site isn't even up yet. I'm assuming I've got the right address ?!

Is everything for Nitro->Electric conversions available or do you always find yourself fabricating stuff yourself to get the conversion finsihed ? I'd prefer it if I could just buy the stuff to do the job however I don't mind making things (as you know) but it's just that I haven't got my real workshop setup and in fact I made those DF-02 parts without even using a vice ! I'm trying to get my workshop up and running however as it means extensions to the house or even a 'dojo' out the back I think it will be at least 12 months off yet :(

Would you consider that HPI to probably be the best car to drop the Mamba 5700 into to really get it cranking along. It sounds like it from what you've said about yours but do you know of any others that would be similar with the availability of parts ?

Two more questions ... so does this mean you've retired your DF-02 for good or have you done what I'm probably about to do and reduced it to a simple backyard basher and used the Mamba in the HPI ?

What other forums on this (or any other) site should I go to to read up about this Nitro->Electric conversion project ? Are you currently active in any 'HPI 10445' type forums like this one for the DF-02 ?? Got any pics etc ??

As per usual I'll be annoying you with heaps of questions about all this so it's up to you now whether you want to let me into your world of crazy RC modding :)

Thanks bud !

[The Plopster]

Hey, haven't been in this forum for a while (since way back on page 17 or so), my Rising Storm has been gathering dust for a couple of years now. But I recently bought a HPI RS4 and I sought of cought the R/C bug again so I've been thinking about getting my RS up and running again. It's pretty tricked-out too. Loads of blue metal. Can't remember what it's go on it exactly.

These are some old pics. As soon as I get some new action shots and vids, I'll post them.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/the_plopster_1/2005%20Folders/Photos/Stuff/RAMP%207.JPG
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/the_plopster_1/2005%20Folders/Photos/Stuff/Huge%20Air.JPG

[juntom10]

you need deans plug!!!!!

[timie1]

Ha, yeah. I don't think the thread will die for a while yet ... however I've noticed the supply of decent hop-up parts has dried up a heck of a lot since I blew hundreds on doing my 'hound up earlier on in the year. I used to have no problem finding parts but now (even on eBay) I'm finding it more and more difficult to get decent stocks of bits and pieces.

This leads me to my current dilemma. A lot has happened in my life since I cartwheeled my DF-02 to destruction a couple of months ago (only days after fitting the Mamba mind you :) and although I really want to get it back up and running and make it bigger and better than ever I'm now thinking I should just throw a semi-decent brushed motor into the 'hound to rebuild it as a tough backyard basher and go onto a slightly 'better' car ... a faster & tougher car with many more parts & hop-ups still available.

I'd be fine to go for a DF-03 however I'm thinking that may not be as good as jumping up another notch to something completely different again. I was originally thinking about 'Gorillafying' an E-Maxx over time but I'm still not sure which way to go as I don't know if that will satisfy my 'need for speed' as well as being a tough off-roader.

Any suggestions ? A 501X perhaps (although I don't like the whole belt drive system) ? What other ELECTRIC cars have you guys got and why do you like/dislike them ? And no, I don't want to go Nitro as I refuse to believe that they're any faster than a decent brushless electric (apart from the pro-grade cars of course) and you have to stuff around with them too much. Plus they're noisy & smelly. Maybe one day but definitely not right now.

Bring on the suggestions !

Well, Mr Brisbanite:D, I have just bought an RC10B4 and it's freakin awesome. It's more racey rather than bashy, but I don't "bash" my cars anyway. I have a fit if I get a scratch on the body just about. But the B4, it's so much quicker with much higher gearing than I was running in my GH. I changed the gearing today to 8.45 final ratio with the same 19T motor I had in my GH, and it's literally a rocket. It's only 2wd, so it feels like it's got less grip, but it's a completely different driving style. You learn to DRIVE the car rather than play with it like in the GH. About the steering that JDT, or someone mentioned (if it wasn't JDT - sorry I don't remember who it was, please don't take offence), how the 3.25" tires don't turn as well as the big tires..........bollox!! Get a decent car, like the B4 and it literally turns on a pin head. The DF02 has poor suspension and steering, it's not the case with a decent car. Proper ackerman angles is what you want to look out for and it makes all the difference with tight steering. The B4 is so popular that there are lots of aftermarket hopups for it at the moment, just gotta know where to look.

However, if you want to go the route of converting a nitro to electric, and you like the truggies, have a look for the Hot Bodies Lightning 10th truggy, which is HPI's more elite brand. Amainhobbies.net is a great place to get that from, it was for sale for 199.00US$$, but I think they've put it up to 219.00 now cos it must have sold like hotcakes. I have seen one in a shop around here, DAMN they're nice, solid, and very tunable. Id have bought one then and there had it not been a nitro. I'm like you, I don't like nitro cos of the mess and fiddling with mixtures and stuff. A decent electric can go quicker than nitro with the right kit in them. Just for example, some guys running their mamba max in the B4 have had it well over 68mph. That's not a lot of money spent to get it to that speed, about $350US for the car and mamba.
I also had a look recently at the HPI E-Savage. That is basically an HPI nitro to electric conversion, it was originally out as just the HPI Savage, but they converted it to electric and voila, nitro toughness with electric torque and simplicity. But beware, it's 2 550 motors and 2 batteries and a huge esc with the aluminium chassis and metal parts makes it super heavy. I compared it to the T-MAXX the shop also had, and the nitro T-MAXX was considerably lighter, and it was bigger, and lets face it, it would be a lot quicker out of the box than a bog standard electric truck.

Finally, the problem with a DF03 is you are basically getting an updated DF02. Ok, some things have changed for the better, but it's still a cheap-ish kit designed for entry level with the possibiliy of racing it later on. Go for something different. A tr501x, or whatever the combination of numbers are, is probably a bloody good car, if you want to competitively race it. Compared to other competitive 4wd buggies?? It's damn expensive, and how much better would it be? The belts can't be good with all the dirt in serious offroad. Just my 2cents worth for ya!!!!:teacher:

**EDIT**
I forgot to mention, what about getting into the drift RC scene? Today at the LHS I borrowed some drift tires and plonked them on my road car (TA03R) and took it for a spin. Talk about fun with a capital F. The 23T motor in it was more than powerful enough, and the car slides everywhere. Yet another completely different driving style. It's cheap to get into, all you need is a road car, they're cheap enough, and some drift tires and maybe a set of harder springs and shocks, and you're set. Have a look on youtube for some drift R/C movies. Some of the guys on there are amazing. I think the RC version of drift must have started in Japan, just like the real life drifting cos they are awesome drivers.

Good luck thinking about what to do

[JDT]

Steve, I am not aware of any threads dedicated to conversions but lots of individual threads in the bl forum here, you can pretty much assume any nitro powered car out there has been converted, go to google and type in brushless mt2, brushless savage, etc and you will find something, I have seen a couple of these mt2 trucks done here and elsewhere, most stuff you will find will be 1/8 scale as that is the rage . I went for the hpi mt 2 as its got the best support and many of the good parts are in the kit, second on my list was the kyosho st 15, kysosho however have been harder and harder to find parts for and there is zero aftermarket available, I was not as worried as big K charges and gives you the good stuff the first time in most cases. I have driven and played with the lightning 10 from hot bodies and it would be fine but so so parts support and no aftermarket scared me off. If you can find good access to academy parts and accessories they have the rt4pg prospec which comes with the better quality stuff but in the US we are hindered by only one importer who is very slow and caused me stress over a buggy 2-3 years back so that was out. CEN has three different nitro trucks in 10th 4wd but I think only the newest mg10 has a slipper. I researched them all basically, got some wheel time with mt2, st15, hot bodies 10 and honestly could not tell a difference they all handled better than the df 02 of course, longer and wider. The mm 5700 is more than enough power IMO it will light the tires up nearly as easily as the big tired df02 and it weighs about 2 lbs more, I just got the body back on sunday at the races so I have only had one real shakedown of about 15 minutes and it was hot 206esc and 188 motor, this was with some slip and such as I was trying to work stuff out, I had stopped and done a couple burnouts at the end and this may have helped make it hotter to, the second run was less than 7 minutes and was only 177 esc and 160 motor but a busted e clip(maybe building error??) let the diff spider gears grind themselves to nothing so no further testing as the gears were also picked up on sunday and the truck was just put back together last night, I will get the body stickered and post some pics in the electric forum later today or tommorrow. I plan to swith to a larger can lower kv motor to keep the heat down as the power is fine, I can give up those 5 top end mph that I never see anyway to be cool and long lasting. If I need the power I can use my 3s and punish the big blocks lol. Since you are running nimh still you could go eight cells which would help keep the temps down unless you were full throttle all the time, your run times would be less than 15 minutes so you would probably be okay.

Mike form rc monster don't do any 10th scale stuff, just the 8th scale which a mm 5700 definetely won't push, well maybe on 12 cells on a suicide self distruct mission for youtube.

http://www.rc-monster.com/index.php

I simply could not afford to do an 1/8
$600-700 mbx5t mugen or 777st kyosho
$285 neu 1515 motor
$150-250 4 s charger
$200-300 lipos
$100 mount, pinions misc
$200 tires, wheels etc

E maxx over e savage for sure IMO, my big tired df 02 would own any either on a track as they are big and heavy and don't really sit down to turn unless you un monster them and then you may have well have done an 1/8 truggy.

I love 4wd, I have owned two jeeps, three rangers and belonged to four different Jeep and Four Wheel Drive 1:1 clubs and have even been an elected delegate to represent my state at national events so I just couldn't accept no 10th 4 wd truck, my first attempt was the df 02, build it to the practical limit and now I must move on, I have over $200 worth of hop ups on a $100 chassis so Its not like I am ditching the df 02 it will go back to being a fairly fun fairly fast(13 turn) backup car.

[JDT]

Timie1, I was not saying a car with 3.25 inch tires don't turn good, I was saying if you put 4 inch tires on a car designed for 3.25 inch tires they tend to loose some steering, the new truck is designed for 4 inch tires it turns about 3 times better than the df 02 which was designed for 3.25 inch tires.

[SteveAndBelle]

...and now I must move on ... Its not like I am ditching the df 02...

Yeah, me too. The DF-02 is a mega-fun chassis and you can do some very whacky stuff to it and especially with it however there is a limit and that for me is the availability of decent 'strong' hop-up parts to make the chassis tougher for more 'bash-ability'. If a CF of Alu chassis was available I reckon I would've already bought one plus the fact that even the good alloy parts to suit seem to be slowly drying up around the globe really drives the point home that this is now probably just a good 'starter' chassis and not much more.

Pity 'cause I think I just managed to catch the last streak of decent part availability allowing me to tun the DF-02 into a 'monster' and had an absolute ball in the process ;) It's been nearly 12 months since I bought the kit and only about 8 months since I started hopping it up but I now consider the DF-03 to be a much better option for starters as it doesn't seem to have the limited parts issue and is a tougher car all-round anyway.

Still, that didn't stop me buying another DF-02 on eBay a few days ago :) A local guy was selling his Rising Storm without any radio gear or servo and I managed to win the auction for about $60. It's in near-perfect condition and included a full set of bearings and a 67t spur plus there was an unopened pack of two metal drive cups in the bottom of the box. This was all a bonus for the money as all I really needed was two cheap diffs to replace my original diffs that had literally worn out after running it hard with the Mamba for 2 days plus I also thought a few other parts might be handy too.

As the car was already built I just pulled a few things apart to check to see if they had been put together properly and give everything a bit of a clean & lube. Everything looked fine so I put it all back together. I decided to run it 'stock' initially to refresh my mind as to how well/poorly it ran 'out-of-the-box' plus the fact that a friend of mine just bought himself a DF-03 & Mamba for laughs and I was impressed at how well it ran with only a few mods. Well, the DF-02 ran well, very impressed to say the least.

Went down to a local park this morning (day off work you see) armed with an old home-made 6-cell pack, one of my new home-made 7-cell hump packs and a dodgy Hot Wheels Radar Gun and gave it a run. Whoa, obviously nowhere near as quick as the Mamba but the little fella ran really well managing to clock 20kph (12.5mph) and running for over 20 minutes ! Temps were 'oh so low' too at 57C (134.5F) for the motor, 30C (86F) for the ESC and 33C (91.5F) for the pack so nothing was even getting stressed ... which is a change for my car ;)

Once my wife had finished running it around the park for the remainder of the pack (& having a great time doing so mind you, her first time you see) I measured the temps again and they were basically stable as above. I then threw the 7-cell pack in to see how that would go as I always wanted to test the stock Tamiya ESC with something more than 6-cells to see if it could handle it.

Well, much to my surprise (again) the car leapt from the standing start with great speed and didn't have any trouble with the 7-cells ! I managed to clock it at 25kph (15.5mph) and had another 20+ minute session but although the temps were slightly higher they were still waaaaaaay below the 'danger zone' ... motor @ 65C (149F), ESC @ 30C (86F) & pack @ 40C (104F). Brilliant stuff !

So, this proves that the stock Tamiya ESC can easily handle 7-cells and is a fantastically cheap & simple way of increasing the speed of the car by a cool 25% without actually having to do anything major to it !! As I now have a couple of extra ESC's floating around I might even try 8 or more cells to really see what this stock ESC can do. I'm very surprised that it can handle 7-cells so I'll be amazed if it can handle any more :)

So, that's where I'm at at the moment. Still thinking about my big 'next step' into RC and looking into all the options you guys have given me but still having fun with my GH in the meantime. I've had such a big break from it all since that cartwheel incident 2 months ago when I cracked my specially reinforced chassis that it's kinda nice to get back into running a relatively 'stock' car again. Slow speeds but easily controllable and still heaps of fun.

Next step from here is to swap out the stock 540 motor and install a 550 I picked up off eBay a few months ago (before the Mamba arrived) to see how that goes in the stock DF-02 chassis. I'm not expecting too much of a speed increase however I'm expecting a bit more low-down grunt ... especially as it's running the 67t spur and not the stock 70t. There may be a bit of a temperature rise from the ESC and pack but I'll post my findings once I know.

I may also install the Venom speedo I bought a couple of months ago too but it's a bit fiddly and I may give it a miss due to not having enough time to bother with it. On top of that I might at least try running 8 cells to see how they go too.

Lots to experiment with on the DF-02 now while I contemplate my next car. I'm currently thinking about waiting to see what Traxxas do about releasing a brushless E-Maxx as I'm pretty sure they will (hopefully sometime before Christmas) and that would be a great base to build on :) I could turn it into a low-riding, lightweight road racer with slicks and LiPos etc. or a high-riding low-geared rock climber with massive chunky tyres etc. ... I could do anything with one of those.

So thanks for your ideas guys and if you're interested please keep your eyes peeled for another MASSIVE entry once I do some more experiments with the DF-02.

Seeya !

[RC_Freak]

Hi its been a while since ive been on this fourm due to because of my net being down all the time lol. I just put a tamiya superstock rz motor in my hound and it goes very quick im looking at putting some aluminium upgrades on my hound but i cant seem to find any if someone could direct me to someone who sells df-02 aluminium upgrades i would apeciate it thanks

[timie1]

Hi its been a while since ive been on this fourm due to because of my net being down all the time lol. I just put a tamiya superstock rz motor in my hound and it goes very quick im looking at putting some aluminium upgrades on my hound but i cant seem to find any if someone could direct me to someone who sells df-02 aluminium upgrades i would apeciate it thanks

Here ya go http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=595_744_712
Bear in mind, once you start putting even just one aluminium part on, you will inevitably have to replace more and more plastic parts with aluminium, as the "stronger" aluminium part will make the plastic part it connects to break. Eventually you will have a completely aluminium chassis.

[juntom10]

i do not recommand full alloy thing...just make worse..

cause plastic parts are more elastic...but alloy things are bent if they crash or something.. and you will need more money to replace that. and alloy send more impacts to other components...so..just buy alloy parts for really important parts like knuckle or something..and never buy the alloy arms....those are really not good..just get some sets of plastic one...

[juntom10]

in my opinion... these are good options..

-alloy knuckle arm(tamiya alloy knuckle arm is expensive...gpm is cheaper)
-alloy shocks...(i prefer tamiya one..but about 45bucks...if you want cheaper one.. go with gpm..)
-tamiya turnbuckle
-alloy steering set

i think thats it..

[SteveAndBelle]

Eventually you will have a completely aluminium chassis.

Yeah ... but without actually having an aluminium 'chassis' which is the main problem I discovered. Earlier on this year I purposely blew HEAPS of cash on alloy parts to make the DF-02 stronger but mainly to teach myself more about RC as it's my first car and was thirsty for as much info as possible.

Yes it cost a fortune but I learnt heaps in the process however the only problem was that although everything else was strong alloy the plastic chassis was was then the weakest part :( I suppose it depends on what you use the car for but I was going through chassis like nothing else but all those other cool alloy parts held up well and in fact I've still got them all and they're all in perfect condition ... even after some crazy high speed crashes with the MambaMax.

An actual alloy chassis would have been the icing on the cake but alas I now have to look to a completely different car in order to get the strength I'm after for 'bashing'.

I would actually recommend the alloy arms ... but if you DO go that way be 100% sure you're getting the Yeah VERSION 2 arms as they are a lot thicker than the others (especially the GPMs) and these are the ones I use. I've seen the GPMs and they're just metal versions of the plastic ones and look as though they'll break the first time you pull the trigger ! So weak.

Couldn't agree more with Juntom though ... Knuckles, Shocks (but prolly not GPM as they're not very strong), full turnbuckle set and steering set should get the 'hound running a lot better but for that extra level of strength for 'bashing' I'd also go for the alloy shock towers and then then carbon fibre braces to mount on them as well ... but only if you've got a lot of cash to get rid of :)

Get adjustable shocks if you're going to take the plunge but stay away from the GPM's if you can and invest in some different ones. JDT and I discuss this somewhere in the last 5-10 pages and he and I now recommend geting Evader shocks as they fit nicely and work a treat plus they're fully adjustable ... but again it depends on what you're willing to spend and how you're planning to use the car.

Have fun !

[timie1]

Yeah ... but without actually having an aluminium 'chassis' which is the main problem I discovered...................... JDT and I discuss this somewhere in the last 5-10 pages and he and I now recommend geting Evader shocks as they fit nicely and work a treat plus they're fully adjustable ... but again it depends on what you're willing to spend and how you're planning to use the car.

Have fun !
Yeah sorry, I didn't describe that correctly. Aluminium chassis without having the actual CHASSIS being aluminium. That's going to be the weakest point in the car when everything else is aluminium. The hard part will be resisting the urge to splurge on cool bling bling parts when the old plastic parts break.
I second or third, or whatever, the evader shocks. I have seen the evader shocks work, on the evader, and they are good shocks. They are also quite a reasonable price.

Does anybody know if RC10B4 shocks fit the GH? I believe they are the same length, or at least VERY close to the same length. They are good shocks.

[SteveAndBelle]

The hard part will be resisting the urge to splurge on cool bling bling parts when the old plastic parts break.


Hmmm, couldn't agree more :D

[JDT]

I had a set of aluminum arms and quite honestly never installed them, the stock arms never gave me any problems and my original set had very deep gouges and scrapes while looked very failure prone but they were finally replaced during a tune up session. As far as the frame goes I actually took it to one of the three state universities and tried to get them to accept it as a student project, the cnc layout and proof for that would be very hard at least 300 level class work or even possibly thesis material IMO but they have thousands of requests for "useful" farming related parts so I couldn't even get on the list, the local machine shops had told me $500 minimum to do a motor mount so I wasn't about to go back to them for a whole chassis. A local guy thought he might be able to make a mold and cast it but its cnc machined or nothing for me as cast it way to weak and would be heavier than machined(alum, mag, titanium, any material pretty much)
Honestly the availability of all aluminum parts made me pick the mt2 for my next project truck, aluminum chassis available in three thicknesses and literally ever part is made by gpm in aluminum, I want to keep the weight down some but won't sacrifice durability to do it, I left the knuckles and hubs on the mt2 stock for now but pretty much understand I will be doing them and more than likely other items(arms, front and rear bulkheads) as I only did steering, diff cases and the center gearbox in aluminum for now. I posted it in the electric forum, go take and look and let me know what you think.

[SteveAndBelle]

Just came back from my 2nd batch of testing with my stock DF-02 (with 67t Spur & bearings all-round).

This time I replaced the stock 540 can with an unused HBX 550 motor I bought off eBay a few months ago for about $15. Here's what I found :

6-Cell 3300mAH Pack
25kph top speed (parkland)
20 minute run-time
Motor - 38C (F)
ESC - 29C (F)
Pack - 55C (F)

7-Cell 3300mAH Pack
28-29kph top speed (parkland)
17 minute run-time
Motor - 38C (F)
ESC - 33C (F)
Pack - 48C (F)

Obviously the 550 motor had incredible amounts of torque and allowed the car to just spin out of control on the gravel however in a straight line on grass or pathways you could hear it reaching top revs really quickly but then just peaking without getting any higher to run the car faster. Not a bad thing but it was just something that was more noticeable on the 550 and not so obvious on the 540.

I did have one problem however and that's with the inbuilt cooling fan on the 550. Going by the previous temps recorded with the stock 540 the 550 runs a LOT cooler and that's most probably thanks to the cool little fan you can see through the air vents on the side however when burling the DF-02 across the park I managed to launch a fair number of small sticks & twigs into the air and later found a heap sitting inside the chassis too. After running the packs down the car didn't sound as smooth as it did on the first run. The whirring noise was coming from the motor and on closer inspection I found there to be a chunck of twig floating around inside ! I removed it but then realised that it had snapped a couple of the fan blades and bent them over, amazing. This was obviously the cause of all the noise but in saying that the motor still runs well so I'll just keep it in there until I eventually replace it with the Mamba after the next couple of tests :)

So, next up is to test the car still as close to stock as I can keep it but just increase the number of cells one by one. I now know that the stock Tamiya ESC can very easily handle 7-cells with noticeable speed increases so next up is an 8-cell trial and then a 9-cell trial soon after ... assuming of course the 8-cell trial is successful ;)

I'll do that tomorrow morning and will post my findings (including speeds & temps) when I get back.

[timie1]

I now know that the stock Tamiya ESC can very easily handle 7-cells with noticeable speed increases so next up is an 8-cell trial and then a 9-cell trial soon after ... assuming of course the 8-cell trial is successful ;)

I'll do that tomorrow morning and will post my findings (including speeds & temps) when I get back.

I'm curious as to how you are fitting 7 cells in the car, and how you intend on fitting 8 and 9 cells in there.
I was reading somewhere a while back about the E-Savage, which has 2 550 motors in it and the owner took out both 550's and put in 2 540's. The torque was instantly gone with the 540's, but the smaller 540's rev a hang of a lot quicker.
Just my two cents worth - I don't think you'll be able to gear the GH enough to make use of the 550's torque. But who cares aye, it's fun experimenting with things and pushing them to their limits, and FINDING those limits, that's the fun thing.

[SteveAndBelle]

I'm curious as to how you are fitting 7 cells in the car, and how you intend on fitting 8 and 9 cells in there.


Here you go Timie1, click here (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/1-9-CellStockGravelHound.jpg) to see how :)

The 9-cells easily fit into the chassis and in fact with a small modification to the receiver/ESC platform you could just as easily fit 10 or even 11 cells however I'm not too sure if the stock ESC could handle it ... but maybe that sould be my next trick ;)

The 9-Cell pack in that pic is just made up from some loose cells I had from other packs I made earlier in the year and the only thing holding them together are the Deans battery bars. Ignore the red paint on the ends of the top three ... that was just from an experiment using thick enamel engine paint to cover my home-made packs instead of using heatshrink. The paint worked OK but the vibrations eventually flaked it off in places. Anyhoo, I held the pack into the car via a couple of velcro strips fed through the slits in the bottom of the chassis and around the pack, one at each end. It was only an experiment so I didn't bother putting too much effort into it as I really didn't think it would work. I was very wrong !

Amazingly the 9-cell trial worked perfectly. I didn't even bother with 8-Cells because I was so impressed that 7-Cells worked I just jumped straight up to 9 to save some time :)

Well, the 'stock' Gravel Hound (inc. 67t spur, bearings & 550 motor) hit 36-38kph (22.5-23.5mph) !! Awesome.

I didn't manage to get any decent temparature readings though because after running the straight line speed tests in the park I went onto the normal 'figure 8' track I made up using various trees as markers but on the first couple of 'high-speed' corners I managed to lose rear drive cups, rear drive shafts and even popped a few screws out of the rear upper arms too. I had my toolkit and all my spare parts there so I fixed it up in no time however everything cooled down in the time it took me to fix so temperature readings were kinda pointless :(

The car was still fanging around nicely after the repairs however I then hit a big tree root just under the surface of the grass and got the car into a dreaded twisted cartwheel. This managed to bend (but not break) the plastic rear shock tower forward making the whole back-end 'sag' down and bottom out all the time. This wasn't good because it then dragged the velcro strips along the ground and that slowed the car down enormously but as I had already proved the point of the stock ESC running 9-cells I just kept on driving to wear the pack down completely. Even though I didn't manage to get any temp readings the motor, ESC and pack felt perfectly fine each time I had to go 'rescue' the car so it seems that the 9-cells didn't work anything too hard either. Amazing.

Once I got the car home I cleaned it up and took the pictures (including the one above). Here's (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/2-9-CellStockGravelHound.jpg) the 'hound from a different angle and here's (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/3-HBX550MotorFanDamage.jpg) a closeup of the broken fan blades inside the 550 can mentioned in my last posting. Here's (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/4-HBX550MotorFanDamage.jpg) another one.

So, there you go. I know the stock motor and stock ESC aren't anything special and I know a 9-cell pack adds a heck of a lot of weight to the car but it's interesting to see what you can do with these cars even when they're relatively 'stock'.

Next up I might look into running 10-cells through the stock ESC but then again the Mamba Max is calling me so I might not bother :) You'll just have to wait & see wontcha !

[JDT]

lets here your impression on of the mamba on nine cells:D

[juntom10]

omg...mamba with 9cell!!

[timie1]

to Steveandbelle:
Yeah that'll work I suppose. I take it you don't put the body on with those extra cells in there.

[timie1]

lets here your impression on of the mamba on nine cells:D

Just a thought.....wouldn't that be like putting 1 lipo battery in there? at most (on paper at least) 9cells is gonna be 10.8 volts, we know in reality it's more than 10.8. It would be slower than running 1 lipo cos it's gonna be a lot heavier.
But yeah, it would be interesting to say the least.

[SteveAndBelle]

Just a thought.....wouldn't that be like putting 1 lipo battery in there?

Oh yeah, a LiPo is obviously the only way to go for crazy speeds, power & run-times however I don't have a LiPo at this stage as I'm waiting to figure out what my 'next step' is going to be before I invest my hard earned cash on a heap of new stuff :)

See I'm waiting to find out what Traxxas are going to do with the possibility of a 'brushless' E-Maxx (along with thousands of others) and believe me once they release it I will have one hopefully within about a week ... plus a couple of crazy spec LiPos to go with it ;)

In the meantime & while I wait for the big news about the E-Maxx I'm currently just stuffing around with the DF-02 to see what it can do by keeping it as stock as possible but experimenting with the heap of stuff I've already got. I'm still amazed that the standard Tamiya ESC can handle 7-cell packs let alone 9-cells and possibly more (we'll find out this weekend) but there are obviosuly lots of other much cooler things you can do with the car to make it run better & faster like brushless setups & LiPos etc.

Anyhoo, I'll probably have a spare hour or so tonight to play around with the battery pack so I might just throw another 2 cells on (yes, that's 11 cells all up), modify the ESC platform so it will fit and charge it all up ready for a test run on Saturday. I'll have to charge 10-cells as a pack and then charge a single cell by itself to get the 11-cell configuration as my ICE will only go up to 10 cells :( No problems there as I'm not expecting it to last let alone plan to do this ever again :)

I'm also thinking of removing the HBX 550 and reinstalling the stock 540 silver can too just to see if it can handle the extra power. As per the pix in my last posting, that HBX 550 motor is good but I've basically destroyed the fan blades and it no longer sounds as 'healthy' as it used to either. Funny that ;)

I'll post my results on Saturday anyway.

til then ...

[timie1]

Oh yeah, a LiPo is obviously the only way to go for crazy speeds, power & run-times however I don't have a LiPo at this stage as I'm waiting to figure out what my 'next step' is going to be before I invest my hard earned cash on a heap of new stuff :)

See I'm waiting to find out what Traxxas are going to do with the possibility of a 'brushless' E-Maxx (along with thousands of others) and believe me once they release it I will have one hopefully within about a week ... plus a couple of crazy spec LiPos to go with it ;)

til then ...

Good thinking. I was given the opportunity to drive a t-maxx the other day. It sounds quicker and more powerful than it really is. The guy that owned it said before he got the t-maxx he had an e-maxx and said it was actually quicker and you could really easily pop a wheelie. The T-Maxx feels very sluggish when driving and it handles like a big american car - very wallowy.
A brushless E-Maxx would be great fun, and yeah, on lipo's would be insanely quick.

The new Rustler brushless looks so much better than the old style one. It's about time they put the Jato body on it. Now I'd actually consider getting one.

[SteveAndBelle]

A brushless E-Maxx would be great fun, and yeah, on lipo's would be insanely quick.


Oooooooh yeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh :cool:

[USATorque55]

Hey guys, thought I'd stop in to get some pointers from the pros.

I'm in charge of directing a little program where kids get to build DF-02 Rising Storms in 2 weeks.

They're doing very basic builds, but I just need all the tips I can when building a stock car. Not for performance, just if there is anything in the kit that should be done in a different order or anything like that.

Any tips you can give for newbies building the DF-02 chassis?

Thanks,
Eddie

[SteveAndBelle]

Any tips you can give for newbies building the DF-02 chassis?


Yep, be sure to spend the extra money and get the bearing kit to suit. The difference is incredible plus there's not much educational value in the crappy nylon sleeves that you get with the kit :) Teach the kids the difference between real bearings & the cheaper alternatives I say !

I can't really suggest anything else for absolute beginners as the kit is pretty good 'as is' however I would strongly suggest resisting the temptation to do jumps with it or slam it into walls, poles or trees as that's the best way to introduce yourself to the never-ending world of expensive RC spare parts ;)

Hmmm one more thing would be to get radio gear that allows you to trim the throttle as that may also be good for 'first-timers' because you can then introduce a bit more speed as time goes by and as they get more confident in controlling the car ... assuming they're only young kids and assuming that they wont find the trim control of course ;) They're definitely not fast cars when compared to whats available however they can still get out of your control if you're not used to the controller. I should know ;)

Have fun !

[timie1]

Hey guys, thought I'd stop in to get some pointers from the pros.

I'm in charge of directing a little program where kids get to build DF-02 Rising Storms in 2 weeks.

They're doing very basic builds, but I just need all the tips I can when building a stock car. Not for performance, just if there is anything in the kit that should be done in a different order or anything like that.

Any tips you can give for newbies building the DF-02 chassis?

Thanks,
Eddie
First off, that's good, what you're doing. The DF02 chassis is good to learn on and is very robust, especially if it's going to be stock. The earlier you start kids out in the hobby and get them involved, the more likelihood that they'll WANT TO stay in the hobbie later on.

Because you want to keep it simple and not performance oriented, there isn't much I would recommend to do differently. Perhaps I would get some decent phillips screw drivers, ones that fit the head of the screws perfectly. Some people don't like phillips, I don't mind them cos you don't NEED to have the exact size on hand like you do hex head on other models. And it's easier to get long, magnetic charged screwdrivers than it is allen keys for the hex heads. But if you do have the perfect size phillips screw driver, doing the screws up is so much easier, and for kids that is important.
I would be careful not to overtighten any screws as the plastic on the chassis can strip relatively easily with just normal wear and tear. You don't want to accelerate the wear and tear by overtightening.

Depending on where you plan to drive the cars, the stock spiked tires will wear out quickly. With bald tires it's fun, but harder to drive where you want it to go. So invest in some other rims for the car and get some Dirt Hawg tires. Dirt hawgs go anywhere and last forever. They will need to be glued properly on the rims, and although it's not hard to glue them, it's hard to get them right so they don't give lots of vibration when going. The stock spiked tires don't need to be glued on the stock wheels, they are a very tight fit. You could get the DF03 wheels, they fit on the DF02 and are slightly bigger diameter so fitting the Dirt hawg tires will be easier to get them seated right. Those tires are 2.2", and the stock wheels are only 2", but they fit alright on the tires. With those tires it gives the car more ground clearance, which is a much needed thing on the DF02.

I would normally say get ball bearings for all the wheels, you will need 2 for each wheel, so 8 for each car. They make the car quieter and less rolling resistance and therefore quicker. But for kids and non-performance oriented setups, it's probably not that important.

Make sure you get the body clips that Tamiya make. The bit you grip on are bigger and angled up so you CAN grip them to take the body off. There is nothing worse than the clips that most other manufacturers use that you can't grip.

When building the kit, use the plastic esc mount that fits over the steering servo. The body is a snug fit for the electrics and if you put the esc or receiver on top of the steering servo the body doens't always sit even on the car, but it depends on the size of the receiver and esc you use. Mount those 2 things in the centre using the plastic mount and the body will fit better, and up high in the middle it's less likely to get wet, cos the esc's don't like getting wet.

Maybe, you could get some extra front shock towers. They come on a tree and you get lots of other bits, including rear shock towers and other useful spares. One hit in the wrong angle to a real life car tire and the front shock tower can bend back. It's annoying when that happens. I've not had it break on me, just bend way back, and it's very hard to bend back to original shape. Easier to just replace it.

I can't think of much else that needs to be done. I can think of things that people do, but thats when they start putting some serious power in it.

I hope you weren't bored out of your brain reading this long post.

Enjoy the DF02, I did, and still do years after getting it.:D

[timie1]

Yep, be sure to spend the extra money and get the bearing kit to suit. The difference is incredible plus there's not much educational value in the crappy nylon sleeves that you get with the kit :) Teach the kids the difference between real bearings & the cheaper alternatives I say !

!

Yeah, despite what I said before, he is right. They do teach the value of the things. I still don't think they are absolutely neccessary for slow non-performance cars, but Steveandbelle is right about the educational value.:teacher:

[SteveAndBelle]

to Steveandbelle:
Yeah that'll work I suppose. I take it you don't put the body on with those extra cells in there.


Yep, sure do. Sorry for the delay in replying but I only just saw this when reading through the last page.

Yeah, as stated in one of my previous postings the Gravel Hound bodyshell fits without a problem however I'd say the Rising Storm body wouldn't be able to fit as it's a lot 'sleeker' along the sides.

Saying that though once I get the extra 2 cells in to test on the weekend I'll probably have to lift the front mount up a couple of holes so it all fits properly ... but it will still very easily fit without it looking strange (apart from the fact that the battery side of the car will be running a lot lower than the other side thanks to the crazy enormous weight of the batteries ;)

Should be another interesting test ! Keep your eyes peeled ... I've got to blow this ESC up one day, surely ?!

[timie1]

... I've got to blow this ESC up one day, surely ?!
Steveandbelle:............Hehehehehe, look at this page I found. http://www.truevision.co.za/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1179225475

You should let the guy who wrote that article know what you have been able to do with the esc and it keeps begging for more.

I was laughing while reading that page and thinking about what you have done.:D

[crustydemon_10]

Hi guys
i have had my gh for about 6 months now and i have greatly enjoyed it.
i have read most of the posts and i have wanted to clear up a few things.
how would the df-02 handle with an 11td motor?
are the gpm shocks really good?
is the yeah racing rear damper mount stronger than the stock one?
sorry for all the qs but this is my first post.
btw does anyone here live in melb, aus?
i have also custom fitted my stock rear shocks to give me maximum ground clearance and zero bottming out, will post pics soon

[timie1]

Hi guys
i have had my gh for about 6 months now and i have greatly enjoyed it.
i have read most of the posts and i have wanted to clear up a few things.
how would the df-02 handle with an 11td motor?
are the gpm shocks really good?
is the yeah racing rear damper mount stronger than the stock one?
sorry for all the qs but this is my first post.
btw does anyone here live in melb, aus?
i have also custom fitted my stock rear shocks to give me maximum ground clearance and zero bottming out, will post pics soon

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad you're enjoying your GH.
Do you mean handle an 11td? or handle WITH an 11td? 2 completely different things.
To start with, an 11t is probably cutting it a bit fine with gearing options. You could probably gear it as low as you can get it with the stock 70t spur. I don't know cos I don't have an 11t motor. But I have found that in general, with any RC car, people tend to gear them too low (for what I like). For example, they say to gear a 19t single in my B4 with a 21 - 22 pinion, but certainly no higher than 22. If you ask me that's far too low, and I'm easily running a 24 and as soon as my parcel arrives, I'm going to put in a 26. With the 24 pinion, the motor and esc run with almost no heat after a 10 min run. Yet people still say it's geared too high. I totally disagree. So my point is, you may be able to get away with the lowest gearing with the 70t spur. That's a 16t pinion with final ratio of 11.38. It does of course depend on other factors, like your battery, driving preference, and make of motor.

I don't think it would handle any differently, with regards to weight distribution, with an 11t motor than it would with a 19t or anything. It's only going to handle differently cos of the extra power, it might be overwhelming for the suspension gemoetry and make it handle differently in that respect.

The GPM shocks are alright. Some people have had problems with the durability of the GPM alloy, so that's something to be aware of. Get the duratrax evader shocks. They are good, probably better than the GPM.

Yes, the yeah racing mount is stronger, but it's all subjective and relative. I've personally had no problems whatsoever with the stock plastic rear mount. If you roll over, it might get scratched, maybe flex, but it flexes back to the shape it should be. Any aluminium part may be stronger, but if it flexes, it's going to require you to bend it back to the original shape, if you can do it without breaking it. That's of course if it didn't break in the accident. Now, assuming it didn't break and it didn't bend, and the accident was bad, there is a very likely possibility that the plastic gear cover it mounts to is broken.
So yes and no; it's stronger, and it's not.

Yeah post some pics of this custom mount. I've done the same sort of thing, and it works to some extent. The extra angle of the dogbones made them bind when there was no load on the car, but on the ground it wasn't too bad. Because of that, I took the custom thingy off for the meantime. Maybe your way is better

[JDT]

I would say no to the 11turn, I have melted endbells off twelve turn motors geared as low as possible with the buggy hawg tires, if you run stock tires 70/16 might be okay with an 11 turn but you better watch it at first, I tried 10t( end bell warped magnet chunked out ruined $60 motor), 12t(one melted, two okay although one unsoldiered the brush wire) 13t gets hot but only failed once the brushes were hashed. This was all with buggy hawg tires, if you want to get nutty and run bigger tires like the truck dirt hawgs I would say no less than 19 turns as I have melted the endbells off of 15 and 17 turn motors with the bigger tires.
I loved the orion sv2 pro bb(ball bearing) in 13x3 configuration, top end is just as good as the 12 turn and better torque, like $33 from tower I think.

[SteveAndBelle]

Ingredients
1 x Absolute stock DF-02 (w/67t spur & bearings all 'round)
1 x 11-Cell home-made NiMH battery pack (15.3V(no load), 3300mAH, 600g)

Method
Chop 1/2" off the side of the ESC platform to fit the battery pack in & tie pack down to battery mounting posts with a thin piece of wire.

Results
40+kph (25+mph)
5 minute run-time (see below)
Motor - 152.3C (306.14F)
ESC - 34.9C (94.82F)
Pack - 35.6 (96.08F)

... oh, and THIS !! (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/540Meltdown.jpg)

Wow, the moment I pulled the trigger the car fishtaled into the distance throwing up grass, dirt & twigs as it flew across the park. Far out, I couldn't believe it and was laughing to myself as I watched the car fly back past me and flip about 4 times when I attempted to gently turn it around and shoot it back to the other side of the park. I'd say the sheer weight of the 11-Cell battery pack was responsible for this :) I managed to pop one of the front driveshafts out of its wheel cup in the process which in turn jammed the steering but after I clipped that back into place the car zipped across the park again in true 'Mamba-esq' fashion. Unbelievable !!

It was a beautiful sight ... for about 4-5 minutes and then the car slowed right down to about a quarter of its speed. I managed to limp it back to where I was standing (a silly 'rule' I made up) and I could smell 'burning' as soon as I picked it up. On closer inspection I could see smoke coming out of the side of the stock 540 motor and as I knew that was basically the end of it I decided to quickly put it back onto the ground and run it 'til it stopped for good. I managed to get another 30-60 seconds out of it before it stopped completely.

So, there you go ! 11-Cells still wont kill the stock Tamiya ESC however you can kiss goodbye to your stock 540 motor ;)

Where to from here ? Well, I think I might put the very worn HBX 550 motor back in and see how long it takes for it to meltdown too. I may as well as it's not in the best nick (see pics in previous postings).

Once I've burnt that out it will be MAMBA TIME again :) I'll still keep everything else 'stock' but I'm hoping to run the Mamba with both my semi-decent 7-Cell pack and also with the 11-Cell 'Monster' dodgy pack too.

Keep your eyes peeled for more updates !!

[crustydemon_10]

it will be a $25 motor so it will be worth a try

[SteveAndBelle]

Well, I reinstalled the HBX 550 motor today, topped up the 11-cell pack and went back down to the park to give the stock DF-02 yet another hammering.

'Hammer' it did too. The 550 motor launched the car from a standing start and made it really difficult to keep it in a straight line on the grassy surface. At the first corner the car flipped (hit a patch of grippy clover), cartwheeled a few times, smashed the rear shock tower off the rear diff cover and popped the screw out of the rear-left upper arm which in turn dropped out the drive cup & shaft. I just managed to limp the car back from the other side of the park (30m/90ft away) to see if I could fix it up. I had plenty of spare drive cups & shafts however I didn't have any spare rear diff covers so I had to adlib. I managed to get it back up and running by doing this (http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w159/SteveAndBelle/Rearshocktoweradlibrepair.jpg). Nice eh ;)

That got it working again however after another couple of accidents the cheap cable ties split apart on the upper arm and I lost another two drive cups & shafts so in the 2nd half of the 'hammer' session the car was basically just a front-wheel drive. This made it difficult to drive and it was just wheel spinning all over the place but I ran the pack down driving it like this until it stopped.

Once it was all over I inspected the car and it all looked OK but the fan blades insdie the 550 motor have now completely disintegrated. I didn't get any temps however nothing felt too hot to touch but that was probably because the car really wasn't running properly for most of the pack :) The speeds were amazing yet again plus the 550 motors high torque makes it fun for endless burnouts & donuts on grass, gravel and even concrete & bitumen to a certain degree.

All in all it has been fun experimenting with the DF-02 in this 'stock' format however I'm now running low on the more critical 'stock' spares (like drive shafts for example) but as I've now done what I originally wanted (which was to see what the stock car & electrics could do) I think it's now time to move on and rebuild the car with the Mamba Max again. I'll still try to keep it as 'stock' as possible but I'm going to have to use the unis all-round plus I might add one or two other 'hop-up' parts initially to see how it goes. I wont try the 11-Cell pack until I've got used to the speed & power of the Mamba Max on the 7-cell pack but believe me I'll get around to testing that 11-cell pack on the MM one day ;)

Seeya guys.

[JDT]

the mamba on 11 cells will be retarded fast just watch your temps as I am sure it will get bad hot, when I ran 10 cells and 3s it was for speed runs and only for a few minutes at a time, of course it sometimes broke within 3 minutes of running lol. Steve you should try the screw through the diff case into the rear tower, I think it does pretty good at keeping things together. I know there is a picture of it here somewhere, imagine a verticle bolt running from the top side of the tower down into the cavity for the mounting bolts and down into the diff case, you just need to knock down the center rib on the top side of the shock tower to get a nut on it, a 3mm bolt with washer will clear the case inside the diff cover without issue, alot of guys run the two tower mounting bolts all the way through for a little more strength. I had a super duper double thickness alumimun rear tower mounted with two extra bolts from tower to case and it ended up being to stiff and would literally shear the entire top of the diff cover off with big crashes, I went back to a single stock piece with one verticle screw and like it much better.

[timie1]

..... I had a super duper double thickness alumimun rear tower mounted with two extra bolts from tower to case and it ended up being to stiff and would literally shear the entire top of the diff cover off with big crashes,

Jeeeeez, that sounds like some serious strength there. I don't know how you guys do that to your car without cringing? You too Steveandbelle:D Everytime I hit something, which is rare if I do say so myself, I worry that I've broken something. Everything is stock on mine in terms of no aluminium bits for strength, just adjustability. I've only ever bent the front shock tower back and replaced it once.
Mind you, I have seen how tough the GH is. It can take a beating thats for sure.

To SteveandBelle: yeah see if you can take a video of running your GH on 11 cells with the 550, and even moreso, the mamba. I'd love to see it run!!
Keep up the good work, it's like you are donating your car to science for the good of all :D
By the way, what gearing are you running with each of your experiments? <<sorry if you've already said it in your updates, I can't be bothered at the moment going back to read everything again.

[SteveAndBelle]

I don't know how you guys do that to your car without cringing?

Ha, yeah. Well for me at least it's thanks to a semi-decent 'disposable income'. I'm 32, married without children, have a so-called 'professional' career that pays too much for what I do (yes, I've even told HR that) and have most other things 'under control' so I can afford to slam the Gravel Hound into poles or purposely blow up motors every now and then :) Different for others I know but hopefully these silly experiments will allow others to feel more comfortable experimenting themselves.

By the way, what gearing are you running with each of your experiments?

67t Spur + 19t Pinion

[timie1]

Hmmmm, 67/19................how did you come up with that ratio while running with so many cells? Was it just trial and error to see what got it going the fastest? Cos surely running 67/22 with that much power and therefore torque, would make it even quicker, and as you don't appear to be too concerned with blowing things up, (I wish I had that lack of concernment like you do :) ), it would be even more insanely quick.

I have a 17 turn Associated RTR B4 motor in my gravel hound at the moment, and it sucks! If I was in Brisbane I'd donate that motor to you so you could see what you could put it through before it blew up. It's a chinese motor, and I've never had a chinese motor that is quick.
I could only hook up 2 6 cell packs to mine in series, but I think that will surely cook the ESC<<something I don't want to do (it's not the tamiya teu101). I don't want to take my 6 cell packs apart to build an 8, or 9, or 10 or 11 cell pack just to experiment.

Anyway, it's fun thinking about what COULD be done, even though I know it will never be done by me.

Keep experimenting, I enjoy reading what you get up to.

[etivac13]

Hmmmm, 67/19................how did you come up with that ratio while running with so many cells? Was it just trial and error to see what got it going the fastest? Cos surely running 67/22 with that much power and therefore torque, would make it even quicker, and as you don't appear to be too concerned with blowing things up, (I wish I had that lack of concernment like you do :) ), it would be even more insanely quick.

I have a 17 turn Associated RTR B4 motor in my gravel hound at the moment, and it sucks! If I was in Brisbane I'd donate that motor to you so you could see what you could put it through before it blew up. It's a chinese motor, and I've never had a chinese motor that is quick.
I could only hook up 2 6 cell packs to mine in series, but I think that will surely cook the ESC<<something I don't want to do (it's not the tamiya teu101). I don't want to take my 6 cell packs apart to build an 8, or 9, or 10 or 11 cell pack just to experiment.

Anyway, it's fun thinking about what COULD be done, even though I know it will never be done by me.

Keep experimenting, I enjoy reading what you get up to.

can you please post the preffered gearing for each specific motor (23T, 19T, 17T..etc...)... thanks...

[JDT]

what tires are you running etivac13?

[etivac13]

what tires are you running etivac13?

i'm using the stock tires that came with the kit...i also have a stock motor...i'm planning to upgrade to a sport tuned or a super stock BZ.. would i need to replace the gearing (stock 70/19)??? what if i upgrade to a 17T???
my esc is mc330....tnx...

[JDT]

The 330 will support either the bz or sport tuned fine with stock tires, you may even want to go to 67/19 if you need more top speed, I personally would go to 70/18 for a 17 turn motor to be safe but I know guys have pushed there luck at even 67/19 with a 17 turn. My personal favorite 17 turn was the kysoho mad scientist but these are getting harder to find all the time as they were discontinued in 2004 or so, I tried both an epic intense and a speedgems 17 turn doubles and they were both down a little power wise to the kyosho but were needless to say much quicker and faster than stock.
If you are on a tight budget but want to go fast(er) go with

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXJA78&P=7

geared 70/16, your esc is rated for up to seven cells so thats always an option later to go a little faster.
Guys have a misconception about gearing and speed, the 14 turn geared at 70/16 will be faster than the bz or sport tuned at 67/19 as its turning nearly twice the rpm(40,000 vs 26,500 bz or 21,000 sport tuned). Needless to say you will break more parts with the faster speeds so if thats a concern stick with the bz

[juntom10]

umm..i think black sports tuned motor is great..

enough speed to enjoy..and nice torque..

great for off/onroad cars :D

but if you want faster..go with other motor lol :D

[etivac13]

thanks... i will try the sports tuned at 67/19 first... since this is easily available where im from...

[etivac13]

can i use a novak cyclone TC esc on the df 02?

[JDT]

I am sure you won't have any problems but do you mind me asking why? Are you getting it real cheap? there is now a version 2 out so the regular cyclones should be coming down in price, there are to many nice brushless controllers on the market to pay what novak is asking for these brushed only escs IMO.

[etivac13]

somebody just want to swap his cyclone with an mc330... so no cost on me...but cyclone tc has no reverse.. i think...

[JDT]

you are right, no reverse. I was just a little shocked you would pick that one off the wall as its a high end race variety esc and about twice as expensive as most "sport" escs.

[etivac13]

expensive yes, but still no cost on me since he wanted to trade...but i would stick with my mc330 since the TC has no reverse... :)

[etivac13]

pic of my GH... with fabricated aluminum tower shock :)

[JDT]

Those towers look fantastic, did you pay someone to do them or did you make them? I am currently running the yeah aluminum front with the sqaure carbon fibre bolted in front of that, works real nice, I was having problems with the rear, breaking stockers, breaking the stock on with the square brace on it, bending aluminum ones, ended up with a double thick aluminum one, then I rebuilt the car as my truggy and after a while I figured out since the body was now there to protect it the stock plastic rear works fine, several 50mph crashes later still holding up.
Pictures of my truggy version of the df 02 are on page 113, check out the homemade hinge pin braces I did, if you fabbed them towers you should be able to make a very nice hinge pin brace. Good luck with your df 02

[etivac13]

actually, the guy i bought my gh from had it made... i asked a machine shop how much it would cost to make another one... about $15 each..is it cheaper than the original? nice truggy btw... :)

[JDT]

The new style yeah racing is pretty close to that except not all one piece like those appear to be. They run about $10 but from Hong Kong but you would pay to ship it so I would say go ahead and get the machine shop to make them at $15 each.

[Big House]

My 7700MM Gravel Hound is finally done and vigioursly tested. using an IB4200 pack, and she is absolutly beastly. With a good amout of throttle control and a wide open area, this thing is an absolute blast. it easilt tops 40mph at full throttle, once rolling of course. And for those that say you can't race one...well if you are racing on a big tarmac surface, you can definitly have a go at it.

[JDT]

DC by the way of tennessee sounds like Davy Crockett to me lol.
(for all those non americans I will explane, the american folk hero Davy Crockett known as the king of the wild frontier represented Tennessee in the US house of reprsentatives in washington dc)
Sure you post you pic on the "other" forum but not hear, we see how you are:p

[JDT]

duh here not hear lol.

[Big House]

Which pic...me or the Hound.:)

[juntom10]

Which pic...me or the Hound.:)

both..lol

nude pic would be nice...lol j/k

[Big House]

I would got to jail for one of those options:eek: but here is my Hound

[Big House]

More Shots of the Mamba powered Gravel Hound.

[steadyc]

This thread is still alive!!! I posted here years ago. Is Bakabaka still around?

[JDT]

This thread is still alive!!! I posted here years ago. Is Bakabaka still around?


we ain't heard from him in a long time, he is still paying to keep the df 02 faq up so I am sure he is still into rc but not sure. As long as tamiya keeps the kit for sale this thread will be alive, I have seen kits on the net for as low as $94.99 so they will continue to sell, these cars eventually pushed the formerly $99.99 baja king df O1 kits down to $79.99 so if the df 03s push the df02 prices down we eventually MIGHT end up with $74.99 df 02s, think of how many people will buy them then lol, I would be adding a third just to keep NIB.

[steadyc]

Cool...I gave all my df-02 stuff along time ago to my friend. I thinking about getting another one. I had every hop up from tamiya and craft square ordered from jason's store on e-bay. Man I spent sooo much on that car. I started to race it in the JBRL and it was way too much to keep it going. I had 4 kits just to have parts available. It was so much trouble to set it up for proper racing. It was much cheaper to buy a losi xxx4 graphite. The df-02 is a great basher IMO. So much fun to play with. So many people used to laugh at the only tamiya(plastic chassis) on the track. Awwww F'em! It's great to see this forum alive!!!

[etivac13]

More Shots of the Mamba powered Gravel Hound.


were did u buy those aluminum suspension arms???

[Big House]

RCmart...they are the best. RCmart that is...the parts leave a lot to be desired. They take a little work to make them fit correctly.

[JDT]

not to be a pesimist but the df 02 arms are the most durable part of the car, I had some aluminums and never used them as the stock arms held up to hits that tore the chassis totally apart, the bling factor is only cool if you don't really run the can as once they are scratched up they look crappy IMO.

[Big House]

It has been my experience that the chassis was the first to go under inpact. The arms survived all that I have thrown at them....not that it has been a whole lot though.:D

[timie1]

Hey JDT, I have just be parousing the pages and your truggy conversion that you have, exactly what bits are different on your df02 to make it a truggy? Obviously the rims are different, what are they? Any adaptors to get those wheels to fit? A complete list of neccessary mods would be great.
I am considering converting my GH into something like this cos against my new B4 my stock GH feels very.......hmmmm........ho-hum and I don't drive my GH anymore cos it just feels cheap, so I need to do something to make it exciting again ;)

[Big House]

A Mamba of any speed will change that perception. I said the same thing until I made the brushless work.

Hey JDT, I have just be parousing the pages and your truggy conversion that you have, exactly what bits are different on your df02 to make it a truggy? Obviously the rims are different, what are they? Any adaptors to get those wheels to fit? A complete list of neccessary mods would be great.
I am considering converting my GH into something like this cos against my new B4 my stock GH feels very.......hmmmm........ho-hum and I don't drive my GH anymore cos it just feels cheap, so I need to do something to make it exciting again ;)

[timie1]

Yeah I know any brushless will change that perception. My 19t changed that perception. I plan to get a brushless soon, just don't know which one, but that will be going in my B4. So a truggy conversion is different to just making it quicker. In my opinion, it's no fun making it quicker if you break things all the time. So I'd rather just make my GH something different.

By the way......do you get any glitching with your mamba setup that you didn't have before you went mamba? I don't mean cogging, but glitching? Also, what batteries do you run? What sort of run times and speed and heat issues do you have, if any?

[Big House]

My mamba starts acting up after the pack starts to fade. As for as heat, I don't have a I/R thermo so I don't know. It doesn't burn my fingers or anything like that though. I am running SMC IB4200 cells and it it flies.

[94eg]

Well, I don't know what happened, but all my posts have been deleted..:roll2:

My current Gravel Hound project is in DIRE need of a larger than stock spur gear. Max acceleration is what we need at the local track, and the 19x2 Method-R V2 motor is simply too high rpm for the 70T spur gear (even with the smallest 16T pinion).

Can anybody point me in the direction of the necessary parts to get larger aftermarket spur gears. I know JDT had some special spur adapter on his Truggy conversion. Links to this particular product, or even to that particular page of this thread would really help. I cannot seem to find it sifting the 100+ pages of this thread.

[JDT]

the adapter is by tobee craft its part number 42880, you will need to mod the motor mount just a little bit to get the mesh right but the hardest part is drilling the center out of the traxxas spurs, I dremeled the first one but it was eccentric and wobbled a little and was chewed up quickly, the others I had done by a machine shop for $5 each. I got the adapter from champ rc in Japan for like $15, the traxxas gears are a little thinner than the stock df 02 gear but they held up pretty well considering I was running a deep ratio and big tires with at least a 12 turn and mostly with the mm 5700 system. I only tired 84 tooth which gets the ratio really low you probably want to try either the 78 or the 81 but I can say for sure if you will be able to get one of the factory motor mount holes to work right, for me 84/16 was closest to correct mesh so I had to hog out the motor mount holes a tiny bit, 84/15 was a little tight in the next clock position back and I never got around to working on the motor mount more, you will also need normal 48 pitch pinions to work with the traxxas gear. I had always hoped Tamiya would do a truck on the df 02 chassis as even a 73 tooth spur would make a huge improvement let alone if the gave us an 80 or so.

[Big House]

What they need to do is come out with a stronger chassis for the DF02. Broke my third one yesterday. First time bashing offroad. Mamba 7700, studded tires, and grass = rooster tails and mad hopping everywhere....well up until I hit the side of the house. Way to much accelleration.

[94eg]

the adapter is by tobee craft its part number 42880, you will need to mod the motor mount just a little bit to get the mesh right but the hardest part is drilling the center out of the traxxas spurs, I dremeled the first one but it was eccentric and wobbled a little and was chewed up quickly, the others I had done by a machine shop for $5 each. I got the adapter from champ rc in Japan for like $15, the traxxas gears are a little thinner than the stock df 02 gear but they held up pretty well considering I was running a deep ratio and big tires with at least a 12 turn and mostly with the mm 5700 system. I only tired 84 tooth which gets the ratio really low you probably want to try either the 78 or the 81 but I can say for sure if you will be able to get one of the factory motor mount holes to work right, for me 84/16 was closest to correct mesh so I had to hog out the motor mount holes a tiny bit, 84/15 was a little tight in the next clock position back and I never got around to working on the motor mount more, you will also need normal 48 pitch pinions to work with the traxxas gear. I had always hoped Tamiya would do a truck on the df 02 chassis as even a 73 tooth spur would make a huge improvement let alone if the gave us an 80 or so.

Thanks tons for the fast response JDT.

I did a bit of searching & couldn't manage to locate the Tobee Craft adapter, but I did find something else that's really got my attention. The Tamiya TB-EVO-V uses a 5mm spur shaft like the DF-02 with an aluminum pin-type mount for the spur gear (Tamiya part #3455961):

http://img.inkfrog.com/pix/jr-rc/tbevo5spurgmount.jpg

I understand it might need to be shimmed to get the correct depth for the spur in the gearbox. But I am most certain it would allow all sorts of Tamiya and aftermarket spurs to be mounted in the gearbox. Sooooooooooo, the only thing I really need to know is what is the center bore diameter of the TB-EVO-V spur gears? If the bore is the same as HPI or other companies, then this would be a simple bolt-on & shim process with a zillion spur options. So does anybody know this one?

NEXT:

I looked up a nice gear-pitch conversion chart (http://www.engineersedge.com/gear_pitch_chart.htm) to see how the stock 0.6module gears relate to both 0.4module and 48pitch gears (I have pinions for all 3). The stock 70T 0.6M spur has a circular pitch of 131.95mm (effective diameter). This means that an 80T 48P spur, and a 105T 0.4M spur would be pretty much identical to stock.

Now on page 95 you mentioned the Duratrax 84T 48P spur is about as large as you can go without having interference issues (only slight grinding of cover necessary). This is really great advanced info because I would like to get as much spur as possible on the first try.

Looks like I'm gonna have to order this spur hub ASAP...:D

PS: I have both the plastic, and metal motor mounts for this car. I was thinking about trying to mod the original plastic mount first to see how difficult it is to get the mesh right. Then move the metal one if possible. :fingerscrossed:

[Big House]

If I may ask...how FAST do you want your hound to accellerate? On another note, I am considering rapping my hound chassis in fiber glass to stiffen it. The plastic they use sucks. Has anyone done this and if so what were your results?

[94eg]

If I may ask...how FAST do you want your hound to accellerate? On another note, I am considering rapping my hound chassis in fiber glass to stiffen it. The plastic they use sucks. Has anyone done this and if so what were your results?


Quickly enough to make it over the tripple at the local track without taking a nose dive. That's basically going from a tight turn to "near" max speed in less than 10ft. With the current 16T/70T gears with 19x2 Method R V2 leaves the car with a complete lack of punch. I've already rulled out all other possibilities, and gearing is definitely the problem. Just a funky motor I guess, but changing it is simply not an option... :(

[Big House]

With that kind of low end, do you think wheel spin will be a problem?

[94eg]

I can't say for sure, but I certainly don't mind starting at the lowest possibility and working up from there. Wheel spin isn't really a big deal with 4WD anyways as it just causes under-steer, and can easily be controlled with throttle... I just wish this bucket of bolts had a slipper option.

Here is a nice drawing to see how the stock 0.6M gearing relates to the 48P gearing JDT is using. As you can see, using the stock motor mount positions, a 84T-48P spur and a 17T-48P pinion should allow near-proper gear mesh. Plus this provides an 11% gear reduction over the OEM 70T/16T combo. It would be like going to a 74T/15T spur/pinion combo if still using 0.6M gears.

And if my math is right, the mesh will only be .0006mm < standard which hopefully is too little to matter. I can always mod the mount like JDT did if it's not perfect.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p53/94eg/DF-02GearComparison.jpg

[JDT]

due to a weekend crash we tried my buddies quark 125, feigao 7 long can and 4s in his df 02, it was stupid fast but within a few minutes burnt the ring and pinion ie crown and bevel gears smooth, it also cracked the chassis by the motor mount a little bit, just wanted to let you know the limits of the diff gears. This setup was used to power his emaxx and now runs his tower terror conversion so its like a big block in a pinto lol.

[Big House]

That was useless without pictures. And how did it crack the chassis? As well as kill the bevel gears? What size wheels and tires are or rather were you running at the time?

[94eg]

A little more searching revealed an HPI Pro-4 spur hub that will probably work better than the
TB Evolution V one. This is flat on the side with the pin notch, so it should mimic the stock spur
& plastic spacer better.

http://www.rcmart.com/catalog/images/hpi_75104.jpg
http://mrcmodelcarparts.com/images/HPI/75104.jpg

Still haven't been able to get my brother to pony up the dough to try it out though. Hopefully soon...

BTW: I also found that 64-pitch gears will make a wide array of gear matches when using the stock
motor mount holes. Here is a plot I did that shows all possible combinations with commercially available
parts. All gear reduction comparisons are made to the 0.6module 16T/70T pinion & spur.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p53/94eg/rc/64pitch.jpg

[JDT]

That was useless without pictures. And how did it crack the chassis? As well as kill the bevel gears? What size wheels and tires are or rather were you running at the time?


We get together every once in a while on a monday morning (Doctor buddies only day off) for "bashing with budweisers" we are hardcore bashers and most of us want to forget/ignore our broken parts and wrecks not preserve them forever in film lol, the chassis cracked between the vent slits right underneath the motor and made a visable white line from there over to the on/off switch hole presumably from chassis twist, the bevel gears simply could not handle the nearly 2 horsepower(10 times stock motor?) we were throwing at them, The tires were yokohama geolanders from HPI 4.05 inches tall

EG keep us posted on what you come up with, I simply bought the adapter and tried it with every pinion and clock position I had available to figure out what worked, your way is infinitely more scientific and I am sure it will yield better results.

[94eg]

..your way is infinitely more scientific and I am sure it will yield better results.

That's just because I'm stuck behind a computer all day. I wish I had the option to go hands on with all my ideas...

[Big House]

We get together every once in a while on a monday morning (Doctor buddies only day off) for "bashing with budweisers" we are hardcore bashers and most of us want to forget/ignore our broken parts and wrecks not preserve them forever in film lol, the chassis cracked between the vent slits right underneath the motor and made a visable white line from there over to the on/off switch hole presumably from chassis twist, the bevel gears simply could not handle the nearly 2 horsepower(10 times stock motor?) we were throwing at them, The tires were yokohama geolanders from HPI 4.05 inches tall

EG keep us posted on what you come up with, I simply bought the adapter and tried it with every pinion and clock position I had available to figure out what worked, your way is infinitely more scientific and I am sure it will yield better results.

Yeah...2hp on a plastic chassis...that will just about do it. I am working to reinforce my chassis with kevlar. Got the front done. Sanding and re-applying tonight. Doing the rear also.

[cancruiser]

My Rising Storm is running a 19t Orion Method R V2 with the stock pinion and 67t spur. My son just got a Associated RC10T3 with a 27t Stock motor 22t pinion and I think a 84t spur. His RC10 can over take my RS.

Is there a better gearing option for the RS? The Orion 19t should be faster IMO.

[94eg]

My Rising Storm is running a 19t Orion Method R V2 with the stock pinion and 67t spur. My son just got a Associated RC10T3 with a 27t Stock motor 22t pinion and I think a 84t spur. His RC10 can over take my RS.

Is there a better gearing option for the RS? The Orion 19t should be faster IMO.

Well one of your problems is that your car is SEVERELY over-geared for that motor. The 19T pinion and 67T over-drive spur is total waste of your time.

I have that exact same motor in my brothers rising storm, and the thing simply has NO torque what-so-ever. As a result, you absolutely must gear down as far as you can to gain some back and keep the motor from overheating. This means fitting the smallest pinion, and biggest spur gear (16T/70T). With this setup, the car is VERY fun for bashing off-road. But because of the 19T Method-R V2 motors lack of torque, it's almost completely useless for jumping as the car will nose-down off jumps every time.

Get the 16T pinion, and 70T spur...

[cancruiser]

Thanks for the reply.

A friend gave me an 11turn Trinity Jet motor. I have ordered a set of pinions covering 16t,17t,18t,19t. Would the 16t and 70t spur be viable if I were to put this motor in?

From what I understand this motor has more off the line torque.

[94eg]

It really just depends on the motor. If it's this difficult to get a 19T motor to run well in a Gravel Hound, I seriously doubt an 11T would work. This motor will have too little torque, and too much rpm. Therefore even the lowest stock gearing will force the motor to work too hard.

You should install it, and definitely use the 16T/70T gears. Then while your driving the car, stop & check the motor temp every minute or so. You should be able to hold your finger on the can (not the endbell) for at least 3 seconds. 5 seconds would be better. If the motor is getting hotter than this, you should either do a custom gear-down (see the posts & pics above), or switch to a lower rpm/performance motor...

I'm starting to feel that this DF-02 chassis is a complete joke. Even with a regular Orion Method 23T, and the 16T/70T gears, we still couldn't keep the motor cool. And that was with a heat-sink, and vent holes cut in the body. Don't waste any more money. Just buy a Tamiya Durga when it comes out in a month or two...

[Big House]

94EG,

Are you trying to keep it reace legal or something like that. I originally ran my Hound off a 17T Orion Pro BB. It flew. I used the stock pinion and 67 tooth high speed spur gear. It accellerated like a bullet. that was on a Venom 3000 and 3600 pack...it really moved out with the IB 4200 pack.

[94eg]

94EG,

Are you trying to keep it reace legal or something like that. I originally ran my Hound off a 17T Orion Pro BB. It flew. I used the stock pinion and 67 tooth high speed spur gear. It accellerated like a bullet. that was on a Venom 3000 and 3600 pack...it really moved out with the IB 4200 pack.

No. I was just trying to get the car setup for local track. It's acceleration is weak, but all the motors we've tried were good. Even at the lowest gearing, it would still overheat. My 19 year old Vanquish could easily out-jump it with a 23T Tamiya Super-Stock...

Setup:
Stock car
Stock wheels & tires
16T/70T
Novak XRS
Motor Heatsink
Ventilation
Orion Method-R V2 19T
Orion Method SV2 23T
Revtec 17T

[timie1]

Well one of your problems is that your car is SEVERELY over-geared for that motor. The 19T pinion and 67T over-drive spur is total waste of your time.


What are you on?:D A 19t motor works very nicely in the RS or GH. I have a 19x1 Trinity Chameleon 2 and I run 22/67 and it's got amazing punch and will do about 45-50km/h give or take and it does all this without working up a sweat. It's got more than enough low end torque to easily spin all 4 wheels on concrete and easily control the car mid flight over a jump.

IF you really have that many issues with gearing of your 19t motor, then you need to get a different motor. What sort of batteries are you using? Perhaps the problem is not your motor, nor your gearing, but rather your battery pack.

**EDIT**
Actually, after thinking about your setup, the problem is your motor. Sorry to say, but the Method line of motors are certainly not the best out there. My brother has a 15t Orion Method motor that came in his Evader. It's no quicker than my 19t. I've tried both my 19t and his 15t in my B4 and my GH, and in each car with same esc and battery and the appropriate gearing in each car, my 19t was slightly quicker but had considerably better punch. In THEORY a 15t SHOULD be quicker, but it's not always the case. The Method R motors are cheap.

[timie1]

My Rising Storm is running a 19t Orion Method R V2 with the stock pinion and 67t spur. My son just got a Associated RC10T3 with a 27t Stock motor 22t pinion and I think a 84t spur. His RC10 can over take my RS.

Is there a better gearing option for the RS? The Orion 19t should be faster IMO.

First the good news...Don't take what 94eg says as gospel. A 19t motor works really well in the Rising Storm. You cannot overgear, let alone SEVERELY overgear a 19t in the Rising Storm chassis. I've had a 19t in my Gravel Hound (exactly same car as yours apart from the body) and it flew. I used 22t pinion with the 67t spur. If anything, it could be geared even higher. It had loads of punch and would beat your son's T3 with a stock motor. Unless of course your son uses more than a normal 6 cell battery pack.

Now the bad news...the orion method motors are cheap. They aren't the worst motors out, but they aren't the top ones either. The only way you can tell if your motor is overgeared is by checking the temperature of it. If it's hot enough after a battery pack to burn you instantly it's overgeared. If it's warm (not hot) than it's fine. There isn't a lot of ventilation in the Rising Storm body, so it will heat up a bit more than your son's T3 with the motor out the back of it with all that ventilation, so take that into account when checking the temperature.
I'd say the reason your son is quicker than you is probably the motor, being that yours is a cheaper one, and/or the battery pack you are using is nowhere near as good as his. Batteries do make a huge difference.

[cancruiser]

WOW....I tried the 11x2 Trinity Speedgem Jet really does move the RS. I am still waiting on the pinions but figured I'd give it a shot anyways. With the stock pinion still in place the RS smokes my sons RC10T3 out of the hole and just kept on increasing the gap.

I am quite impressed with the out of hole power. I am using Peak Racing 2400mah NIMH batteries. With the stock pinion I only get about 15 minutes of run time before the ESC's thermal protection shut it down.

With a 18ft run and a 18inch ramp the RS launched a good 16-17ft and landed well. That is more than enough for the local track. Now I just have to try different pinions to get a better run time and keep the ESC cool.

[timie1]

Cancruiser:
What esc are you running your 11 turn motor on?
Heheh, 2400 nimh is quite old. If you want to see it go like a bat out of hell, try some IB4200 or something similar. That will really set loose the beast within.:D

[cancruiser]

Cancruiser:
What esc are you running your 11 turn motor on?
Heheh, 2400 nimh is quite old. If you want to see it go like a bat out of hell, try some IB4200 or something similar. That will really set loose the beast within.:D

The ESC is old too :)

Its a Novak 410-M5. It is an older one and I might be pushing its limit.....

[timie1]

It's great fun pusing esc's to their limits:D I've knowingly put a 17 turn on the tamiya teu101 esc without a problem. I think a lot of esc's are underrated and the manufacturer errs on the side of caution. Fair enough too, I would if I was a manufacturer of them.
They have safety devices in the esc to shutdown if it's being used beyond it's means.

[cancruiser]

So my pinions came in today and I put the 16t on with the 67t spur to try out. I ran a whole batter pack through it and although the battery was warm the ESC and the motor was cool. Mind you it's only 5 degrees celcius out and I was running without a body on.... But this RS really moves. The gears are quite a bit noisier. It's really noticable when braking.

I'll have to play around a little more at our local indoor off road track when I get a chance.

[SteveAndBelle]

It's great fun pusing esc's to their limits:D I've knowingly put a 17 turn on the tamiya teu101 esc without a problem. I think a lot of esc's are underrated and the manufacturer errs on the side of caution. Fair enough too, I would if I was a manufacturer of them.
They have safety devices in the esc to shutdown if it's being used beyond it's means.

Agreed ! A few pages back I reported on the outcomes of my experiments with the stock Tamiya ESC with up to 11 cells ... and it still didn't bother it at all !! Didn't even really get that warm but I was only running stock gearing so that may have helped.

I did however destroy a couple of motors in the process so be careful if you're planning to do this yourself but it's amazing what those stock ESC's can handle !

I've now moved on to a DF-03 so my 02 days are basically over. I still haven't built the 03 as I'm waiting for a few more parts to arrive but I don't want to trick this one up too much as I have my sights set a bit higher for the future with a completely different car again.

The DF-02 is still an amazing little beast though, no doubt about it :) Great fun and an incredible experience & education for beginners ... like me !

[timie1]

SteveAndBelle:
You have done what I am thinking of doing. I don't use my 02 now. It's got too many limitations. I'm thinking of getting a DF03, or waiting for a bit longer to get the new DB01 Durga. The only thing I don't like about the Durga is, from the photos, it looks as though it doesn't have a lot of ground clearance, the same thing that REALLY bothered me about the 02. The 03 on the other hand has loads by the looks of it. I would like something that really can be raced competitively, and for that I think both the 03 and Durga are LOADS better than the 02 (especially the Durga). Let us know how you get on with the 03 when you get it built. If you could PM me when you get it done, that would be great.
Currently my B4 is my money pit. I'm waiting for the mamba to arrive for it. I just hope it's not too much power for a 2wd. If it is, then I'll have to hurry up and get a decent 4wd buggy!!:D

[cancruiser]

I swapped out the 67t spur and put the 70t back in. The whine is gone from the buggy now. I also thought I'd try it as a 2wd buggy. I took the front end gearing out along with all other related parts.

I kind of like it like this. I think I'll leave it as is for a while.

The current setup is this.

Speed gem Jet 11t motor
16t pinion
70t spur
2wd
Novak 410-m5 ESC
2400mah NiCd batteries

I am quite pleased with this setup. Just would be nice to have a little longer run time. Those 2400mah batteries only last 10-15 minutes max.

[SteveAndBelle]

I don't use my 02 now. It's got too many limitations. I'm thinking of getting a DF03, or waiting for a bit longer to get the new DB01 Durga.


Yep, but that's not to say the DF-02 is a bad car ... in fact I think it's still one of the best ways of getting into the hobby because it teaches you how to make the most of what you've got to suit your particular driving style and without blowing too much cash. You can then take it further later on if need be by 'upgrading' to a better model chassis but of course then comes the issue of higher costs etc.

There are still DF-02 parts available but they seem to slowly be drying up which is why I decided to jump up to the new E-Maxx but got a DF-03 while I wait for a fully BL RTR E-Maxx setup to be released ;) I too was tempted by the Durga with its full sealed belt drive system and the rest but as I really want more of a 'truck' type bashing machine I've decided to concentrate on aiming for the E-Maxx instead as more of a long term hobby investment.

I would still like to experiment with pushing stock stuff as far as possible ... even to destruction if need be and maybe one day I'll setup a test rig with all my remaining DF-02 parts and just load it up as best I can :) 20-cells perhaps, who knows what the actual limit of that ESC is !?! I'd love to find out.

[Big House]

I for one think the DF-02 is a nice car. I have looked at the DF03 and I don't see overwelming differences. Has any one raced these to side by side. I know the DF03 has things the DF02 doesn't but that doesn't exactly make it better. Just my .02 though.

[SteveAndBelle]

... I don't see overwelming differences.


Agreed and in fact the DF-03 has its own limitations (limited battery pack size, limited motor size, limited motor cooling, no chassis space for ESC & reciever flexibility etc.) however the main difference for me is the fact that there are more parts available for it especially to assist in brushless setups (slipper clutches, better diffs etc.) and even more important is that all the parts still seem to be readily available all over the place.

Obviously the DF-03 parts will soon dry up as well but I'm just hoping that wont be for another year or two yet and in that time I would hopefully have another car on top of the 02 & the 03.

I'm sure with the right components, gearing and competent driver a DF-02 could easily keep up with an 03 and possibly even go harder. They are very similar but again it just comes down to the parts availability for me.

[Big House]

Very true. I bought most of my hop-ups from RcMart...it seems the chinese has what is needed to make this pup run.

[timie1]

I am quite pleased with this setup. Just would be nice to have a little longer run time. Those 2400mah batteries only last 10-15 minutes max.

ONLY 10-15 minutes? How is that a problem?? With electric, you are going to get that sort of runtime. Actually, for an 11 turn motor and 2400 batteries, that's pretty good time. With my 19t and 3300 batteries, I get about 14 minutes.

[timie1]

Agreed and in fact the DF-03 has its own limitations (limited battery pack size, limited motor size, limited motor cooling, no chassis space for ESC & reciever flexibility etc.)

Yeah that is one of the things that makes me not want a DF03. I have a TA03R and it's like the DF03, limited to only a 6 cell stick pack, and limited motor size as well. I'm also not keen on the steering servo linkage that looks like it's on viagra. These limiting reasons is what is making me lean towards the new TA05 to replace my TA03 and also the Durga buggy to replace the df02.

I agree that the DF02 is a good beginner car, or it was until the parts started drying up. I know someone who had the DF02 but he kept breaking things on it from rolling it all the time. He bought the aluminium parts, but they were junkier than the plastic kit parts. He is going to sell it because he no longer wants to spend money on it and he doesn't use it. I think in his case though, it was the driver not the car. When he was buying it, he was thinking of getting a Associated B4. Lucky he didn't. It would never have stood up even half as well to the abuse. I know because I have both cars, and although the B4 is quite tough, it is more racey and delicate than the DF02.

I am also after a monster truck for bashing, and the odd bit of racing. The new emaxx sounds perfect, but I don't know how it'll be against the e-savage. I wish Traxxas would make a kit so I don't have to buy all the radio gear. I have 3 unused sets lying around. The E-savage sport (without the charger and 2 battery packs) is by far the best thing around for the money, and with online coupons, it would cost JUST over $200US, which isn't bad.
However, once again, it's got it's limitations with battery size without doing mods to the chassis.
I'm kindof holding off buying a truck to see if Traxxas makes an E-Revo. THAT would be perfect for what I want. I can't be bothered converting a Revo to electric. Shipping from the US for each part when I need it would be far too uneconomical and take months for one part to arrive.

[cancruiser]

ONLY 10-15 minutes? How is that a problem?? With electric, you are going to get that sort of runtime. Actually, for an 11 turn motor and 2400 batteries, that's pretty good time. With my 19t and 3300 batteries, I get about 14 minutes.

I know...I'm whining...LOL That 10-15 minutes is not constant on the throttle running. I just keep comparing it to my Tamiya M03M mini that I am running at the track with the same batteries. Mind you silver can only....... but I do get 25 minutes of track time off one pack :).

I am picking up a few 3300mah NiMH used race packs for bashing. We'll see how much more they last.

Where in Ontario are you if you don't mind me asking?

[JDT]

Yeah that is one of the things that makes me not want a DF03. I have a TA03R and it's like the DF03, limited to only a 6 cell stick pack, and limited motor size as well. I'm also not keen on the steering servo linkage that looks like it's on viagra. These limiting reasons is what is making me lean towards the new TA05 to replace my TA03 and also the Durga buggy to replace the df02.

I agree that the DF02 is a good beginner car, or it was until the parts started drying up. I know someone who had the DF02 but he kept breaking things on it from rolling it all the time. He bought the aluminium parts, but they were junkier than the plastic kit parts. He is going to sell it because he no longer wants to spend money on it and he doesn't use it. I think in his case though, it was the driver not the car. When he was buying it, he was thinking of getting a Associated B4. Lucky he didn't. It would never have stood up even half as well to the abuse. I know because I have both cars, and although the B4 is quite tough, it is more racey and delicate than the DF02.

I am also after a monster truck for bashing, and the odd bit of racing. The new emaxx sounds perfect, but I don't know how it'll be against the e-savage. I wish Traxxas would make a kit so I don't have to buy all the radio gear. I have 3 unused sets lying around. The E-savage sport (without the charger and 2 battery packs) is by far the best thing around for the money, and with online coupons, it would cost JUST over $200US, which isn't bad.
However, once again, it's got it's limitations with battery size without doing mods to the chassis.
I'm kindof holding off buying a truck to see if Traxxas makes an E-Revo. THAT would be perfect for what I want. I can't be bothered converting a Revo to electric. Shipping from the US for each part when I need it would be far too uneconomical and take months for one part to arrive.

the df 02 with new stickers on the what looks to be a gh body was released just last month, called the plasma edge so I doubt parts will dry up.
as far as getting parts go to

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.rc-champ.co.jp/&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dchamp%2Brc%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGWYA,GWY A:2005-36,GWYA:en


the best tamiya dealer anywhere IMO, shoot them an email for your parts needs, if you need one parts tree the shipping ?$10? will cost more than the tree ?$4.32? however so be willing to economize your purchases so you can get extras, my $120 order was $37 shipping but the same stuff from tamiya usa was $300 plus, tower only had half the stuff and would have been $90, you guys that have moved on to df 03s should contact them also, they sell sqaure, five stars, tobee as well as give a good discount on tamiya stuff. I got the df 02 frames(five lol, ordered before the hinge pin brace mod) for $5.25 US each, tamiya usa was at $9.25 when the jokers had em(once I ordered a spair rs kit from tower since neither them nor tamiya usa had the frame in stock-prior to finding champrc obviously) tower is bad news selling kits they don't have parts for lol.

[JDT]

champ has added the plasma edge for about $80 bucks with full bearings, about $70 US without bearings, I am sure shipping would be at $30-40 so $100-$120 range as I am sure my order that was $37 shipped was kit sized and maybe even heavier,
they got that new very tempting "sissy girl" belt car the durga also for $130 or so, lots of bits and goodies coming for that thing I am sure,
the df 03 is around $100 bucks but I am a lipo man and that center cage for the battery and plastic gears scared me away so far but I am tempted to build a 4wd buggy again for the new indoor track opening up here this winter. NOT BETTER THAN A DF 02 JUST LIGHTER LOL.
better link with pa pics

http://72.14.203.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://rc-champ.jp/cp-bin/oscommerce/catalog/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dchamp%2Brc%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGWYA,GWY A:2005-36,GWYA:en

[timie1]

Where in Ontario are you if you don't mind me asking?

I'm in Peterborough. There really is no hobby shop around here that has any stuff I would buy. Nitro boats and planes and electric trains. So I go to Toronto often to get anything I want.
Where are you?

[JDT]

41° 32' N 93° 39' W
800 miles west of and a little south of you in Des Moines Iowa, I can only get the tamiya parts ace, tower or horizon have in stock since my local hobby shops only deal with vendors not tamiya or tamiyausa, they are full service shops and two out of three hold races and everything but have long since went the way of the associated losi traxxas sellout so tamiya stuff is tough to get locally, is there good tamiya dealer in ontario?

[cancruiser]

I'm in Peterborough. There really is no hobby shop around here that has any stuff I would buy. Nitro boats and planes and electric trains. So I go to Toronto often to get anything I want.
Where are you?

I'm in Orangeville. We just had a local shop open up which has really brought the RC'ers in the area out. And they get in what ever we need.

Our family cottage is just outside of Havelock. I've been driving through Peterborough for the last 30 years getting to the cottage.

[juntom10]

I'm in caledonia, near hamilton

[mad-wolfie]

Can anyone help.

Looking at making my Rising storm a little more competitive on the track. Stuck in a Sport tuned motor (standard Tamiya) & am now lkooking at running the 67t gearing with the 19t motor sprocket - too much torque, not enough speed.

If i drop down to the 67t i'm guessing i have to move the motor on it's mounting but to which position? Looking in the book of words, 12oclock = 19t, next going hole to the left going anti-clockwise each time for each incriment down on the pinion gear when using the stock 70t gearing. What do you do when you have the 67t gears? Do you then go 12oclock = 18t, so then the 19t becomes 1 hole past the 12oclock position?

[mad-wolfie]

Also... looking for ideas on what tyres/wheels to use for racing the Rising Storm on carpet instead of dirt as i'm hooked up with an indoor club that races on flat carpet, along with any other recommended mods for carpet racing.

[JDT]

get some touring car foams they will work much better on the carpet, I found 80 weight shock oil was needed to keep the car tight in line with some losi springs on the duratrac shocks, it was way outclassed when racing touring cars but in buggy it was able to hold its own as they were mostly 2wd cars. The clock positioning should be in the manual, if I remember right 70/16=67/19 70/17=67/20 70/18=67/21 and 70/19=67/22, you will definetely need to gear up with the touring car tires as they are over a quarter inch shorter than the df 02 spikes, if you got to run rubber tires get the hpi slicks and some super star dish wheels but they won't hold like the foams on carpet.

[mad-wolfie]

The clock positioning should be in the manual

yes, the positions are in the assembly manual, although this i believe only covers the 70t spur, not sure if the same applies for the 67t spur gear but i would of thought there would be a difference in positioning so i just need to be sure a) if the motor has to be rotated to another position when running the gearing on a smaller spur & b) if it needs to be rotated, what position it has to be

you will definetely need to gear up with the touring car tires as they are over a quarter inch shorter than the df 02 spikes, if you got to run rubber tires get the hpi slicks and some super star dish wheels but they won't hold like the foams on carpet.

This is why i'm thinking of gearing up the car with the 67t, the wheels will be slightly smaller with slicks so i'd lose on top speed but gain acceleration, so i need to alter the gearing to compensate. As tyres go i've seen a few names banded about.. Dirt Hawgs & HPI's like you said fitted with slicks, failing that it may be a case of running the spiked tyres down the hard pavement for a couple of hours to wear them dowm & in effect make them slicks, but i don't knoiw if i'd lose grip on the carpet which i currently have or whether it would improve the grip.. at least with slick tyres i could slop on some tyre additive, but if i'm getting no better grip with worn tyres & additives than i am with part worn spikes, i may as well just run the spikes & save myself the hassle.

[Rear Admiral]

Hey, welcome in, man - my old man is originally from Burslem, grew up in Hanley. Only been there once myself - damn cold :)

Just a couple of thoughts -

- dropping a couple of teeth on the spur will have a much smaller effect than adding a couple at the pinion, and it's usually easier to find someone with a spare pinion that you can try out.

- off road spikes (especially Tamiya stocks) are often a harder compound than TC slicks; they need to be to last, or the knobs would be gone in the blink of an eye. I've buffed down old bow-tie spikes to use as slicks, but they were way too hard and broke traction at the merest hint of dust.

- Dirt Hawgs might be a good option - you won't lose any tyre diameter and therefore won't have to change your gearing as much. They are also a good compromise in terms of compound; grippy enough to traction roll a buggy if you haven't got it set up right, but much more durable than most TC tyres. The down side? They're a bit on the heavy side, but they're still okay on dirt, so you can get by without swapping wheels constantly. Check page 45 of the Evader BX thread for photos of these tyres in action on my buggy.

Hope this was helpful.

P.S. Oatcakes rule....

[mad-wolfie]

Very good there Admiral.

I'm actually a Cheshire lad, but have family roots in Stoke due to the pottery industry & mining. I bet your dad still examines the underside of plates & cups & even toilets & sinks to see where they were made - that's how you spot someone from round here if ever you go on holiday.. the "Stokies" are the ones who walk into a cafe & lift up the plates to see what brand it is.

i was looking the other day at that page that was shown earlier in the thread with the Gravel Hound that the guy has drilled holes in his chassis to save weight & he says he's running a 67t spur & a 22t Pinion, however i bet this is more for use on dirt where i'm currently racing on carpet. May well get myself a 22T to see if it works on the flat as well as i anticpate it will on the dirt. I also plan on running this on the fields as well as indoor racing... at least until i get another car.. i may even get myself a new DF02 & have one set up for each type of track racing, unless i go the whole hog & Get myself something like a 1:12 scale Associated or Hot Bodies off eBay for use indoors.

I notice Tamiya do some Dish wheels for the DF-02 that will also fit many of the other buggies such as the Manta Ray & the Avante etc, but doesn't say if there is a slick or indoor tyre option for them & just shows the rims.

Just seen the pictures for the Passive Edge, a 3rd outing for the DF-02 chassis.. Looks excactly like a Grav-Hound but with a new paintjob, but the specs don't say if it's been tinkered with but i would interested if they have to see what they have done if they have been playing with it.

[timie1]

A while back in this thread there was someone who had converted the DF02 to a truggy. Now I can't find the page with the photos, typical!!!
So my question is, what rims do you people buy to fit the DF02 that would enable the use of truck tyres? If you can post a link that would be great.
-----------
To Mad-wolfie:
With the motor you are using, I would definitely use the smaller spur and bigger pinion. Bakabaka was a regular in this thread a while back, but he's now long since gone. He started a website that answers questions about the DF02 chassis. The manual does give a visual reference point on what holes to use to mount the motor. Use the diagram in the manual to help figuring what the "xyz degrees from top means" it's a little confusing.
I'll summarise it for you.
70t spur.............................................. ........67t spur
16t pinion.........45 degrees from top...............same point for 19t pinion
17t pinion.........90 degrees from top...............same point for 20t pinion
18t pinion.........135 degrees from top.............same point for 21t pinion
19t pinion.........0/180 degrees from top..........same point for 22t pinion

I have found that you can actually fit a 23t pinion in there with the 67t spur. It's tighther than the 22t pinion obviously, but there is still enough play between the spur and pinion. Use the holes for the 22t pinion mounting.

I have used Proline Dirt Hawgs on the gravel hound rims. With some CA glue they work really well. Far better grip than the spiked tamiya tyres and as JDT said, it's enough grip to roll the car in the right conditions. These tyres last so much longer than the spiked ones. Lately though, I've been looking at the Traxxas Anaconda tyres, the 2.2 buggy ones that are made to fit the Traxxas Bandit. They look like some serious road tyres and may be good for carpet running. It's the same compound and tread pattern they use on the Jato, and that does over 60mph with those tyres.

Here is a link to the site Bakabaka created. Unfortunately a lot of the links are now dead, but the info still applies.
http://xyzzy.dyn.dhs.org/df02/index.php?sid=1728&lang=en&action=artikel&cat=6&id=22&artlang=en

[mad-wolfie]

I'll summarise it for you.
70t spur.............................................. ........67t spur
16t pinion.........45 degrees from top...............same point for 19t pinion
17t pinion.........90 degrees from top...............same point for 20t pinion
18t pinion.........135 degrees from top.............same point for 21t pinion
19t pinion.........0/180 degrees from top..........same point for 22t pinion


Thanks for that Timie,

I purchased a 22t pinion gear last week & i ordered a 67t spur on saturday (should be here later today or tommorow by my reckoning) along with some proper bearings a so i finally now can ditch the stock plastic rubbish ones from the kit.

The manual does say what position to place the motor, however it only goes as high as the 19t pinion gear & assumes you are running the 70t spur from the kit. It doesn't say what to do if you want to fit the smaller spur & i'm guessing the biggest you can go on the stock 70t spur is a 19t pinion, as i found when i tried fitting the 22t as a test & then by pushing the car back & forwards by hand there was a loud grinding noise coming from the gear mesh in whatever position i set the motor at. The car didn't run smooth & felt like it had square wheels fitted.

It's all well & good me asking the question & the answer being "check the manual, that tells you what to do" but it doesn't tell you in the manual what to do if you use a bigger pinion than a 19T & if you opt to use the smaller hop-up spur & lists no other information other than for the 70t from the kit, & that is what i was getting at when i asked the question.

I'm now seriously considering stopping doing further upgrades on the DF-02 to try & spec it up for indoor racing & instead of spending money on this, buy myself something like a TT-01 based car & use the TT-01 for indoor racing & the DF-02 for chucking around outside & possibly join a local off-road RC club & spend on off-road upgrades & have a dedicated car for each type of racing instead of trying to make the car intended for off road purposes into an indoor racer.

I love the buggy to bits & i've always run buggies ever since i got into RC, but I did some maths the other day & although the kits for the 2 cars are similar in price, I now know that i could spend more money on the DF-02 to get it in top shape possible for racing on the indoor track, but it would still never match a dedicated TC racer (BUT i will keep the DF-02 as a spare for the indoor courses should the TT-01 fail.) & i could spend half the same amount of cash & get a TT-01 up to spec. In full size comparison i suppose it's a bit like buying a Misubishi shogun or an Escilade, spending a fortune on speccing it up & entering it into the WTCC, it would never live with the likes of the opposition & at the end of the day your opposition could spend half the budget on their cars than you spend on yours & get much better results.

OK i wouldn't have as much fun with the TT-01, but at least i'd have money in my pocket to spend on DF-02 upgrades later & hopefully a trophy on the shelf by the time i'd finished.

[JDT]

Timie1 my truggy pics are on page 113, I used the hpi wheels intended for the mt2

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXM875&P=ML

differnt style

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXWX57&P=7

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEWZ9&P=7

any of these will allow you to mount the majority of the 2.2 tires on the market, all except the super wide imax tires.

[JDT]

the tt01 is only somewhat better than a df 02, I understand they are super cheap but I personally would go for the ta 05 belt car or more likely for the shaft driven the tb 02 as it will take alot of the evo III parts, many tb 02 kits comes with ball diffs and a stock aluminum prop shaft, thats $50 worth of tt 01 upgrades right there, its better than a tt 01 and nearly equal to a ta 05, the tl o1 is worse than a tt 01 so I wouldn't consider that.
check these guys out either way, tt 01s from $66 and up!


http://www.rocousa.com/search_results.asp?PAGE=1&txtsearchParamTxt=%2A&txtsearchParamType=ALL&txtsearchParamCat=216&txtsearchParamMan=ALL&txtsearchParamVen=ALL&txtDateAddedStart=&txtDateAddedEnd=&txtPriceStart=&txtPriceEnd=&txtSale=

Finished body kits will cost a little more but have all the stickers and stuff ready to go, hope that helps, the df 02 is an awesome basher but not really a track weapon for dirt or cement lol. Needless to day these are not top of the line cars but I suspect you don't want to spend $400 on a kit alone. The EVO V is the dream tamiya shaft driver but very expensive, the 415/416 is the top belt driver but also 4-5 bills, ouch.

[timie1]

Thanks for that Timie,

The manual does say what position to place the motor, however it only goes as high as the 19t pinion gear & assumes you are running the 70t spur from the kit. It doesn't say what to do if you want to fit the smaller spur & i'm guessing the biggest you can go on the stock 70t spur is a 19t pinion, as i found when i tried fitting the 22t as a test & then by pushing the car back & forwards by hand there was a loud grinding noise coming from the gear mesh in whatever position i set the motor at. The car didn't run smooth & felt like it had square wheels fitted.

It's all well & good me asking the question & the answer being "check the manual, that tells you what to do" but it doesn't tell you in the manual what to do if you use a bigger pinion than a 19T & if you opt to use the smaller hop-up spur & lists no other information other than for the 70t from the kit, & that is what i was getting at when i asked the question.


I know that's what the manual says, but I just told you how to mount the motor for using the only hop up spur available. There is only the one extra spur that will fit the DF-02 and that's the 67t. I mentioned to check the manual because at least it has a visual representation of the holes and angles I am talking about. It's up to you to cross reference the mounting holes (which I clearly described in my last post) of the 70t spur with the 67 spur. It does work with every pinion from 16t up to 22 and there are quite a few options of final drive ratio available. Don't give up on it just yet. Until you get a really low turn motor, like really low, you can gear it properly for the motor.

A word of caution about the TT-01. It's the same chassis as the DF02 apart from a few modifications, like shorter A-arms and shocks and it's reversed, but in all respects, any problems with gearing you have with your buggy you'll have with the onroad version, the TT-01.

[timie1]

Timie1 my truggy pics are on page 113, I used the hpi wheels intended for the mt2

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXM875&P=ML

differnt style

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXWX57&P=7

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEWZ9&P=7

any of these will allow you to mount the majority of the 2.2 tires on the market, all except the super wide imax tires.

Thanks for that JDT. Now that the snow is here in a big way, it'll be nice to be able to put some real tires on the hound and get some traction. Those wheels fit on the front as well without any modifications? I love your truggy conversion. It looks so cool. Did you manufacture your own front body posts for that ST body? Is the body a T4 body? Assuming I put those tires and wheels on, and I don't run a MM 5700 in it, do you think the 70 spur with the 16 pinion is plenty low enough for a 27t motor? How does it handle with such high ground clearance? Does it flip every time you turn a corner?

[JDT]

You should be fine with a 27 turn, I ran a old style 23 turn traxxas titan at 70/16 with the big masher tires, it wasn't super fast but the ground clearance made up for the slower speed. I did make some body post mounts using old style parma universal body posts but have since abandoned that idea when I got some "industrial strenght" velcro at walmart, you can run it down the sides of the bathtub chassis and on the inside of the body, it will stay on through alot, only the hardest hits cause it to come loose and thats usually just one side of the other, the body I used was technically an rc10gt body, came pre painted from Atomic body, they now go by vemon, $30 painted can't be beat.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXNKG8&P=7



the handling is a little worse but the ground clearance is the main thing I was looking for, I think the fact that the four new tires and rims weigh almost as much as the car help to hold it down some, on a race track the stock stuff would probably outrun it but those mashers will cross grass and mud that would have make the stock car jump in the air and get stuck on landing, most pro line tires are only 4 inches tall, they will not give you the same attitude the mashers will but will be easier on the motor and the esc, to run a lower turn motor(10/11/12 or bl mm5700) I used a spur gear adapter so I could gear to 84/15 with them big tires and the mamba 5700, 70/16 with a mm 4600 system and "normal" four inch tall tires is the best setup IMO, I ran the mm 5700 at 70/16 with 4 inch tires but it was always on the edge of being to hot.
As far as the wheels go make sure you get the rears for all the way around if you get the first one listed as the fronts are for 2wd trucks, the second and third one listed you simply need to get two packs for the car as they allready have the 12 mm hex you simply have to put in a small adapter for the center hole as the hpi mt2 trucks have a small raised ridge on the hex adapter, if you haven't got aluminum hexes yet you could just change to hpi style but then your stock wheels wouldn't fit anymore, hard to see here but you can just barely made out the small snout around the center hole

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXHFL9&P=7

I use the adapters on the df 02 but them pop them out for use on the mt2 where my brushless stuff ended up, I would switch to the hpi style on the df 02 but my buggy bowties are on academy wheels without the ridge and my dirt hawg truck tires are on the traxxas wheels also without a ridge, I got a couple sets of the stock tires but them haven't been on in a year or more, one set was modified with .75 inch screws for ice but they did not work so hot lol. Worked like a mother in the grass but thermaled the esc within three minutes. To much traction is sometimes a bad thing!

[mad-wolfie]

A word of caution about the TT-01. It's the same chassis as the DF02 apart from a few modifications, like shorter A-arms and shocks and it's reversed, but in all respects, any problems with gearing you have with your buggy you'll have with the onroad version, the TT-01.

which is exactly why i'm looking at the TT-01 - a case of better the devil you know. many of the parts are interchangeable & of course you hit the nail on the head talking about the cars being basically the same

the basic car (if i decide to have one - may still go for a mission) i will be buying as a bundle deal & hope to incorporate this on the purchase as the basis of a head starter for the upgrade.
http://goldstarstockists.net/live/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/11359

[francoin11]

I am currently running a Gt tuned motor but wil be going 15t soon. Bought the wheels off a friend's Twin Detonator. It pulls wheelies with these tyres.

[JDT]

welcome, you gh looks good

[francoin11]

Thanks, I am really enjoying it!

[timie1]

Thanks for all the info JDT. I will be keeping a look out for those bits you mentioned.

To Francoin11: That idea of Twin Detonator wheels is perfect. I suppose most of the Tamiya monster truck wheels would fit. The wheels can probably be had for quite cheap from some Hong Kong sellers too.

[mad-wolfie]

Looking at those i suppose Monster beetle or Lunchbox wheels would fit (they are basically identical) provided they have a hex fitting.

[timie1]

Looking at those i suppose Monster beetle or Lunchbox wheels would fit (they are basically identical) provided they have a hex fitting.

Yeah that's what I was thinking. And even Wild Willy wheels too. According to a website, the hex fitting is the same as that of the Baja Champ, which is the same as a TL01, which is the same as a DF02.

[etivac13]

Yeah that's what I was thinking. And even Wild Willy wheels too. According to a website, the hex fitting is the same as that of the Baja Champ, which is the same as a TL01, which is the same as a DF02.

what about the df03?i'm gonna get those wheels to if they'd fit...

[etivac13]

Thanks, I am really enjoying it!

any problem with the steering???

[timie1]

Yeah DF03 wheels fit fine. They are only slightly taller than the DF02 wheels. To be honest, you wouldn't notice any difference in diameter. They are standard 2.2" equivalent in metric size. So any 2.2 tire would fit better than with the DF02 wheels.

I want some wheels and tires to make it like a truggy so it can get through snow better and over rough terrain better with the extra ground clearance.

[francoin11]

any problem with the steering???

steering when standing still is not great, but then again you dont need steering when standing still... The guy with the TD I got the wheels from is now running the wheels from the mad bull on other rims, damn sweet!

[cancruiser]

Gone and done it. All thanks to JDT of course and his pics of his conversion.

I addeded the Dirt Hawgs and HPI rims to the RS. Jsut trying to figure out what way to go still on gearing for the 11T motor with these tires. I might have to abandon it and move up to a 15T or 17T motor instead.

Then What body do I want to go with...Hmmmmmmm

decisions.....

http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/gs1.jpg
http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/gs2.jpg
http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/gs3.jpg

Then of course is the fact that everyone wants to look....:D

http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/rs1sm.jpg

[timie1]

Hey nice work Cancruiser. I saw you on offroad.ca just recently. You'll have to get a movie of the car going. I'd love to see how it goes with those wheels.

I love the bottom photo LOL :D

[etivac13]

what's the part number of those HPI rims??? i'll check if they're available locally...thanks..

[cancruiser]

They are the HPI 2140 Rims that I used.

[etivac13]

They are the HPI 2140 Rims that I used.

do they fit exactly or did you use any spacers, adapters or anything? thanks again... :D

[francoin11]

i slapped in a 17t vision racing motor on my teu101 speed controller. The speed controller worked fine with the motor, but my car took ages to build up speed and battery life was only a brief moment before it ran out...so I exchanged the motor for a 3800 battery and I am back on my GT tuned. Not as fast, but accelleration is brutal and at least my batts can keep my car going for 20mins. On the 17t I did not change gearing, I prob should have, but alas, will try a 23t next with different gearing to give me a higher top end.

[JDT]

what you need to do is put the 17 turn back in there at 70/16 gearing, I know right know you think it will lower your top speed but this is not correct a decent 17 turn will pull 29000 rpm or more, that poor gt tuned is rated for 19000 unloaded lol, more like 15-16 usable I am sure, even with lower gearing you end up going faster because the motor "runs" out more, I had tons of fun with a 17 turn double geared 70/16 with the exact same tires you got, only when I wrapped up the car for some snow running did it get to hot and melt the endbell off the motor. A really good 23 turn give a little less botttom end and a little more top end, if you got the stock gearing of 70/19 you can't go up anymore unless you change to the 67 tooth spur, at least get the 16 tooth pinion and retry the 17turn first, my car would slap wheely a little and stuff with that setup and big tires, bashed at least four times as good as stock.

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXEX39&P=7


etivac, they are 12mm hex direct fit other than you need to switch to hpi mt2 hubs that have a little snout

http://cgi.ebay.com/HPI-Hex-Wheel-Hub-86349-for-Nitro-RS4-3-18SS-Evo-MT2_W0QQitemZ130156571397QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotoh osting

or they provide a small adapter(not really more of a gap filler) to but up against your normal hexes, I never even bothered to glue mine in as I switch wheels from time to time between my mt2 and df02. No problems with either setup.

[francoin11]

thanks for the gearing info, the parts here are crap expensive, so I returned the motor and exchanged it for the batts, 3800 batts go here for around R450, which is around $66. I was still running the batts they sold me before I knew a thing on RC cars with my TT01, none of my friends used to play so I had no frame of reference. I am looking into building a rock crawler, so I'll see what happens. cheers

[francoin11]

My top speed is quite low at the moment and the 17t were higher but it's pull was slower and I did not have pinions on hand to play with gearing, also the guys at the hobby shops here all have different views, not really helping, when you have to rely on them. My flattie's got extra pinions now, so I'm gonna try a 21 on my motor, see what happens, should be faster.
oi, hobbies are expensive!

[cancruiser]

A Hot Rod buggy?? Why not. I had this old body lying around and made it fit the RS. I'll leave it on for a while and see how it does on it.

http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/rod/front.JPG
http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/rod/left.JPG
http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/rod/right.JPG
http://scrc209.com/images/cancruiser/RC/rod/top.JPG

[francoin11]

Hey cancruiser that hot rod body looks good on the Gh! I did some mods over the weekend, put a 61t spur and 23t pinion on my car...top end is fast, but pull is not aggressive enough, I think I'll be hoing to a 66 22 combo. I got a truck body from a Raven ST, my hobby shop had it laying around, so for now my buggy looks like a race truck...

[timie1]

Hey guys, I have a question for a friend. He wants to get a brushless for his gravel hound, and the new Castle Creations Sidewinder is excellent for the price. The wheels on it are the HPI rims and some Proline Dirt Hawgs, so it's got tires and wheels like JDT's ride a couple pages back, ie, big wheels. In my opinion, I think the Castle 4600 motor would be more suitable for that setup than the 5700 with the gearing options available for the GH. What do you guy's reckon?
4600 or 5700 with big wheels and tires?

Thanks

[JDT]

the 4600 geared 70/16 with the dirt hawg truck tires have never got above 180 for me, the 5700 you will need to keep an eye on as I have seen 200 before, the point at which bad things start to happen so I would say either but you will need to babysit the 5700, so I would go with the 4600 and them big tires, it makes the car a much better basher

[cancruiser]

I threw the 19 turn motor back in and geared it at 16/70 for a trial run at a new indoor dirt track this weekend. It is a smaller track so I needed a little more punch off the line then the 11 turn could provide.

All in all it was fun. I kept up with my friends XXX-T except I had less control on the corners. I cartwheeled a few times and kept throwing dogbones. until one got away and was never found. So I converted it to a 2wd rear wheel drive and closed out the day like that. Cornering was even worse but still fun none the less.

I too would like to put a 4600 in but that will have to wait a while......

[timie1]

To JDT - Thankyou for replying so quickly. With the 70/16 gearing, how would that be with a 23t motor in it and those big tires? My friend's tires arrived today, and the lowest gearing we could get at the moment is 70/19 with a 23t motor, and using the silver can. With both motors, it was struggling to get the car going. He's ordered a 16 pinion, but he'd like to know, before he has to pay for it, that the lowest gearing should be good with the 23t motor. I think it will be, but I've not had experience with big tires and gearing. What do you reckon?

Thanks

By the way, I believe you and Cancruiser are answering my friends questions in the other RC forum, but you've spelt your name J.D.T. I know people tend to say, "I have a friend who has a problem" a lot in life, but honestly, in this case, I am asking for my friend :D

[cancruiser]

Definitely go with the 16t pinion!!! That should work okay with the 23t motor. Probably your best option at this point.

That motor runs out at 27500rpm compared to the stock silver can that is somewhere in the 18000rpm mark.

The higher the RPM of the motor the smaller the pinion should be seems to be the general rule of thumb.

See my previous post and see that I had much better hole shots with a 19 turn motor compared to my 11 turn. The 19turn that I have is close to RPM as the Tamiya Super Stock.

[timie1]

Thanks cancruiser. Yeah, I also have a GH, and I had a 19t motor in mine, but I was using near stock size tires and it went like the clappers with 67/22 gearing. I wouldn't think an 11t motor could ever get the gearing at it's best in the DF02, even with stock tires let alone big kahuna's like those dirt hawgs on the HPI rims. Just so you know, these are the tires he has on his http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXDU11&P=ML

So to summarise, you guys think with 70/16 gearing and those tires in the link above and a 23t Super Stock TZ motor, it should be good? I personally THINK it will be good because I used to run that exact motor in my GH before I sold it to him, but with normal tires.

[JDT]

yes I am J.D.T on rcuni, JDT was taken lol, 70/16 will be fine for the 23 turn, you will gain less than 2mph top end with a 70/17 setup but will loose the torque which is what makes these big tires fun bashing wise, I agree about the 11 turn being a little hot for the df 02, 12 is pushing it at 70/16 and stock tires IMO, I have even melted the endbell on a 13 turn being stupid and running like 15 minutes straight in a parking lot with a lipo pack on my brushed setup with bald stock tires.

[JDT]

were is everyone at, no no no sir on that page 2 crap lol.

[Combatcm]

Does anyone know if TT-01 gears will work in the DF-02?

[JDT]

do you mean spurs or drivetrain, spur wise I would say yes but you will just need to go up to superlarge pinions and it will take off slower than a nikko and as far as the diff or ring and crown gears I don't know why you would want to change from metal to plastic but there should be no problem, the one way and ball diff for the tt 01 drop right into the df 02, the locker designed for the tt 01 drops right into the df 02 diff case etc.

[Combatcm]

I trust tamiyas nylon gears more than their metal gears. The metal is cast and I've not had not one nylon gear strip over time in my tamiya cars, baja king, FF01, TA02, pajero (the diff ring and pinion grinded down over time). All the nylon gears look new. I suppose for strength, metal is the way to go, but for longevity I like nylon gears better.

[Combatcm]

I take it back, I just cracked open my gearboxes to grease them cause they were pretty dry, they looked like they haven't worn at all. I've driven it at the track through lots of packs last year with a novak SS doing backflips with stadium truck tires and it not once had a problem.

I'm very suprised.

[JDT]

lol, I wondered as my original df 02 has about 100 hours on it without any gear issues, they might be slightly noisier than originally but since they lived through multiple brushless systems and 2 and 3s its a miracle IMO.

[JS70]

JDT,

This is the setup I am considering:
DF-02
70/16 gearing
Sidewinder 4600 combo
4" Dirt Hawg truck tires
6-cell NiMH(mostly) or 2-cell Lipo(maybe)
Sedate to moderate bashing. I usually don't tear 'em up.

I have read lots of posts and it seems CVD's are recommended, but may not be required. Is that true in your experience?

[JDT]

I would recommend if you got the money go ahead and get the cvds, the main aluminum shaft is a for sure needed item with brushless, the cvds are kind of optional, the sidewinder will have enough power to occasionally bend and spit out the dogbones and possibly loose the drive cups, I have seen option part dogbones but never tried them, I just kept bending my old dogbones back into shape until I could afford the cvds. Some guys have run up to 3s on the stock dogbones so its not like they are total garbage its just sometimes under power hard impacts allow them to twist and get spit out, there are 2 or 3 missing in my yard as I type lol, with the cvds I have only had it come out once from a major crash that popped the shock off and even then the cvd couldn't go anywhere as its bolted to the wheel.

[JS70]

I'll probably add them at some point then. I will certainly get the aluminum driveshaft before I install the brushless system though. Thanks for the info.

[JimmyBobbitRS4]

Hey mate, wot wheels have u got on there, they look ace, and i wondered if i could copy u. lol:D

[JimmyBobbitRS4]

Hey m8, i have a gravel hound, wondered if u could tell me wt wheels u got on there, looks ace by the way!

[JimmyBobbitRS4]

Hey mate, ur buggy looks ace with thos wheels on it! could u tell me what exact wheels they are or what theyre off, coz i kinda want 2 copy u! lol just shows how good it is lol

[JDT]

For Truck Wheels and tires the hpi nitro mt2 wheels fit without any modification, hpi also has a bunch of what they call universal wheels that will fit, split five, scorch, type f 5 just to name a few

HPI # 2140 is my favorite truck wheel**you need four rears, the fronts are for 2wd**

http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXM875&P=7

for the dirt hawg buggy rear tires all around I use HPI 3031


http://www3.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin/wti0001p?&I=LXCEA1&P=7


both are available in different colors

[Combatcm]

For truck tires I like using are tamiya rear tires for rustler/stampede because you can thread the nut on more. With AE and hpi truck wheels you can only thread it on a couple turns, so the wheel falls off when running a lot.

[JimmyBobbitRS4]

u put the mobil 1 sticker on it ddnt u?

[swannco]

where'd everybody go? i hope its outside playing with their hounds like me. :D

[szan]

Yes, as you say ! I just tried my new config with mamba max 6900 powered by IB4200, it's killing the ground :-)
The sun is there, bashing time too...