Sakura D4: Suspension Blocks and Rear Lower Arms

A lot of time has been spent de-anodizing (pink) and polishing aluminum parts on this chassis, and hopefully this will be the last batch for a while. It is really time consuming.

I would have done these mods earlier, but had to wait for some of the parts to be in stock. The suspension blocks are from 3 Racing and the rear arms are Yeah Racing D3 arms. As mentioned in an earlier post, I like the D3 arms because of the narrower track compared to the D4 arms, giving a little more adjustment range by using spacers and/or wheel offset. This is a short term solution while I am waiting for Usukani to release their new rear arm design. Hopefully soon...

Sakura D4: New Dampers, Aluminum Parts, New Gyro, and New Screws

I've really been enjoying the D4 so far, and the more I work with it, the more I like it. 3 Racing made a nice step forward over the D3 and now that factory upgrades are starting to filter through the pipeline, essential upgrades can be completed.

The first order of business is taking care of my main gripe with the stock chassis... steering wipers.

Sakura D4: Smoothing Up the Drivetrain and D3 Rear Arm Swap

The D4 has been a solid runner so far, but that doesn't mean I should stop trying to improve on it a bit. Like everyone else, I have been waiting for 3 Racing to finally release their upgrade parts for the D4. I desperately want to replace the plastic steering arms with some aluminum parts. I'll probably try out some of the rear suspension mods that they have coming as well. In the mean time, I did a few mods with some parts that are already available.

Sakura D4: Got lock?

I really like the design of the D4 overall, but as I have mentioned earlier, I feel like the front lower arms are just a little too big in diameter.  The insides of the wheels hit at full lock, and can stop the wheel rotating, inducing a spin.  I was able to gain a little more by adding 7mm hexes and 1mm spacers to get some decent angle, but the wheel still hit pretty easily.

Here is what it looks like with the wide hexes.  Not bad, but the wheel is hitting the y-arm at this point.

Sakura D4: Dialing in the Setup

I was able to spend a day running the D4 at the local track, and do some tuning.  I posted a video a few days ago, and some people were interested in the setup.  I didn't start with exactly the settings in the manual, based on my experience with tuning for our local track.  The Surface is epoxy, and is fairly smooth.  It compares favorably with polished concrete.  We have found that this surface requires a very balanced setup overall.  Here is what I started with:

First up, corner weights.  This chassis balances very well and comes out nearly perfect L/R balance with only 2 grams difference.  With a 5300 battery mounted in the middle of the chassis (standard) the rear weight is almost 57 percent.  This had me a little nervous at first because our track has favored 50 percent rear weight setups so far.  Keep in mind that these weights are with the body on.

Next up, Alignment:

Sakura D4: First day on track

Our local track was open yesterday and I was able to get the D4 out for it's first test.  Things did not go very smoothly at first, as I was fighting a car that seemed erratic and did not handle well.  Several changes made it better, but far from good.  Then, a breakthrough... the gyro started freaking out and the steering servo started moving on it's own.  The Yeah Racing gyro apparently was not working; possibly from the beginning.  I had a spare MST gyro in my box and switched over to that.  Suddenly the car was transformed.  It was pretty balanced and hooked up, only requiring a few more changes for good results.  I will be doing a few more tweaks to get it dialed all the way in, and plan on publishing my setup info in the blog soon.  But I left yesterday feeling pretty good with the progress.  This is a solid chassis out of the box.

Here is some video with the progress of yesterday's tuning:

TT02 FRD: Changing the Rear Gearing

After initially running my TT02 FRD with the recommended 10.5T motor, it seemed a little slow even with the timing bumped up.  Eagle hasn't released an alternate gear set specifically for the TT02 FRD, but they do have a countersteer gear set for the regular TT02.  By adding the TT02 FRD Joint Cup Shaft to the countersteer gear set, you are supposed to be able to use those gears.  The stock gears on the FRD are 39/15.  The CS gears are offered in 27/16 , 25/16, and 22/16.  I received all the parts that are required, and they can be made to work, but it is not a simple "drop in" operation.

The Joint Cup:

TT02 FRD: More Bling from Eagle Racing

Been doing a few more upgrades to the Eagle Racing TT02 FRD.  First up is a nice, heavy duty servo mount.

It is really nicely made, comes with all mounting hardware, and best of all...

Eagle Racing TT02 FRD Update: Brakes and Weights

Just a quick update on a couple of new additions to the Eagle Racing TT02 FRD.  First order of business is a brake upgrade.  Eagle Racing makes a really nice disk brake kit that comes in several colors.  Be sure and order the set that fits the R31 chassis, as it also fits the TT02 FRD.  I picked the light blue color that matches the rest of the chassis.  The kit comes with four nice aluminum calipers, rotors/hexes, and all the hardware needed to install them, including shims to take up any play in the axles, if needed.

Eagle Racing TT02 FRD: Current Chassis Settings and Corner Weights

With the holidays, and taking a trip to visit family, I have not had much opportunity to test the new TT02 FRD chassis at the local carpet track.  I have been able to spend some time testing on the polished concrete in my garage though.  I have been playing around with springs, weight, and alignment settings.  I am also trying to stick mainly with parts that come with the car, along with using some cheap fixes, to demonstrate that it can be pretty capable without throwing a lot of money and  parts at it.  I recently invested in a setup station from Yeah Racing to make the setup process more consistent and accurate.  Couple that with an Integy set up board and ride height gauge, and it is easy to do the setup right.  You can get by with some simple tools and a flat surface, but using the whole system makes the process go a bit smoother, for me.