Tamiya DT03 NEO FROG FIGHTER BUGGY

TAMIYA DT-03 NEO FROG  

if i am honest, the release of the dt03 was a non event for me , i took a quick glimpse at the pics then promptly forgot about it , getting old and ever busier kinda sucks ! 

however , i was on line at work the other day and got an email from a UK hobby shop with their latest offers and the neo fighter jumped out at me .

This started a search in all the usual places , tamiya blog , thercracer , tamiyaclub  , all of which proved quite informative and confusing at the same time , i am still not sure what actually comes with the kit, some say oil dampers , some say friction dampers , even tamiya images have differing info . One highlight of the kit is the new brushed/brushless cross compatible ESC the TBLE-02s , this could well be a genius move from Tamiya , consider the beginner who has bought a dt03 , if they should want to go racing in a stock class with brushed hand out motors the esc doesnt need to be replaced , then it can be used with a brushless motor should they want to move up to a controlled brushless class  , having said that i am still not sure if the buggy itself will be up to it.

according to the review on the rc racer blog from a chap i have conversed with and i know and trust that he has tested the dt03 to beyond its limits under race conditions that the buggy is well up to control class club racing.

i may yet paint it in the neo fighter colours but i really love the frog livery ,

it arrived from Germany , very quickly too ! 

i am delighted to report that, as can be seen from the stickers on the box , it does indeed come with all the bonus parts that i feared may only be in the fhe first run .

it went together with almost no issues , one gripe was that the shocks are really awkward to remove from the front of the buggy  due to the rear mounted position, i overcame this by fitting some blue 4.8 pillow ball nuts i had ,thankfully the kit cva dampers still retain the ball cup type ends, 

i went for my own take on the original frog livery , the pink is mixed from fastcolor raspberry pearl and white ,  if you have or plan to get a neo fighter to race or run on a track then buy a pack of tamiya ball studs while you are at it , removing the small amount of slop from the shock mounts really helps the car in tight track sections , unimportant if you are just bashing around . i cant understand why tamiya didnt include them to mount the dampers as they have ball socket ends that are a poor fit on the stock step screws. 

Given the low screw count and the intended wet grass track use i have replaced most of the hardware with A4 'marine grade' stainless steel button head allen type screws , i will also fit some stainless steel hinge pins and titanium turnbuckles , i also plan to fit a small cooling fan over the ESC as there isnt much airflow under that snug fitting body shell , as it will be used in the wet a lot i dont want to cut the body for cooling . 

i will be running LiFePO4 6.6v 4200mAh pack which the esc is suited to , this too should keep the temps down a bit , i also expect it to run much cooler when in brushless mode so i will try that before fitting a fan . the install is really neat , i love the simple RX cover too ,

the hop up selection that was announced at the same time as the buggy release are all well considered and hint at what tamiya intend the buggy for , racing in their fighter cup class , 

i would like to try and lighten up the unsuspended  mass , uprights , outboard hinge pins , and adjustable upper arms with titanium turnbuckles , alloy wheel nuts and perhaps hollow front axles 

would all help to hone the already good handling buggy , perhaps we will see a slipper and sealed gear diff at some point , 

so i just ran the dt03 with the tamiya esc and 13.5t motor and LiFe battery using the same tyres i use on the dt02 , the 03 gets round the same track 2 seconds a lap quicker than the 02 with lipo ,, despite the fact that the dt03 is a lightly reheated dt02 it is a quicker car that suits uk grass track so well , its as quick as my ansmann x2 pro buggy ! 

on tracks with lots of jumps the dt03 is lacking a touch , the front end is now far more efficient than the rear so the rear end kicks up much like the dt02 , i will try a set of dt02 tuning springs to see if the 'kick ' is from the rear end slapping the ground from being under sprung , need to be careful i dont upset the nimble cornering it has in stock form , i would love to see tamiya do a new gearbox moulding with squat adjustment for the lower arms  ( wishful thinking ) .

you may notice the rather neat electronics instal, Tamiya should applauded for finally including a receiver cover and some simple cable management , i did drill two 3mm holes to cable tie the battery socket to the chassis for easy connection and disconnection ,

i was planning to lavish all the hop up parts on the frog , to be honest it just doesnt need them , if you get the kit with oil shocks , brushless esc and torque tuned motor the oly thing you have to add is a set of ball races which cost around £8 from rcbearings.co.uk . build the shocks as per instructions and simply use front and rear ride height adjustment and front toe in/out to change the handling . even the plastic drive shafts are superb , the funny thing is that the drive shafts collect less grass than the far slimmer steel UJ shafts do! go figure .

the oil filled damper kit is a welcome addition to such a cheap kit , however i found the rear dampers to be very sticky (stiction) , i soaked the 'O'rings , i added a small amount of  AE slime but still they refused to operate smoothly, 

i have had shocks from tamiya before that also had the black coating on the shock shafts , they were fine and worked straight away without issue , the dt03 rear damper shaft also has the black coating , as this was the only variable i took them out and polished them with some solvol autosol , immediately after reassembly they were superb, smooth and consistent , polish the rear shafts for best results .

in the damper assembly manual it tells you to fit 3x6 spacer X3 to the rear shock shafts , leave them off the dampers , with these fitted my dt03 kept grip rolling when the damper bottomed out , when i took them off it stays on 4 wheels and has more consistent grip , tamiya spec the spacers to prevent drive line binding , however ,in practice i never had any issue with binding with the spacers removed, the motor didnt get any hotter and the drive line shows no wear , its one of those parts that makes sense on the workbench but in practice just causes a new set of issues , the grip roll occurs when the shock absorber bottoms out and causes a huge spike in downforce on the rear tyre , fast cornering demands a controlled ,balanced,amount of lateral grip and slip , effectively the car is always drifting in high speed turns ,, throw a sudden spike of grip in the mix and the tyre and rim dig in ,then, the car has no option but to flip on its roof  ,  

a few hop ups arrived today ,

 it says to glue the edges of the carbon damper stays , i really didnt want to as the parts are well machined and a usually get CA everywhere , however , Tamiya have used a serrated edge finishing process , this gives the edges a ridged effect and allows the glue to flow evenly along the edges , some use a cotton bud or similar but i prefer to use medium CA and a thin applicator nozzle and slowly work a drip down the edge while holding the part in a way that uses gravity  to run the glue along the edge , well done Tamiya for taking such care when producing these hop up parts , every thing is the usual Tamiya quality (very good !) yet the prices are a little lower than they usually do , we need a specific DT-03 spring set though as the trf buggy springs are aimed more at the 4wd buggies .

the servo mount (hi torque saver already fitted) which i thought was a nice bit of bling also serves to stiffen the chassis front end ,  there is a noted reduction of the front end hooking and sending the car into oversteer , more poised on corner entry and mid point which encourages me to get on the power a bit earlier ,.

the adjustable upper arm kit is nice , my mini pins are worn out and the spikes are bit too much for dry grass , with the arms wound out to give some positive camber to dial out a bit of grip the car becomes drivable again  , the anti roll bars have helped to inhibit the cars tendency to roll through its rear end travel and grip roll , 

so far i have found the tamiya hop ups to be beneficial in making the car more consistently tuneable if the weather changes throughout a day at an outdoor grass track , i get the feeling that this car will be good on worn tracks that are a bit drifty , the chassis generates loads of grip .

i was rather disappointed with the fit of the front anti roll bar (sway bar) , the channel that the bar rotates in is about 3.5mm-4mm , the bar is about 1.1mm , this gives a very sloppy fit and render's the roll bar useless as it twists rather rotates , to cure this small issue i fitted two 14mm lengths of the kit antenna tube ,one bit on either side of the blue centering slug,, the tube is quite rigid and wont slide on the bar as is, but ,,with a tiny amount of heat from a cigarette lighter or even some hot water is enough to soften it and it slips on easily, once cooled it goes rigid again and is a good fit in the channel and reduces all the wobbly slop,

you may have also noticed that i have flipped the front upper arms so they are now in front of the bulkhead/shock tower , i did this as i found in the past that contact with other cars or objects can pop the the links off when they pop off backwards , they stay put when on the front , not to mention the extra protection they give to the front dampers , if you opt to do this you will have to add a 3mm spacer behind the ball nut that mounts the upper arm (turnbuckle) or the arm and spring will rub , 

the kit geared diff is in my opinion fine , a ball diff can help on some tracks where front grip is lacking , a tight ball diff increases turning and off power turn in ,, but for where i run they are not so good , they wear quickly and constantly need rebuilding , tamiya's simple geared diffs are strong and reliable , if needed you can slow the action using differing thickness/tackiness of grease used inside the diff,  ,  

springs!

after a few runs with a 10.5t motor using the kit springs and then a few with the 3racing springs i have found the rear kit ones are too soft and the 3 racing ones are way too hard (impossible to get any droop at all)  , i dug through my parts bin and found some yeah racing silver (soft) springs that are firmer than the kit springs , in tamiya terms i would say they are pretty close to yellow rated Tamiya trf springs , up front i found some very soft mardave cobra front springs which i compensated for with 40wt oil  and 2, 0.8mm hole ,pistons , this gives increased compression damping which helps keep the nose up when launching off the jumps , but maintains good corner turn in , it can get a bit pushy on power for some  drivers , i will of course get some try buggy springs and report my findings , i also still have to get it on a dirt track to see how well it works , 

i managed to take the esc into thermal shutdown with a 10.5 motor and 19t pinion , will try again with a 17t pinion and wind the timing down to around 20deg to give a but more low rev punch but ease off current draw at higher revs . 

after much trial i have found that the TBLE-02's esc cannot handle a 10.5 motor off road , even at the recommended gearing in the esc manual , i have gone back to 13.5 with 19t pinion , i have though advanced the timing on the motor to 42 degrees (30 being the mid point , 15 the minimum and 45 the maximum ) only do this if the esc and motor are well below max thermal tolerance , with 13.5 and 19t the motor barely gets warm and the esc likewise , with the advanced timing it still doesnt get hot so its well within limits and can shift on the straights while being reserved enough under aggressive acceleration to curtail the tendency for the front wheels to lift a bit.

 more soon

beat up tamiya M-04m to M-04 ss

 above is my old beat up M-04m alfa sprint gta , the body shell is now a wreck ,so i got a Renault alpine 310 shell ,

the shell actually came with an M-05ra kit but that's a tale for another blog !
 i wanted to have this body on a rear wheel drive chassis , at the time the M-06 wasn't released so i had to convert an M-04 to fit ,
more details on how to convert are covered really well here,   http://www.rc-mini.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=66:m04-ss-conversion&catid=44:m04-ss-conversion&Itemid=82 

you may notice i have no front toe in , contrary to tamiya's recommendation  , this is because i run on a bumpy surface and as the front wheels hit the bumps the loaded wheel becomes dominant and the car wonders around , with zero toe the bump steer effect is reduced , i have also modified the steering links to go on top of the front uprights rather than under them to reduce the bump steer even more , i will cover this at some point soon. 

 you will have noticed the 60g of weights added opposite the motor, this is essential to getting the M-04 chassis to handle , this little car has had a hard time from all quarters for being almost undrivable , its an unfair reputation  as when you add the weights (start with 45g at first) it transforms,  if you use a brushless motor try setting around 15%-20% of drag brake to help give a tiny bit of off power oversteer at turn in ,this can be countered with a tiny bit of understeer when you blip the throttle which is the ideal for racing as it gives you constant control in the turns ,more in fact than the front wheel drive 03,05 chassis has , you can get on the power earlier with the M-04 , tyre wear is far better with the M-04 too, the tyres on the chassis in the pics have done over 20 runs with a 7.5t brushless system that pushes the car to over 50mph on the straights , i cant get more than 10 runs with the M-05 before the tyres are shot ,
the m-04m on the left has done over 100 runs on its original kit tyres , that's 20 times more runs than the M-03 or M-05 can manage.



 ,

above is a an M-04m and the M04ss ,

above are a few pics of the modded chassis ,the rear antiroll bar is fixed to the M-05 RA rear uprights that i ordered  part# 51425 F parts , the rollbar couplers come with the f parts and are not actually intended for this purpose but they work perfectly , just attach them with bog standard tamiya step screw into the spare holes in the uprights ,

 fast,fast,fast, 7.5t trinity duo 2 with 60A speedo , 50mph+ with the 19tooth pinion , use a 17 for shorter tracks , the m-04m in the pic above has a stock kit supplied motor and speedo with 21t ,it has the weights added  and is still bags of fun ,its just not as nimble as the SS variant , the SS mod costs a only a few pounds to do and just works ,if you have a spare M-04 that you were never truly happy with then give it a go,

the speedo mount is just a spare, battery wing ,screwed to the chassis upside down with a battery retainer clip to act as a bumper or crash bar , with the extra weight added opposite the motor , moving the speedo forward like this helps with front grip , the cage opposite the speedo is from the old mechanical speedo actuator servo but is ideal for the tiny spektrum sr3100 or orange gr300 receivers ,

if you are keeping with the medium wheel base then try adding 10-15g of weight to the front bumper to get more turn in off power ,

springs and shocks, i only ever run on tarmac and hardpack dirt , so all my suggestions should be considered with this in mind ,

for the most part just adding 3racing alloy dampers and keeping the stock M-04 springs is fine ,i am using red touring car damper springs on the rear of the 'ss' and super soft red drift car springs on the front ,both from tamiya , they look the same but the red soft touring spring is quite a bit more resistive than the super soft drift car springs that came with a TT-01 drift kit! as long as you keep the fronts one or two grades softer than the rears the car will remain balanced enough to drive,

 shocks have 3 hole pistons and 40wt oil f+r or as they came out of the packet.

the diff, i am still using the stock diffs filled with tamiya AW grease, the really sticky silver stuff , its a well recognised build suggestion and helps alot during braking to throttle transfers as does the rear antiroll bar,more on that further down ,

 3racing do and oil filled diff , i have yet to try one but the potential enhancement of such devices can be huge but, sadly it wont fit the m-03/m-04 as the bearings are too small ,on the m-05/m-06 the bearings are larger , i dont think it would be difficult for 3racing to mod the diff to allow use on the m03/04 cars so i will email them and ask nicely if they could do a different set of outdrives for the job ,

 i have tried the ball diffs on offer and have rejected them all in favour of a geared diff  i dont race at any clubs , just with friends on a dusty carpark so rebuilding a ball diff every couple of runs just doesnt justify the tiny improvement, the choice is of course  yours ,

the anti roll bars for the M-chassis can be a pointless thing , i have found they do have their uses, i will cover the M-05 over on that post but on the M-04 the rear anti roll bar is very useful , it helps keep both rear wheels planted by reducing rear roll, funnily enough! we have four wheels to consider here and anything you do to the rear suspension will impact on the front and vise versa, as the roll bar works to stabilise the rear so it will help keep both wheels at the front on the ground , it will also keep the front tyres square to the ground and thus more predictable steering will ensue! 

from my days racing the mardave V12 i found that tweak is very important and the M-04 is no different,

 once assembled and after checking that ALL suspension arms are free and have equal amounts of play /slop and the shocks are at exactly the same length left to right ,put the car on a flat surface with your chosen wheels and tyres ,what we are checking for here is that the springs are giving equal pressure to the diagonally opposite wheel, if the front right wheel is pushing the car up more than the left front, the left rear wheel will be carrying more load, thus you will have a car that turns differently left to right and pulls to one side as it accelerates and the other when you brake!

i have read that some don't bother with this, that's the guys that cant get the car on the apex consistently and clip track markers!!

 lift the car by the centre of the rear of the chassis , then lower it slowly and look to see if either tyre touches down before the other , if the left tyre touches down first remove a bit of pre load to the front right and check again , if the right touches down first remove pre load the front left, it should only be out by a tiny bit! if you need more than 1mm of preload adjustment then something else is likely to askew , if your dampers are in poor shape then you will be wasting your time here so consider the whole package , all those ball joints and damper shafts ,damper oil ,steering parts all work together and if any are damaged or worn you will have trouble setting up ,

have fun .

tyres,

on the car parks that we use as a track i choose several different types of tyre , the really rough car park i use s-grip rears and 60D fronts(the M-04 kit tyres) ,on colder days i go over to M-grip fronts(in between 60d and S-grips)the S-grips have a wide temp operating window and are very hard wearing , i really wish tamiya would use the S-grip compound on a semi slick ,maybe an X pattern like the HPI X patterns , the HPI's are also a very good tyre but the rough car park eats them in two runs and they slip too much on the concrete but they are great on carpet and clean polished floors. 

 on the smooth concrete car park i would go for Sweep pre mount 25deg rears and 33deg fronts ,if it has been hot for a few days i go p to 40deg fronts and 33 rears , i always stay with the supplied inserts that come with the sweeps as they work very well , the sweeps are smaller than current M-chassis tyres , they are the same diameter as the older M-chassis slicks (front)and super slicks (rear)from tamiya, 55mm if remember correctly so you can gear up a bit to keep the punch or torque down a bit, these are my preferred slicks for for the rough Car park. 

M-04-EL-190 (extra long)

190mm track width and 255 wheelbase M-04,

I am building this project as I want a 1/10 scale RWD rally car chassis that I can put a Ford Escort MK1 body on , I plan to gear it down and use a hot motor system 7.5T brushless in with lots of weight added to the chassis to get a realistic handling car ,

to add the length to the chassis I used two m04 chassis extenders , to get the width I used TL01 suspension arms with 39mm TT01 UJ drive shafts ,

 I found that the front shock fowled the lower TL01 arms so I fitted some longer shock rod ends I had in a bits box , I also had to remove the internal travel limiters from the shocks

I will also remove the internal limiters from the rear shocks if needed but will try it as is first , at the moment the chassis has equal travel front and rear.

the m04EL has been through a few changes , a few bits of choice aluminium in crucial areas such as the servo mounts , uprights and steering hubs which are also ball raced , this helped smooth the car out in high speed direction changes , the car is so much nicer to drive and very predictable , it still need firmer tyres on the front for high speed cornering but for slower more technical driving ,on small tight tracks' the same tyres can be used front and rear to get the car to really rotate well in the turns , much like a pan car this chassis is superb when you settle into a rhythm , it rewards consistent driver input with eye opening and stimulating driveability  .

for tarmac i can recommend super slicks for the rear and racing slicks for the front , on rougher tarmac the super grip radials and semi slick fronts are best , they are quits expensive though so a cheaper route is to use brca pre mount sets that can be found quite easily , just use a harder shore for the front. They usually come in sets of four so just grab 1 of each shore and have 2 full sets .

the servo is water resistant hobbyking item that cost a whopping £3.40 , its very fast and accurate for the price and has done more than 30 runs without a blip , esc is a hobbyking x-car 60A used sensored with 10.5 motor , i have all boost and turbo disabled and punch at minimum , no timing advance/retard on the motor or esc , they dont even get warm , motor and esc cost less £40 all in and utterly embarrassed my now sold ,castle creations and novak esc's . i know people love them but i say good riddance to that over priced ,malfunctioning , untrustworthy junk ! . i now own 6 x-car esc's and had zero issues with any of them , at £16 per esc ,even 6 of them cost less than my novak one which had issues from day one . they were overkill for my uses anyway .  

so i rubbed the wall one too many times and the 10 year old 3racing  39mm (tt01/ta04) UJ stub axle went awry :-(   ;-) 

these things happen , especially when i am thrashing it to just beyond adhesion levels of the the worn out tyres for over an hour , it was a fun day !

new shafts arrived .

the day began with waking up and instantly remembering i had a new 4200mah lipo with rounded case from turnigy that was in stock at the uk warehouse! , http://www.hobbyking.co.uk/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=29020      ,the pack is supposed to fit the m05 which has a slightly larger battery hole in the chassis than the older m-chassis cars so thought i would give one a try .

its a tight fit and does need a shove but ,,not so tight that anything will get damaged , its as tight as a high capacity 4600 ni-mh pack , 

i swapped out the motor for the slightly milder 13.5 motor rather than the 10.5 i had in it , i also have the punch on the esc turned down to 4 which gave the old and worn tyres a slightly easier time .

so after two very long and fast runs i managed to bin it , luckily all the arms and hinge pins etc are fine , it is in need of a good clean and mechanical once over as its had a hard time with virtually zero maintenance other than cleaning the shocks and swapping wheels .

after the small issue which meant i had to stop running the m04 i went over to my holiday buggy for some grass track madness , i had to stop several times during each pack to remove the sodden grass that was wrapped in the front axles  to the extent that the front wheels stopped turning completely ! 

this is after removing the worst of the grass build up , before running in the wet i always spray all metal pivots and non stainless fixings with a tiny squirt of gt85 then do it again after running , after todays 2 hour session on the grass the car will be getting a full strip and rebuild .

on its way is a Neo Frog (neo fighter) DT-03 which will be purely for running on wet grass , there is a huge choice of buggies from many companies that are close to the RRP of the neo frog , to be honest i really dont want a race buggy or worse something that is pretending to be one !! .  i will  start a new blog post for it with a short review from the perspective of a hobbyist who enjoys building , maintaining and running rc cars but may be curious enough to go racing at a local club or even the tamiya series   rather than an out and out racer as thats just not where the car is targeted .

finally got the new rear tyres glued on the m04EL , went for some (BRCA)shimizu 40 slicks on hard fastrax 10 spokes , it had a hard run on a rough surface and some proper fast smooth surface to check the bond and they have stayed stuck  , i did the usual clean of the tyre and rim mating surface prior to glueing .

the grip from these tyres is quite astonishing , traction during acceleration and hard braking is fantastic too , brake full on ( set to 60% on the ESC) which can lock up tamiya super slicks and the car braked quick and true .

i only did about 10 mins at the most on each surface and the tyres hardly show any wear at all .

i had the old Tamiya Raybrig NSX Honda shell on , for such a heavily detailed old body it gives the best balance of all the body sets i use on the 04EL  .

The M-04ss 

a short blast in a small area with the 04ss using 19t pinion , teu104bk , chrome can mabuchi 540rs , it shows just how stable it is when pushed hard , i have had a go of an m-06 , it has its motor hung out the back of the car like a Porsche 911 , they drive well but like the 911 it can be a bit tail happy .
for me and the way i drive i find the m-04 with weights added opposite the motor gives a more driveable car , i find it quite difficult to get the car to spin out , a dab of brake being needed to get the rear end to break free . as you can see it is very nimble , kind to its tyres too.

more soon :-)